Triple Click - Beanscast: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

In the first bonus episode of Triple Click, Maddy, Jason and Kirk get together to “spill the beans” on Final Fantasy VII Remake. What did they think of the game overall? How about that ending? And what the heck might happen next? This episode includes FULL SPOILERS for Final Fantasy VII Remake, and at about the hour mark (with a warning), the hosts will also talk about the events of the original Final Fantasy VII. Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick   🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK: Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch 💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD 🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy 📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpod Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Hello everyone, Kirk Hamilton here with just a quick note about the episode you were about to listen to. This is a Final Fantasy 7 spoiler cast, aka Bean's cast, that we recorded a couple of weeks ago and released into the Maximum Fun bonus content feed. Ordinarily, these types of bonus episodes are just for Maximum Fun members, but for this first one, we decided to put it into the main feed a little bit later so that you could all hear it. If you want to find out more about how to support us making Triple Click and support Maximum Fun as such a great listener-supported network, go to maximum fun.org slash join. All right, on with the beanscast.

I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. And here we are for our first triple-click beans cast, which is our name for a spoiler cast. Yeah. Because, well, should I explain this? I guess I'm going to explain.

Why not? Yeah, tell the story. I'm going to explain where beans cast comes from. So my nine-year-old niece apparently does not say spoilers. She does not use the word spoilers. And I don't know if she's familiar with the term. and instead she says, spill the beans. So instead of spoiling someone on something, you say that you've spilled the beans.

I am quite taken with this, as I believe are the two of you as a way of describing, spilling the secrets of a story or talking about what happens in the end. She also calls people who spill the beans are called spillers. And you don't want to be a spiller in general on our podcast, but we decided that since we're going to be doing these bonus spoiler casts for people about games, you know, each month. mostly for members, though this one eventually will go out to everybody. We decided that we would call them Beans casts because it's a good name. They're full of beans. And they're full of beans. They are very, they're full of beans.

They're delicious. They give you gas. They do. We're going to engage in some beans talk. And I'm very excited to talk about the game that we're going to be talking about, which is, of course, Final Fantasy 7 remake. Of course. We've all beaten it.

Here we go. The beans are about to be spilled. Should we at least say that we're going to spill the beans on remake and then later we'll spill the beans on the original Final Fantasy 7? Yeah, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to go through the whole game, starting from the very beginning and we'll talk through the story. And then at the end, once we hit the ending of the remake, we will also spoil the original Final Fantasy 7, which includes the entire game, not just the parts in Midgar, in which the remake takes place. We're going to spoil all of the original Final Fantasy 7. We will warn you.

So we're going to talk about, from the beginning here, we will talk about things that happen at the end of FF7 remake. Like, there's not going to be a point in the middle of this episode where then we talk about the ending of FF7 remake. Right. So if you haven't played FF7 remake and don't want to be spoiled on it, don't listen to any of this. Like, we're going to immediately get into it. And beans will be spilled. We're going to give our impressions and we're going to talk about the end. Yeah, also play the game.

It's a good game. It's great. Go check it out. But the Final Fantasy 7, the original 1997 game, that will also be spoiled in its entire. but that only in the second half. That will wait until later. The reason this is so complicated will become clear to you once you get to that part of the show. Blame remake for being the way that it is, honestly.

Well, I kind of love it, but it will get to that. It's great. It's great. All right. Without further ado, let's get through the game. So Final Fantasy 7 remake, of course, is a 2020 remake of a 1997 video game. It tells the story of Cloud, a mercenary who says he used to be part of an organization. called Soldier.

The remake is part one of an entire series. We don't know how many parts they're going to be, but this one takes place. And basically it takes the first five hours of the original game and expands them into like this 40-hour extravagance. And the game starts off as Cloud is conscripted to join this group called Avalanche, which is run by a guy named Barrett. Although in the remake, it's actually a huge organization and it has a bunch of cells. Yeah.

There's an HQ. The original game is just. like Barrett's little crew like crew as far as we know as far as we know yeah but in this there's like crew it's that's one of the most mind-boggling things about this game but anyway so cloud joins and the game starts off with cloud kind of reluctantly stoically joining barrett and um jesse and uh wedge and bigs who are the other members the other fun little members of avalanche to blow up a macko reactor which is a shinra shinra is the organization that controls midgar they're kind of like a mix between an evil corporation and an evil government entity because they control

everything, the media, the energy, blah, blah, blah. And they use these reactors to extract this Makco energy from the planet and convert it into electricity. And so Avalanche is going to blow up this reactor. And that's where you start up the game. And you're introduced to Cloud. You're introduced to Barrett, who is this walking stereotype who has a gun for an arm. And it's pretty cool.

Yeah, we can talk about that, I guess. I mean, Barrett is like noted for being one of the prominent black characters in video games and being famous for that, but people have a lot of mixed feelings about him because even in the original iteration, people had mixed feelings about him. And it's kind of sad to me that those mixed feelings are going to continue with this version because Bo Billingsley's voice acting. I mean, he's a great voice actor, you know, famous for Cowboy Viewup, et cetera. But the voice he's chosen to do here is just playing on the exact same stereotypes that the original game played on. It's like one of the examples of something that isn't changed and you just still have this like tough black guy character who seems like a stereotype across the board. Well, it's more than just tough. It's like angry, cursing like very much like.

And threatening other people. Although there are some changes they've made like when you get on the train together as avalanche. Like Barrett is sort of threatening the other people on the train car, but he doesn't hit one of them. Like he does in the original game. Like there's some subtle things that they do in the mix where I'm like, well, okay, they're at least making Bear. at like a little bit less of a hot head. But also when he lectures cloud about Avalanche's goals, I think the problem with Barrett the whole time

or perhaps the strength of Barrett at the same time is that he's right. And like he's correct to be as angry as he is. But it's also he's sort of presented as a buffoon for being as angry as he is. And I'm not sure if that was intended on the part of the game. I don't think he should be presented as a buffoon. I think he should be presented as correct

because Shinra is destroying the planet. And he is giving all these modifications. analogs about how that's happening. But he's right. That's all happening. And it should stop. So one of the things that's sad is that you don't actually get to see the reason for his anger in this game because that comes up later in the story, like the actual justification behind.

But I mean, even just politically, you get to see some of the reason why he's angry. You get to see that Shrinra is drawing power from this life force that's inside the planet. And you understand enough from that plot scaffolding to be like, this is actually really bad. And it's going to destroy the planet. And that's why this terrorist group is acting out against Chinra and obviously debating for the entire game about whether their actions are moral or not. I mean, that's Tifa's arc. I think that this opening sequence is probably Barrett's toughest moment, only because it's kind of everybody's toughest moment. Like, it's a sequence where all of the characters are interacting with one another in a very surface-level way because they don't know each other very well.

It isn't until we get to TIFA, which we haven't quite gotten to, I guess, in this recap. Yeah, but that's sort of where an element of depth is introduced. Because before that, you've just got Cloud, who's this very taciturn mercenary and seems just out of it and not into this at all. And Barrett, who's just totally at 11, very angry, like you said, just going on. And he's like giving speeches to nobody in the elevator and stuff. And you're like, what is the deal with this guy? And because they've stretched everything out compared to the original game, you're in that kind of period of the game a lot longer. And so you kind of just have to be there.

where I do think that over the course of the game, Barrett and Cloud's relationship is really nice the way that they come to like each other, the way that they're like callouts at the end of fights, change, and Cloud's like, you know, we make a pretty good team, and Barrett's like, yeah, we do, don't we? And they're kind of, like, becoming friends when they really didn't like each other.

Like, it's kind of elementary stuff, but it's nice the way that it works. And also, yeah, I do think that Barrett's performance is interesting. The animation and motion capture of him is great, and there are so many, he carries a lot of the emotion of a lot of the scenes, really, on his face and just in his body language and he's so, he also has this little girl

who's totally this emotional manipulation device throughout the game. Yeah, and that's literally, yeah, that's her job. Marlene the emotional McGuffin. Totally, totally. So just moving through, so they blow up the reactor, they wind up splitting ways as they try to escape. Cloud, as cloud, you wind up going through the streets

of Mungar, you run into Arith. For the first time, the flower girl, you see the spirits surrounding her that we can get to a little bit later, Well, let's talk about it now. Let's talk about this. So we're not going to spoil the end of Final Fantasy 7, but we should talk about these same events in Final Fantasy 7 because I think it's important to know that there are significant deviations

from the very beginning from Final Fantasy 7. Because a lot of people don't know that. Like straight up, this is the first Final Fantasy 7 version of it that they're playing. They don't know that these ghosts aren't there in the original game and that they're just a part of remake. Right. And this is the first time in the game. So you come upon Ereth, she is, like, surrounded by these weird phantoms.

And there's this whole sequence that just seems out of a different game. Like, if you've played Final Fantasy 7 at all, you're like, okay, maybe I don't remember this game from 1997, but I don't think this happened, this fight scene and the road with Aeth. And that at least, I think that the many ways that this game changes Final Fantasy 7, which even if you don't know what happens in Final Fantasy 7, I think you know that that is true. And I'm not going to, we're not spoiling the big stuff in Final Fantasy 7. But I think that it's worth saying that this game is almost, even from the beginning, not a remake, right? Like the minute this stuff starts happening, that already is new. And of course, it becomes like a meta layer of newness later on.

But just the minute that starts happening, it stops feeling like you're playing a remake. So that part doesn't matter as much because you kind of see these ghosts surrounding it. you're like, okay, that's weird. Like, what's the deal with that? But it doesn't actually talk about, what's way different and way bigger of a deal is that in the same sequence, you see Sephiroth. And Cloud has this hallucination

where he's walking through the fire and, like, see Sefra rather than Sephiroth threatens him and talks about killing his mom. And, like, that stuff is like totally new. That's way, way, way bigger changes than the Ares stuff, which the significance of the spirits. I'm talking about all of these changes. Like, I'm saying there's significant changes

from the very beginning. But, well, so, so the significant changes, of the spirits. I haven't had a chance to replay the game, but I really want to because the spirits, as we know, when we reach the end of the game, of the remake, the spirits exist to, they're called Whispers of Fate, and they exist to

keep the storyline on track. Essentially, they exist to remake the game. They're like a metaphor for the developers or the fans or whatever, who really want to keep the game on track. They're like the script, like the existing script of the game. And so it's interesting. I

don't remember exactly what they were trying to change when they're surrounding Arith. Maybe Arith was going to do something and they were trying to keep her in place or something like that. I think she's trying to leave and they're ensuring she meets Cloud. It could be that. Yes, it could very well be that. But now, looking back at it, every time they appear, they're like ensuring that things happen the way that they happen in the remake.

