March 19, 2024 • 58 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
.
I'm your host, dr Gamology, onYouTube and online classrooms
across the country, and I'mjoined by one of my very best
friends for my gaming journey,gene Wong.
Gene, how are you doing thisweek?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm doing great.
We are contained to weathersnow.
We're playing in snow for thefirst time.
Trying to Building a snowman isdeceptively hard if you've
never done it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh man, it's been a couple decades, so we have a
little bit of a shift in ourpersonnel for tonight.
Jenny could not be with us thisevening, but I'm sure she's
doing great and we're going tosee her on the show soon.
So you can find me, as at DrGamology, on YouTube and all the
(01:09):
social places, but I'm focusingon YouTube and threads are my
primary two, and you can find meon this show every week.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And the game of Persona can be found on Apple
Podcasts, spotify, google andmost 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 (01:32):
Yes, absolutely, Gene .
What are we talking about thisweek from the worlds of video
games?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We are going to continue our topic discussing
what is Final Fantasy, but thistime we're going to hone in a
bit on Final Fantasy 7, as it isPretty sure the most popular
entry in the franchise maybe notare debatably against 14, but
that's a different beast.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, so we're going to go into Final Fantasy 7
tonight, and then that opens upall kinds of fun things we can
do with future episodes, becausethere are 15 others that we can
get into after this.
So I'm really excited aboutthis one.
(02:22):
Let's go into our ordinaryworld.
All right, gene, what have youbeen up to as a game player and
person who thinks video gamesare pretty neat?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I have finally completed Baldur 2, gate 3 with
my wife.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
What that's possible.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yes, and funny actually not a funny non-spoiler
During the end, prior to theending, you could choose to have
Gale blow up and you gostraight to the ending.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
What yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
you could skip the final battles.
Okay, if you were fed up withthe game at that point, you
could do that.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But I get a sense.
Probably that's not what youchose to do.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I did it both ways just because we were very
curious about if Gale makes hischoice.
Is the game just go straight toblack?
Game over it did not?
You go to the ending andeveryone just gales, the savior
of our realm.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
That's like when you're playing D&D and the DM
has plans, but you blow up theworld and it just scraps 20
hours of content and you have tocontinue the story.
Okay, so how do you feel aboutthat conclusion?
(03:52):
For you, the Gale conclusion isa real one.
How you got there?
Do you feel like it cheated youout of some experiences because
of the just pushing through topiece together the ending with
your actions?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh, only a little, because in so I don't know if
you are aware of Carlax plotline.
She has a demot or a infernalengine.
Yeah, yes, that is also going tomelt down and blow her up In
(04:28):
order to save her from that fate.
Our option was very odd.
Okay, because I don't know ifyou got into the part of her
story yet where one of the waysthat people had figured out hey,
maybe, like your engine wasbuilt in hell, you maybe need to
(04:51):
go back to hell to try to fixit.
And she's no, I'm never goingback.
I thought so hard to escape it.
And so, because of that and thedialogue choices we made, where
we're like, okay, your life isyour life, you got to do what
makes you happy.
That whole argument was nolonger available.
And the other way that I won'tspoil of saving her is really
(05:19):
weird.
And we're like, okay, but wedon't want Carly could die.
So, as weird as this is, we'regoing to do it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, neat.
Well, for me, my Baldur's Gatethree experience this week was
actually pretty substantial, butit really echoes what it is I
am as a game player, especiallywhen you look at the motivations
for playing games questionnairethat I continue to use in my
(05:51):
research.
I really need my charactersthat I created to look cool.
It's just a thing, and Baldur'sGate was actually proving to be
a little problematic.
Yeah, and I certainlyunderstand that.
That is essentially that.
(06:12):
I want to play well, but Ireally need the character I
created to look good as in theidea I had when I created them,
and I got stuck wearing somestupid clothing for, oh yeah,
tens of hours.
So, I started looking at waysto fix that problem.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
If you're on PC, they do make clothing mods.
Other than that, yeah, most ofthe stuff that doesn't look like
garbage is not to act.
Three.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Okay.
The solution I found is I foundout about the tutorial chest
mod where they put all the campclothing 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 aboutBaldur's Gate three mod manager
(07:12):
and learning all the.
Let's launch the game this timeand see if it worked.
Let's launch the game this timeand see if it worked.
And I did eventually figure itout, and I didn't even know that
they had the hide combat armorwhere oh yeah we run around the
world in the camp outfit, asopposed to right the whatever
(07:34):
janky armor they have youwearing for stats.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They dumb thing about that future is that you can't
have a hat because it counts asarmor, and so you're forever
hatless when you use thatfeature, it's well but the head
attires that I have in myinventory all make you look
really dumb too.
