The Gaming Persona

Final Fantasy VII: Why This Game Matters So Much

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 4 • Episode 7

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Discover the profound legacy of Final Fantasy VII as we journey into the heart of its groundbreaking narrative and innovations that shaped the gaming industry. This week on the Gaming Persona podcast, we dissect the complex themes and emotional depth of a game that goes beyond entertainment, exploring the moral dilemmas faced by its characters and the psychological intricacies that make Cloud Strife an unforgettable protagonist. With nostalgia and new perspectives, we connect the dots between Final Fantasy VII's success and the Western embrace of Japanese media, revealing how this epic tale left an indelible mark on RPGs and gamers alike.

Amidst the backdrop of Midgar and the Lifestream, we confront the ethical questions raised by eco-terrorism and corporate dominance in a world where magic and technology collide. Delve into the aesthetic brilliance and gameplay mechanics that have captivated audiences for decades, from materia mastery to the enduring impact of Cloud's iconic sword. As Gene and I reflect on playing these games, we invite listeners to reflect on their personal gaming journeys and the power of shared experiences with loved ones through titles like Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Wrapping up this epic saga, we cast an eye to the future, challenging our fellow gamers to join us in embracing environmental consciousness in our digital and real-world quests. Join our vibrant community as we celebrate the monumental influence of Final Fantasy VII, and consider how its storytelling and character development continue to push the boundaries of what video games can achieve. Whether you're a seasoned fan or a newcomer to the series, this episode is an invitation to explore the depth and artistry of a game that forever changed the landscape of gaming.

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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast. This is the show that explores who we become when we play games. I'm your host, dr Gamology, on YouTube and online classrooms across the country, and I'm joined by one of my very best friends for my gaming journey, gene Wong. Gene, how are you doing this week?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great. We are contained to weather snow. We're playing in snow for the first time. Trying to Building a snowman is deceptively hard if you've never done it.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, it's been a couple decades, so we have a little bit of a shift in our personnel for tonight. Jenny could not be with us this evening, but I'm sure she's doing great and we're going to see her on the show soon. So you can find me, as at Dr Gamology, on YouTube and all the social places, but I'm focusing on YouTube and threads are my primary two, and you can find me on this show every week.

Speaker 2:

And the game of Persona can be found on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google and most anywhere else podcasts can be found. If you are enjoying our content, be sure to leave a review on your favorite listening app.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely, Gene. What are we talking about this week from the worlds of video games?

Speaker 2:

We are going to continue our topic discussing what is Final Fantasy, but this time we're going to hone in a bit on Final Fantasy 7, as it is Pretty sure the most popular entry in the franchise maybe not are debatably against 14, but that's a different beast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we're going to go into Final Fantasy 7 tonight, and then that opens up all kinds of fun things we can do with future episodes, because there are 15 others that we can get into after this. So I'm really excited about this one. Let's go into our ordinary world. All right, gene, what have you been up to as a game player and person who thinks video games are pretty neat?

Speaker 2:

I have finally completed Baldur 2, gate 3 with my wife.

Speaker 1:

What that's possible.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and funny actually not a funny non-spoiler During the end, prior to the ending, you could choose to have Gale blow up and you go straight to the ending.

Speaker 1:

What yeah?

Speaker 2:

you could skip the final battles. Okay, if you were fed up with the game at that point, you could do that.

Speaker 1:

But I get a sense. Probably that's not what you chose to do.

Speaker 2:

I did it both ways just because we were very curious about if Gale makes his choice. Is the game just go straight to black? Game over it did not? You go to the ending and everyone just gales, the savior of our realm.

Speaker 1:

That's like when you're playing D&D and the DM has plans, but you blow up the world and it just scraps 20 hours of content and you have to continue the story. Okay, so how do you feel about that conclusion? For you, the Gale conclusion is a real one. How you got there? Do you feel like it cheated you out of some experiences because of the just pushing through to piece together the ending with your actions?

