#i mean it said maintenance but stilllll

[snonkerdoodlefizzy221b]

I JUST HEARD THAT AO3 IS DOWN

JUST CHECKED

AO3 IS INDEED DOWN

[atopearth]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 4 - The Intervention of Fate (Ch 15-18) + Overall Review

Seeing the destruction of Sector 7 alongside the sunset was really beautifully saddening. It’s devastating for Tifa and Barret to have to look over it all knowing that their actions caused this. Even if Shinra framed them for it, even if Shinra were the bad guys who killed all these people and everyone’s homes, there’s no doubt that what Tifa and Barret did ended up pushing them into doing this, and it’s hard to have to carry such a burden. On another note, I never thought I would complain about this because I loved the shipping fanservice in the beginning, but can we please calm down with the amount of times Cloud has to hold and save Tifa in some way?! Yes, I like Tifa too, but I’m not sure if there was a battle or scene where Cloud did not save Tifa/Aerith or hold their hand or something. Like yes it’s nice to see, but it’s honestly too much, I’m dying. I feel like a lot of the time it’s pushing the romance more than anything and it kills me because the original prioritised telling the story. And honestly, if you think about it, it’s kinda weird, they make it seem like Tifa and Cloud are really close friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time, but in reality they’re practically strangers in a sense because when they were children, Tifa never really thought much of him, the only time something about Cloud resonated with her was when he told her he was leaving to go become a SOLDIER and probably when he came to her rescue (fulfilling their promise) when Sephiroth slashed her. And it was only after she received letters from Cloud after he joined Shinra that she began to notice him more, so honestly, if we’re to be picky, this was supposed to be a more awkward period between Cloud and Tifa because Tifa liked and cared about him, but she didn’t know how to show it properly since Cloud always liked her but she never really cared. Whereas for Cloud, his memories are jumbled, so he’s awkward with her for a different reason lol. Anyway, I think I would have just liked more tension between their relationship? Because right now, it just feels like everyone loves Cloud because he’s cold but soft on the inside, so he’s a great cinnamon roll or whatever, but it really doesn’t show the depth to their characters and their relationships. I’m starting to think this remake is really just fanservice for old FFVII fans rather than a proper retelling. I mean, I’ll still like it, but it’s just a bit sad.

Well, Shinra Company is fancy. Tifa jumping on the lights to get the Shinra keycard was interesting but honestly tedious, I think I’ve had enough of these tbh lol. Anyway, I was going to run up the stairs in this remake, but then I realised the camera was making me feel sick so I just went back to what I did in the original; bust in the front door and go on the elevator lol. Although I have to say, I honestly enjoyed the original more where it had more of the feel where we’re busting in from the front door haha. That memorial museum was pretty, but honestly boring lol. Like, whyyyy is there so much maintenance going on?! I seriously thought they did a full on museum tour and I was like, that’s pretty cool, but no, I learnt basically nothing, sigh. Maybe that VR movie was cool to see, especially since it kinda explains that Ancients were the ones who discovered Mako energy and helped create materia, and I guess the graphics were pretty. But I think it felt like such a spoiler to show Sephiroth walking in the Shinra building, it just doesn’t really build any tension. I really only wanted to see the blood trail lol. Anyway, Hart is someone I don’t remember at all so I assume he’s a new character? Or is he that guy who you had to decipher those codes to or something? Haha. But anyway, I guess if he’s been changing the security camera feeds then does that mean Cloud and them won’t get locked up in a cell? Okay, the Shinra building was so… uneventful and boring lol. Like, I wasn’t exactly looking for a replica but I honestly thought it would be more…fun? It was legit so boring and so not memorable compared to the original. No code deciphering, no plate moving, no special treasure chests, no running past guards secretly, nothing! Literally just that Shinra training facility and other useless things like the museum and archives that don’t even have books to read! I think the most enjoyable thing was going around trashing the chairs everywhere because I didn’t even mean to move them, but Cloud running around just naturally destroys them lol. Yes, totally infiltrating “quietly”. But seriously, Shinra building is definitely a letdown right now. Scarlet’s ruthlessness was just...whatever too lol.

