Get Played - The Game Was Better: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete ahead of the release of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. They share their thoughts on how the film has aged, the cool flip phone, Dilly Dally Shilly Shally and more. This month's We Play, You Play: Baldur's Gate 3! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Just pay $5 shipping. That's BlueChew.com, promo code GETPLAY to receive your first month free. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. Okay, guys, really exciting here. We're working on the script for Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. And, you know, we've gotten some notes back. We're parsing some things. But generally, the headline is that Sephiroth doesn't seem menacing enough. So we're going to punch up

that section, you know, really, really get it like why he's one of the most iconic villains of all time. Because, you know, when that music kicks in, it's just like we want that audience to be like, Because, you know, when that music kicks in, it's just like we want that audience to be like, fuck, yeah, here we go. It's Sephiroth. Oh, no. So, yeah. I really felt this with the temp animation. Like I was watching. I was just like, this just isn't having the impact yet.

Yeah. Because he's such a presence in the video game. 100%. Yeah. One of the most iconic villains in all of video games. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah.

all of video games. Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah. Uh, just if you guys can pitch me some lines to bring out that, you know, that anger, that menace, that, uh, that threat. Um, and, and, you know, anything is we're, we're blue sky in here. I'll put anything up on the board. So, uh, why don't you guys kick me a few? Um, okay. I, I, I got one. Uh, how about kind of like, you know, just the thing you could say. Yeah. You're mine, Cloud. I'm going to wrap my legs around your body. Okay. Because I'd feel very threatened if someone said that to me.

Yeah, that's pretty aggressive. Yes, that is threatening. But again, so this isn't what I wanted to highlight because I was hoping to just guide you guys in the right direction the the the real note behind the note is that a lot of these menacing lines are a little sexually charged so if we could pull back from that you know right I'll put it up on the board but you know just like uh let's let's amplify that presence so uh again anything you got anything you got okay what about can I can I can I throw this one out there real quick? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Okay.

Can you bear to see the planet suffer, Cloud? Doesn't that make you want to fuck me? Pretty intense. That is intense. And when I think about those voice actors reading that line, I'm really excited about that first part. The second part again. Can we say fuck?

It's, oh. We, uh, I mean, beyond that. We get one, but I don't know if you could do it sexually. Yeah. What about blow my back out? That's good. That's a good alt. I'll put it up on the board but uh i'm really looking for stuff

that's not they're they're concerned about the relationship between sephiroth and cloud and i'm not i'm not like this is the bad guy you know so he wants to destroy the planet but i don't think it needs to involve fucking him. No, I'm with you. I mean, look, we know these guys are going to duel, right? It's the showdown we've been promised since they're coming back since the end of Final Fantasy seven. What about something like my swords longer, but yours is thicker? Why don't we touch? I don't know where I could incorporate that line into the fight sequence.

I don't want to take a beat and have Sephiroth comparing. You know what? I'm going to put it on the board so we can move past it. You know, Sephiroth is like, he's more than just an antagonist to Cloud, right? He's more than just his relationship to Cloud. There's like a lot. He's a three-dimensional character right so he should be able to do some say some things not to cloud right sure yes uh he has the you know obviously the relationship uh with um with the life spring with mother right with mother he's always calling for mother. So how about this? Mother, days have come again, and so have I.

Okay. Mother, I want some mommy milkers from Sephiroth. What? Daddy Sephiroth? Baby Hungi? No, I don't want him. I don't want him talking to the planet, Lifestream, or Aerith in terms of milkers. Okay.

Look, I get the note. I think I understand. How about something that's a little bit more abstract, like, hey, Cloud, have you checked out Nick Weiger's DeviantArt page? He's got some cool positions we should try out. Like, he's already drawn what we should do in reality now. I didn't know you had a DeviantArt page,

but I'm going to have to send you to HR. I'll link you. I'll send you a link. No, I don't. I don't send that to me. Don't send that to me. The current year is 2004, so I'll email you this link.

I know there's not a good another way to send it to you. I don't. Don't. Please don't send. OK, it's email. Check your Outlook. No, I've seen you. I can see want, I don't, don't, please don't send. Okay. It's email. Check your outlook. No,

I've seen you. I can see that it's popping up on my outlook multiple times. You're sending it multiple times. I don't want to click any of these links. It's mostly Rouge the bat, but there is some final fantasy content. How about that? It's like,

how about we call it my friend Rouge the bat? Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I don't want, there's no fucking in the, in the movie. There's no Rouge the Bat? Okay, yeah. No, I don't. Now this is starting to sound good. No, I don't want. There's no fucking in the movie. There's no fucking. There's no.

Okay, well, why are we making a movie? What? Great question. Why are we making this movie? We open up our flip phones and dilly dally, shilly shally. As we discuss polarizing 2005 animated film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to Get Played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about 2005's direct-to-home video release, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. And we're watching the most recent version of it. So Advent Children complete. It is a longer than two hour film that dives into the story that happens after Final Fantasy VII, specifically two years after Final Fantasy VII.

And I think we've got a lot to say. And I'm really excited to say it because, you know, I love this shit. There's no shortage of things to talk about with FF7 Advent Children, which we're talking about somewhat on the eve as the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth approaches. Yeah, it's exactly a week and a few days before, but it's timely nonetheless, you know, and I'm get into it, but I just kind of was like, oh yeah, it looked cool, but it kind of was bad. And that was basically the entirety of my take on Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. I mean, just thinking about my experience so far,

I played through Final Fantasy VII, and playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake, now I've watched this. I've just ingested a lot of information, a lot of Final Fantasy VII information. You've binged on the canon, yeah. Yeah, I'm doing my due diligence here. Deep diving.

Yeah. Loaded up with materia. I feel like there is also an enormous amount of canon that is no longer available. For example, there was like a mobile game that had extra canon. There was a PS2 game about Vincent. Was it Dirge of Sybaris?

Oh, that's right. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. There's so much more canon for this that it really, I think it sets sort of the foundation and the precedent for the baffling canon of Kingdom Hearts, which is also by the same, I think basically some of the same team and certainly Tetsuo Nomura, who directed, co-directed this and was the character designer for Final Fantasy VII, and I believe he is the lead director on the remakes and rebirth games. He's certainly involved in rebirth. I don't remember what capacity he was involved in remake, but yeah, we'll certainly be talking about Nomura some.

We have so much to talk about. Yeah, but before we do that, first up, I want to remind everyone that this month's We Play, You Play, our full episode dedicated to one game at length will be Baldur's Gate 3. The long-awaited BG3 episode is coming next Monday, February 26th. So go ahead and look forward to that. And we will try to, you know, this is a game with a lot of spoilerable content, obviously. So we're going to do our, we haven't recorded this episode yet, but we're going to do our best diligence to try to parcel that off. So that if you want to listen to portions of the episode, but you don't want the whole game spoiled because you haven't finished it yet.

Hopefully you will have some good off ramps there. So, but anyway, I'm very, very excited to talk to y'all about BG3 in just a few days from now. Where are you at right now in the game? Um, I'm in Act 3 I just did, um I mean You can talk vaguely, talk very generally I just did a quest

There's a quest that involves two parts Yes Two separate parts Yes, this is kind of the main story thrust of the third act I just did one of them And I considered it Maybe the most fun I've had in the entire game. Wow, okay. Okay, okay.

And I've been enjoying the game. Like, that's the thing. The game is full of good stuff. There was a thing that I did that I was like, I can't believe this is in a video game. This rocks. I think you're on track to finish for the record. I am playing a little less canonically, I think. So I was going to talk about this in our section about what we've been playing.

So if we can kind of bridge, then I can continue to talk about it. But otherwise, I'm not going to have anything to talk about during that segment. Let's do that now, then. It's time for the question we always ask. Let's talk about some video games we're playing right now. What are you playing? What am I playing? So I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3.

Yeah, it's a real relief that Resident Evil didn't interject there. Yeah. Well, he's not always around. He's kind of his own life. I was really worried because we had a natural sort of transition to your thoughts thoughts and i was worried that he was going to derail us completely so it was very it was very nice it's smooth um so as i as i sent you guys i am off the map uh i am in an area where the map is not rendered and it is looks like a glitch i i jumped to a place that i think i'm not supposed to jump to because i was like oh it's okay as long as i have one hp

i can bring these guys back uh and i kind of like moved the cursor around until I found a small pixelated segment of, of area that I could jump to. Cause I was like, you have to be able to get down there. Um, and, and now I'm down there and, uh, I, I, I'm a, I'm concerned that I have to, I'm going to have to go backwards and re reload from, from previously. Cause I'm not sure what I'm doing. Yeah. Um, Yeah. If you jumped out of collision, you might, might have to reload there. and reload from previously because I'm not sure what I'm doing. Yeah, if you jumped out of collision, you might have to reload there. So that's where I am physically in the game.

