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icharchivist · 4 months ago

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can you allow me to be a Grade A Bitch for a sec

(this is a DA4 AND a FF7Remake Hate Post)(but also i swear i'm making relevent points there. I think.)(i mean beyond just being a hater.)

so for the tldr the original FF7 has been one of the biggest impactful stories of my life when i was an early teen, and i was an adult when i got into DA and DA is part of the few stories that are like. super mega important to me. I hold both stories very dearly into my heart.

I was really looking forward the Remake and VG, mostly optimistic about what would come, trying not to set my expectations too high either.

But i ended up really disliking the direction both took so it's my cross to cringe, i guess.

But I also remember Epler talking about the ff7r saying it's an incredible game and even saying stuff like "this is the best and only way you should do a remake/a continuation" which means i'm also just 😬 because i fundamentally disagree.

I wrote a 10k words reviews of things that annoyed me about ff7r and like.

Some of the elements i was already hating in the RG happened in VG and i don't even know how on purpose it was 💀

on the complains i had:

-The lack of agency of the Main Character/Player.

FF7OG is about dealing with identity a lot and the OG does that by giving choices to how Cloud will approach some situations which doesn't amount to much but at least are because of dialogue choices, and the conclusion is "every dialogue choices isn't himself talking actually". Once Cloud has dealt with his identity problem in the OG you don't get to pick his dialogues for him anymore because he figured himself out; But still it gives some branching storyarc. In the Remake those options are fully replaced with "different branching depending on the number of quests you do with each girls" On top of that actual choices Cloud makes in the OG (like crossdressing) ends up imposed on him with the remake.

And i'm thinking about how one of the big problem with VG is that there is no real control on Rook. Even the dialogue wheels' options aren't so different from one another because you have a set path. The only thing you can change is the romance per se and even there it will depend more on how many quests you do with your companions than picking specific choices.

-"Weird on Flashbacks" They were super weird on how to time Cloud's flashback which also therefore completely ruins the 2nd Act twist when Sephiroth manipulates Cloud making him think none of his memories are real.

DA4 meanwhile is just weird about the flashbacks, you stumble upon them so they're not exactly linked together and all of that.

-The Pacing Complained about the major padding in the remake which was just very visible when you see a part of the game that takes me 8 hours in the OG took me 80 hours to clear in the remake. Like come on. And while some thing are relevent some others are just really annoying, or try to further a character arc at the expense of the plot (re: giving Barret two chapters (yay!) by making so the team doesn't go to save Aerith right away after she was taken to protect Barret's daughter (wait what?))

DA4? same thing. You keep being distracted from the main story by padding quests of having to take care of your companions' unfinished business instead of focusing on the main story. And then the ending goes too fast and with a terrible pacing.

quoting:

"-The Fear of Committing to the Fucked Up aspect of the game". DA4 took the hard pill out of this one.

In the OG the horrors Shinra pulls are truly horrifying, but there's also ambiguity like -- when Avalanche bombed the Reactors and the news said it killed many people, was it our bomb that did that? or was that propaganda? The game will give you no answer and will just have Barret and Reeve fight over it, whether it may have been something they had to do still against Shinra. Avalanche isn't all white in their actions, and because we stay on Avalanche's point of views there's aspects of Shinra we can't know about, and can't know therefore if they're THAT evil. (i mean. they probably are. but the game leave it up to discuss because then the convo between Barret and Reeve hits harder.)

In the Remake? Don't worry bestie like every bad things Avalanche did was from another branch, and Shinra purposingly made the explosion worse to kill people to frame you and start a war with another country. you did nothing wrong, they're using you, you're fine <3

The ecological aspect of the game is also severely undercut by the remake to focus more on Sephiroth, therefore removing any of the early political nuances of the game that is supposed to serve to set up the allegory Sephiroth represents.

in da4 do i even need to say it. We barely talk abotu the bad sides of Thedas, when we do it's from like, arguably horrible people, cultists, they're not regular people on the street, so you don't get to think about it. The Evanuris? just evil for the sake of evil. Don't worry about it. And instead of elaborating more on them, it focus back on Solas in a way that betrays what he represented in the previous game.

never thought i'd be comparing Solas and Sephiroth like that. Look what you make me do.

-Moralizing Revolutionaries for Taking Drastic Approach.

FF7 OG does have this one convo with Reeve i mentioned but in general the game mostly supports Avalanche's actions because they have to take drastic measures because Shinra IS that bad. Reeve is biased as a member of Shinra who was trying to change it from the inside and was also fed their propaganda, but he turns around eventually and commits fully to Avalanche when the rest of Shinra betrays him and shows him that there is no peaceful alternative for him to take.