Speaker 2:

Oh, only a little, because in so I don't know if you are aware of Carlax plotline. She has a demot or a infernal engine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yes, that is also going to melt down and blow her up In order to save her from that fate. Our option was very odd. Okay, because I don't know if you got into the part of her story yet where one of the ways that people had figured out hey, maybe, like your engine was built in hell, you maybe need to go back to hell to try to fix it. And she's no, I'm never going back. I thought so hard to escape it. And so, because of that and the dialogue choices we made, where we're like, okay, your life is your life, you got to do what makes you happy. That whole argument was no longer available. And the other way that I won't spoil of saving her is really weird. And we're like, okay, but we don't want Carly could die. So, as weird as this is, we're going to do it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, neat. Well, for me, my Baldur's Gate three experience this week was actually pretty substantial, but it really echoes what it is I am as a game player, especially when you look at the motivations for playing games questionnaire that I continue to use in my research. I really need my characters that I created to look cool. It's just a thing, and Baldur's Gate was actually proving to be a little problematic. Yeah, and I certainly understand that. That is essentially that.

Speaker 1:

I want to play well, but I really need the character I created to look good as in the idea I had when I created them, and I got stuck wearing some stupid clothing for, oh yeah, tens of hours. So, I started looking at ways to fix that problem.

Speaker 2:

If you're on PC, they do make clothing mods. Other than that, yeah, most of the stuff that doesn't look like garbage is not to act. Three.

Speaker 1:

Okay. The solution I found is I found out about the tutorial chest mod where they put all the camp clothing from the whole game in the real chest. There is that, yeah. And so then I was like, okay, how do mods work in this game? So then I learned about Baldur's Gate three mod manager and learning all the. Let's launch the game this time and see if it worked. Let's launch the game this time and see if it worked.

Speaker 1:

And I did eventually figure it out, and I didn't even know that they had the hide combat armor where oh yeah we run around the world in the camp outfit, as opposed to right the whatever janky armor they have you wearing for stats.

Speaker 2:

They dumb thing about that future is that you can't have a hat because it counts as armor, and so you're forever hatless when you use that feature, it's well but the head attires that I have in my inventory all make you look really dumb too. Oh yeah, that is also a problem for a big chunk of the game. But later on you do get classic Gandalf style wizard hats and it's I want to wear a robe and my wizard hat and I can't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, out of the three games I've played where I get this feeling of I created this character, and for me that's Baldur's Gate 3, final Fantasy 14, star Wars, the Old Republic Baldur's Gate 3 easily has the worst fashion out of all three.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's bad until you get to the end. Towards the end, actually, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But what's the point of finally looking good at the end? You don't get to enjoy it. It's like ugly pajamas the entire 30 hours to get there. I do still have my character that's in Act 3 looking stupid, so I'm splitting my playtime learning the differences between Sorcerer, my low level character, and then Wizard, which is my higher level character that's in Act 3, but stuck wearing ugly clothes. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, if you wanted to learn our class, you could just respect Respect.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I haven't gotten involved in any of that either, but I think that, see, here's the thing. I didn't know the features to hide your armor until I started looking things up. I didn't know about the mod manager until I looked things up and they're like here's a mod to put all of the outfits in the first ship, the ship at the very beginning of the game. As far as Act 3, I'm having a lot of fun with the story. I'm not going to spoil or get detailed at all because I noticed a lot of people that I wouldn't want people to hear story beats on this show, because that's the whole point of Baldur's Gate 3, I think. And oh, but Gene, I did roll a double Nat 20 today and I know that doesn't matter, you only need 120. But I rolled two and I couldn't get to my keyboard fast enough to screenshot it before it went away and it just said critical success on the one dice. But I was like that screenshot is everything and I missed it.

Speaker 2:

Vorpal weapons exist in this game, but they don't.

Speaker 1:

Can you explain what you just said?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so a Vorpal weapon is, at least in older versions of D&D and Pathfinder. If you roll a 20, so you're about to critical hit, and then you roll another 20, then it's basically a super critical where things instantly die, you decapitate them. But it's a special type of weapon called a Vorpal weapon. It's incredibly expensive. You generally don't get until really late in the game.

Speaker 1:

All right, yeah, it is too bad they don't have those. Let's answer the call to adventure and get into our topic for the week. All right, gene, we are on our part two of what is Final Fantasy for our show, and I had a lot of fun editing the part one. I think it turned out really well and I hope everyone who didn't catch us live last week has time to listen. But if you're listening to this episode, you probably already have. So that's an interesting cycle that I just put us on. But now we're going to talk about Final Fantasy 7. Why is Final Fantasy VII important?