So that's another whole layer on top of this, which is pretty wild. So yeah, so there's some extra fights in this scene. A lot of this stuff is new. Cloud eventually gets into the- Can we talk about Sephiroth a little? bit. Sure. Yes. He's in this game so much more. And it's like wild. And so much more than the midgar sequence than the year. Yeah, than the midgar sequence in the original. And that's such a, that's a huge change. But it's also, it just makes the game very feel very different because it's

very early on that you learn that Safferoth is this, well, first of all, that he killed Cloud's mom, which he just says to Cloud in this hallucination scene. And so just right away, you're like, okay, cool. Like, we know that Cloud is this traumatized character. and we get to learn a little bit about why, which is an interesting choice, because in the original, it takes you a really long time to find out what Cloud's full deal is.

But in this game, they just go ahead and tell you at least one major traumatic event that happened to Cloud. And it's also the beginning of what is a potential pattern in this game where Cloud feels like he can't protect a female character. And I talked about this a little bit on previous triple click episodes,

but this is like a pretty defining part of who Cloud is and how he defines himself as a man, as a person. Is like, he needs to be able to be able to be able to protect Tifa. He gets into soldier because he wants to be able to protect people. His failure to protect his mother and his failure to protect his town is how he's defining himself as a person. And like that being introduced so early, I had some mixed feelings about it at first. I was kind of like, it's nice that the original takes so long to tell you all of those things. But it's also rough to have you spend so much time with a character who's kind of a dick and not give you at least one

reason why he's being such a dick. You know what I mean? And you get this lostness from him from the very beginning, this sense of like he's scared behind the sort of, he's this total badass with a huge sword who can do all these cool moves. And Jesse kind of exists as the fandom in these early sequences, how she keeps me like, you're so cool, you're so hot, holy shit, looking at what you just did. And it's fun, just like having a character openly admire you.

She definitely writes fan fiction for Final Fantasy 7. Yes. And so, and yet he is. is behind his eyes, you'll see it. And then, of course, in that first Sephiroth sequence, he's, like, terrified. And he's always getting these kind of pretty, like, pretty much just getting PTSD flashbacks.

Like, he just gets hit and this kind of film grain goes over everything. And you see flashes of what, you know, sometimes are scenes of, like, the, of FF7. And sometimes are just, like, things from the future of this game. And he's kind of seeing things from, like, outside of his realm of existence or just flashback memories. And you get that he's messed up. And so making it a little bit more explicit, like giving even more information on that.

It worked for me anyways. I thought that it made him a much more sympathetic and interesting character from the very beginning. Yeah. Yeah, although there is something to be said about having the shadow of Sephiroth or like the specter of Sephiroth hanging over you as you go through Midgar and not actually knowing. Because in the original game, you don't even find out anything. Seferoth isn't even mentioned until you get to Shinra HQ. And then suddenly, like, the president is dead and there's a trail of blood. and like it's this creepy scene.

And then everyone's like, holy shit. Like, who is this guy? He's so powerful. Oh, my God. Like, what did he do? And it's got a very different emotional effect. So, yeah, let's keep moving through the plot. So you wind up, you swing into the train.

There's like this cool moment. I always enjoyed that moment where like everyone thinks Cloud is dead. And they're like, no, he couldn't be. And then he swings in. He's like, hey, guys. They get to the sector seven slums, which is like the HQ of Avalanche. They work out of this bar named Seventh Heaven. That Tifa runs.

You meet Tifa. Tifa's badass who wears ridiculous clothing. And Cloud's childhood friend. And Cloud's childhood friend. Tifa and Cloud have some nice moments. Their cloud has an apartment. Can I throw out there? This is the first time they do something they really like to do in this game, which is these lingering first person like conversations, where when you first meet Tifa, who I just, I'm going to say, like,

she's not just ridiculously dressed. She's like absurd-looking. Like, she's like one of the most ridiculously good-looking characters in the video game. I mean, everybody in this game is, but it's like, you know, dear Lord. It's absurd. It's absurd. And then the way that they introduce her is this first person camera, and she's looking right into your eyes. And she's like, hello, it's me, the most realistic rendition of Tifa you've ever seen.

And Kirk fell in love then and there. And it's like, it's a character. How can you not? Sure. And it's a character that, you know, like people have been in love with Tifa for decades. And she's an icon. And so they really like to give you these moments of them. They do this with Ayrith as well.

They do it at various points. And it's where you're just having a conversation with, you know, this super high-res, realistic-looking version of a character that used to be all polygons. And it's fun. It's, I enjoy it, like, how they really lean into the... It's very fan-servacy, but not in the creepy way. At least it wasn't for me at all. It was just like, you're a fan of this, and this is for you.

Like, here it is. Look at Tifa, can you even believe it. I would say it also just, it humanizes her. And I would say this is true for Ayrith, too. and that was something that I thought the original couldn't do because it just didn't have the time or the capacity to animate their facial expressions and there weren't voice actors to do the like

gentle mockery of Cloud that both of these women do throughout the game that makes their feelings for Cloud just more bearable to me because like also Cloud seems like more of a person in this game because you get so much more time with him and the sort of love triangle sensation of like oh Tifa's interested in Cloud and also Eretth's interested in Cloud

but they're very different people. And like that works so much better for me in this version because you get to know them. And their friendship is like really, you know, it's later. But that helps it a lot. That's a crucial part of it is that also Tifa and Ayrith become friends. And we get to really see that kind of happen in a very deliberate way. So it's like they enjoy each other and this goofy dude that they're with who they both kind of like. But they all are enjoying one another.

And it does. Yeah, it worked for me. Totally. But there's such a huge difference between Ayrith like saying he he in the original game. which you can like interpret so many ways in which I found deeply irritating, whereas this version of her, she gets to like laugh gently and just seem like a normal person instantly because of that. Yeah, I think a lot of it was in the original Japanese script and it was just lost in translation, unfortunately. But it's also just a lack of time, you know? Like they can just flesh it out more

and also write the characters how they want to write them. And I happen to like how they did it. So Tifa and Cloud go around the slums. This is when you start doing some of the side quest. Tifa brings up this thing that she talks about like how you need to build reputation and cloud and then that's never brought up again so let's forget about it. I don't know. I don't totally agree with that. I think that like the fact that as you do all of those side quests

makes it seem like it's going to be a system or something, but it's not. It's just like go do so fetchback. But it worked for me narratively, I thought. I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be like a reputation system. Thank God there wasn't a friggin rep. This game doesn't need another system. But I do think, I think that it worked only because a lot of

lot of this game is concerned with sort of anchoring cloud. And to me, that was like one of the most interesting things about it at various points in the story that we'll get to is like, what is going to tie cloud to the world? Like, what is going to bring him back? Because he's really far gone at the beginning. And we're given a lot, as we've already talked about, he's given a much clearer idea of that and why that is. And then there's just these, a bunch of steps throughout the course of the game, ask this question of like, is this what's going to, like they're reeling him in slowly back to earth until we can finally start to get down to find out what's really going on with him, what his history is with Sephiroth, what's going, what the deal is with this kid.

What's the deal with? Cloud. That'll be our next episode. That's what the name of this episode really is now. Yeah, I think that it kind of works for me. And then they'll reference that throughout the game. There are a lot of times you'll hear over her dialogue like, oh, that's that Merck, oh, that mercenary, you like did all the stuff. And it just, you know, it's a way of contextualizing a bunch a busy work side quest that aren't that fun. But it did kind of work for me narratively. So, okay, so then you guys, Cloud goes to sleep. The next chapter is entirely invented for the remake, and that is a chapter in which

you take a bike ride to Jesse's house, and then you kind of creep in and steal something. And it's gone home for a second. Yeah, man, it is like the most ornately rendered house of all these props and, like, details that must have spent, must have cost a lot of time and money. You find out Jesse was an aspiring actress and that she gave it all up to become a terrorist with Avalanche, which is cool. It's cool to learn about Jesse. It made me wonder if they intended to do more but ran out of time because it seems strange that they would create that much detail for just like something you see for 30 seconds and then go away. I mean, it seems strange, but it's the whole game, man.

The whole game is like, why is there so much detail in this one sequence? A lot of the game does feel that way. That is true. They put in, yeah, so Jesse, they built her character up a little more, gave her a little more of personality. gave her a dad that was was fucked over by shinra and is put in a coma because of shinra stuff which i don't think is in the original either like i don't think you ever know jesse's motivations but here they've given them to you and they also you don't know jesse isn't even a character in the original she's just kind of a name and a few lines of dialy well she's there right so minor

like i mean jessy and bigs and wedge are all these kind of major characters that i that i really like that i really like them well it's a combination of like good writing and acting and Yeah, good characterization. So then you go on this mission and basically you have to go and fight a bunch of Shinra dudes and like this abandoned reactor thing. And then you fight Roche, who is this kind of pointless anime character that they introduced who loves his bike. Yeah, new guy.

I guess someone at Square was just like, I want a character who gets really horny for his bike. And so they brought in Roche. And Cloud. Come on. This is where they start introducing the homo eroticism. No, just kidding. They introduce it with Sephiroth. Maddie, you played a different game in your head than the rest of this thing.