Sigh, I kinda really wanted to see the gym and the napping room lolll. I guess it was nice that we got to see them go through the air duct in the bathroom to spy on the President’s meeting, but stilllll. I mean, they didn’t even let me explore the women’s bathroom! C'mon! I don’t need this kind of realism in my game! I want to explore!! Maybe I’m just getting ahead of myself and it’ll be better.. Anyway, Hojo looks as creepy as the person that he is lmaoo, and being Reeve is suffering, considering he’s the only one that seems to care about the people. The idea of Hojo having all these monsters in his research lab is disturbing lol.  I found the explanation and existence of the Whisperers…unnecessary, they’re basically things that are there to stop the party from changing the predetermined fate of this world. Like, I kinda knew already with considering where they always appeared etc but ugh. Oh well, whatever. Red XIII is pretty hot. He looks older than I thought though, he looks more like what I would expect his father to look like tbh lol, I mean Bugenhagen always said Red XIII was practically a kid in terms of his species lifespan!! 

I’m sad that the Turks Theme doesn’t have that clicky sound to it that made it sound cool anymore, sigh. I’m also kindaaa disappointed that they seem to be pushing with the Turks the idea that they’re quite..nice? Like, maybe it’s just me, but despite how “cool and nice” the Turks were in the original, what I loved about them the most was their work ethic and how it’s a lot of dirty work, but it’s their job and they have a sense of pride to it.  Whereas sometimes in this remake, I kinda feel like, they question their job too much when they know what it entails? Like, I really wanted to see Rude catch us in the elevator LOL. Anyway, Sephiroth appearing near Jenova and slashing the bridge they were standing on in retaliation of Cloud attacking him was interesting…not too sure what to think about it right now because it felt rather random tbh lol. I guess we are definitely not getting the jail cell time, which is more disappointing than the boring Shinra building tbh. Not only did the cell time really give you time to bond with everyone in their cells, it also really highlighted how sudden and scary it was to see a trail of blood, and all these Shinra company men’s bodies as you slowly climb the stairs to realise what happened.

Btw, lmao at Red XIII pushing down handles, it looks so awkward because it seemed like he was struggling so bad hahahah. The Drum was an annoying place, I hated changing materia around between the two parties. Like whyyy can’t I just change the whole line of weapon and armour materia (like in the original) instead of slowly doing it one by one?! Aside from that, this was a boring place too lol. I guess the only nice thing was seeing Tifa and Aerith get along so well lol. Anyway, Jenova’s blood trail was much more pretty and fascinating than ominous tbh lol, it really gives a completely different feel to the actual blood trail in the original. It’s cool in its own regards though I guess. Okayyy, wow, I’m starting to think that this is becoming pretty ridiculous. Like it was obvious Barret won’t die because you know, these Whispers know that it’s not his fate to die here, so of course they’ll somehow save him, but now it’s just silly? Like, sure it’s not his fate to die here but was Barret such a crucial person to the “fate” that can’t be changed? Anyway, so basically everything that happened in the original is probably the “fate” that must be followed, but at the same time they’re just changing up things to make it as convenient as they want to for the story. Honestly, that segment with Barret and President Shinra was so cliche, I wanted to bang my head watching it because it was so unnecessary. I think he should have just died like in the original. Like all the mental agony of saving him or not, and then President Shinra showing how much of a crap he is was just so ugh, like was that really important? What did we expect him to be like? Did we really need to see this? Even seeing the sword pierce them was so whatever at that point because I’m starting to think the story is realllyyyyyy getting “basic”. Also, showing Wedge being here but not being able to change or do anything because “he’s not a part of fate” was just ridiculous. Like seriously, we get it, don’t these Whispers have anything better to do? I mean, I really wouldn’t say that the original timeline is the best timeline to follow for this world but okay, whatever they want.