Speaker 2:

Well, as far as I am aware, final Fantasy VII is basically the JRPG equivalent of what Star Wars did to sci-fi. It's the one that made it very broadly accessible to a wide swath of people, whereas before not that Final Fantasy I through VI weren't great. They were seen as games for nerds, more or less. But VII they did lots of marketing, they did the cinematic trailers and things like a Hollywood fashion. They really tried to make it a broad mass appeal situation and it worked. It sold absurd amounts of copies. It also was just like Star Wars a showcase of the technology of the time. It was one of the first 3D RPGs for most people because, other than owning the first PlayStation, you had to own a gaming-capable PC, which back then was a lot rarer for most people. Oh yeah, that's a big deal right there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so for a lot of people they were completely blown away by the special effects aspect of it, Just like Star Wars did to sci-fi movies.

Speaker 1:

It did a lot of trickery too, special effects-wise, of pairing camera techniques with matte paintings in that original trilogy era.

Speaker 1:

And Ralph McQuarrie, I think, as the principal person for those matte paintings, is just as creditworthy as the people who were operating the cameras and doing the special effects with the models. The scene, for example, with Lando and Han talking about you're going to take the Falcon and return to the Jedi, that's them standing on a stage with paintings behind them. And I remember when I was playing Final Fantasy VII, the first time you have your 3D environments, then you have artwork as the background of those environments. So if you look at it and you break the illusion of this is a game and you think about what am I actually looking at? You clearly are never going to interact with those things in the background. They're not the walking path, you're not running by them, you're not going to click, select on them. But it makes Midgar and I think the world is named Gaia, the whole world, I think, is Gaia. It makes all of it feel just alive compared to other video games of the time. And this was 1997, right.

Speaker 2:

And, yeah, this game also appealed to more contemporary ideas and topics at the time. For instance, first of all, you're playing as eco-terrorists and the Shinra Corporation is not definitively evil yes, some of the executives running it are, but it is a good entity for many. It's providing homes and electricity, pharmaceuticals, stuff like that. They're not just a guy that's. They're not an evil entity that's out to murder people like Kafka of Final Fantasy VI. It's capitalism.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's capitalism. It's also a really neat way to share stories about how we treat the planet and essentially, to become more aware of why things like Earth Day, why recycling and why paying attention to our energy sources is important, and that's the cool thing about anything that is attempting to share life lessons via mythology. As the delivery system is, you get ideas in there that would have been blocked by political or religious ideologies and say that's not how we think Yet because it's fictional. You get pro-taking care of the planet messages inside households that maybe are not as likely to be motivated by the threat of global warming, for example. Right that there are energy sources and what kinds of vehicles and the carbon footprint. Final Fantasy VII, actually in the first half of the game, is talking a lot about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think it's really interesting that between both the original and the remake, that a lot of these people are simply going about their regular jobs, getting a salary. They're just regular people. They're not trying to destroy the planet. A lot of them are just like paper pushers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that if you ever have a job that feels like it's doing bad in the world, it still takes a lot of courage and a lot of personal risk to decide I'm not going to do that job, because it's not exactly easy to just go get another job all the time. And in Final Fantasy VII, for example, Midgar is the giant circular city that is run by the Shinra Corporation. It seems like the entire society is working for Shinra. Everything runs to Shinra.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, pretty much, except for the random small businesses in the slums, because they don't really care.

Speaker 1:

They're not characterized as real people, though. Right, yeah, I actually thought about this when I was writing my book is you get a lot of concepts that are similar to medieval, like a caste system. You have the royals, and then you have the people who are more like security and the city guards city watch, the Shinra troopers and you get the people whose jobs are in the royal court. Those are the Shinra employees on the bullet trains going all around the city just trying to get to work. And then you have the people that are just in the gutter. Nobody knows their name. You could drop the city on them and crush them, and it's not even that's not the sad part. The sad part is part of our city's missing now, those terrorists, yeah and I think it's also interesting in the.

Speaker 2:

Not only is that what you just talked about the caste situation but you are never really told at least not to the remake. You're never really told about all those people that live on the upper end of that plate that was dropped on the slums and then you're not sure oh did tons of people die. They were living in their suburban homes.

Speaker 1:

They died too, Absolutely tons of people died. But, gene, for us growing up as children at the time that Final Fantasy VII comes out teenage years, september 11th 2001 had not happened yet. And if you really think about the imagery of them dropping the plate and the terror of the regular people that you happen to see and the aftermath and walking through the rubble, seeing the remake with the better graphics and having more access to more characters on the screen, it's like that, I mean, as far as a video game depicting something that terrible, the kind of grief and the shock and the trauma and just how scary that is and how could they. It's very similar to an unexpected terrorism or military strike.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and also, yeah, I like that away from that instance of terrorism. But they really played up how big of a deal Avalanche blowing up reactors was Granted. In the remake they doctor up the situation to make the explosion worse, but the basic principle is the same You're shutting down a chunk of a city for thousands of people.