And it was great, and I would like you to also consider playing it when you replay Final Fantasy 7 remake because it's a more fun version of the game. So, yeah, so then they get back and they parachute off of the top of sector of sector 7, which is amazing, like this incredible parachuting scene. By the way, one of the cool things about this whole chapter is that it's like, really the first look we get at the bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie of Midgar. The middle class, the upper middle class, literally the upper crust of Mingar. And you kind of see that they live this like,

did like suburban existence on top of the slums. I guess we see that. Do we really see that? I wanted more of that. I didn't feel like we got enough. Yeah, it would have been cool to see more for sure. But you see like the streets and you see these suburban streets. So anyway, so then you get back to sector seven slums and then you go off on your next mission with Barrett and Tifa to go blow up the sector five reactor. So this sequence is up until now this game has been very controlled in the way that combat is playing out. And you don't have a three-person party until now. You're playing in various versions of you, and then you in Tifa, or it's you and Barrett at the beginning, and then it's just

you at various points. You is cloud here. You is cloud, yes. Of course. I mean, we're all cloud, aren't we? And I think I was expecting this game at some point to give me a choice of, like, party members, and it never does. You never get to choose your party. And there are times even where you have a party member who isn't controllable by you. Like, they really control how everything works. It's much more control than I thought, which makes me curious about the follow-up and whether that's finally going to get into like choosing your party makeup, which is such a big part of

the original game. Well, so in the original game, you don't actually get to choose your party until afterwards. So you get this device called the PHS, which is referenced in those terminals in the in the Hojo dungeon, but you get that after you leave Midgar. So I think that's why. I think, and later installs. So it isn't until after Midgar in the original as well. I couldn't remember the particulars there.

Yep, yep, that's how it works. That makes sense. Got it. Okay, so yeah, you get to sector five. This is where, like, the padding really starts, and this dungeon takes way longer than it needs to. It's like a whole, you have to go through the train tunnel because your train gets caught and blah, blah, blah, tons and tons of, like, filler stuff. And if you're me, you get lost.

There's something I like in this mission where the sequence where you're underneath the plate, you're kind of going through the undercarriage of the plate on these kind of catwalks. There are a lot of kind of generic looking environments in this game, I will say. It's why it's so easy to get lost because you start being like, wasn't I just here, but it's a whole new area? Yeah. I do like, there's a weird thing that I don't know if this was on purpose or like why they did this, but did you notice that when you're walking around in those catwalks and you look down on Midgar, it's like a kind of cruddy looking stretched out like 2D texture that's just kind of made to look 3D. But to me, it really, but to me it

really reminds me of the original game. Like it looks so much like a PS1 texture. And there are a lot of times actually where that same texture I'll come back up. And each time I was like, I like this. They could have probably made this look super like, you know, done whatever the thing is they do to Skyboxes now. But they were busy making Tifa's face look that good. Right.

They weren't focused on that. I bet you're right. Like I bet all of the computing power is going towards the hair and the faces and all those polygates. Yeah, I really wonder. Her little ponytail. But I like it anyways. If it is a shortcut that they took, it's one that I like.

And if they did it on purpose as a way of just being like, this kind of was just going to have a similar look. I like that too. I think we'll find out for sure when the PC version comes out. So anyway, so you get to the sector five, and you get to the bottom there, and you set the bomb to go off, and then you have to fight through a dungeon,

like the Airbuster dungeon, which is kind of a drag and just takes forever, and it's super repetitive, where you're like slowly sabotaging the airbaster, but it doesn't really matter on your way up to fight him. So I read your tips, Jason. Thank you for those. And so I knew not to do the, what's I called?

The M items. Yeah, those are waste. Yeah, the M items. They're just useless items. Yeah, boyless. So, yeah, so you blow up the airbuster and then all goes the way that it happens in the original, which is that cloud falls off the catwalk. And you think he's going to fall to his death, but nope, he lands smack in the middle

of the church where Arith plants flowers. And Arith is like, oh, sup. And he's like, hey, stop. And then you fight Reno, which didn't happen in the original. In the original game, you just kind of ran away from him. No, he does show up, though. But you and Areth run away. Another very hot character, Reno.

Oh, yeah. Exceptionally good looking young man. Very good duel. Very good duel against Reno. And then you fight your way up through to escape. You fight your way to the rooftops of the sector five slums. And the whispers appear. And they kind of force you to go because it seems like Erith wants to go a different direction and Cloud wants to.

And the whispers are like, nope, you can only go the way that the original game went. So I'll say at this point that it was clear to me what was going on. Like, partly that I knew there was stuff at the ending of this game that was surprising. And also just because the whispers were just such a new thing. And they were so evidently keeping things on a certain path and like interceding when things were about to dramatically change. I was like, okay, I pretty much get what's going on here. So the rest of the game was kind of just this process of being like, okay, how are we going to get there and how far are they going to go? That's a fun way to go.

Which was fun. I want to say I really liked this section. I like when Cloud meets Erith because it's such an important relationship. She's such an important character for all kinds of reasons. She's like a major figure in just like video game character. In the plot of this game. Oh yeah, absolutely. She's like the most important character in the plot.

But also just in like the culture. Like she just is such a major character. And I never really bought her relationship with Cloud. Me either. And this gets back to the thing I was saying before to like how I think this game does a good job of like slowly bringing Cloud in, like reeling him in from this place he's lost out in the fog and they kind of reel him back to shore. And I think that the stuff with. with Aeth is really key to that. So is the stuff with Tifa, obviously, his childhood friend. He has all this history with her when we first meet her. Right. And she knew him before he was

traumatized. So she has a different way of anchoring him. Whereas Aeth is more like meeting this guy and being like, what is this guy's friggin deal? Like, why does he like this? Which is super true. And it goes the other way too. So with Cloud, I get the sense there's so much expectation on him and he doesn't even really know who he is anymore. And he's all messed up. And when he's hanging out with Tifa, he so doesn't want to talk to her. He's like, she's really reaching out to him and she's saying, you know, I remember you, remember this, remember this thing you said, like, are you still the person that you want to be? Will you help me? Like, can you say that you'll help me? And he's like, yeah, but also, Jesus, this is a lot. And like, I'm a failure and I've failed in ways I

don't want to admit to you fully. And like, the more, the more I agree to with Tifa, the more she's going to figure out that I'm a fraud. Right, because she knows me so well. And a thing I really got from these scenes with Ayrith is that for the first time I understood why Cloud would be drawn to Ayrth, and it's because she doesn't know him. And she's just this totally new person. And she's just like, hey, man, who are you? What's your deal? And a lot of their early interactions are her just kind of saying, oh, yeah, you're so quiet. You're such a strong guy. Whatever. You're my bodyguard now. We're going to roll together. And she's so easygoing, and she knows everybody. And she's this really just like kind of easy to hang out with person that she shows him kind of for the

first time what it would be like to just... To be normal? Yeah, be normal to just not have to have... But also, she has her own traumas, which are hinted at as well, where like she's clearly got a lot of shit going on that she doesn't want to tell Cloud, but that's kind of okay with Cloud because he's like, same. So they both get to just have a weird, horrible secret and like sort of allude to it in each other's case and like have that be something that draws them together even as they both don't want to reveal to one another what their full deal is. And I think that helps their relationship a lot. Well, Cloud doesn't know his full deal. Well, that's true. But he still doesn't want to talk about Sepharoth and like talk about his traumas with anybody, you know.

The broader point stands, it's that both of these characters are new to one another. And he is, for the first time in a long time. She doesn't have any expectations for him. He's not working for her. Like, not really. It's kind of body art thing. It's kind of a joke. Like they're not, she didn't hire him for like Barrett did. She's not an old childhood friend like Tifa was. And I like that a lot. I thought that dynamic really worked for me. Oh, yeah. Well, so the other key part of this is that there's a certain point,

I don't remember exactly when it happens, but Arith mentions that her boyfriend, and she used to date her first boyfriend was in Soldier. Was in Soldier. Cloud asks who he was. And when she says it, there's this great moment where it's just like the zap of a flashback and you don't hear the name because the name triggers something in Cloud. and the name that she mouths is Zach, and we'll get to that a little bit later.

But yeah, so after this stuff in the church, you go out on the rooftops of the earth, and this is probably my favorite sequence in the game, both because of the visuals and the way that it looks as you're climbing these rooftops and seeing the depth and breadth of Midgar, but also the banter between the two of them is just incredible stuff for many of the reasons that you brought up, Kirk.

So, yeah, so they get to, Arith's house and they meet Arith's mom, which you find out later is more of a foster mom. Surrogate mom. Al-Maira. Man, this sequence wrecked me. I guess for reasons that we'll have to talk about after we talk about spoilers, but I actually really loved this. I loved how it looked.

I loved the music during this sequence. It's a version of Aarith's theme. It's so beautiful. Which sequence are you talking about the rooftop? No, when you're at her house, when you've gone to her house and you're meeting her mom. And just all of that. Like when you first see it for the first time, it's this beautiful green space.

in Mnagar and everything has been so brown and trashy. And the music that's playing is so gorgeous. And then there's all these flowers and it's just beautiful. Yeah. And just get a feeling that she lived here and this is her space. And I thought this whole sequence was really, really nice. Yeah, there's a lot more because they turned Sector 5 slums into like this living fleshed out town and added like an orphanage. And so you see a lot more like, like, Aris people know Arras.

And as you're walking by, they're like, oh, Arith is back. Arith is back. And like, she has a relationship with the orphanage owners. and it's very clear that she goes around and helps people all the time. So it's cool stuff to see. So, yeah, so Elmira, her surrogate mom, or foster mom says, hey, do whatever you're doing, get the fuck out of here and leave my daughter out of this. That's basically what she said.

Sneak off in the middle of the night. And, of course, if anyone who's played the original. Which is just as annoying here as it was in the original. No, it's actually easier here than it was in the original, I would say. Yeah, I think it kind of is. No, the best thing is this sequence, this is a stealth sequence. and if you fail it, you just have to start over. And it's amazing.

I have a video that I almost posted this video of this where... Run into objects and stuff in this one, and it's hilarious. Yeah, no, I know. And it starts you out. It's like in the hallway, you're like not really prepared for this. You've just done a bunch of story-heavy stuff with almost no gameplay. And then one of those little tutorials pops up and it's like, okay, so in this sequence you're going to have to sneak out.