Then emotionally, I learned something that has really helped me progress. I don't know if I'm in act two or if I'm somehow bypassing the act structure of the game because I'm beyond where it says act two starts, but I have not yet received the message that Matt told me I'd get. That was like, you know, when you go beyond here, you'll you like there's like a you said there's like a significant like save screen that's like progress beyond here, make sure you don't

have any loose ends to tie up I think is what you said I feel like I could ask if you've ventured past this point, because it's not a spoiler point, like it's not a story thing at all have you gone through the mountain pass at all, or did you go

come out from the underdark? Then I think you're... I'm past there. I'm on a second map. Then I think you're an act two. Or like a fifth map. I don't know who the fuck I am. So here's the little thing that I've learned

that really has helped me speed through some of this game. I have been entering areas. And as I've said, people all turn and attack me and they're upset about something I've done earlier that again, I never intended to do. Uh, I'm playing truly chaotic neutral where every choice is based on like how the person is talking to me. Um, what I've realized, and this is going to seem obvious, if I enter an area and all the NPCs are red as soon as I get there, I can just open up on them. Like I don't have to wait for them to attack me. Right. Has made it obvious to me what areas the NPCs are not previously engaged with their anger with me and has also made it so that I'm not dying as much because I'll walk into a thing and then like your initiative rolls and like a hundred and ten fucking people are up at the top of the screen and they're all angry and they're like people.

They're angry people um so now i can now that i've realized that i'm like oh this area is all red i can sneak in and merc these guys one by one without like having you know to fight 25 npcs at the same time and that's that's really made it speedier um and i wonder how much of the loot that i'm seeing you guys have seen also because i'm all i'm clearing everybody which is yeah i mean some of the stuff that you will find it it's interesting because i think there is overlap in terms of how you're playing it and i know there's there's not like traditional dnd alignments in in fifth edition or in baldur's gate 3 and i know like it's it's reductive to say good or evil but just in terms of shorthand it's like it i i think sometimes what you will get from killing an npc you might get like some item that they have on their person if you're playing a more

virtuous playthrough you might get that same item as like a quest reward uh there's a lot of things like that or or you might pickpocket something from somebody that, again, they might just give to you or sell to you later. So I think a lot of the loot is accessible, though there are a few items that, notably Minthara, and this is early enough in the game

where it's Act 1, and I think people know this, that's the big NPC that's only available, or at least until recently, was only available in one playthrough. Minthara has some armor on and some other items on her person that you will get if you defeat them. But otherwise, if they join your party, it's just her gear.

Oh, I don't know who that person is. So I may have executed that person. This is what, well, I'm very excited to talk at length about your particular playthrough. But like you're doing things that are very off the off the map in terms of not just literally, but also just in terms of how one of these playthroughs normally be someone that you would befriend in the goblin camp by turning on the tieflings in that process. But you might have just killed Minthara and then turn on the tieflings anyway. Is there like a. Obviously, this is very different, but, you know, in like the Telltale games at the end of like each chapter. Yeah.

It'll like tell you what you did. And what percentage. And like what percentage. I don't need the percentage. Is there a way that I can see what I've done? Because like I definitely remember a lot of stuff, but there's like, I'm sure there's like small things that I'm like, I don't even remember

what I did in that instance. I'm sure if I just go through my journal. Yeah, I think you go through the quest log. Yeah. It's not like, the quest log isn't like great. It's not super comprehensive, but there's enough where you can kind of scroll through and it will say like if you abandon a quest or if something was on it would like you yeah you finish something in a different way like it'll have those

details i do know that i guess i just did look at this because i just did i did a quest yesterday um where the mission was to save a bunch of people yeah and it completed because they all died uh like okay like i was trying my best yeah right yeah uh but they they just all died and i was like okay well that quest is over um and then if you i guess you go if you go to the journals like no one there were no survivors i i also exited the underdark before i did the goblin camp I also exited the Underdark before I did the Goblin Camp. Like, I had to go. Again, you're just totally out of sequence in terms of what.

It's amazing the game can accommodate this. Yes. But you're out of sequence in terms of how people normally progress. You find out in the code it's written that it's a Heather Ann Campbell playthrough. Well, but that's what I've been playing. Matt, it sounds like you've also been playing balder's gate 3 yeah nick i think you're playing it also it's the only thing i'm playing but i have something else to talk about okay i am back i am back on my bullshit uh i i am not that i like stopped for any particular reason but i guess i did stop to play final fantasy 7 um but this this what what i've been doing right now the stuff i've been doing in balder's gate 3

uh has reminded me why i loved it to begin with it's because it's just it's also a good game where like i feel like some games you can't pick back up after a significant amount of time where balder's gate 3 i like, controls really easily and smoothly, where I don't have to, I'm not memorizing button combinations, right? I know what brings up my wheels, and I know what I have on them, and it's very good about telling you where you have to go,

or in general, the area where you have to go. Yeah, you don't remember which shoulder button shoots the grappling hook you know because it's not it's a turn based game it's a little bit less of a steep learning curve in terms of getting back into it so yeah it's more forgiving in that way

so I've been enjoying it so much but um I'm also I'm playing through Final Fantasy 7 Remake and I have a suspicion that I don't want to vocalize. Okay. Not until I'm done with it and I know I'm correct. But I'm playing through it, and I am really, really enjoying it.

I wish every game was this. Like, I don't know it's like it's beautiful it looks great i really love the combat um i love i love materia i love i love all this i just this is that's a great game and i'm so glad that i finally came to it because i'm i'm hopefully going to finish it before the leap day the when Rebirth comes out. But, you know, it's still, we're about halfway there on the calendar. I still got a little bit of time. I think I can knock it out.

I think if I really focus, I can knock out the rest of Baldur's Gate 3 before the record. Sounds crazy. I think I might be able to do it. And then get back in there and complete remake as well. But, I mean, that's pretty much it for me. I've also been just getting a lot of use out of my portal, by the way. Just been playing Baldur's Gate 3 on the portal.

The screen's big enough for that. Screen's huge. Wow. I love the Gate 3 on the Portal. The screen's big enough for that. Screen's huge. Wow. I love the screen. It's great. It's really, really fun. And just, but that's it for me. What about you, Nicholas?

I think you should, Nicholas? Am I in trouble? I don't know. We'll see. Trying to remember if I stole something from the kitchen. I don't know. I felt like being Cordial for some reason

Alright thanks Matthew You know what I heard it and I don't like it You're right I think you should try to Budget your time how you can But I think you should prioritize trying to finish Baldur's Gate 3 before we talk about it I don't know if we're going to have time to talk about the end game

I'm certainly not thinking Heather's going to get there. But the end game will at least may inform. It's pretty consequential. It may inform your thoughts on your playthrough overall. Real quick, too. And I don't think I'm going to do this yet. Zig texted me yesterday and asked if I was playing Helldivers 2. And I said no, but I could be convinced.

And he did say, help me spread democracy. And that almost was enough. Like, I almost just did it. I've heard some very positive things about Helldivers 2. I just don't think I'm going to have any time. I don't know if it's the type of game for me, but everything I've seen about it looks cool. It looks awesome. But maybe I'll watch a YouTube video or something and then we'll see.

But, you know, that's just how it goes. Somebody tells you to get a video game and then you get it and then you play it for a little while, don't you? Oh, boy. Hopefully you have fun. Rochelle, did you ever return to Baldur's Gate 3? I know you were playing it for a time. I did go back, and I do not remember what I was doing. I just plot wise, I had no idea where I was.

So I played for a little bit, got some quests done. But it just seems like I played for a little bit, got some quests done. Uh-huh. But it just seems like I'm in this little quests mode. Like there's like... Right. I'm like being a detective right now in the section I am. So you're in Act 3,

you're in Baldur's Gate, the city. Yes. Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, there is some straight up detective segments of that arc of the game. You gonna stick with it, TBD? Yeah, I will

because I want to get to the meat. Because right now it just feels like I'm on a wild goose chase. Yeah. And I just want to get back into the story. Hell yeah. There's so much in Act 3. I think it's like maybe 40% of the game, which is kind of crazy to think about. You get there and you're like, I've played 100

hours and like, oh, there's like more. There's like almost as much as what I've already done still left. When it feels like you're heading towards the finish line. All right. Well, hey, I'll talk about what I'm playing. Great. What are you playing? I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3.

Thanks, Heather. I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3. Go for it, Nicholas. But also, I picked up this book. We were talking art books. Oh, yes. With our friend Ashley Escada last week. And I picked up this book, NES Endings Compendium. This is by Ray Esteban is the author,

and it's published by Press Run. This is a beautiful hardcover book that is available. You can still get a copy. And what it is, is it's a catalog of by year. And this one covers 1985 through 1989. So it is volume one. Every game that was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, a.k.a. the Famicom in North America, and list all the games and shows all of their endings. And so like Super Mario Brothers is here. You can see this in the studio. It's like it kind of their endings. And so like Super Mario Brothers. Is here. You can see this in the studio. It's like it kind of shows.