Speaker 1:

And you're just hoping that slows down the destruction that's running down deep into the core of the planet long enough for the planet to recover.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't. Basically had the game's plot not gone the way it went. I'm sure you would have had to go through and just done that. What 13 more times? Yeah, and then you would be left in the city, mostly crater.

Speaker 1:

It seems like Barrett's entire plan was I need to destroy all of Midgar.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which I know he has his principles, but yeah, that's a lot of people. You will get killed, even indirectly, because you take out the power. People don't have access to medical equipment, all kinds of things. It's bad.

Speaker 1:

So we've talked about some of the world building.

Speaker 1:

We've talked about the city of Midgar and how it's run by Shinra Corporation.

Speaker 1:

And the thing that Shinra is doing that is insulting to the people who care about the planet of Gaia is they're harvesting the energy source that keeps the planet alive, called the Lifestream, and this is a flowing of. It's an energy source that flows with a spiritual like kind of energy that is also like electricity too, apparently, and like fuel, and you can power your entire society and technology and steam factories and everything with the Lifestream. But the Lifestream's energy is people who have lived on the planet, all living things, anything that has any organism, any plant life, anything with a cellular structure that feeds into, I guess, what Disney would call the circle of life. That's the Lifestream and it's not just energy and that's maybe Barrett is more focused on the planet as a visceral entity and not getting into the spiritual side like a Eryth type character would, but at the same time, the Lifestream is all of those things. So what Barrett sees and what he thinks he's saving, what Eryth understands life to be and why she's called to do the things that she does, they're both correct.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and another thing I find interesting is that it's so the use of this energy is really just centered on Midgar and then, to a smaller extent, various small towns. It's the idea that, unlike our current world now, where we're like finally transition away from gas, there seem Barrett and Avalanche jumping into this early on into the cycle of the cycle. Yeah, yeah, we're not waiting for there to be reactors all over the planet and then say let's try solar power.

Speaker 1:

They're getting on this early.

Speaker 1:

As far as the history of this world, if you're playing Final Fantasy VII, that is the first game that is featuring this world.

Speaker 1:

But there are spin-off games and one of them is a prequel called Crisis Core, final Fantasy VII, and that depicts periods of time that are closer to the war between Shinra and oh man. That's the name of the oh Wu Tai, wu Tai. Yes, so there's also a bit of propaganda Shinra against Wu Tai and trying to create the story that Avalanche is in cahoots with Wu Tai. So everyone in Midgar that is anti-Wu Tai is going to be anti-Avalanche. And that machine of the media you see it on television broadcasts or hear it over radio broadcasts throughout the game, very similar to what we do in our own human history at times of war. And when you do escape the city of Midgar and go to other places, you're faced with that shift in perception as well. And it seems like the difference maker in that war is probably what that Shinra decided to completely embrace the corruption of the live stream and the use of Mako in their militarization efforts.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, pretty much, because, as far as I understand, the war was an enormous stalemate up until they invented ways to empower people using the Mako energy, which led to the soldier program, which basically the entire story revolves around the various soldiers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So if you have a character claiming to be soldier, they are claiming that they have the power running through their veins to be the chosen one. Essentially and I want to draw more parallels between Star Wars and Final Fantasy 7 really quick it seems now as the difference maker in a wartime effort harvesting Mako, these big factory reactors. Now it seems that Shinra's real life parallel is maybe nuclear energy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, somewhat, because not only were they injecting into the soldiers to make them superheroes, but they were also experimenting on making super monsters and super materia in the world of Final Fantasy 7. Almost no one actually knows magic. The majority of people that know magic are extinct. They take the live stream energy and form it into little nuggets called materia, and then you insert the nuggets into your flesh or your gear and then you are imparted with the knowledge of actual wizards from the past, and that's how you learn to cast abilities.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's all about augmenting materials. It's not about actually innately possessing the ability.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, very few people have the innate ability and those are well yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let's talk about some of the characters. Gene, and I think that obviously the first person you have to talk about is Cloud. You have to talk about Cloud as far as being a video game hero and realizing that he's a tiny little character on a very big screen in 1997. And the blocks they use make it very obvious that he's got spiky, big, anime style blonde hair, the purple jumpsuit and, proportionally, the sword that he has is gigantic, right, okay? So he's very cool to look at and he is hired to be the mercenary enforcer for these avalanche missions to blow up the reactors.