And so be careful. And then you can't even see in front of you. And there's like a fucking bucket, like right in front of close. kick over pretty much guaranteed. So you press forward and you definitely kick it over. And then Ayrth comes out of room like, what's going on? And then it just, you have to wait forever while it restarts. I thought that it cracked me up.

I was like, what the fuck? Like, it's like, what's, you could have at least given me a chance. It's a great. One of the hallmarks of Final Fantasy. What's the deal with Final Fantasy is like these hand scripted moments that are just like created as these one-off things. It does feel like they're fucking with you when they make that happen. So, yeah, so and then you sneak out.

And of course, you run into Arith. And Arith is like, hey, I'll hope you get home. sneaking out, yeah, which is a great character moment for her even in the original. Where she just shows up and she's like, you really thought that was going to work. I'm coming with you, you dumbass. It's great. And then you get to the Section 7 Slums before you decide to go in. You run into Tifa, who is on a carriage going into the wall market and you run up.

Which is like an absurd coincidence, by the way, that you run into her. It's so Star Warsy. It is. This is a very strange change because in the original, you just kind of see her go by and you two talk to each other and you're like, oh my God, she was kidnapped or something. And it's not a later that you found out she like intentionally let herself get into that situation. But in this one, you actually run up to her in the carriage, which is weird because how did the person driving the carriage not like turn around and see this? Yeah, like, how did you

even get up there in time? And like, how is the guy driving the carriage not hearing Tifa be like, okay, so I'm here undercover. Right. Very strange. Very strange. But yeah, Tiva explains that she's going after Don Corneo and she runs off. And then you guys get to Walmart. which is the hedonistic playground of Midgar. So Wall Market is the thing that has probably changed most from the original game to now. Everything in Wall Market is very, very different, including the cat is the same. There's that cat in front of the one. And that's what's important.

The doll, the cat, like statue that you're talking about is the same. There's new characters like Chocobo Sam and Mrs. M and whatever. Love Chocobo Sam. Great voice. Chacobo Sam. So one of the things that's the most notably different is, is that in the original you get there, you go to Dunconeo's mansion,

and it is, the bodyguards at the front of the mansion tell you you won't be able to get in if you're not a woman. And so Arif and Cloud go to a dress shop, and you're getting a dress for Arith, similar to the remake. But right away, it's the plot line comes up that Cloud should get a dress for himself and dress up as a woman in order to get in. Yeah, Arith suggested as soon as they talk to the bodyguards,

by the way. Like she immediately turns away and she's like, cool, cool. There's only one way to get past this cloud. You're going to need to wear a dress. And there's like one sentence of cloud being like, what? And then he's just like, you're right. That's the only way. And it's like.

And there's a lot of strangeness. There's a lot of implication that like other people are cross-dressing too, including the guys of the gym. And you go on this whole like side quest line where you can go get accessories for your dress. You can go get some makeup and whatever. Yeah. It's very transphobic. homophobic in the original iteration as well. It's pretty gross. It is. Yeah. So all of that stuff was

kind of morphed and turned into a side quest that you do with Johnny, where you run around town and like kind of follow the same motions as the side quest chain in the original, except you're not actually getting stuff for your dress or whatever. And the dress stuff is changed entirely. So basically what happens is you go and you do side quest for either Chocobos Sam or Mrs. M in order to get yourself a new dress. And this is where the story kind of branches, because you can, based on your decisions, you can wind up with one or the other of the two characters being your kind of sidequist giver. But yeah, you go do a bunch of side quests. You do a whole bunch of crazy things. Then you go fight in a Coliseum for a while and fight Hellhouse, who was,

one of my favorite moments in the game was knowing that Hellhouse is like a random encounter in the original and seeing what they would do with like this ridiculous house looking thing. And hearing them in the Coliseum being like, and now, Hell House, I like cracked up sitting in my Oh, man. It was so good. It's so good. This game, I mean, the original game totally toes this weird line between being this steampunk corporate, you know, world where you're fighting against soldiers.

Political commentary, yeah. Yeah. To then suddenly you're fighting against, like, weird-looking, like, propeller things. And then, right, you're fighting a house that speltches lava at you. And the game doesn't care because it's like a PS1 game and it just all kind of holds together because it doesn't hold together. Like, it just works. Yeah, exactly.

it's it still works like there there are even times where it's way later where you're going through like Shinra and you see they're like here are our research specimens that you've been fighting and you see like alongside the robots are those weird propeller like do a alien looking things and like these other aliens that are

monsters that are you know enemies from the original game that have been up res for this game but they're somehow explained away but Hellhouse I love that sequence they're just like and now like our reigning champion a fucking huge house it's never explained why that exists or how it exists or anything.

Because it's the reigning champion. Don't worry about it. It's a house, man. It's from hell. And it's a great fight. It's like this fight where you have to use spells like to fight its weaknesses. And you've got to really get to know

Aerith's healing spells in that one if you're me anyway. Yeah, it was a tough fight. I think I lost that at least one. So at the end of all these side quests, you wind up going to the Honeybee in after all. And this is where people who have played the original are probably like, uh-oh, what's going to happen here? How are they going to do this?

And it turns out to be this like totally wholesome, like dance sequence where you are turned by this guy who runs the honeybee in who just like turns you into a woman yeah and he turns you into a woman and he's just like there like he makes this comment about gender fluid gender being fluid and it's just totally like trans positive in a way that I have never seen in a in a Japanese video there's that but also even before that cloud has to do the dance sequence when he's just in like normal cloud attire and even that is like the key cutest thing I've ever seen and maybe the cutest thing in the entire game is just like cloud dancing sexily is so adorable because I think because just as a character he's so buttoned up and he's so

traumatized and so not in touch with his feelings or sense of self at all and that's obviously just like a core problem that he's having like he does not know who he is cloud does not know what person he is and that's who he is so like this scene really hit me differently this time around because I was like the idea of cloud exploring a different identity, like even in just sort of this playful way for the sake of a mission and being like, who am I? Like, what is manhood? What is like my sense of self currently? It just feels super different in the larger context of his story and is like way cooler, honestly than it is in the original where it's just like a gag line where it's like, well, Cloud is going to wear a dress for this part of the game because like, I don't know. But in this version, like you get to see Cloud like work through all those things actually dance and like, express more emotions than we've really seen him express through dancing, which is like, why would that happen? But then also to have this like queer positive narrative where Cloud is like getting in touch with himself is just like a cool layer to have her character who's dealing with some serious shit, you know? Yeah, I mean, this is my favorite part of the entire game. Like I loved this sequence.

The dancing sequence specifically, like when he goes on stage and dances, there's really some interesting stuff. The part where you walk through Wall Market dressed looking beautiful in this like amazing dress looking great and all these people are remarking on how gorgeous you are and oh look at her and it's it's really like putting you in this experience and in cloud's shoes if you go up to what's name chadley the shinra intern or whatever when you're wearing the dress he like has some line where he's like i don't even know how to express what i'm feeling in this moment it's like adorable like everybody has like these certain lines they say to you if you're like wearing cloud in a beautiful dress it's great so i like that but i love this dance minigame i mean they

kills me for the reasons you say, Maddie, that you're watching Cloud do dance moves really well, like amazingly put together. Yeah, which why would he be good at it? But sure? But also, he's not leading, like Andrea Rodeo is leading. And so he's kind of, he seems a little bit like taken aback at times by like what's even happening, but it's so good. The music kills, like, during this entire sequence.

It keeps going. It's like really involved. There's like four different songs. There's so many things that I like about it. One of the men, I could go on and on. out about this section, but like the gameplay is a little bit like the way that sometimes it obscures the prompt you're supposed to hit. But then the better you're doing, it keeps cutting out to Ayrith in the audience. And she's just loving it. And she keeps being like, oh my God, you're killing it.

Or if you mess up, she kind of laughs nervously. Like if you're not doing that well, like it changes based on how you're doing. And just the visuals of it, the choreography, this moment, I was like laughing my ass off. And it's the thing that I love so much about this game is these, sequences where they didn't just add something extra or like reimagined something from the original. They went so overboard. Like someone had a grand vision for this. Someone was like, this sequence is going to be the most flat out thing I can put together. And we're going to make this whole thing like blow up in people's faces for like 10 minutes.

And they're not even going to believe how awesome it is. And the whole time, I was just sitting there being like this rules. Like the music was just going and I was like dancing and playing. Okay. So yeah, let's get through a couple more things. So you go, you wind up going to... The game is peak, though. That's all downhill from here. That was the best.

Terrible after this. No, it's not. You get to Don Cana. Don Canoero tells you, Arith and Tifa, his evil plan or Shina's evil plan, which is to blow up sector 7 and knocked down the plate. So it crushes everybody and then blame Avalanche. Then comes the worst part of the game, which is just patting on, patting on patting. You get to, you fall into the sewers, you fight a boss, the sewer stick forever. Then you get up to the train graveyard.

There's nothing to even say about it these quests. It just all takes forever. And it's, in the original game, it's over in like two minutes. A second? You know, the one thing that this has going for it is this is where they established Tifa and Aeth's friendship. It's like during the sequence, there are these side cut scenes where they'll talk, they'll help each other out. And that is nice. They could have done it somewhere else.

They didn't need to make us go through the sewers and the, but that is. That's a good point. And they still keep little things in there, like when they all fall at one point in the sewers, not at the very beginning, like in the original, but at a totally different moment, Claude still has to pick which of them he's going to wake up first. And, you know, that's going to add relationship points. He goes, this is a dating sim. Who did you both pick?

I went with Eryth because I'm just playing. I'm playing it super traditional. But also, I don't even know if it matters. It does matter. I think it does. It does matter. No, there is. There is.

There's a thing. Yeah, there's a couple little branches. We'll get to it in a little bit. Jason, who, wait, Jason, who did you wake up? Who did you wake up? I don't remember. I think Eres. What were you picking?