It gives some context. In terms of like what is actually happening here. And then it has screenshots. Of what the ending is. And what's amazing about this. Is a time capsule is. Just you really get a sense of. Where video games were at that point in time where some of the

endings are and matt i'll show you the the the ending for this game i had gradius that i never finished as a kid this was a konami a game that had the konami code um this was a this was a shmup and the ending is you know flies it like a death star like like it's like it's like a still of a ship flying towards a death star uh the Death Star exploding. And then the words congratulations in all caps. And that's all you get. That's finishing this game. And that was so many games in that era. Heather, I'm sure you remember this as well of like. Yeah, again, this is another one. This is a this is this is Ikari Warriors, another game I had. And the ending is, you have saved the world. Congratulations.

Peace has arrived at last. So a lot of them are really just text. Even for games that are well-known and well-regarded, it's just like there just wasn't a lot of cartridge space or it wasn't a thing that was prioritized in development because the point of a game then was to play it. It wasn't to experience the story. All that said, where you see this really contrast.

And this is a game that I think has been kind of a little bit forgotten. And if anything, kind of superseded by the remakes that came or not remakes, but the you know uh uh the i guess recalls reboots or whatever that came in the xbox era uh ninja gaiden uh which was in the nes era was just like remarkable as a console game in terms of its cut scenes in terms of its cinematics so i'll show some of these to you here matt these are like really gorgeous Yeah it's this amazing pixel Art and they they have It has like really cool shot composition And there's actual there's Actually like a story that's being

Told between levels and at the time it was Like pretty revolutionary although this stuff Did exist on the PC side On the console side you just weren't Seeing this in games and it Has like this really you know I never finished this game because it was super Fucking hard but it has like this really you know i never finished this game because it was super fucking hard uh but it has like an actual like kind of like ending with real dialogue

and real consequence and we're seeing these characters we're seeing ryu and and irene like finally um reunite and it actually just does a lot to give you some propulsion through the game that's not just platforming in combat. So yeah, each of these has shown that, again, it's just amazing how comprehensive this is because it lists basically every single game that was released commercially. And then the ones that have a little bit more of an ending are given more real estate in terms of number of pages. ones that have a little bit more of an ending are given more real estate in terms of number of pages. The ones that are, congratulations, Bomberman becomes Runner. See you again in Lode Runner. Just kind of get a page or half a page. But it is just like a really, really cool book. It's a really beautiful volume. And if you have any sort of nostalgia for this era, I definitely recommend

it. So the book is called NES Endings Compendium, and I've really been enjoying looking through it and reminding myself of all these extremely bad endings of very, very hard games. That's awesome. Yeah. I do like an art book like that. I have the one for Tears of the Kingdom, and it arrived after I beat the game.

So I was like, I don't really need this. I kind of saw a lot of the stuff. But it's nice on a shelf. All those books always look nice on a shelf or a coffee table. Classic coffee table book. Yeah. I wish there were more coffee tables in a house. Because I have a lot of books that would work great as a

coffee table book but i only have one coffee table you know also yes right i'm thinking about it as i say it out loud it's weird that it's called a coffee table when i have never it's so low to the ground like i've never put my coffee on my coffee table like I've already got books there in a plant uh let me tell you something if I pick up a cup with coffee in it I'm not putting that thing down until it's done okay

call him Java Apodaca yeah that's right it's always swallowing hot brown yeah yuck here's one this is this is the one i was looking for um the ending of paper boy is uh the ending is just a newspaper that says paper boy retires in glory it sucks so bad and little like seven-year-olds Done working for the Rest of his life And then The context

That's in the The caption That accompanies it is Uh Disappointingly This event is Communicated via An ending screen

That's copied and Pasted It's simply The opening screen Image with a Different headline Oh my god That's the most

Half-assed ending That's so funny Uh but yeah I love this NES ending is commending him hell yeah man i have these old uh you know it'd be a fun segment and i'll pitch it to you guys right here live on the show i have these very old how to beat nes games books like super old paperbacks. And it would be fun to read a section of each of them, like of a game, like that tells you what to do and have you guys guess what the game could be. That's a killer segment. That's really good.

It's also written very clinically. It's like head left down the hallway sometimes. Right. That's fun. We should do that. That's really, really good. We'll do that at some point. I think that would be fun time, but not today. Not today. You want to eat well, but you don't want it to be a pain to prepare. Well, let me tell you, eating better is easy with Factor's delicious ready-to-eat meals. Every fresh, never-frozen meal is chef-crafted, dietitian-approved, and ready-to-go in just two minutes. You'll have over 35 different options to choose from every week, including CalorieSmart, Protein Plus, and Keto.

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Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete, which is the version we're talking about, was released in 2009 with an additional 26 minutes of footage. And it was directed by Tetsuya Nomura, who the third most important person at Square Enix, maybe historically after Sakaguchi and Yuji Horii. You know, he's definitely the Kingdom Hearts, I think, is what he's most known for but a huge impact on the final fantasy franchise yeah because he's the character designer for final fantasy 7 he does some monster designs for final fantasy 6 i believe uh and then because of final fantasy 7's success he becomes for a for a short minute like one of the hottest commodities at Square Enix. You know, he designs Final Fantasy 8 characters. He designs all of the Kingdom Hearts characters. He directs Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children. I think he designs Lightning. I'm almost positive

that he's designing Final Fantasy 13. I think he also designs 10. But yeah, he becomes like one of the trilogy of voices that you can single out and be like, oh, this is a this is a Tetsuo Nomura decision right here. And I think I talked to you guys about this on text, which is that to put yourself in the mindset of 2005, like Spirits Within comes out and almost destroys Square Enix as a company, or Squaresoft as a company. So Final Fantasy 10 comes out, there's a resurgence. But if you're going to sort of like right the ship, you're going to start leaning a little bit more heavily on one of your most successful properties, and that's going to be Final Fantasy VII. And after the Kingdom Hearts secret ending, which is like this fully CG battle,

Tetsuo Nomura comes up with this idea that they should make a movie that features a lot of action sequences and that they should maybe set it in the world of Final Fantasy seven because Final Fantasy seven is this, you know, is like the big harbinger of the company. And they create a proof of concept for, I think, the Venice Film Festival. And I might be getting some of this wrong because I'm not a film journalist or a video game journalist and haven't been for a long time. But I'm doing a lot of this from memory. And I think I remember a significant portion of it. They do like a 23 minute demo version for, I think, the Venice Film Festival. The fan reaction is so positive that they end up going forward with an entire film, which is going to be 60 minutes long. It ends up being 100 minutes when they release it. And it is such a success that it pushes PlayStation 3s. Like people are buying PlayStation 3

because of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. And Kingdom Hearts is such a huge hit the same year, 2005, that, or Kingdom Hearts two, that Tetsuo Nomura is sort of given this internal carte blanche, like make what you want to make. And so he pitches Final Fantasy 13 versus which stars Noctis and Stella and like these original cast of characters. They released this incredible CG trailer somewhere around 2007. And it ties up such an enormous amount of resources for the next decade plus. Like, I don't know when Final Fantasy 13 versus eventually becomes rebranded as 15 and Tetsuo Nomura has taken off the project. But all of this happens because of this avalanche of Final Fantasy VII content that kind of

puts him up on a pedestal and then ends up costing Square Enix a huge amount of money and resources, which is why they start leaning into mobile games. It's a wild film to think about in context because it is certainly better than spirits within, but it is not a good movie. I will say that. Yeah. Also,

it is deeply influential in action movies, creates a sort of like visual language for action cinema that is still being referenced today. There was an interview done with the director of the Marvels where she said, I went into this movie leaning on Advent children because I wanted to duplicate that feeling from those action sequences. Fade off. I will say that.

Tetsuya Nomura and what you were talking about in terms of the Japanese video game industry specifically and how auteurs are treated there is. a game designer, like a name game designer, has been given so much leeway and such massive budgets and have gone way over schedule and have ended up with this boondoggle that in some cases completely destroys a company, that has happened a number of times and is a thing you don't really see in the West in the same sort of way. And is a thing you don't really see in the West in the same sort of way. And Nomura specifically has become this, I think, this pretty revered figure and understandably, especially by fans of Kingdom Hearts. But in the PlayStation 1 era, he was pretty polarizing, I think, is character designs, because part of why people were hyped for Final Fantasy nine is because the characters were not designed by Tetsuya Nomura. They were designed by

in the style of Yoshitaka Amano, who was the the character designer for like the first six games. And it was actually done by Toshiyuki Itahana and Shuko Murase were the character designers, but they were like specifically Amano style designs. And it was this more fantasy, high fantasy treatment, as opposed to sort of the steampunky cyber, or I'm sorry, specifically cyberpunk slash science fiction direction that they'd gone in with a seven and eight and would return to in 10 and beyond. And so, yeah, he does represent like a pivot point for the final fantasy franchise and for the fate of the company and yeah this movie is a huge part of it

i i yeah was so hyped for this when it came out i was so hyped like that i was like this is the movie that i wish that spirits within had been because it's got music by Nobuo Uematsu. Yes. Like it's it's got characters that I care about and a setting that is literally Final Fantasy as opposed to like. And, you know, you could wrestle with whether or not Spirits Within is a Final Fantasy type place. And there are certainly Final Fantasy type elements. But like when I think of Final Fantasy, I don't think of the world of Spirits Within. I think about the world of all of these different video games. So I went into this so fucking hyped. And like, I know I talked about the Final Fantasy Spirits

Within watch as like one of these things that I wanted, but was so fucking poor I could never, ever hope to purchase. There is a cell phone featured prominently in this movie. It's a flip phone that basically I think every character uses. And I wanted that flip phone so fucking bad in 2005. I wanted that flip phone so fucking bad in 2005. Like I was like, this is the coolest, most futuristic looking flip phone I've ever seen. The Panasonic, what is it, 900 VI or something like that? IV? I don't know.