Speaker 1:

And he says that he is soldier. He's from the former program called Soldier and he was at the rank of first class, meaning I'm the chosen, one of the chosen ones, so very formidable. Then, of course, we have the hero. We need the shadow figure, the dark side, to counter the hero. And this is really why the whole story actually is not about eco-terrorism. Is that you're doing all these missions and trying to stop Shinra and then, halfway through the first disc of the game because it was a three disc game you meet Sephiroth.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and you basically realized that Shinra made Anakin.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, so we have already that. Mako reactors are like Death, stars Cloud is like Luke If Sephiroth is like Anakin, not in the father's sunway. But there are some deep ties of untold story that you have to uncover to figure out what is going on between these two characters.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, Sephiroth was the former war hero. He has fan clubs.

Speaker 1:

He was a celebrity.

Speaker 2:

And then he disappeared.

Speaker 1:

Did evil things apparently, and I don't really think that we're going to spoil huge amounts of content with the story here. I think that it's just important to understand Cloud and Sephiroth have an appeal as hero and villains in the history of video games that they're inseparable. For example, super Smash Brothers added Cloud and then the next Super Smash Brothers game added Sephiroth, and in a game where the whole goal is to have Mario and Samus and Lincoln Donkey Kong fight each other, they're like we need Cloud and Sephiroth to be able to fight each other for this game to be complete. Okay, do these characters mean for you and even some of the other ones, if you want to introduce them, gene, but just these first two, the main two. And then, why do you think that this game has so many characters that are amazing?

Speaker 2:

I think that for the most part, besides Cloud's very convoluted backstory, most of the characters are very normal, so to speak. They're not princesses or wizards, or there is regular people.

Speaker 1:

Aerith's wizard, Gene, arguably you can fight me on that yeah.

Speaker 2:

Technically, she's just a flower girl.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she's a flower girl.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's a flower girl. Yuffie, if a was a, was a basically a tour guide and then became a bartender. Barrett was a miner, Sid was a pilot and then Yuffie was a thief and Vincent was a corporate bodyguard, basically more or less. Yeah, these are people of regular jobs that regular people can understand.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think also, if we're talking about the psychology of the game, really capture archetypes well, they seem to have an ability if you take the time to play the game or watch the movie Final Fantasy VII, advent Children.

Speaker 1:

They're all characterized in ways where you just feel like you like certain ones of them and then there's more content to go consume so that you can get to know them better. There are some things that are controversial in the psychology side you look at Is Tifa an effective representation of a female protagonist or is she a manifestation of male desires and unrealistic body image kinds of things? And it's a similar argument as with Laura Croft, another character that came into existence during the polygon era of video games in the mid to late 90s. There are things that have been done with both of these characters that I think might be on the verge of poor taste. Have you seen the statue that Square Enix came out with after remake, with Tifa posed in front of the Buster Sword in a pretty provocative way? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, tifa is sometimes characterized in overly sexualized ways, but in the video game itself, especially since I'm playing through it again right now, I don't really feel like she is characterized that way at all in the game.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely not in the game. Interesting in game that no one really makes note of it either. No one says anything about the way people are dressed, or whatever. It just is.

Speaker 1:

Right. So then I would argue and I'm reacting to some social media posts that I saw this week about Final Fantasy 7 even is just people commenting on Tifa and trying to shame developers who create these sexualized characters? The reason I pointed out that in the game she isn't portrayed that way is we had Nick Yee on the show. He's a psychology researcher who does motivation profiles, and we were talking about avatar creation. And why do male game players create female characters at the rate that they do?

Speaker 1:

And it came up that females in video games tend to have a wider range of emotions. Facial expressions are easier to detect, a wide range of emotional experiences because of our perception from the real world. Also, attractive characters seem to work better for selling games and getting people connected to those characters. The question is Tifa attractive, I would say extremely, but is this a out of the way feature of the video game? I personally don't see it that way, but other people probably do. And then that's a question of what they're bringing into the game with them as players. I'm bringing this up because, for example, if a counselor type is listening to this episode and needs to understand more about what's the difference between characters as portrayed in some Final Fantasy games versus games like Dead or Alive, extreme Beach Volleyball. That is not the same thing. These are both video games, but the goals of the developers are not the same Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I definitely don't think they are the same for sure, because, for one thing, besides the Don Corneo segment, there's no extensive dress up manipulation feature for any Final Fantasy 7 character, Whereas games like Extreme Beach Volleyball you can dress them up in all kinds of outfits. You can give them all kinds of accessories. That is the express goal.

