Art - Final Fantasy 7 Remake - Meditation 1

Art - Final Fantasy 7 Remake - Meditation 1

This is a spoiler for part of Final Fantasy 7.



I've been playing the remake extensively since it launched. I'm not going to lie, while I like Final Fantasy 7, I'm not a rabid fanboy for the original game. It's not my favourite FF game, that spot is reserved for 6 and 10, and Tactics. I respect that the game caused a massive wide appeal for Japanese RPGs, and ushered in a new era of games into the western world. I respect that for many people it exists in a space because it is the original, its characters and moments resonate. For me, those moments happened in FF6.

I've liked the game, but I basically played the first half when I was 13. I restarted when I was around 15 and sprinted through the entire game.

I had never really played it since. I bought it for PC and played the first two hours.

Bought a PS4 port, again played the first few hours and stopped.

I've never really revisited the whole game.

When I heard about the remake, I was a bit trepedatious. I wasn't sure if it was going to measure up to my memory as a teenager of it.

I'm a game designer now. It's partially my job to dissect the design choices of games, to critique. I understand too intrinsically the process of making games. In much the same way that I understand theatre, the veil is lifted and I know too much. It's very difficult to shut off my critical brain and just exist in the space created by an experience.

But Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Wow.

This game has been literally breathtaking.

And not just for the visuals, which are again, astounding. But because of the levels of care and precision that are being exhibited here.

More so than just the story, and the visuals, there is an attention to how the game feels for someone who is returning with memories. There is a manipulation of what we do and don't remember, of lines of dialogue, of how characters interact and exist. An homage to what came before 20 years hence, and an acknowledgement that the world continued to turn and this version must accept, shape, and be shaped by that change.

There's this really....both sad and painful moment that I had forgotten about. And the reminder of playing through that scene again was really wonderous.

Larger spoilers here.

You spend all day helping out this one character, Aerith, kind of as her bodyguard, but kind of as a mercenary, doing all these quests in one town and assisting her. In exchange for her showing you the route to the next area. But when you're done, it's 'too late' to go, so she invites you to stay with her and her mom overnight and go in the morning.

And there's this moment, where her mom tells Aerith to go prep the guest room, so off she goes. And then the mother just rounds on you and tells you to sneak out during the night. Because you're a soldier. and she literally says "You Soldiers traded power for a normal life. Don't make this hard. Promise me you'll leave."

She's telling you this so her daughter won't get attached, won't get hurt, won't get a lot of things.

Yeah. It's hard.

So in the middle of the night, you do this weird little minigame where you try to sneak out of the house without waking her up. It's not that bad, you just need to not trip over anything. If you do, she comes out and scolds you, it's silly. She shoves you back into the room, and....you start again until you pull it off. And you make your way down the stairs, and the mother is sitting there at the dining table with tea, and she says she's sorry and thanks you...and you leave.

You walk out into the night, beneath the steel plates of a towering city. You walk out to these very familiar bars of music that pull you, step by aching step away.

This whole sequence was in the original game...20 years ago, but now, it's cinematic. It's a movie that you are playing through, and seeing, and feeling, and hearing the voice acting.

It's super moving

Because I'm remembering this story that I've somehow lived as a teenager? You know? This memory that is mine, that is imperfect in my head, and is now rendered so vividly I can't look away.

I'm 13 hours in, and the game has been this. Over, and over, and over again. Compounding memory moments that are always right at the knife edge of overwhelming me.

I hope everyone can find a piece of media that makes them feel this way.

And I one day aspire to craft one like this for others.