But even now, sometimes I'll look on eBay and it's like a hundred bucks to get one. And I'm like, it'd be pretty cool to just have it on my desk. You know, just like as if Cloud might call me at any time. I keep thinking about going back to a flip phone and it might as well get the Cloud phone from Advent Children, which I think is called Cloud Black. Like that's the colorway of the black phone. It does look good. Like I do think this was a very cool looking movie at the time uh we certainly weren't seeing there were cg animated movies but we're seeing like cg animated movies

that were like not explicitly for children really in the west and i i you know and i think because of like the the other thing you were saying heather, is like, like so much backlash to, to Final Fantasy, uh, The Spirits Within, and so much of their attempts to sort of mute the franchise to have it have some sort of mainstream success, which is a thing you were saying with adaptations of that era of just like, oh, let's run away from what people like about it. Uh, you know, pre-Marvel, uh, pre the, the Raimi Spider-Mans, uh, before, you know, I'm trying to think, so the other adaptations that like really honored the source material, the Lord of the Rings movies are the big one. Like before,

before that era, when everyone was afraid of science fiction and fantasy and comic book properties and video game properties and like, well, we can't just bring this to the big screen. We got to make it a fucking generic and dumb. The 2000 X-Men, right?

2000 X-Men is big. Yeah yeah that's a big one uh not that it's like that different but like they're wearing like black leather yeah that's like a big like people didn't like that yes but yeah but that's like kind of like in that transition phase when they were going over towards like okay hey we actually are going to try to give these a budget and try to make them be like the actual IP. So like Finalizing Spirits Within, yeah, like not having Nobuo Uematsu do the score. They have Elliot Goldenthal do the score, who is like just like a journeyman film composer. And it's like, you know, it has some great credits as it worked on some great stuff, but it's not necessarily a great fit for the IP.

And yeah, it just kind of feels like generic sci-fi. And they're going for a specifically a realistic aesthetic sci-fi. And they're going for a specifically a realistic aesthetic, which is not what they're going for with Advent Children visually. They're trying to represent Final Fantasy VII. And to talk a little bit

about that visual quality. Another thing you have to imagine in 2005 is that this was the most gorgeous CG you had ever seen. Like it was like Square was doing stuff with CG that I would show my friends while like America's doing Toy Story and shit. And I'd be like, look how real this looks. And everyone would be like, holy fuck. And that was one of the things that happened with Spirits Within. And then with this,

And that was one of the things that happened with Spirits Within. And then with this, they took designs that you were used to seeing only in anime or in cut scenes in video games and giving them a little bit more like visual texture. Like I watching this movie, I'm I'm fixated on the physics of clouds hair because like you never see like spiky hair like this done with i think earth physics so it like when he's riding in a motorcycle his hair is kind of pushed flat on his head but as soon as he gets off the motorcycle or when like gravity like if he if he torques the the motorcycle and spins out then his hair springs back into those spikes and i'm like what would that be like on a person to have hair that like essentially responds kind of like steel wool almost like you can flatten it but it will

come back it's really i don't know your hair Your head would have to be the shape of your hair, sort of like Bart Simpson and Lisa Simpson. Yeah, it's cartoon logic. Yeah, it's like underneath the hair, the skull is that shape. Right. Like when they x-ray Bart and he's got a spiky skull. It's a funny joke.

I think actually the character models look pretty great still. They look fucking amazing. Like but for for 18, 19 years later, like, you know, that I think there I think that part actually holds up remarkably well. Yeah, I think in terms of visually what's maybe aged worse is the environments. Yes. Which and I don't know what's going on there. I don't know if it's just like

they were low res textures they were using or something, but I feel like if you see like a rock face or something, it just like, it looks pretty video gamey. It looks pretty artificial. If anything,

that's what takes me out of it more than the way the characters are moving. And then especially if you're seeing things in wide or if you're seeing things in aerial shots, which they're using a lot, it's like it doesn't have a sense of scale.

Like it feels like you're looking at a model, like you're looking at something in miniature as opposed to looking at this epic vista. It's it's the part of the movie that I'm like, wow, the PlayStation five looks better. Like the environments on a PS5 game look better than Advent Children. I do think that there is, specifically on clothing, there's still a higher fidelity to the as the Cape physics in Advent Children. But I would say that the general like. I don't think that shirts are independently rendered on most video game models to their core frame. clothes are so important in this movie that when like cloud is moving in his shirt, his shirt is not attached to the physics of his body, but have their own independent physics.

And that is also impressive still. Yeah, that looks great. I mean, certainly it depends on, on the game, um, in terms of if the,

the wardrobe is attached to the model or not, but like, yeah, I agree that the clothing still looks better than anything you'd see in a game. on the game um in terms of if the the wardrobe is attached to the model or not but like yeah i agree that the clothing still looks better than anything you'd see in a game uh i don't i think i with a lot of the stuff that that feels and looks a little dusty it's just kind of i wonder of like of this era was this like exported at 720p or something or like 1080p like is that like just like the final version of this i have no idea or is there a 4k restoration of this there's a you can get it on 4k disc there are two uh there are

two different uh i just put up the number two and i had balloons uh surround me uh here on my apple on my apple zoom um so there are there are two different rendering resolutions present in Advent Children Complete. And for the new scenes, they are of a higher resolution than the old scenes. And of the old scenes, some of those were also exported at a lower resolution. So there are some scenes that have the jagged edges on like a 4K monitor that they have jagged edges as if they are literally from an old video game. And then some scenes that don't have those jagged edges that are more recently added to the film in progress, because I've also heard rumor that the version that's coming out in theaters this month is going to have additional scenes to the one we've just watched.

Which is now more than two hours long. It's more than two hours long. When it ended, I did say out loud, that's it? No more? it ended, I did say out loud, that's it? No more? It's funny because you say that, Heather, and that's like, I didn't know any of that in terms of the different scenes were rendered at different resolutions. And watching it, you maybe feel it, but you maybe just think it's your connection if you're watching it on streaming, you know? Yeah. And so it must be a really strange experience to watch this on Blu-ray and be like, oh, wait, no, this is just sort of, you know, now now now these these models are aliasing because this was like whatever it exported at a different bit rate. I so I purchased this movie on Apple. I like move Apple movies.

Right. Started it off and it was dubbed. And I was like, what the fuck? I'm so fucking tired of buying a fucking movie through Apple. And it only has one language track when you know that it's a dubbed film and there is no other version of it. So I asked for a refund and then bought it on Amazon Prime where you could watch it subtitled. Finished the movie, went out to my garage and discovered that i own it on blu-ray

and i was like when the fuck did i buy this advent children complete when why did i buy this i have no memory of purchasing this um which also thought about go ahead matt no i had thought about buying the 4k disc recently, and then we decided to do this, and I was like, oh, it's not going to come in time to watch it. I'll just rent it. And I guess I'm glad I rented it. I'm glad I rented it. Yeah. I mean, do we need to bury the lead here?

This movie sucks, right? It's not. It's like a bad movie. Wait, what? No, it doesn't suck it's weird it's definitely weird definitely weird and i also think it's bad um it's because it's you know what though it's i wonder if it sucks because it's working against how good final fantasy 7 is right like that's a really good story and like as far as like it being like comprehensible like i feel like it's it's a

clearer story even though it's like jrpg like craziness uh but this was just like, you know, it's... It opens with the coda from the end of the game, which shows you 500 years in the future. Yeah. Best part of the movie. That cold open is great

because you're just seeing the ending of Final Fantasy VII, but rendered in this... with a much bigger budget. So it starts by retelling you that everything after the events of Final Fantasy VII ultimately works out and everything's going to be fine. And then it tells you this weird story

that takes place two years afterward. And I'm watching this and I'm like, okay, well, there aren't really any stakes here because I know it's all fine. Like, I know already it's okay. Well, counterpoint. I don't mind that. Counter-argument.

It starts 500 years in the future and as the game ends, we don't know why human beings seem to be dead in the far future. And then it cuts back to two years after the game. And you could feel like, oh, this is going to tell me the story of why the planet is empty and Red XIII and his brethren inherit the earth. But instead it does not tell you that story. No.