Speaker 1:

It is a plaything situation, right, but the Don Corneo story is actually depicting that entire region of the underside of Midgar, the people that are in power but subordinate to him because he's the crime ward. Their whole job is to sex traffic people to him. That's how they avoid punishment and having to suffer the way everyone in their surroundings is suffering with low socioeconomic opportunity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I found it interesting that in the remake, one of the characters that you can meet outside of the Honey Bee Inn, which is like a burlesque dance, club Club, but if they did bumblebees instead of bunnies? Right, and one of them is literally one of the characters that are going to dance. There is literally a daycare and then, to make ends meet and to pursue her dreams, she dances at night.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that kind of like the maid service in Persona 5 with the school teacher? I think that JRPGs are consistently letting us know also the hidden message that we need to pay our teachers better. Yes, yeah. So we've talked about Cloud and Sephiroth. We've talked one sentence about some of the others. We've talked about how Tifa is a controversial figure, but that disappoints me and I really wish people just paid attention to her actual characterization in the game instead of all the mods that thirsty game players are putting on the internet. So we need to talk about Aerith, I think. Sure, because first off back to Cloud for a second.

Speaker 1:

Cloud's backstory is a real. One of the great early expressions in video games of mental health issues is. I would diagnose Cloud, if he came in for an assessment with me, with at least post-traumatic stress disorder and some kind of dissociation disorder, probably identity disorder, because his explanation of what it means to be soldier first class from his memory may not be consistent with the memory of other people that were there. And that's a fun part of playing the story and laying it unfold. Do you think I dodged spoiler territory? There Was that good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I definitely understand the dissociation for sure, because, yeah, one of the conversations they have with him is did you know other people in first class? And he's nah not really.

Speaker 1:

There's a moment in remake and it's not even in chapter 12. It's like in chapter four or five where Cloud says something about what his life is like and Tifa's huh. And I did not notice it three years ago or four whenever I played the game for the first time. But I noticed it this time because now I'm playing it with the framework of I gotta be ready for rebirth at the end of February.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and and this one. It's a lot more interesting, like what you just said, because now it's a question of is Tifa just going along with this to maintain his cool guy persona? Is he she really now having an internal crisis about what happened?

Speaker 1:

No, I think that she's definitely preserving his psyche and helping him along the path to eventually he's got to remember. Maybe she feels like there's something about the day when all the things happened, that day was hard for her too, so Tifa's not living a nice life, and then cloud comes back.

Speaker 1:

It's been five tough years. Cloud comes back. That represents a lot of memories for her too, and I think the game the original game on PS1, cloud is easily the main protagonist. This game. You get a lot more opportunity to understand the other characters because it's so cinematic.

Speaker 2:

So what I was saying earlier, so a thing that's not delved into very much, is the idea that cloud is technically a what's the word? Probably a traitor to the country.

Speaker 1:

So are the eco terrorists.

Speaker 2:

But so I'm not sure how much Tifa is. Has to just be like you're totally not the guy, one of the guys that had to go shoot Osama bin Laden. There's that secret agent aspect of it, right.

Speaker 1:

That's a good point. So Soldier is Black Ops, classified stuff. What they actually do on their missions is run through the propaganda machine and we know that from crisis score, the prequel. Nobody actually knows what Soldier does, except we should really appreciate them, because there are heroes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I was thinking like if cloud shows up and says this story, is this the propaganda machine at work? And now Tifa is, is this the propaganda? Because she hates Shenra?

Speaker 1:

With good reason too. We did have believe it, or not? Everyone that's still with us on the episode. We did have a road of trial segment prepared, but it didn't turn out to be necessary because, look at us, we're just, we're explaining the characters in the world and we're still up in the clouds on this looking down on the big picture question. But why do you think this game has mattered so much that Sony chose let's just remake the opening video to show off what the PS3 will be able to do? Why does this game matter so much that, 22 years later, they needed to remake it and release it?