Who were you trying to pick? You don't remember. I don't believe. I wasn't trying to pick either of them because I didn't think it mattered. Well, Kirk, who did you pick? Tifa, obviously. Tifa all the way. I think I remember with Ayrth. But anyway, so...

I just want to be Tifa. I don't need to date. Fair enough. Fair enough. So you finally get to the pillar where the Turks are going to blow up the pillar itself and have the plate come crashing down. Then there's this cool thing that was totally invented for this, where you actually switch to Arette's perspective and you play as her rescuing Marlene from 7th Heaven,

which is really, really good. A lot of good stuff in there. and you get to meet Seng, who is the leader of the Turks, cool character. So you guys fight your way up the pillar. RIP, Jesse and Biggs. I guess Wedge survives. I think not to skate over it too much. I think this whole sequence is extremely well.

It's incredible. It is, but there's something lost in that you haven't actually seen Jesse and Biggs in hours and hours. And I think that kind of takes away a little bit of the emotional impact from losing them because it's kind of like, oh yeah, those characters were fleshed out a little bit, but wait, I haven't seen them in so long. I mean, I didn't feel that way. I still cried when the plate fell and I was like, this is so much more moving. And then playing the original version, it goes by so

freaking quickly that it almost doesn't feel like as big of a moment as it should feel. And in this version, it's like, they drag it out and there were some moments where I was like, this is almost borderline, like, emotionally manipulative in terms of like how much they're bringing the pain with the plate falling and the extent to which it can't be stopped. But, you know, I cried anyway. I loved it. And I was like, this is, like, really showing you how horrific this is and how many people are going to die and, like, all the destruction that's happening.

And also, it's all going to be blamed on Avalanche, but it, like, lets you really hate Chinra. And the original, it just goes by so much faster that it just doesn't really feel the same. Yeah, I was talking about specifically Jesse and Biggs. Those characters' deaths, yeah. I mean, I still was really sad about it. Yeah, it's sad, but it does lack, I think, an impact, especially for people who, who, who haven't played the original. But anyway, so yeah, so you get to the top and it's all really

well done. You fight Reno Rood. They blow up the tower. They're kind of like these reluctant villains who are like, do we really have to do this? But you know what? I'm going to do it anyway, because it's my job. And it's interesting. It's an interesting approach. And if we don't do it, somebody else will. Yeah. Yeah. Unconvinced Turks, by the way. Not a convincing rationale for the atrocities that you're committing. Bad guys. for committing genocide on a bunch of poor people. So Tifa, Cloud, and Barrett make it out before the plate falls, but the plate does fall. And Arith is kidnapped by Shinra and presumably taken to Shinner HQ.

So then lots of sad stuff happens. There's some diversions. Eventually you wind up getting back to Arith's house to go find Marlene because Arith is supposedly taken Marlene there and it turns out Marlene is there. And then you find out Areth's back story. You find out she's the last setra, the last ancient. And then so Maddie, I don't know if you know this, but so when you're asleep at Areth's house, you have this dream sequence. And then you will either see Arith, Tifa or I forget if there's someone else, maybe Jesse.

So the dream sequence is based on the choices you make. So that's what I was talking about earlier. I got Arith also. Yeah, I had no idea. I got Arith also. And she was like, don't fall in love with me. And I was like, okay, I'll try. So yeah, so lots of backstory.

And then there's some other stuff that happens, a whole unnecessary diversion where you have to like go back into the sewers and fight the abzu boss again and like run into Don Corneo again for Leslie. And it tries to like make you care about this random ass dude Leslie and his like backstory. And it's just like, what is this? There are people out there who like him and I am not one of them. I was like this doesn't need to be in the game. It reminded me so much of Final Fantasy 15, which I guess I won't be specific.

But there's like a time where this character dies in Final Fantasy. There's this time in that game where this guy dies and everyone acts like it matters. And it's like, that guy, I can't believe he died. Oh, we're so sad. And that's our motivation to go take it to the bad guy. And I was like, who? And this felt, this felt that way to me. I was like, who the, is this guy?

Like, what, why am I doing this? I was just, like, annoyed at him. And then he, like, takes out the necklace and he's like, it's because my girlfriend left and she's dead. And I was like, dude, what? What is your deal, man? I don't, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But anyway, so then, then you finally. And then you can do a bunch more side quests if you want. Some of them are, I did all of them. Okay, yeah, I did all of them too. You have to, like, unlock Chocobo routes and, like, there's a whole bunch of shit. Find some treasure. I did them all, too. I don't know if any of them are really worth it.

They don't. But anyway, so then finally, finally, finally, Cloud and Barrett and Tifa get to go climb up the tower and go to Shinra HQ. And then there's super long sequence where you're climbing up the tower, a lot of battles, a lot of vistas, a lot of really cool, like, just, perspective shots, amazing-looking scenes of where you see all of Mngar, which is pretty cool. But again, it transforms what was like two seconds in the original game to like a two-hour extraficance.

So you climb the tower, you climb the tower, you see all these beautiful sights and sounds and Araf and Tifa and, sorry, Tifa and Barrett and Cloud have a lot of fun little bonding moments on the way and they're all kind of nervous because it's like, what are we going to find when you get there? And then you get up there and almost immediately things are different. than the original, where the original, you kind of bust into Schener HQ right away. Here, you start off in a parking garage, and eventually you fight your way back up. And then you can decide, just like you can on the original, whether to climb the 59 flights of stairs or take the elevator.

Yep. I chose to take the elevator. Did you guys, did either of you guys do the stairs? I took the stairs. Oh, wow. I took the elevator. What? The stairs is so great.

You guys don't even know. So, like, it, okay, at first you can run up the stairs. Like, you can use the run button. Like as time goes on, it stops letting you do that and you have to just walk. And like, there's still all of the dialogue where everybody's, yes, you run out of breath. And like, no matter what you do, you have to just walk. And there are points where the game just, like, forces you to stop. And you're like, I can't go anymore.

And, like, everyone's fighting just like they are in the original game. They're all making, like, little side comments at each other. And they, like, keep some of the same lines where Barrett is, like, talking to the stairs and Tifa makes fun of him for it. And I don't know. It's great. In the original game, I think she calls him. a retard? Is that? That's not in the... That is not in there anymore. They have taken that out.

Yay! It's not 1997 anymore. Here's a fun little observation that probably only I noticed or only like a dozen hardcore fans noticed. In the original game, the elevator floors, so you go in the elevator and it randomly stops at floors and then you fight battles. They're all random numbers. It'll be like 13, 23, 27, 34, whatever. In the remake, it's all just multiples of 10. So it's like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. It's strange. It's different.

And in the remake also, they added some fun stuff. Like, you have this fun encounter where, like, this random dude is on the phone and walks in. And then it's just, like, talking on the phone. Doesn't even notice the three of you and then walks out. So the elevator is actually pretty fun in this one, too. But anyway, so, yeah, then you get to Shinar HQ. And there's a lot of cool, very different stuff in this, like, a virtual museum of, like, Shinra history and, like, a virtual tour of, like, the promised land that they want to

create. It's a lot of cool stuff in there. I liked everything about Shinra HQ. Even Tifa walking around on the ceiling and like trying to get that key card. You like that? No, yeah. Well, I liked that sequence as part of everything for the, because it wasn't a combat sequence. Like, I just liked that it was this dumb, like, it was dumb, right? It's just a puzzle sequence that is completely linear and requires no thought. And it's kind of the, well, it's not the only time you control Tifa, I guess. But I was like, really, is this going to be the only time we control Tifa is to just like jump on a thing and then like land in the thing? And then, like, and like whatever because she's the lightest of the three of them.

Like climb a bunch of ladders. That was so stupid. But what I liked about that is more just like a broader thing with this whole section is that there's so much different stuff going on here. And it's all very fun. Like it's all pretty silly. Each individual thing is just as silly as T for climbing around on the ceiling. But it isn't just more go to a place and then there's some enemies and then you fight them

and then you fight some variety. Yeah. Yeah, it adds a lot of variety. And it's just all new stuff. Like it feels so fresh. Like you're getting toward the end of the game. which feels exciting. And it's like, here's Shinra.

Here's what's new. Like you're learning all this stuff about Shinra. Like you said, the interactive museum stuff is just amazing. Oh, yeah. When you go into that. And then the biggest momentum killer comes when you've run into the, you fall into the drum,

the dungeon that takes forever. Yeah, but before that, when you do the like 3D, like flashback to what the planet used to look like and they're in this sort of virtual world. Super cool. That all of all three of you have to enter into. He's amazing.

Like that's maybe the most amazing looking thing. in the whole game. It looks like a movie. I mean, like, whatever team did that spent a lot of money in time on it. They're just these parts of that sequence that are really incredible.

And just getting to see Midgar really blown out and like from an aerial view. It just really gives you a good sense of everything, which I guess this whole remake kind of does in a way that the original game didn't that I really liked. It made me, I'm going to go replay the original probably like after we've been recording this.

Oh yeah, I've got it. I have it up on like the e-shop for Switch. That's what I got it on. And I just, I'll have all this in my head as I do that. It gives me such a better mental image of all this, which is such a great service. I just got to the golden saucer in my playthrough of the original. Anyway, so, yeah, so eventually you get to Areth and Hojo and you see Genova, and Genova is like a lot bigger in this. There's a lot of new stuff in this that is different from the original.