I think part of what makes the movie bad is the translation. I think that there is a hokiness to the English script that isn't, to my ability to translate it from Japanese,

that isn't present in the Japanese original. For example, a perfect for me, a perfect, like an, like a emblematic part of the film that describes this change for me is that when Sid throws Cloud into the sky to attack, in the Japanese version, he just goes,

like, he just like, you know, he just makes a vocal grunt in the English script. He says, giddy up. And that is such a different, like, that's hugely different. Yeah. Like the, the thing that is, I think most memetic about this film is dilly dally shilly shally which is like a thing a thing that these characters keep repeating and that is the best i guess the best attempt at translating just sort of like this which is just like a sound made by the characters. Like there's a,

there's a bunch of moments like that. Like Kate Sif saying like, you're the chips and gravy sucks, sucks. And he's not what he's saying. Yuffie says at the end, something like party on, we rock or something.

And I was like, what the heck's going on here? And also, the second time I heard dilly-dally, shilly-shally, I thought I was having a stroke because I couldn't believe I heard it the first time. I heard it a second time and was like, we gotta stop. This is tough. I agree with you, Heather.

I don't think it's a good localization. Sorry, please finish your point. But I was gonna to say there are, it's clear that there's a lot of, like in 2005 to hear the line, you know, this is, I think, mother's memetic legacy. It's so funny to me how much memetic blank has become like ingrained in our pop culture consciousness that in 2005 i was like

what the fuck is he talking about and now i'm like oh yeah memetic legacy okay yeah yeah yeah it's like uh it's i get it it's memes okay cool mother's memetic legacy that's right, snake. of being a kid, but as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs. And boy, let me tell you, I love cereal. So Magic Spoon has the amazing flavors you love, but high protein and less sugar. I've been drinking protein shakes and powder for years, but finally found a delicious way to get my protein before and after workouts. With Magic Spoon, you can get a variety pack of four flavors, and they are cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut butter. And something I like to do, folks, I like to mix them and match them. So I'm getting cocoa in my peanut butter. I'm getting fruity in my frosted.

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It's a, it's a, yes. Okay, I agree with you. It's a bad localization. The dialogue is very hokey and corny, though I will say, having played Final Fantasy games since the 8-bit era and having played the, a lot of not well-translated JRPGs,

to me, the corniness, the hokiness is kind of baked in. I kind of expect that with the dialogue. So there are parts that are eye-rolly and kind of cringey, but Barrett saying alley-oop at an inappropriate time does not completely throw me out of it. I don't think the script problems are with the dialogue. I think it's structural where this movie, even as someone who understands Final Fantasy seven, who has played the game and and knows the world and knows the characters well, is

still pretty inscrutable and still pretty hard to understand just what the fuck is going on. Like, it feels like you're watching an MCU movie where you didn't do the homework, you know? And you're just like, who is that? Are they the, wait, what's going on? You know, and like, yeah, oh, sorry, I didn't budget 16 hours to watch Moon Knight and WandaVision, so I'm kind of lost

when I'm watching the second Doctor Strange movie. You know, but I mean, like, it's like, that's what it feels like, even as someone who knows this and is rooting for it and wants it to succeed can't imagine watching this watching this watching this cold would be so insane because there's an end game moment where and heather was talking about sid sid shows up yuffie shows up vincent valentine shows up barrett uh red 13 who we've seen in the open, they all show up to help out, and it's like, and there's a question

of, there's a character who asks Tifa, like, who are they? And it's like, okay, well, you're the audience surrogate, you're asking for context for who these half dozen people who just showed up in the middle of the action sequence are, and Tifa just goes like, they're the team.

And it's like, wait, okay, you clarified nothing. What? She might as well have been like, who cares, you idiot. I have, I just remembered, I just remembered that I have the Final Fantasy 7 novel that just recently came out.

And I'm trying to... Yeah. I have two voices, or two paths, or some shit. Like, I have that somewhere on my shelf, and I'm trying to yeah two voices or two paths or some shit like I have that somewhere on my shelf and I probably won't read it but if I need to spend like a couple hours at a coffee shop

and I'm in between books maybe I'll bring it with because maybe it'll illuminate what the remnants are and what their relationship to Sephiroth is that isn't illuminated in this, in, in this movie. Yeah.

I mean, the thing is, I do want to say one thing that is illuminated in this movie that I love, which is Tifa says, remember two years ago when we all fought Sephiroth together and we were so strong? And I'm like, oh, cool. That's like an internal rationalization of leveling up. And then she's like, we're not that strong anymore, so we couldn't do it.

Which to me means if you're not actively involved in battling in the world of Final Fantasy VII, you begin to de-level. Actively involved in battling in the world of Final Fantasy VII, you begin to de-level, which could explain how I assume the next Final Fantasy VII remake game is going to work. Because you can't just take every power from the previous game and drop it into the new one because the power creep would be too absurd. and drop it into the new one because the power creep would be too absurd. They're going to have to start you at a smaller level with a smaller like magic base, et cetera, in order to make the sense of progression greater. And now I can like headcanon that as, oh, they took a small break and de-leveled.

Yeah, you got to figure out how to reset the skill tree somehow. Star Wars Jedi Survivor would argue that you can do that, actually. That you can start pretty much with all the powers

you had from the previous game and then actually you're going to get some new ones. Didn't Spider-Man 2 kind of do that? I didn't play it. Yeah.

It does a similar thing, too? Yeah. And it seems like from the little bit of Psychonauts 2 that I played that you kind of start with basically everything

you had at the end of Psychonauts as well. Yeah, but I think they've got, like, games are, I think they're figuring out with sequels that people don't want to redo the TDM of the previous game in terms of acquiring everything. So they're figuring out how to shortcut that a little bit. But yeah, no one's solved it. And I don't know how they're going to do it in Rebirth.

There's my, there's a bit of IMDb trivia, which I copy-pasted here just because I think it's very funny to read in the context of watching this film. The creators of this film had no prior knowledge of how to make a movie. Okay, so actually, you know what? They did a really good job they did a phenomenal job this is like this is in theory watching somebody's infinite budget student film yes yeah yeah which also is part of what so you you say it's bad i find that it's too weird to be bad like it is sure it is so strange and the action sequences are so incredible like that the the moves that that the team is doing with the camera in this film i think are are are new moves with action sequences in 2005.

Looks awesome. And I think that a lot of the like, like it's, it's, it's sort of the next beat after the matrix in terms of like, okay, if you can untether the camera from reality and move it anywhere you want during an action sequence and you never have to cut.

Like you'll zoom all the way into like Cloud's foot on his motorcycle before you pull all the way out to reveal the wide shot of him jumping off the motorcycle. And then you'll zoom all the way back into him in the air on his face and then whip the camera around to see who it is he's attacking. And I don't think that shit was being done in 2005, whereas now it's everywhere. Like that's literally what we see in Spider-Man and all of these movies. But in 2005, people were still like, OK, you cut from this guy to that guy and you cut from that guy to his gun. And none of those cuts are present in this film, which is part of what makes it weird and compelling. No, I love that. The look, I love how a lot of the action sequences work, like the motorcycle sword fight you're just talking about.

That looks awesome. That was cloud delivering. The Omni slash looks really cool. about that looks awesome. That was cloud delivering the Omni slash looks really cool. It's and and what you were just talking about, which is how the camera never stops moving. Like that's part of what's compelling visually about this and something that's been imitated in live action. And you contrast that with like, yeah, a lot of modern action movies are pre visualized to hell and they have the same sort of frenetic feel to them. Uh, but they also just like kind of seem goopy and inert. No, this one has like, it, it, it has actual visual flair to it. So from that standpoint, yes, it, that all works. And the second half of that IMB trivia thing is, uh, uh, because they had no prior knowledge,

it was based on their knowledge of in-game movies. And that's what kind of watching this kind of feels like. It's like. These are really, really high budget video game cinematics. But what you're missing is the chunks of gameplay that kind of, you know, let you let that all sort of breathe and also kind of help center what you're actually doing and what the goal of this exercise is, like who's good, who's bad, what the stakes are, like a lot of that is all communicated via gameplay segments that are just absent here. And as such, it feels like, you know,

here's a two-hour YouTube video of all the cinematics from an unreleased final fantasy game um and and and i think part of that is that that it never like lets you breathe it's just kind of this unrelenting barrage of action have you guys seen kingsglaive no never watched no heather no have i seen kingsgive? I've never even seen this. You think I'm going to pop on a fucking Final Fantasy movie for a Final Fantasy game I haven't played? What the hell's the matter with you? Oh, man. I've never been mad at you before i'm furious

well kingsglaive is i believe a more comprehensible version of advent children because it it's a prequel so it doesn't come with any prior knowledge. Like you enter the film and you are told everything. And then the action sequences are so fucking like, they're so ice cold. They are so good because everybody in this world has Noctis's ability to throw a weapon and then teleport to where the weapon is. So the sequences are really, really fantastic.