Speaker 2:

One of it is, I think, the like around the original release of in 1997, was the cultural stuff that was happening. The 90s was the time. The 80s and 90s was when a whole lot of Japanese media was gaining popularity. The 80s and 90s were when anime was taking off in America, where people were getting into things like Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon, and so FAMHAS7 had the benefit of riding that wave into its massive success. And so part of that is the massive nostalgia amongst people. That 90s time where you were watching things like Toonami and you were like this is the best thing that could ever happen to a teenager, and so I feel like they really wanted to try to recapture that lightning in a bottle and remember that time of your life. This game was great and it's still great.

Speaker 1:

Also I think FAMHAS7 started things on that PS1 with Final Fantasy. Then, of course, final Fantasy 8 and 9 come out on the PS1. Final Fantasy 10 starts out Final Fantasy on the PS2 and is also an amazing game. Final Fantasy 11 continues that but it's an MMO and not as approachable for a lot of people, I don't think. Then you get 12, which continues what 10 was doing. Then you get 13 starting out Final Fantasy on the PS3.

Speaker 1:

And if you think about those three generations of consoles PS1, 2, and 3, those are for our generation of adults now Gene, those are probably where some of the best memories of our lives come from. Cloud and Sephiroth, aerith and Tifa, barrett and Euphie and Vincent and even Sid and also even Kateseth were all a part of that period of time. I'm in that 10 to 12 year old range at the time the Final Fantasy 7 comes out. I eventually played it for the first time, actually in college, so I didn't get to enjoy it as a teenager, but still it worked, it fit. I had learned already from games like Pokemon that I really love turn based fighting and I like leveling up characters. It's not just leveling up characters, you level up your materia as well the stones that give you your powers. So it had a lot of really good game design for that mentality of game player.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and yeah. That system of gaming, what you described, the materia that's been now copied in many other RPGs. Afterwards it started a whole system I don't know how to describe it, but Resident Evil 4, on our favorite game of art, it popularized that system where you can toggle items around in the backpack. But Final Fantasy 7 started this materia slot system where you can equip abilities and slide them around to different characters and create level up individual things like that in that granularity.

Speaker 1:

It also adds so much customizability and meta strategy to the game because you have the ability, with arranging your materia correctly for specific purposes, to turn certain characters into overpowered, god tier fighters, which is necessary if you want to kill Emerald and Ruby weapon and all of those extra boss fights.

Speaker 1:

So there's a lot of secret things to discover in the games too, and Final Fantasy 7 just as a going away idea before we wrap up the conversation today. It is a game that meant so much to millions of people in the 90s that the demand of please just make it look better. I remember that throughout my entire college through adult life, I remember hearing that request on podcasts and YouTube videos and some of the first mods that I ever attempted to install on games but never succeeded. They were just cell shaders for Final Fantasy 7 to update the graphics. So instead of a PS1 game, it looks like a Game Boy Advance game, if you can imagine trying to fix the PC version so it just looks like a mobile phone game. People really just wanted to experience it again, but have it look like their generation of graphics, and now it looks better than a movie.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, yeah. It's interesting in that for, like, when Advent Children came out the movie sequel to original Final Fantasy 7, people were like this is what we want, let's make a game that looks like this. And now we got it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, At that time I don't think that quite was possible. But Final Fantasy games also are leaders in visuals. I think that's true. I think if you look at what final fantasy 16 looks like, if you look at what final fantasy 15 looked like on the ps4 and 13 on the ps3? I think it's always leading the way. And what can these consoles do?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is definitely true. It's it's gone to the strange, not strange. An interesting point in the last couple of Generations, like the ps3 generation, we technically only had One final fantasy. If you're including all three, five answer 13's into one umbrella. Yeah, they basically invest a whole lot of technology and money into making one platform For each generation and then they just keep working on it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and it shows so Last week, when we did part one of what is file fantasy and we talked about how Final fantasy is one of the key game franchises for me to be able to talk about the psychology Inside the characters of video games, the mythology that's packaged inside the stories of video games. Without this franchise, I Don't think that conversation would be anywhere close to as compelling as it actually is. Yeah, and without Final Fantasy 7, I Don't think I would be a person trying to have that conversation All the time every week.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm trying to think of if, finally, seven didn't exist, what would be the next equivalent Star Wars level mass appeal JRPG, and that's a real struggle.

Speaker 1:

Fantasy 7 doesn't exist. Do any of the final fantasy games after it exists?