Anyway, I’m sad that Rufus doesn’t have orange hair!! Hahaha, but that’s fine, since he still looks pretty hot. I love how he still has his dog!! Rufus was so annoying though, like seriously, I’ve had enough of bosses that just counterattack you, and you have to find the exact moment for an opening to deal damage zzzz. Otherwise, it was really cool to fight Rufus, this was starting to become the only thing I was looking forward to lol. Kinda sad you don’t actually fight Arsenal(?) that robot in the elevator anymore though. The fight took so long because I didn’t realise what I was supposed to be doing lolll. Cloud is taking lessons from Roche in getting crazy with the motorbike haha, seriously though, the motorbike and the blue car is so nostalgic. I did enjoy how alike the original, if you bothered looking (well it was more obvious in the remake) you actually see the motorbike and the car in the building haha. Not sure about Cloud throwing his sword scaring off the Shinra soldiers though, like dude, your sword could have fallen out of the building! Anyway, I knew it was coming, but I honestly hoped it didn’t, and that is…the second round of the motorbike game!!! Yes, the thing I sucked at the most in the original and in this remake as well, and what do you know, they just upped the difficulty with a boss! Not gonna lie, I legit died a few times because I had no idea how I was supposed to kill him, and when I realised how to do it, my skills were lacking, so yes, it took me a while. I was pretty frustrated lol, I mean, snowboarding is my worst enemy too but I never had to do it more than once! This game is just bullying people like me who suck at this mini game, sigh T_T It is pretty cool though. HOWEVER, it would have made life much easier if Red XIII threw a potion at me whenever I was dying and not just in between the battles, sighhh~

Anyway, this whole going into another dimension that Aerith says will change the course of events where we’ll now forge our own destiny or whatever by killing the Whispers who are trying to convene fate to be as it should flow like in the original story is…weird to say the least of it. Sephiroth wasn’t too difficult to beat, but I found the whole fight in this place weird and cliche, with all the “memories” of the original timeline coming to Cloud and them, and for them to destroy all that to change their fate. Okay, Zack is alive? Like, I was kinda thinking it would be interesting and funny if Zack were to survive but hmmm, not sure what to think of it. Well, the different dog probably indicates it’s a different timeline/world but that doesn’t really stop the writers from creating a story where he can jump to their world or whatever. Biggs is alive? Is everyone alive lol? Like, I guess Cloud and everyone are planning to alter fate so ensuring everyone survives is what they want, but at the same time, I’m just baffled at this ending. I honestly don’t know how to feel about it. It really doesn’t help that the dialogue is so… bland? Useless? It’s so flowery with no substance imo. Maybe in the next part we’ll get to see Zack’s new world line from his perspective and then their worlds can connect or something lol. Anyway! I’ll say, I don’t like or dislike the ending because honestly, with all the changes that happened with the Shinra company, I already lowered my expectations to the max lol, it also helped the ending was kinda spoiled to me before I even played the game, so I knew it wouldn’t be a faithful remake, but is instead more of a FFVII-2 kinda deal. But I still find the way things played out really disjointed and cliche. The whole chapter 18 suffered the most in dialogue and story tbh, because honestly, I’m not sure if people who haven’t played the original would really get it, and would they really get the importance of Zack lol. It’s just annoying that they decided to throw all this at the end when everything else was Shinra and Shinra. And yeah, I see why they made the Aerith and Cloud “romance” so subtle you couldn’t feel anything about it, it’s probably because they want to make it more of a Aerith and Zack thing for this remake, which is understandable, but kinda saddening because that changes a lot of things in terms of how you’ll feel about it all.

Overall Review Overall, let me attempt to put together how I feel about the whole thing. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about how to write down my feelings for days or weeks but I still don’t know what to say of this disappointment LOL. Tbh, I think the thing I would have appreciated the most would be Square Enix telling me that this wouldn’t be a faithful adaptation of the original with HD graphics and extended story/scenes. Because if I didn’t have that expectation, I wouldn’t have felt as mixed about the ending as I am now. People seem to hate on people for being disappointed at expecting that it would be a faithful adaptation, but really, what did you want a lot of the old fans to expect? The game itself is riding on a nostalgia train yet it’s our fault for thinking it would be faithful? Even the Japanese commercial rode on the nostalgia train with a guy happily talking about the iconic scenes in the original and being excited that he’ll be able to experience the remake with people who don’t know it. They clearly wanted old fans to join the hype and then sucker punched them to the gut with the ending. Thankfully, I knew what was coming so I survived but honestly, aside from hopefully still getting to see other iconic scenes, I’m not really interested in how the story will play out. I hate stories involving stuff like time travel and branching timelines etc most of the time, especially when time travel is not the main focus of the story. This isn’t something like Chrono Trigger. I think my biggest problem though was that considering how much of a slow burn 80% of the game was, the fact that once we got to the Shinra building, everything just lacked detail and felt so rushed into that...ending. My biggest problem isn’t the ending itself, but how everything led to that ending, because it was really dissatisfying to watch. Like, honestly, on paper, it’s not a bad idea, it would be interesting to see how things could play out with the unknown etc, but really, the way they did it with the obnoxious Whispers throughout the story, alongside the out of nowhere ending really killed the experience.