God damn it, Matt. That was so fucking funny. I've seen Kingsglaive has 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. Will they ever do this correctly? I lost the point I was trying to make because you made me laugh so hard. I lost the point I was trying to make because you made me laugh so hard. It looks like it looks great. It looks amazing.

It's also funny because it's the second time that they have basically just used Ben Affleck's face without hiring him. Because they used Ben Affleck's face in Spirits Within. It's like, oh, that guy looks like Ben Affleck's face without hiring him because they use ben affleck's face and add or in uh spirits within it's like oh that guy looks like ben affleck and then like nix i think his name is nix looks so much like ben affleck and he's voiced in uh america by aaron paul so like that also fucks with your brain uh because you're like it sounds sounds like Aaron Paul, but looks like Ben Affleck. Yeah. Give me the materia, bitch. What I'll say about this is, first off, it's interesting. Like, I love that it exists, even though I'm not a fan of the movie.

I do love that it exists. It's just, yes, to what you're saying, Heather, whether you like it or dislike it it is an arguably weird and unique and from an era when the leeway was given to just make this crazy thing it also is from an era where i feel like they were giving video game creators a little bit more control over their filmic adaptations which was an interesting kind of like overcorrection to things like the Super Mario Brothers movie, right? I don't know if this is exactly what happened, but if something like that, it's like, this is completely out of Nintendo's hands.

We just have the rights to this thing. And we're going to give this to two, like a team, a director team that is going to make something completely bizarre and completely removed from the source material. completely bizarre and completely removed from the source material. And, you know, then they start to be more like and not that that spirits within is super close to Final Fantasy, but it is a thing where like Hiruno Busakaguchi is directing that movie. Tetsuya Nomura is directing this movie. There's the Wing Commander movie, which sucks, but is written and directed by Chris Roberts, who created the Wing Commander video game franchise. There was this sort of brief period where they were kind of like,

you know what, maybe the best person to reinterpret this in a different medium is the person who made this game. But, you know, it turns out that making a movie and making a game are very different things. And honestly, I do think that kind of comes across in Uematsu's score. Nobuo Uematsu, greatest video game composer of all time. I mean, I would probably say so. I'm a huge fan of his. I don't think this is a great score for this movie. Yeah. So here's a little trivia about the score, which is that it isn't, it's not for the movie. So Final Fantasy VII Piano Collections predates Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. And the Piano Collections are piano interpretations of the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. The fight sequence between Tifa and Punching Guy in Aretha's church uses just directly drops in a track from that album, which is the piano version of the Final Fantasy VII battle theme.

And it just trails off in the movie because there's not enough time to use the entire piano piece. And though the score is composed by Nobuo Oemetsu, a lot of these are repurposed songs from other places, like the Final Fantasy VII orchestral album, or I think one of them might be for the from the Black Mages, which is Nobuo Matsu's rock band. So it's not a score for the movie. It is Final Fantasy seven music, often from other places, dropped into these sequences. And that's why I think it doesn't work because it makes a lot of sense. They're basically just using is just repurposing as existing music because you can pick out tracks like, you know, you could be like, oh, that's Jenova.

You know, that's one winged angel, you know, like those those kind of hit. But yeah, if he wasn't composing any music specifically timed to the action on screen, I mean, that's what it feels like. It feels like it's just sort of these these are just sort of background tracks. Like, like the whole thing is uses temp scoring. Yeah. The, I will say that the Sephiroth Pete,

one wing and angel can go anywhere. Of course. Yeah. I've said that before on the show, as soon as those notes hit and it, it sounds like, is it Mars? Is that the, the one that it borrows from? it sounds like, is it Mars? Is that the one that it borrows from?

Just a host. Yeah. You're like, uh-oh. Oh, uh, in smash brothers is echoes of final fantasy seven advent children, which is echoes of the game. Like in terms of like the, the visual positioning of him on screen, like him impaling somebody on his long sword,

like all of those things, they look fantastic. And it's also, um, like he's more iconic than cloud i think that like sephiroth as a character you could like imitate more than you can imitate cloud like i don't know like what's a thing cloud would say but i do know that like things that sephiroth might say, like, you know,

tell me your, your, your greatest thing and let me take it from you. I want to bathe you in despair. Like you'd be like, Oh, that sounds like memory. Yeah.

Like that, all that shit sounds like Sephiroth, but I don't know what cloud sounds like. No, that's fair. He's kind of a, he's kind of, he's kind of a pretty plain protagonist.

Although his, his character design is obviously so striking and so iconic. Yes. Yes. That's fair. He's plain because you play as. Yeah, because he's a player character. Yeah.

That's often the case. Yeah. If Trump made one winged angel his campaign theme, he'd like win 46 states. Oh, my God. Can you imagine him walking on stage with that? Everyone's like, yeah! I wouldn't vote for him, but I would

go to a rally. I'd want to see it. There's a bunch of people cheering and one person dancing. Like, remember when he came out like as a villain at the Republican National Convention when he got the nomination in 2016? Like, and he was like,

no, that fucking, like, I should be bathed from light in the back and covered in smoke and appear as a shadow. Like he's the undertaker. Yeah. Fuck.

Oh, man. I also want to say it is, I think, it sort of speaks to the misplaced priorities of this team in general, that one of the things they do for advent children complete is add dirt to faces like it's one of their like major focuses is like oh as as they fight their faces should get dirty so if you watch the dvd version their faces are all clean throughout and they kind of look like action figures and in this version it's like yeah

he should have like a cut on his face after this fight the other thing is uh and this is separate as a separate thought i'm just kind of like looking at my notes um the sound of swords in this game is or in this movie is very weird it's not the sound of swords that we've become accustomed to the big heavy steel clang of swords these swords hit each other and sound like very high-pitched ringing bells like they're so high-pitched when they strike one another that it it almost sounds like like somebody hitting pieces of aluminum, like sliding aluminum against itself. Like they're not, they're not, they don't sound heavy. Even Cloud Sword, which is the size of a parked car, doesn't hit with like a big, you know, resonant bass hit.

It's like ting, ting, ting. It's very weird. And the last thing i want to add for my notes is that i just wrote cloud is baptizing children exclamation point because yeah which happens at the end of the plot of this movie yes right because like the central plot of the movie well there's a couple things going on but one of the main things is there's like a disease that's taking over uh the world that's fallout from the end of the game basically where now there's this disease that you can just get and the disease stigma is geo yeah geo stigma is it's not an internal disease. It is external. And you have like a gooey thing on you. Yeah.

Kind of smudges you up. But it's like the planet fighting back against the scourge of humanity. Yes. Pretty much. Pretty just directly. It's that. It's the COVID-19 of Midgar.

Yeah. The planet basically being like, honestly, if I got geostigma, I'd be like, you know what? Good. I'm not trying to fix this. My lifetime carbon footprint, probably I deserve this.

Yeah. I will just say that that's a great point about the sound design because yes, it does feel just a little tinny and weird. And I guess the, the, I guess the PlayStation games, also the PS one game certainly did not have great sound effects.

Like that's not the high point from an audio standpoint of the, of those games. Those were all kind of like, it felt like from an earlier generation. So I don't know, maybe it's byproduct of that. Who knows? But the sound of like cloud hitting something with his weapon in the original game is like like it's still like a like a sound that you associate with a strike.

Sure. The sounds in this movie for weapon strikes are just confounding. Like it is such a strange quality. It's I. I don't love this movie, but I certainly like it. And it's I don't think I would like it if it was more typically familiar as a film in like the structure of it or like any of the choices made. I think i would like it less if it were better because i think there's like a you know like a bell curve of like where this movie

falls is really far to the left so much so that it is interesting whereas like if it was like the first Resident Evil movie was okay. But I like it less than this because it is a little bit more like a movie. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. Yeah. The Paul W. O. Sanderson Resident Evil is a lot more coherent as a narrative film.

Yeah. But this, but it's not interesting the same way that says, yeah, I don't like this movie, but I do think there's a place for this movie like being on mute in the background and just occasionally like looking at like oh look at that thing you know like it does have some stuff that like looks cool and again i'm glad that it exists but it definitely this watch gave me appreciation

for when you see like a really well-structured action movie like Top Gun Maverick and they've got effectively a PowerPoint presentation where they're like, here is the mission. We are the good guys. These are the bad guys. These are the parameters that define success and failure. If we do these things in sequence, we win the movie so that when you're watching that, the third act you understand exactly what's going on and this movie could not be more the complete opposite of that where characters are like they begin by calling a character that you know their brother and then they're asking if he knows where their mother is and you've never met these guys yeah and at some point in the film other characters are like

what are you talking about when you say mother like what somebody actually like straight up asks them what are you talking about which is what the audience has felt as soon as they're introduced uh yeah and then they're it's like oh it's it's it's Genova. It's that's that's our mom. And then they show you Genova. They show you a flashback of the games like like Genova as we know Genova, like a big thing in a tank with a metal face. And when then later they find Genova, it is not that it is in a box that's like a cigar box and we never see inside that box. Like, it's they don't even have like a consistent like, this is the thing. We're looking for that thing. We found the thing. Oh, instead, it's like we're looking for that thing. We found the thing. Uh-oh. Instead, it's like, we're looking for the thing.