Oh, yeah. Way more flashbacks from Cloud. You fight a boss fight after a meeting Red 13, just like you do in the original. original same boss, but then you wind up in Hojo's lab and you fight through this entire massive dungeon that is like, involves switching parties. It's basically the final dungeon of the game. It's a maze. It includes the toughest fight in the game, which is Tifa and Aeth fighting five bloodhounds, which is by far the most difficult encounter that you have in the game. It's funny. I just beat that fight. I, like, I had trouble with plenty of fights in this game,

but I kept thinking back, I was like, what was the one that Jason said in the system was going to be really hard? And I never, I never got to it. I kept just being like, they patched the game. I didn't think it's possible. It's definitely possible because a lot of people complain about. But I also had built it up so much in my head because people kept talking about how hard it was going to be. And so I was like armed to the teeth for that fight. This sequence, so this whole sequence is kind of a momentum killer, as you said. Though again, it's another dungeon that does let us get to know Red 13. Right. Which is nice. It's also the final dungeon. Like they felt like they needed to have a final dungeon. Yeah. It's such a video game thing of like you're

in a test facility as a bad guy overlooks you and is like, and now fight this slightly harder boss. All part of my plan. I'm like, fuck off. But I will say, so the final boss of this game, that kind of sword like thing that goes around, that like it's like a fish bird. Wait, oh, it's called a sortipede.

We cannot neglect the incredible name that this thing has. So that's another example of a regular enemy in the original getting turned into a boss fight. There are a bunch of those in this. So yeah, so once you get through all of that, you actually have to fight Genova. and that is another strange thing because you don't actually fight Genova until much later,

well, not much later, but a little bit later in the original. So you fight Genova, it's this fun, fun fight involving positioning and tentacles, but, again, are totally not in the original game. Then there's a whole sequence where, like, President Chinra is, like, hanging off a rooftop and you rescue him. And then, in the original game, by the way, you do. Barrett does. Barrett decides to rescue him.

And then, like, there's some tension, and he's thinking about shooting him. and then Sephora comes out and stabs him and then stabs Barrett and then the whispers revived Barrett because Barrett can't die. At a certain point we're going to have to just talk about the original game. Maybe this is the cutoff point. I think maybe we're there. I think maybe we're there. What do you think?

So in the original game, well, in the original game, Shunros section, at least, what happens is your party is kidnapped and you end up in jail and then you wake up and the doors are open and there's a trail of blood and it's this big mystery and you go up the stairs and you find President Shinnis. Shinrod just dead at his death. It has been stabbed. So you don't know what happened until you see the sword and Cloud is like Sephiroth.

There's only one person who could use that sword. Yeah, exactly. And that's basically, so given that that's kind of where the FF7, the original ends off, I think can we say at this point that this is like the moment where we are now? This is the cutoff point. Sure, we can smile the original. This is the cutoff point.

Like we're an hour in. We're going to spoil stuff about Final Fantasy 7 now. The original. Like even just to say like Barrett doesn't die in Final Fantasy 7. He doesn't die. I mean, that is, I guess, a spoiler. Right. But he doesn't die here either.

But let's say, so from here on out, Final Fantasy 7 spoilers, everything goes. So the whispers decided that he's not supposed to die, or they know he's not supposed to die. So they revive him. It's all very strange, and you're like, what is going on? And then, yeah. So, and then you go through the same as the original where, like, the party gets split up. Cloud fights Rufus on our rooftop, which also happens in the original. You also fight his dog.

In the remake, I actually really love that fight. It's like a really cool, just tricky, give him. Mickey fight that I really enjoyed. Then downstairs, there's the tank fight with Arith Barrett and Tifa, and that was kind of like a bullet spongy, less fun fight. But that also happens in the original, so I guess they felt the need to just like do this boss gauntlet, just like in the original game. And then you all wind up escaping.

Most of the party winds up on a truck and Cloud comes out on his motorcycle and is super badass. Extremely good. And then you have to do this whole. motorcycle sequence that took me forever. I lost it like four times. It's such a pain in the ass. Yeah, I found it weirdly hard too.

I think because you can't heal cloud during those moments. Like you have to wait until the predetermined moments when he gets to be healed. And you have to just conserve your energy and tell them. It's very easy to get hit by the bosses like flames and shit. Yeah. Let me tell you how I played it.

I think it was one of the bosses there, I kicked it down to easy because I was just over it and I wanted to see the ending. Yeah. And you were like, I'm almost at the end of the game. That's allowed. Yeah. And I was like,

keeps going. So I kicked it down to Easy and then there's no point at which you can kick it back for a while. So I actually did that whole vehicle segment on Easy. And it was great because it was fine. I was like whatever. They made it, don't they make it skipable? Like if you replay that section. They're like, and you can skip that shitty part on your motorcycle. And hard mode. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. So like, yeah. Because they acknowledge that it's not good. So I was actually like, oh, this is fine. I later saw people complaining about it and didn't even know it was a problem. It's one of those things where it's like even if they know it's not good, they feel like they have to have it in there because it's in the original.

That's one of those things. People will be mad if you didn't have the bike chopping sequence. And in the original it was like gimmicky, but kind of like, oh, cool new stuff that they're doing. But anyway, so then you get to the end of the highway and people who have played the original probably thought at this point,

okay, how are they going to end this game in a satisfying fashion when in the original? Don't you think that people who play the original are already thinking I know exactly what's going to happen or at least I was? No. So I guess you weren't. I want to know.

That's what you were thinking? My experience was playing the game before anyone else had played it. So I had no idea. Like, I didn't have the experience of reading, like, people's hints and teases and seeing people talk about it. Or knowing it would surprise you. So I thought... What did you think about the whispers or, like, what was happening there?

Yeah, yeah. Well, so Arith does explain at some point, like, the whispers keep things on track. Right, and Red 13 does too. Or Red 13 says that, yeah. Someone says that, like, in an enigmatic way. But I had no idea that it was going to go the way it did. So I thought it was going to be like a Seperoth fight, and then you would go off to read to into the world and it would be like now to chase sephirath i did not expect what was about

to happen so what happens is you get to the end of the highway there's some really cool just like cinematography where you see the party staring at like this big gray portal that sephirath has created and man here is where some things get left open to interpretation because no mora this is very no mora sequence this is where the game goes but i don't think he wrote it like people keep saying that but i don't think this guy came up with this stuff like it feels So you get in. I don't know who did. So Saffaroth invites you or talks about like how he.

He says come find me. Yeah, he says come find me. Like he opens up this portal and you get there and it's like the whispers of time have manifested as these giant like arbiterers of fate or whatever. And they're like big mystery like ghost alien characters. And you have to go around and fight them. So did you assess one of those in the fight and notice what it says? It's like protecting time with your gun or something like that. Well, no.

It says this is a person from. a future timeline who is protecting it? A person from a future timeline? Interesting. It implies that they're... I don't think I assessed one that said that. Oh, well, when I implied them, that's what they say. And it's my, the implication to me was these are actually characters from the original

game manifesting as these sort of godlike beings who are being powered by destiny. Like one of them fights kind of like cloud. Like the red one has a sword and it fights kind of like cloud. And then one of them is, so I haven't done a ton of like looking into this, but that's my sense is that that's what they are. But yeah, the description was like, this is a person from a future timeline that is trying to protect it happening. I thought it said it was an entity from a future timeline. So I just interpreted it as like an actual ghost because part of the context here is that suddenly your party starts seeing all these things that. So the whole game you've been seeing

Cloud's flashbacks and a lot of them are like Nibbleheim and stuff that actually happened in his past. Now suddenly you start seeing things that are supposed to happen in the future. Like you see Aris dying. There were some before, right? I saw Arith like her praying. thing before she gets killed. Yeah, when was that flashback? Was that earlier in the game? At some point in the game, I definitely, I remember seeing it and thinking. I think it's like 75% of the way through it.

It's not like super early on. But anybody who's played the original game sees that motion and is like, that's when Arith is about to die. But I don't think anybody else would think that. Like somebody who's playing remake for the first time wouldn't see that flashback and be like, oh, that's Arith dying. Would they? Because I don't think they show it.

Right, which is one of the reasons you need to have played the original to understand what's going on. I just don't agree with that take, but keep going on. Yeah, so then you get to this part, and then you start seeing these flashes, and you see this flashback of Red 13 and his cubs running through a desert-e area, and someone says, like, this is a vision of, like, the bat, what would happen if things go wrong or something like that. And what's crazy is if you haven't played the original,

you probably have no idea what they're talking about it. But if you have, you know that that exact shot is the very end of Final Fantasy 7's epilogue, and it's set like 500 years in the future, and the implication is that the meteor, has come to earth and destroyed all of humanity because that's the end of Final Venetcy 7 is left a little bit open to interpretation. There's a lot to unravel there because Advent children kind of like makes that not canon. So who knows what is actually canon with the ending of Final Fantasy 7? But that's the implication from the epilogue is that humanity is

extinct by the planet and meteor. I think you could read this and it's all canon. I don't remember Advent children that well, but it's basically like Sephiroth has copies of himself, right? And He's trying to change what happened? No, well, so the implication would be that at the end of the original Final Vennessee's seven, Sephora's plan to destroy the Earth when the meteor actually works, and that's why humanity is gone. But Advent Children is set two years after the original, so everyone's still around. Humanity's still around.

So that's the big question. So you see these flashes, and someone's like, that is a vision of, like, a bad future. And then you wind up fighting the whispers of fate. You destroy them. And then you change the future, apparently. And so then a few interesting things happen. Suddenly you meet this guy with black hair and a giant sword. And if you haven't played the original, you're probably like, who the fuck is that?

But if you have Blade the Originals, you're like or seen some of the Final Fantasy VII canon. You're racking your brain and you're thinking, is that guy in the originals? And then you're Googling it and you're saying, oh, right, right. It's Zach. He is in the originals, but only in like an optional scene that you can see if you go to Gonzaga, which is like this optional city. But anyway, so you, this is Zach. and Zach is Cloud's original buddy. Oh no, he's also in the original flashbacks. What am I talking about?

Because Cloud winds up pretending to be him in his super fucked up traumatic backstory and the flashbacks you see of him. It's like why he wears that sleeveless turtleneck the whole time. And the sword and he wears Zach's sword. But anyway, so you wind up seeing this kind of scene of Zach. And if you played Crisis Corps or know the story, you know that this is where Zach dies.

He is killed by a bunch of Shinra Armymen and saves Cloud basically. and then Cloud stumbles to Midgar takes his sword in his honor. But then after the timeline, after you fight the Whispers of Fate and defeat them, suddenly we see Zach again and Zach survived. And he's walking to Midgar with Cloud and they're both very much alive. And then we see this shot of Stamp, who is this dog that you see throughout the game, but it's a different breed of dog, which kind of implies that it's an alternate timeline that you're seeing.