In the Remake however you get multiple convo trying to have them wash their hands clean of it. Tifa is constantly doubting what they're doing (she wouldn't. let Tifa be angry. Why is Tifa no longer angry in the remake.), Barret not even being sure of his goal, clearly telling us the worst of Avalanche is another branch, "see we didn't mean to bomb the reactor to make a statement, we just wanted to make it unfunctional" untrue Jessie but okay!

But also the President of Shinra gets a whole new scene lecturing Barret about how he's not a revolutionary, he's just doing that to bloaster his own pride! that he's not mad Shinra killed his people, but mad that they don't look like hero. And Since then the convo is stopped by Sephiroth killing the president, you never get to talk about it ever again, almost validating him.

(which is repurposing a scene from later in the game that did call Barret's motivation selfish because he was in for the revenge more than for a change on earth, but THAT DOESNT MEAN IT'S ABOUT FAME AND PRIDE????? HELLO?????)

Because, you see, Revolutions being violent are bad :( you can't change the world by being violent :( you must always feel like you're punishing yourself for it :( oh and if you care a little too much actually have you considered that your desire is Selfish and therefore it doesn't matter?

the wild thing is that in the OG the conclusion was more like "yeah we're "selfish" in the way we want to save the planet, but that's because it means we want to keep living in it, keep making a future for people in it, we have to care personally to see it through". But there in the remake the only time it's brought up is to shame Barret for not being authenthic in his goal to save the world.

This also happened to my husband Solas, where all of the extreme positions he took were shamed by the narrative, and framed as him being selfish for caring so much, and don't worry you don't get to see revolutionary do violent things anymore, that's soooo DA in 2011 we don't do that anymore.

Who needs to talk about ecology or slavery when you can make the villain who was always a symbolism of how this society has failed people to be Bad People Because They're Bad, Guys.

-Also on that Tifa point: Girlboss means you're not allowed to want to take revenge anymore and you have to embrace your position as a motherly figure.

Tifa is SOOOO angry in the OG and is like. Downright mean at time?? she insults the boys really often? Because she's traumatize, she wants revenge against Shinra, when Aerith gets kidnapped she doesn't have time for the boys' nonsense when Aerith was taken because of her, so she stresses and insults the guys to move faster because Aerith is in danger.

In the Remake, don't worry, she doesn't want revenge. She wants to just make a change in the world! but not like this :( not with violence. Barret has to encourage her with "violence is the answer" and he barely believes himself when he says that. Instead Tifa's motivation becomes much more about protecting Marlene, the little girl she helps out. And so when Aerith gets kidnapped saving Marlene for Tifa, Tifa does the normal thing to.... ask Cloud to give up on saving Aerith because both her and Barret are very tired and Aerith knew what she was doing and both Tifa and Barret need to grief for a while. It's only after 2 chapters worth of content that weren't in the OG that Tifa suddenly remembers her original character and sneaks on Cloud when he sneaks out and says "i thought about it, but actually i can't just do nothing for Aerith, so i'm coming with you :(". Cool. In the OG she nearly threatened Cloud that if they didn't go asap to save Aerith she will Do Something. So then when you go save Aerith instead of Tifa nearly starting a fight with Barret because they have different plans to save Aerith and Tifa doesn't vibe with Barret's, it's Cloud and Barret who fights and Tifa who is the voice of reasons going "ahah guys calm down :)"

Because you see, women cannot want revenge. They cannot be angry. They cannot have a selfish desire out of her selfish relationships. Out of feeling personally wronged. We don't want women like that. Women needs to just scold guys for being silly boys for being traumatized by what she's stronger about. Don't forget to emphasis she really just wants the best for others people, especially those she's motherly about. Because a woman has to be a sweet mother figure first.

This also happened to my fiend Mythal, see. Stripped of her desire for revenge, her vindication, because "wow Solas is so silly wanting to fight back against people who hurt us, i care about the people and the daughter i abused all her life now."

Don't worry; She has the last wise word when Solas is being silly. That's what Women are for.

next point again, quoting:

"-No respect for the mysteries of the saga."

Listen for more ff7 reasoning read the blog post i linked, for da4 do i need to say it. the way they just handwaved some lore we have theorized about for more than a decade, and the fact they almost didn't address it? (they revealed that the "elves=spirits" reveal was supposed to be revealed by Anaris but since some people wouldn't play Bellara quest they realized they had to tell it elsewhere. Imagine that. imagine THAT.)

ff7R was so convinced people would know aspects of the saga so they didn't bother treating those aspects with respect. both game wrote themselves with "here what we expect the players to know about us, and what players wouldn't know, and only then we'll care what we talk about" instead of telling a story.

re my ff7 post but i got upset at how they spelled the lore out in ff7 way earlier than in the OG and in a way less subtle way, and honestly, the lack of subtility in the lore reveals counts also for da4.