Turns out the thing has been being held by a guy next to us this entire time. It is much smaller now and it's in a box. And this guy who has seen these characters jump off buildings and fly through doorways and shit thinks that the best way

to destroy the thing that the bad guys are looking for is by tossing it off the side of a building. Which, by the way, the craziest thing that Cloud does in this film, like in terms of movement, is implied in that sequence because he, is it Bahamut that he's fighting?

Is it like Shin bahamut or some shit right he's fighting yeah big summon he fights the summon wins that battle simultaneously rufus across town across town throws jenova's remnant off the side of a building and then is hit off the side of the building by the bad guy who or jumps. I don't remember. And then Kadaj, the bad guy, jumps off with him. So we have established Cloud is on top of a skyscraper scaffolding across town. Then you cut to him on his motorcycle. then you cut to him racing across town. So Cloud gets down from a skyscraper onto his motorcycle, starts the motorcycle,

and drives across town before either of those characters can hit the ground. So he is moving faster than the speed of gravity in this moment. And it is theoretically the craziest thing he does in the entire film. Yeah. It's full of just complete physical nonsense. But that's, to me, not even the problem with the movie.

No. But also, we talked about the action sequence. The sequences. The big final action sequence where he's fighting that big summon. It looks cool. It looks cool. It's so long.

It's so long. It's like... I could not believe it was still going on. Like, it felt too long and also like i don't know the spirits within also had this problem where like and i know that like there's not a lot of color in the world of final fantasy 7 this movie's very gray and i was sort of like i don't there's not a lot for me to look at here, like in terms of like clouds. The characters stand out because everything else is kind of, you know, dystopian and whatnot. But I was sort of like kind of bored looking at it.

I think that's part of why the environments don't look as great because they just look like you're just looking at mounds of earth or you're just looking at piles of rubble. It's all very gray and brown. piles of rubble it's all very gray and brown um it's all very you know pc corridor shooter of the late 90s early 2000s that sort of palette and like yeah it's i yeah they're probably these aren't these are these games are boring to look at so and the environments aren't all boring so yeah they probably could have done some more to jazz that up a little bit but i don't know on balance a fascinating thing to revisit on the eve of the release of the next entry in the final fantasy seven franchise yeah i think it's good i think it's good because watching it again lowered my

expectations for the game like like i i had there's now room for me to be impressed whereas before i was coming into part two pretty like at a high level of expectation and now i'm like oh right it's these these guys made this also so there's a possibility i'll be frustrated final fantasy 7 could also be this like it's a lot of things it could be be really great, but it could also be Advent Children and isn't that something? Rochelle, where are you on Final Fantasy? Are you a fan of the franchise? I've never played Final Fantasy before.

Wow, have you seen any of the Final Fantasy movies? No. Oh, so it's just completely foreign to you. Completely foreign. The only thing I know about Final Fantasy is through my boyfriend playing Kingdom Hearts all the time. But you know characters like Cloud and Sephiroth at least? Yeah. about Final Fantasy is through my boyfriend playing Kingdom Hearts all the time. Right, right. So you, like, but you know characters

like Cloud and Sephiroth at least? Okay, got it. Is that pretty much where your knowledge ends? That's where it ends. I know what they look like. Yeah.

I have a general idea of who's who, but that's about it. We should have made you watch this movie. Clockwork Orange style. Hey, Rochelle, quit. movie clockwork orange style it's not even that bad like if you were forced to watch it you'd sort of be like this sucks but it's fine like i i it's not like it's like the worst movie i've ever seen uh it is it is better than it seems it sounds insane to say this too like it's better than spirits within but that's

such a low bar to clear i think it could be better than spirits within with a single moment that vincent does uh so vincent is a vampire from final fantasy 7 and he's very very melodramatic he's not like vampire-ish in this in this movie but he's he's vampire adjacent and cloud asks him if he has a cell phone and he goes like he like gestures with his cape like he flips his cape up to show that he doesn't have a cell phone yeah you see one on my fucking belt bitch no that rocks like that's how a vampire would be like i don't carry a fucking cell phone. And then the next time you see that character, he is entering the city striding through chaos. And he says in his whispery voice, where can I buy a cell phone?

That did make me laugh. It is really funny. And you know, the moments that work really do work. Like, it's not like it wouldn't work if you were watching it cold. But we talked about when the team shows up. Yeah. I was excited to see all my friends. That was very exciting to me.

Yes. And they weren't in it enough. But there's like so many characters. I can see why you couldn't put all of them. Especially since the original run wasn't, was not two hours. Yeah, no. But you know. It it's not it's a hundred minutes i also i missed the uh post credit sequence which apparently there is and i uh i didn't see it oh i didn't watch it and i don't think i'll be going back to see it actually i did watch the post credit sequence i don't think it's essential but what

it is is there's a shot of flowers overlooking midgar and the dialogue is it's from characters off camera they go is that somebody's grave and the response is no that's where a hero began his journey and now that's supposed to be coming from Red XIII and his kids or what, or the descendants of Red XIII. But yeah, that's what the dialogue is. Wow. I mean, that sounds good. It's kind of cool.

I like that. I don't mind the line. It is kind of a bummer. You don't usually see a game, the future of the game, like, like 500 years ahead. It kind of sucks to know that like cloud dies at some point. Oh yeah. He's mortal. Yeah.

You don't really think about it. Like, I don't, I don't know. It's just kind of, it's kind of sucked. Yeah. I do.

I do like the flash forward in the ending. Something you just said, Matt made me realize something about this movie. Cause you were like, Oh, that sounds cool. And neither of us have seen that thing. And I'm like, I agree.

It sounds cool. And the truth is, I think this movie really functions if you tell somebody else about it. Yeah, right. 100%. Yeah. Like, oh, these guys, they are they're racing down a highway and they're all on motorcycles and they keep leaping from motorcycle to motorcycle to attack each other. Some of them use guns and some of them use swords. And at one point, one of the sword guys cuts a motorcycle in half. Like that sound like I can imagine somebody pitching that

scene and everybody being like, yeah, yeah, that's great. That's great. Or it's like. The the woman who has been who has been swallowed by the earth, she comes back in the climax of a very important battle and she reemerges as rain. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then bathes this virus off of our protagonist and purifies him. And you'd be like, fuck, yes. But while you're watching that, you're like, wait, what is happening? Right. That character is named Rude.

Got it. You know it's in the game. Yeah. Rude gets upset. Rude gets upset because the bad guy steps on his favorite sunglasses. And after a moment of looking sad he takes out another pair of sunglasses puts them on is great but in the moment it's it's not played very well comedically no like it's kind of you cut away in weird ways

like kind of lose track of the joke joke. All right. This episode releases on the U.S. holiday, President's Day. Yes. Yes. My favorite holiday. We celebrate our favorite war criminals and sex pests. My favorite oldest man on Earth.

So as such, because it's President's Day, I've got a topical quiz. I will name a video game president and you name the video game franchise for one point. And bonus point if you can name the correct entry in that franchise if there's more than one game in a series. So I'll name the president. You match it to the franchise. Make sense? Yeah, that rocks. And then feel free to ask for hints as we go, because some of these are hard.

Okay, first up. This one should be something of an alley-oop, as Barrett would say. President Bridget Strand. Matt. Matt. That's from Death Stranding, of course. Matt, you are correct, and there's no bonus point, because there's just one game as of yet. Matt gets that one.

Next up, there's another game we've covered. President George Sears. So far, these names have sounded like that Ken Griffey baseball roster. Sleeve McDaniel. Todd Bonides. Gosh, President George Sears. President George Sears. You know this one.

This is a big franchise. We've covered two games in the franchise. What? We've covered two games in the franchise. Two games in the franchise. George Sears Yeah Like Sears

He hasn't Roebuck It is spelled exactly like Sears Roebuck He has an alias Oh is it Is it Metal Gear Matt it is Metal Gear You get a point

You want to guess which Metal Gear franchise George Sears is most known for Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty That's right He is A. for? Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty. That's right. He is aka Solidus Snake. Yes. You fight the president as the final boss of Metal Gear Solid 2.

You fucking know this. Kojima's masterpiece. You fight and kill him. Video games rock. All right, next one. This is not a franchise we've covered on the show. This is a major video game franchise. I think you've played this game, Heather. Matt, I'm not sure if you've played this game,

but I'm not sure if you've played this game, Heather. So that may not be helpful guidance. The president's name is President John Henry Eden. Oh. Heather. Heather. Is it like time crisis no it's not time crisis it's a bigger franchise than that and it is a it is a western developer

um i'm gonna take a wild swing. Yeah. Is it Splinter Cell? It's not Splinter Cell. Okay. I was thinking of Eden because of the Eden Corporation from Captain Laserhawk. No, I get your logic, and it is sound, but no, this is the AI president, the reveal in Fallout 3.