I’m probably being whiny at this point but really, the main gripe I have with the ending is that it makes me think that the writers thought it would be “boring” to just redo the original with extended stories because “everyone knows the story already” kinda thing, and it also kinda implies as if the original was “perfect as it is”, which I honestly have to disagree with. I love the original FFVII but honestly, a lot of things could have been told better without feeling as disjointed as some things were, like it was nice to uncover bits and pieces etc, but a lot of things also relied on you yourself to find it, so it’s easy to miss things. For example, without a walkthrough, I honestly didn’t realise there was that scene in the Shinra mansion where you could actually see Zack die. I also feel like integrating Yuffie and Vincent in the story more would have been something good to focus on in the original because Wutai is important, the Lucrecia, Hojo and Vincent story is important, but because they were optional, it wasn’t always something people found. I just feel like for the story FFVII is, it was really unnecessary to make it more convoluted than it is, because now it’s just detracting from what made this game good. Like, maybe it might be interesting with this time travel stuff, but at the same time, this isn’t really FFVII anymore, all it has is iconic scenes in HD as fanservice. Which kinda makes me mad, because they so blatantly shove in your face FFVII fanservice for like 90% of the game and then they just show this ending, like okay. I’m not even sure the Weapons are that important anymore because who needs them to come out to protect the planet if the Whispers (like really, are they even dead?) are around? It’s just the stakes for everything have become so high where it’s involving fate and time travel etc. what is the point of the stuff that are limited to being inside this planet that is being controlled by the Whispers of fate? Well, whatever, I could complain all day here and I would still feel dissatisfied.

Anyway, nevertheless, I still enjoyed most of the game. I had my gripes here and there with the changes, but most of it was done really well, and I still liked it a lot. I mean, Wall Market is so beautiful and went beyond my expectations! The detail they put into the graphics and stuff really blew me away and I couldn’t stop taking screenshots. I also liked how they made Avalanche a bit more personal to Cloud. Although I really enjoyed seeing Aerith, Tifa and Cloud fanservice though, sometimes I felt like the scenes were just that, like just fanservice and it kinda got tedious. The side quests throughout the game were also quite boring imo. Like, I don’t expect anything groundbreaking from them, but they were really boring story wise and gameplay wise. The “puzzles” such as climbing across on those hand bars were so tedious and slow, I was annoyed lol, it’s so clunky to do! I’ll take the stupid crane any day. And the battle AI kills me. I know you’re supposed to swap between characters to build up ATB but man would I appreciate if the ATB charged up faster or if the AI wasn’t so useless. Barret not doing his job shooting sentry turrets and Tifa guarding against enemies not attacking her from ten miles away made me want to strangle someone. Like, it’s not terrible, but it definitely wasn’t enjoyable enough for me to care about playing hard mode. Lol, I’m back to complaining, but honestly, if I played the remake without knowing the original, aside from the graphics, I’m not sure if I was really into the story at all. Not saying it’s bad, but Midgar was always kinda like the beginning of the beginning so it’s really not that interesting in itself, and the bland story telling didn’t help imo, I guess the good thing was that it solidified everyone’s relationships? Anyway, I’ll still play the other parts because it’s FFVII but I think if it becomes something like Lightning Returns etc, I really just might drop it. For now, I’ll just go along with the ride, right now, things are just a 7/10~

P.S I think what I’m most sad about right now is that I won’t have the same feelings I had when I bought the remake. Since I live in Australia, the copies were sold before April 10th, so really, I cancelled my pre-order and went to the store and bought it myself after work. I was really excited to have it and get to play it because even though a lot of the things weren’t the same, it felt really nice to relive that experience of joining Cloud and them on their journey again. I really liked it and thought the reinterpretation to fit the more serious mood and everything was nice, but I’m honestly disappointed that I won’t be as excited to continue the journey in the next part. It’s the first time in a long time since I felt so excited for a game to come out, so it’s saddening, but I guess this is what it is.