And then you see Arith and everyone in the original, I guess time, line or whatever, like right after defeating the Whispers of Fate, they walk off into Midgar, and Arith is like looking up and she seems disturbed and she's like, hmm, something's wrong here. I miss the steel sky of Midgar. And then you see this ridiculous Chiron that is like the unknown journey will continue and the whole implication of this. And we will see what actually happens. But the implication is that from here on out it is not a remake anymore and they've changed the timeline and they can do anything they want with the story. So here's my question. I think that this is not actually

a remake of Final Fantasy 7, or at least that there's an interpretation of this game, that it is not a remake, that it is in fact called Final Fantasy 7 remake as a subtitle, in that the next one could be called Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth. What Dreams May Come, you know what I mean? Like, rebirth, sure. Because it is concerned with remaking the events of the opening part of Final Fantasy 7, but it's actually a sequel, because it's possible that Sephiroth is the same Sephiroth from Advent children and from

FF7 and he is traveling through time and using his new ability to go into whatever the dimensional like the dark tower the crux of all dimensions in order to like undo what happened at the end of FF7 and give himself whatever it is

whatever ending it is that he actually wants so this is actually like in that meta timeline taking place after that and at this point we've now reached the point where now everybody is now way past anything that happened in the original timeline because we've like surpassed it,

which is kind of fascinating because there was so much discussion of whether this should be called Final Fantasy remake chapter one, but now that we've finished it, it could just be that that's just an actual conscious fake out. And this is actually just a sequel.

There is some quote, is it Nomura who was like this is a game that fans have been waiting whatever 23 years to play? And it's, that quote kind of implies that this is a sequel to Final Fantasy 7 that people have been waiting for that long. Yeah, I mean, the question is, is it really a sequel or is it, are we going to see in the next thing?

Like, we have no idea what might have it. Like, it might be just like, the original events just like slightly altered. It might be major alterations. But I mean, with what Saffiroth is doing, that would be really surprising. I mean, sure, anything is possible. Also, like, the whole story doesn't even work anymore of Zach is alive. Like, Cloud's entire identity and, like, full deal. That seems like an alternate timeline.

That's a thing. Well, exactly. But if the game is going to explore, like, multiple times, timelines concurrently, for example, then do we see a timeline where Zach is alive and what that looks like and Cloud is going to be a completely different person in that version of the world. Maybe he can't defeat Sephiroth or whatever. Like, I don't know what that intention is. It would make no sense to have him join the original timeline I see in the game because Cloud

has a buster sword. By the way, Maddie, I have a great theory that you're going to love, which is that the second entry in this game series is going to pull a Kingdom Arts 2 and the first five hours you'll play as Zach instead of Cloud. Oh, I was thinking that that might happen to you. I would be so into that. I actually think that would work really well. And that was one of the thoughts that I had too, where I was just like, this is going to be

like every Final Fantasy 7 fan fiction that people have been writing for years where like, what if Zach was alive and he got to date Tifa and Ereth? And like they just like do a weird mind fuck thing where like they create that reality for you where they're like, Zach's here and like he's going to do a bunch of stuff that isn't the same as what Cloud would do, but it's going to be like a parallel version of that. And that would be weird. That would be fun and weird. Let me just say for the record that I love this, by the way.

I'm so happy that they're doing something totally batcheted. Like, I didn't want to play a one-to-one remake of the original. No, no, no, yeah, completely agree. I mean, I wouldn't have been mad at it, but like it's way cooler that they're doing something incredibly strange. They're just messing around with the timeline. Agree. And the parallel here is, for me anyways, so people keep saying, like, I was initially thinking of this, this is hurting my head the way that Westworld did. Yes.

Just because you see the dog and your... you're like, oh, the dog looks different. And if you notice that, which I did notice that, because I guess I watched Westworld and trained myself to notice when things are different, to look for parallel dimensions. But actually, the thing that this is closest to for me, and the reason that I like it and think it works, is it reminds me of the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot.

I was going to say Lost, so it's funny that you say another JJ Abrams thing. It's nothing like Lost. We can't talk about that. No, because, well, specifically the Star Trek thing, though, because what that movie did, and I like that first movie, especially like the first, whatever, 45 minutes of that first, Jay-Jerm Star Trek's really good. But I love the way that they both, they have their cake and they eat it too,

because they establish a parallel timeline in canon. They even bring over Spock so that they can really tie it in and both be respectful to the original and give fans something but tell their own story in a way that's actually supported by what's happening in the story. And they're doing the same thing here. They can do all this fan-fix stuff, but because Sephiroth has actually enacting

some sort of master plan to change the nature of fate in destiny and to like write some new reality, we also get a new story that they're hopefully going to tell more of. I don't want to do too much of just like imagining alternate scenarios. Like too much alternate destiny or timeline shit for me loses me just because I'm like, well, which one matters? Like what matters anymore? I want to stick with these main characters with Cloud and Tifa and Barrett and Eric. Yeah, we like them now. So you want to stick with those guys. But I am excited as hell for all the things they could do. Granted, there's a thousand ways they could screw it up. I mean, it could, including the game would just never come out. Like, the next game

could just not come out forever. But I'm very, very excited after that finale, for sure. So, yeah, I have a lot of questions, not just story-wise, but also mechanically, because the original, this remake feels like such a complete mechanical advance. Like, by the end, you've advanced all the top-level spells and summons. You've gotten Bahamud and Shiva and Leviathan and whatever, and your level is super high. Like, what are they going to do for the next? next game. Are you just going to start from scratch? Are you going to carry this over and they'll try to find new ways to advance you? It's all, it's going to feel weird either way and it's going to feel a little unsatisfying either way, I think. Well, you'll probably start out as Zach, just like you said. So then you'll

have to level up that guy. And by the time you've done that, when you get the other characters back again, you'll just, you know, upgrade their weapons and they'll already be really high level. But story-wise, I mean, the more interesting conversation is like, what the hell are they going to do with this story? And I think it's safe to say that, like, you're going to be going to a lot of the same places. They've already hinted Wutai and the Golden Sasser and Cosmo Canyon and et cetera, et cetera. And I imagine that they'll introduce some of the characters in the same way because I think people want to see some of that stuff again. Like people want to see the intro of people want to see the Junon like parade and Cosmo Canyon going there and meeting Bouganagan and like the Rocket Town and the leaning rocket.

And like you really want to see that seven three. but I think maybe things will start changing in subtle ways or ways in which that like similar ways to the original game. I don't know. One thing that I know for sure is that they will not be doing a world map. They're going to find a way to not do a world map. I think like I do, I agree that I think they're going to go to a lot of the same places.

We're going to see a lot of the same events, definitely meet the same characters. I think that things will start to change because my interpretation here, maybe this isn't even an interpretation. This is just clear is that the whispers are now not a factor. Is that right? Like they, Yeah, they're dead. We defeated them.

They're gone. And now. Yeah, even so in the, in the alternate timeline, like Zach, they were surrounding Midgar and then Zach saw them all disappear. And then suddenly they weren't. Yes. Right. So they are now gone, which means that I think we're going to gradually get more dramatic

changes. And I could see that at some point down the road, something really major is different. Like a whole town is just a crater now or something or just like a thing is totally different dies who shouldn't die. Right. Someone dies who shouldn't have, like earlier or later. Yeah, a different person. They'll probably try to rescue Aareth.

They'll probably have Aarith survive. I think this is a big question. Let's just get to it now. Do you think that Ayrth is going to die in this game? That's such a tough question. I actually do because so much of the way that she talks and so much of her place in the plot is about her dying and her sacrifice and like her conception of self is that.

So I think it would be really tough for the story to still work and have the impact it's supposed to have if she doesn't. But I say that not having any freaking clue what the story looks like at this point. And I've only ever seen the other one. So I guess it's easy for me to say that. But there's so much foreshadowing of it even in the first game. Like there's so much stuff in remake where she, like that dream sequence, which apparently not everyone gets, but the dream sequence where she's like, don't fall in love with me, cloud. Like basically every single line she says to cloud on that dream sequence is, I'm going to die. It's going to happen to me. I will die soon. Like, it's like all of her lines are that. So it's hard for me to take it any other way. Like,

even if the whispers are defeated, I still am like, clearly this is what we're all moving towards, you know? Well, yes. So I agree with that. But the question of whether or not she's actually going to die is slightly different, only because her death is the event of this game. And they're going to make a ton of hay out of that event. I mean, they've been, like you said, they've foreshadowed it a thousand ways to Sunday. They're going to keep doing that. We're definitely going to get to that chamber. We're going to get to the sequence where she's like praying, where Sephirothoraphs time. That's all going to happen. Is she going to die in the same way, at the same place? That I actually kind of doubt. I think that it's going to work very differently if she

does. And there's also this whole question of like returning to the planet and like whether Ereff becoming the planet is actually dead at all and whether she wakes up and comes back. Which is like a question Advent children wrestles with in a really weird way. That movie is so freaking weird. Yeah, I have like a fever. I barely remember them. You should rewatch it. We should all already watch it. That would be kind of fun to do like a live watch where we record it and put it in the bonus speed or something. So yeah, I mean, it would definitely take away a lot of the emotional impact of the game if

they didn't kill her. But, well, so I have to rewatch the ending of the remake because there's a part where like, Arith is reluctant to go in. And it's not clear if like, like, there's a part where she's reluctant to go into the portal. And it's not clear if she knows that like going in would lead to her death eventually or going in would lead to her not dying eventually? Because a lot of it, there's a lot of implication that she knows exactly what's going on and she can see the future in this game.

There's a lot of implication that she has, like, a lot of knowledge that she's not sharing with everyone. So it makes me wonder, like, it's not really clear. Maybe she didn't want to go in because she knew what was supposed to happen and she doesn't know what's going to happen now. Like, there's a lot of questions. But it's worth noting, I think I saw an interview with Kitase, the producer of the and a long-time Final Fantasy developer saying that the next games are mostly going to stick to the script of what we know.