Oh. Fallout 3 is the game. All right, next up, President G. Wait. Heather. Yes. House of the Dead? It's not House of the Dead.

God damn it. G is a character in that game though Yeah no this is a To be clear this is the world president The world president The president of the world Goes by the letter G This is a huge

This is a huge franchise One of the biggest franchises It is a Japanese video game franchise Heather Fuck Go free to ask if you want to direct any hints. Yeah, can we get a... You want a specific hint? Yeah, if you want to ask what kind of game it is or something,

or who the developer is or whatever. I can try to steer you a little bit. What kind of game is it? There's a fighting game franchise. Oh, is it Street Fighter? Is there a president in Street Fighter? It is Street Fighter. Either of you want to guess the franchise entry for a bonus point.

I'd like to guess the franchise entry. Yeah. Six. It's not six. Oh, well. Is it four? It's five. Wow.

President G is a presence in Street Fighter V, which I think is the two of you have played the least, which probably explains why it maybe exited your brain. Alright, next one. We have covered multiple games. Oh, we all like Street Fighter VI. Yeah, it was great. No, yeah, but I think V is the one that's a little bit of the dark horse. But it did include President G, who looks like a buff

Lincoln, and is 6'7". Okay, maybe Street Fighter V is good. Alright, this one, a buff Lincoln and a six foot seven. Okay. Maybe street fighter five is good. All right. This one, we have covered this franchise extensively. This is a huge video game franchise. And the president in this is the president of the United Federation,

the unnamed president of the United Federation. We've covered this franchise. We've covered, I believe, three games that include this character, at least two. I don't fucking know these. I don't know these. I'm shocked you don't know the name, who the president of the United Federation is. For me just saying it. I think you'd get it instantly.

United Federation is for me just saying it. I think you'd get it instantly. United Federation? Like, part of me wants to guess Gundam because it's... But we haven't covered any Gundam stuff. This is a Japanese franchise. Japanese developed franchise for the most part. This is a huge franchise

and this is a franchise that is known for sometimes taking its story a little too weirdly seriously in a way that's a little bit cringe, a little bit embarrassing. Heather. Yes. Devil May Cry. Not Devil May Cry. It's a mascot game. Oh.

Shit, can I ring in again Yeah take another crack at it Sonic the Hedgehog It is Sonic the Hedgehog Can you guess one of three Sonic games where Sonic the Hedgehog President is involved

Sonic Adventure 2 You are correct it is Sonic Adventure 2 Want to guess the other ones? Anyone? I mean, he's got to be in 06. He is in 06. Is he in Shadow? He is in Shadow, yeah. He's in all three games.

We have done a lot of Sonic. One of the Sonic games, Shadow the Hedgehog, the ending of Shadow the Hedgehog, the president says, this planet was once safe from tyranny and annihilation by you two heroes. Now mankind must protect the peace at all costs. We must stand united to defend our world

against these invaders. It's from fucking Sonic the Hedgehog. What are we doing? Okay, Matt has three, Heather has two. Next up. President Ronnie. President Ronnie. Matt is having an asthma attack. Oh, man.

Matt, you may be too young for this game. This was an arcade brawler that was ported to home consoles in the 80s. Oh, shit. This is a beat-em-up game. Heather. Got a really dumb title. this game this was an arcade brawler that was ported to home consoles in the 80s oh shit it's a beat-em-up game uh heather got a really dumb title go go for it heather oh no oh man there goes my guess i don't know i was gonna guess double dragon uh it's not double dragon but it's very close to double dragon it's exactly that kind of game it's not streets of rage it's not streets of rage no it's final this is dumber than streets of rage It's not Streets of Rage. It's not Streets of Rage, no. It's Final Fight. This is dumber than Streets of Rage.

It's not Final Fight. No, the game we're looking for is Bad Dudes. This is a really funny game. Bad Dudes rocks. The start of the beginning of Bad Dudes is President Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie? So that's how the game starts.

And then at the end, the reward you get for finishing this game is, President Ronnie, I'll show this to you. I'll show this to you here in a second, Matt. Hey, dudes, thanks for rescuing me. Let's go for a burger. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Is it supposed to be like Ronald Reagan, probably? 100% supposed to be Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of which, no one gets a point there. Speaking of which, President Ronald Reagan is in which video game franchise? In Call of Duty. In Call of Duty. You're correct. It is Call of Duty. Do you know which Call of Duty? I don't remember how they titled this one.

Because it's not Modern Warfare. It's not.. Because it's not Modern Warfare. It's not. No, it's not Modern Warfare. It's Call of Duty, and it's a year. And I can't pull a year because I don't know anything about world history. And I thought Ronald Reagan was made up. I didn't even know he was real. It's not a year.

Heather, do you want to take a guess at the very dumb Subtitle? No I got it Call of Duty Cold War Right? No I'll give it to you it's Black Ops Cold War The full title That is a mouthful Alright you've got five

Heather's got two A few more here He plays Hinkley in one of the mini games he's the hero there's a lot of presidents in video games but there aren't very many first ladies although in one of them

you can play as first lady Eleanor Roosevelt first lady Eleanor Roosevelt is it playable in what game First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Is it playable in what game? This is a 4X strategy franchise. This is a grand strategy game. Oh my God.

One of the biggest of them. Very well known. It's like Settlers of Catan or some shit. Not Settlers of Catan. This is a game. It's like Settlers of Catan or some shit. Not Settlers of Catan. This is a game. This is a design for PC. And it's like an XCOM?

Yeah, I mean, it's grander than that. It's just tactical. It's a little bit more. This is like a explore, know, explore, expand, conquest sort of game. Is it civilization? It is civilization. It's Sid Meier's civilization. Do you want to guess which civilization

Eleanor Roosevelt is a playable leader? Take a guess. Could it be Civ VI? Not Civ VI. I figured not. That was the most recent one. Heather, want to guess?

No, I have no idea. It was Civilization II. Wow. They had male and female leaders for each civilization, and for America, they picked a first lady because that was the option. Okay, next one. Another real historical figure. President Bill Clinton.

This is a game we've covered. We've covered it and he's in it? Right, with this game we've covered and a game we've covered. We've covered it and he's in it? With this game we've covered and a game we've covered pretty recently. No, I don't know these. Heather was not here for this episode. Oh, great. So I'm a double disadvantage. What?

You expect me to listen to the show when I'm not on it? I absolutely don't. And yet I'm cursed. Gosh, I can't even remember what we did last month. President Bill Clinton is an unlockable character in NBA Jam. Oh. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Do you remember when they were doing that? They put Clinton in an NBA Jam, and then he was in Ready to Rumble Boxing. There was a period where they were just like, oh, it's fun. Let's let's throw Clinton in there. That's fun. He's a he's a fun guy.

Yeah. All right. Last one. I ran out of blue dresses. Give me that basketball. Jesus. Last one. Matt's going to win this, but we'll do one more for completion's sake.

You maybe won't recognize the president's name but I think the game is known as a big president game President Michael Wilson I don't know has there ever been a President Michael

let's see too silly of a name I think I'm having trouble scrolling through presidential first names. Mike Pence is the closest we got. Mike Pence. Michael Dukakis was a runner up. Yeah, I don't know. Is it Resident Evil 4?

Not Resident Evil 4. No. Good guess. Resident game. I don't know. I just don't know. The game you maybe know by reputation although it was not a huge seller uh it is i think a pretty a pretty memed game the game is called metal wolf

chaos in a fucking mech The president in a mech. Just absolutely wrecking house. Honestly, they should do this. They should do this. Just give Biden a Gundam. Let's just see what happens. Yeah.

He'll fall asleep in there. Honestly, war should be a president and another opposing world leader one gun each one bullet sorted out give him max for the fun of it I'm just thinking I'm seeing the destruction here I just you know

let's see who takes out who call it a day without sending the fucking the poor nothing is pointless and the reason is because I'm the president the poor. Yes. All right. We're good. Wow.

Actually, never mind. Mex all the way. We should cover that at some point. My head hurts. We should absolutely cover it. It's supposed to be amazingly fun. That's this week's Get Played. Our producer is Rochelle Chen. Yard underscore underscore sard.

If you want to give Rochelle a follow. Our music is by Ben Prunty. BenPruntyMusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design. DuckBrigade.com. And also is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And also, check out our Patreon show, Get Animated. Matt, what are we watching this week?

We're watching episode seven of Pluto on Netflix and boy, oh boy, things are heating up. Wouldn't you say, Heather? I would say that. Heating up like a pot of water

on the lowest temperature. up like a like a pot of water on the lowest temperature but we have fun talking about it and you can listen along along with our entire pre head gum back catalog of get played episodes that's only at patreon.com slash get played and

uh what happened to us this week I don't know we didn't get played did we we um we got freaking geostigma-ed. Not going to wash off. Oh, God. Covered in geostigma. You guys, that's not geostigma.

The thing that you're covered in, it's not geostigma. God. God. That was a HeadGum Podcast.