Speaker 2:

Maybe not, but yeah, I was just trying to think of a substitute in devil. No, if Star Wars didn't exist, would there be another franchise that does what it does? It's.

Speaker 1:

Yes, but we don't know what it would be named because, it was created in a Alternate universe where Star Wars doesn't exist. Therefore, yeah, we don't know what themes would have been Done to make that franchise.

Speaker 2:

I'm just thinking, without finally set, finally seven, I don't think I'm I don't know of what other franchise would step up to take its place. I think the JRPG Genre would not have the appeal that it currently does. Okay, it would be. It would still be a game for nerds.

Speaker 1:

I wonder. You said that about an hour ago, jean, and the first thing that popped in my head is I hear some people Tell me all the time that Final Fantasy 6 is the best Final Fantasy, and even me certified geek therapist, doctor, game ology in my head thinks nerd.

Speaker 2:

Charlotte says Star Trek, but I don't think Star Trek hits that mass Appeal the same way, because it's maybe JJ Abrams version, that's maybe our wars.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, his version wouldn't exist.

Speaker 2:

Because Star Trek is like it's a good Franchise overall, but it's not that same Space, a venture story, some of the series are.

Speaker 1:

It's science fiction. It's not space opera.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like some of our attempt to replicate it, but a lot, especially the original and then the next generation it's here are individual episodes of what we did on this planet. It's not this overarching thing. My jig like Star Wars is until you start talking about some of the sequel movies, like when the car comes back for Star Trek nemesis. But let's not, because that's a bad movie.

Speaker 1:

It's not a video game, but I would love to talk about Firefly with people, so maybe, maybe I have to create a YouTube perk that allows us to just have 10 minute to 15 minute coffee chats every morning where we discuss Firefly and other such things. I Really cannot think of a game that fills the void that would be left if we deleted Final Fantasy 7 from the history of video games. I think it's one of those games that is so important to understand the gaming persona as we currently understand it. For game players, it's like Zelda, it's like Mario, it's like all those other characters that are in Super Smash Brothers, which is kind of like the video game Hall of Fame in my mind, by the way. But Final Fantasy 7 is the game that showed me that these stories are mythological, they are epic. The characters are timeless. I don't think the world While humans are living on it We'll have a point in time where every single person on the planet has forgotten about cloud and Sephiroth.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, so maybe I got it. I think JRPGs would be stuck in that Very nerd zone all the way until Persona 4 releases.

Speaker 1:

Persona 4 Golden. I think would have been Persona 4 Golden regardless of Final Fantasy 7 existing. Yeah, and that game is a masterpiece as well. It's not Final Fantasy 7, though.

Speaker 2:

But I think that's the next other game that would have that capture what it's like to be a teen and deal with contemporary topics and, again, giant media blitz where there's TV shows and whatever around it.

Speaker 1:

But, jean, without Final Fantasy 7, would Sony have become so profitable that they create the PSP and eventually the PlayStation Vita? Because Persona 4 is not Persona 4? Golden, I Think that game took off because of Golden and the Vita. It's the one game that became a better known property because of the Vita. Sure, possibly. Okay, I think we have thoroughly summarized all of the things that we can cram into an hour plus Conversation, but without becoming a two hour plus conversation. I think this went very well. We have so much left that we can cover if we want to do a. What is Final Fantasy part 3, continuing Final Fantasy 7 to part 2? Oh, I just want everyone to have an understanding of what it's like for me to be the showrunner. I guess that's what we would call me. I Found a video that is eight hours long. That's all the cutscenes from Final Fantasy 7 remake. I said Jenny, watch this entire video in preparation for our episode next week. Ashley, no, she flew away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she got plane time oh.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure someday she will watch it on double or triple speed so that she can. What she needs to do is have the boyfriend play Final Fantasy 7 remake while she does what she did with the Witcher. It's perfect.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah that, that's a great idea. I.

Speaker 1:

Really would love to continue this conversation with her as a three person, so I actually would Enjoy putting a pin in this and saying we're not done with Final Fantasy 7.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, tell your boyfriend to beat it in the next year. What were you at it?

Speaker 1:

No, next week, beat the whole game this week, all right, oh boy, yeah. So if these conversations sound fun to you and you're looking for some great people to play online games with, check out AIE at AIE dashgillorg. I have one last quest for everyone to collect for the day, even as a gamer save the planet and continue the journey.

Speaker 2:

Bye-bye.

People on this episode

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host