So anyone is expecting some drastically different game. I don't think that's what we're going to see. But also was that just a fake out too? Could be. Yeah. What even? What? In terms of like, I think there's no question that this is going to largely follow the

same trajectory of Final Fantasy 7. But there are going to be so many differences. that when they get to the one thing that's the most dramatic thing that's like ever happened in a video game, the loss that so many people couldn't deal with, that they tried to mod Ayrith into the game, that there are like all these people, these theories for years and years and years that Ayrith lives, you can find ways to save her if you just level up this one material or do this, like, the fact that that that, I mean, it's one of the most defining things in all of games culture. There's no way that now that they've established that other things can happen,

that they're not going to mess with that. And probably, I mean, given that by the time we get there, who knows what'll be going on in the broader, this meta story of Sephiroth hacking the past and changing timelines, anything could happen. And she'll probably die, whatever. It's like not that's not the most interesting thing. And I bet it won't be at the time either.

It'll be much more like, what does it mean for her to die or for her to make a sacrifice or to become one with the planet again? Or will she come back? It would be a real cop out if it added a way to let you revive her in some form.

If she came back, it wouldn't quite be fair. Maybe, but maybe not. It could work. There could be a way that it works. I've certainly seen people say, like, Cloud could die in that moment, and, like, that's a pretty popular theory going around. And then you just play as somebody else for the rest of the game, maybe Ereth even. Well, you do, I mean, you do play as Tifa for a while when Cloud is in a coma.

But another theory I've seen is that, so what actually happens in Arette's death sequence is that right before Seferoth comes out and kills her, he tries to get Cloud to kill her. and Cloud comes really close to killing her. I've seen a theory that what if Cloud actually kills her in this game? And that would be wild. Or if he just kills himself in that moment in some way. I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can go there. It's just amazing that it's leaving us with all these questions.

And I love that fact. Like, I love that. And yeah, Kirk, I had, so I had the same thought that my immediate thought when I finished the game was like, oh my God, it's called Final Fantasy 7 remake because this is the only game that's the remake. And like the next parts are not going to be remakes anymore. And I was like, wow, this is. this title thing, it actually makes sense. I get it now.

Even if it is still misleading to people like your friend, Maddie, who expected to play the entire game. Well, he's just playing the original game, which again, this whole game is really just the greatest advertisement for Final Fantasy 7, the original ever? Because, like, so many people got to the end and they felt like it was a cliffhanger and maybe they were just intrigued by it or whatever,

enjoyed the game and were just intrigued by the mysteries. And they're just playing the original game again. I was honestly surprised that it wasn't in the top downloads on the e-shop on Switch. I was like, I feel like everyone must want to play it so bad after finishing the game. Well, I bet most people play it on PS4 because they just played the remake on PS4. Or they get it on PC. I mean, it's on so many platforms. But I would be curious to know if it's just...

Or you can even play it on your phone now. Like, it's got a pretty good iOS version. All right. So I think that is it. Do you guys want to give any final thoughts? Why don't we each give our final thoughts on the final thoughts on the final by the C-7 remake. I liked this game a lot. We've talked about the combat. I've said the things about it that I sort of didn't love. It did grow on me in the combat by the end. I will say I liked

it more at the end of the game. I'm guessing if I tried like, you know, hard mode, I would appreciate more things about it. There are fundamental things about it that I don't like that I'll never like. But so the act of actually playing it, at least the combat is like not my favorite thing, but everything else about this game. And I include other gameplay things in it too, all the goofy mini games that my god we didn't talk about it but the where you have to like move the levers together i think i tweeted that that was the the worst thing that i've ever loved like i loved we talked about it a couple weeks ago on the show maybe we did okay it's terrible though i loved it and it's so bad and there's a lot of stuff like that in the game it's so goofy it's so silly and then

there are just these sequences so many of them um tifa thanking the cat that wedges alive like we there's so much detail that we had to move quickly through just to cover the events of the whole story. But there's so many moments where they just drilled down and they grabbed it and we're like, okay, we're going to have Tifa, thank the cat, and the cat is going to meow at her. You're welcome, basically, like, in cat language. Or the dancing sequence, we're going to blow it out into this, like, incredibly produced, like, and choreographed thing with, like, lights and music. It's going to be so freaking cool.

And that over and over and over again, that by the end, I just, it was amazing to me. like the whole experience of playing. It felt improbable and wonderful, and I loved it. And even if they never make another one, I'll be super glad that I played it. It's still great, yeah. Yeah. I feel similar. Maddie, what are your final thoughts?

So for me, this game is a big deal because I didn't even like Final Fantasy 7 that much at all. Like, I found a lot of it super tedious. There were certainly things about it that I thought were interesting, but I always thought it was kind of overrated. But I also finally played it after like not playing it for many years and having it overhyped, to me, so I just, like, had a bad relationship with the game. I thought Tifa and Eryth were really tedious as well, just as characters, and I didn't think the Love Triangle was cool.

So, like, playing this game has been such a redemption story in my own mind of, like, the kinds of characterizations that I wanted to see, with, I guess, the exception of Barrett, who I still feel like the game fails in some ways, and I'm sort of hoping that subsequent games can, like, improve on that characterization. There's certainly a lot of room there. But, like, the stuff they do with Tifa and Erette and Ereth in this game and Cloud is so powerful to me, and it makes replay. playing the original game a lot better.

And it helps me forgive some of the shakiness of the translation and just the lack of characterization in certain areas or just irritating things. Like when Tifa and Aeth and Cloud and Barrett all get kidnapped and they're in the prison cells, there's like all these awkward territorial moments between Tifa and Ayrith and the dialogue that are just like, who fucking cares? Like don't make the female characters do this. Like I hate that stuff and they just don't do it in this version. And I love that.

I'm just like finally I can like a final bit. C7 thing and like that rules and I wasn't expecting it at all. I thought that this was going to be a situation where we all played this game and I hated it and I was just going to have to put up with it and be like I don't have any nostalgic feelings about this game so I hate it but you don't need them. It's just really good. I think it's a great game. You might actually hate it more if you have too many of those nostalgic feelings. I think so yeah I think that this game is maybe for people like me who are like the original's fine. It's for people who want something different and it's so ballsy of square innings to release this game and be like, hey, we're remaking

101, 17, just like you want it. Buh, we're not. And it really, it's, it feels like it's commenting on the nature of remakes. I wrote about this in my review. It feels like the whispers themselves are like this, this meta commentary on a whole lot of different things, like the developers and the fans. They can certainly be read that way. Oh, yeah.

It's very, I read it as like them as the developer is being like, nope, we have to go back and fix this. We have to go around and fix everything. and that like cloud and Araf and Tifa by killing them just like freed the developers to do what they want it. But it could also be read as like the fan expectations, the hardcore fans who are like, no, we have to hold you to this.

And yeah, it's so balzy and I love it. I love that they did that they did this, that they pulled this off. Yeah. But like there was this whole thing hanging over me as I played it that it was like it just felt like I was playing an incomplete game because I know the original story so well And the whole time I was just like, damn, I wish I could see Cosmo Canyon and June on and all this other stuff that I know is going to be coming in, like down the road, like who knows when.

I think that Square did a disservice to everybody by not saying up front, hey, here is how many games are going to be in this thing. And like here is our estimated time. Like doing the Marvel thing where they stand there with a board behind them. I think that would have really helped. And it's possible, I mean, what they told me at E3 last year was that they didn't actually know. And like, okay, fair enough. Yeah, of course. I'm guessing that's why, yeah.

But, like, still, make a fucking decision and stick to it because, like, like, they need a Kevin Feigy. They just don't have a Kevin Feigey. Yeah, they really do because just having that ambiguity and the nature of this project, I think really hurts it. And on one hand, it leaves us asking questions. But, like, we could have still been asking the same number of questions, even knowing that, like, okay, there are going to be three games,

and they're each going to come out every two years. And maybe there's some window for flexibility in case they have to slip or something like that. But still, just not even having any clue when the next one will even show up is very, like, difficult. Yeah. It makes me more skeptical about them continuing to be as good as this one. Will they ever actually finish this thing? Is it going to be like a George R. Martin thing where it's never actually finished? Like, because they have no pages.

Or like a Star Wars situation where like one person starts out with a certain idea in mind and then they didn't have a clear roadmap and that didn't really work. Yeah. That's the problem with these stories that are just like, left unfinished and without a clear roadmap for everybody, it's unfortunate. I mean, we have this beautiful moment in this where these established characters discover the fact that they're trapped within a story that has already been authored for them and they kill the people who are controlling them and break their way out and now the future is unwritten. And while I agree and I like share all of the concerns about what may happen

and am enjoying imagining what might happen, I also, I really do mean that if it ended right now, just knowing that these characters that so many people have loved for so many years have now broken free of the story that they were trapped within for this hellish two plus decades and now can write their own destiny, just knowing that makes me very happy. And like, I'm actually happy in this current state.

And maybe we'll be happier now than I will be at any later point when the later games actually come out. So yeah, just enjoy it now. Exactly. That's kind of what I'm saying. It is probably more fun to imagine what might be than it is to actually experience it. And to enjoy the moment, to enjoy the moment that they all earned for themselves by killing that God or whatever it was they did. So now it is time for us to defeat the Whispers of Fate and break free of this podcast. It is.

It is. Oh, all right. Kirk of Maddie, it was fun to spill the beans together. And we will, of course, be running a beans cast every month or so for subscribers. And hey, thank you to everybody who's become a member to listen to this episode and just to support us making this show. We really appreciate it. Okay. So in that case, keep an eye out.

And yeah, we will see you next time. All right. See you both next time. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I added and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun podcast network.

And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to MaximumFun.org. Join and consider becoming a member. Doing so help support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple-click episode each month. Find us online at triple-clickpodcast.com on Twitter at triple-clickpod and send email to triple-click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience-supported.