-Sephiroth/Solas are fundamentally different from previous games because they want to sell you the aura of the character without any regard to what those characters represents, and they get away with it by just handwaving it with "well they're manipulators anyway so of course they would" instead of genuinely focusing on the fact they are people who have been pushed by the system they were a part of all their lives and why the fuck am i NOW putting comparaison between Sephiroth and Solas; It's going to piss me off so i'll stop -- OH GOD IS THAT WHY THEY HAD SOLAS STAB VARRIC. REPRESENTATIVE. REPRESENTATIVE TALK TO ME. BECAUSE I'LL BE IN YOUR WALLS.

-Meanwhile also no nuance with the villains.

That's a bit carried over from FF7OG on here except when it comes to Sephiroth, but they somehow made the Evil People Even More Evil, Reeve is much more conflicted about being Part of Shinra than he was at first in the OG, and Sephiroth was stripped of his complexity since it's AC!Sephiroth, not OG!Sephiroth.

But no nuance. in my DA4 villains. "people are just bad sometimes."

"-Desamorcing any emotional scene by the new mysteries." dfjdlfkjdfjfdhd THEY'RE THE SAME GAMESSS IM SO

sorry ff7r bad with the whole "those are the ghosts that are maintaining the original timeline and it's bad uwu" but this wording applies to everything about the Executors, fuck the Executors, i'm out of fucks to give.

-paraphrasing "why would you pretend a character who's death is important is still alive just to play with us until reality will eventually settles in" i'm this close to say Varric=Zack the situation is dire.

"-Aerith and Nanaki becoming dev's mouthpieces at the expense of their own character arc." i don't want to get deep into it but legit sooo many chara in VG do that, especially when they criticize Solas. Morrigan first and formost because of her situation, but eventually characters will just starts to act out of characters to tell you what the devs want you to think. Re: the Murals discussions scenes.

Also both Aerith/Nanaki and Solas who are the "last of their kind" in some way and instead of it being to further their characterization, it's just used so you get some lore info, infodumping, and then disregard them as soon as you do.

-The Themes are no longer theming.

Big Themes like Ecology, War, Capitalism, science destroying Nature, Nuclear power, ect on FF7 side, or Slavery, War, Religion, on DA side, are fully taking a backseat over personal plotline that takes away from the impact those had on the world.

FF7 becomes about how those specific fuckos are stuck in a fate loop and have to replay fate over and over again, making them special while in the OG they were a bunch of nobodies doing what they could with the issue they had, while in DA4 you're so focused on people's personal regret you lose the big picture of how the world actually works.

And in turn therefore the new themes are incompatible about the original themes.

Solas must let go of the past because screw the ancient elves. FF7R players are put in a position of asking themselves "sooo will the characters we know die die this time?" and the game will bait and switch it because "maybe you can challenge fate!" when one of the big themes of the OG is "the destructive consequences of the Denial Stage of Grief."

-In the end both games are telling you to let go of what the previous games tell you to enter into a "new era" for a "newer audience" that apparently can't handle moral nuance, systemic problems, and stuff like that.

"-It feels unfinished."

And that's just for stuff i can compare to reading my FF7R review at the time!!

to me FF7R is a bad game because it betrays the themes of the Main Game, mischaracterize most of the characters especially for the sake of new, badly written twists, and it completely refuses to let you Think about the Society the characters live in. Don't worry about it. Blame Solas/Sephiroth. It's fate/the Executors. You don't need to think about the system that led to those things. You don't need to think about your influence in those. you don't need to think.

But hey it's escapism media right. Enjoy your witch looking for her cat in the Alps. I'm going to seethe, for having starting my year playing ff7r to see if i was too hard on it only to feel like i wasn't hard enough, and finishing it on DA4 where the betrayal came out of nowhere.

And i wouldn't drive as much the comparaison if i hadn't seen DA devs praise the damn game like. Maybe this and "who's Zevran again" should have been the two Red Flags to make me think i shouldn't care, actually.

#weird niche of post but i was Thinking and suddenly thoughts overlapped.#do you get what i mean do you get do you get #ichablogging davg #ichablogging ffviirg #ichasalty #ichatalks about da #ichatalks about ffvii

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