Oh yeah, that is also a problemfor a big chunk of the game.
(08:00):
But later on you do get classicGandalf style wizard hats and
it's I want to wear a robe andmy wizard hat and I can't.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, out of the three games I've played where I
get this feeling of I createdthis character, and for me
that's Baldur's Gate 3, finalFantasy 14, star Wars, the Old
Republic Baldur's Gate 3 easilyhas the worst fashion out of all
three.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, so it's bad until you get to the end.
Towards the end, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
But what's the point of finally looking good at the
end?
You don't get to enjoy it.
It's like ugly pajamas theentire 30 hours to get there.
I do still have my characterthat's in Act 3 looking stupid,
so I'm splitting my playtimelearning the differences between
(08:54):
Sorcerer, my low levelcharacter, and then Wizard,
which is my higher levelcharacter that's in Act 3, but
stuck wearing ugly clothes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, well, if you wanted to learn our class, you
could just respect Respect.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Oh, I haven't gotten involved in any of that either,
but I think that, see, here'sthe thing.
I didn't know the features tohide your armor until I started
looking things up.
I didn't know about the modmanager until I looked things up
and they're like here's a modto put all of the outfits in the
(09:36):
first ship, the ship at thevery beginning of the game.
As far as Act 3, I'm having alot of fun with the story.
I'm not going to spoil or getdetailed at all because I
noticed a lot of people that Iwouldn'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 adouble Nat 20 today and I know
(10:03):
that doesn't matter, you onlyneed 120.
But I rolled two and I couldn'tget to my keyboard fast enough
to screenshot it before it wentaway and it just said critical
success on the one dice.
But I was like that screenshotis everything and I missed it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Vorpal weapons exist in this game, but they don't.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Can you explain what you just said?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Okay, so a Vorpal weapon is, at least in older
versions of D&D and Pathfinder.
If you roll a 20, so you'reabout to critical hit, and then
you roll another 20, then it'sbasically a super critical where
things instantly die, youdecapitate them.
(10:50):
But it's a special type ofweapon called a Vorpal weapon.
It's incredibly expensive.
You generally don't get untilreally late in the game.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, yeah, it is too bad they don't have those
.
Let's answer the call toadventure and get into our topic
for the week.
All right, gene, we are on ourpart two of what is Final
Fantasy for our show, and I hada lot of fun editing the part
one.
I think it turned out reallywell and I hope everyone who
(11:24):
didn't catch us live last weekhas time to listen.
But if you're listening to thisepisode, you probably already
have.
So that's an interesting cyclethat I just put us on.
But now we're going to talkabout Final Fantasy 7.
Why is Final Fantasy VIIimportant?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Well, as far as I am aware, final Fantasy VII is
basically the JRPG equivalent ofwhat Star Wars did to sci-fi.
It's the one that made it verybroadly accessible to a wide
(12:06):
swath of people, whereas beforenot that Final Fantasy I through
VI weren't great.
They were seen as games fornerds, more or less.
But VII they did lots ofmarketing, they did the
cinematic trailers and thingslike a Hollywood fashion.
(12:27):
They really tried to make it abroad mass appeal situation and
it worked.
It sold absurd amounts ofcopies.
It also was just like Star Warsa showcase of the technology of
the time.
It was one of the first 3D RPGsfor most people because, other
(12:47):
than owning the firstPlayStation, you had to own a
gaming-capable PC, which backthen was a lot rarer for most
people.
Oh yeah, that's a big dealright there.
Yeah, so for a lot of peoplethey were completely blown away
by the special effects aspect ofit, Just like Star Wars did to
(13:07):
sci-fi movies.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It did a lot of trickery too, special
effects-wise, of pairing cameratechniques with matte paintings
in that original trilogy era.
And Ralph McQuarrie, I think, asthe principal person for those
matte paintings, is just ascreditworthy as the people who
(13:31):
were operating the cameras anddoing the special effects with
the models.
The scene, for example, withLando and Han talking about
you're going to take the Falconand return to the Jedi, that's
them standing on a stage withpaintings behind them.
And I remember when I wasplaying Final Fantasy VII, the
(13:53):
first time you have your 3Denvironments, then you have
artwork as the background ofthose environments.
So if you look at it and youbreak the illusion of this is a
game and you think about what amI actually looking at?
You clearly are never going tointeract with those things in
the background.
They're not the walking path,you're not running by them,
(14:16):
you're not going to click,select on them.
But it makes Midgar and I thinkthe world is named Gaia, the
whole world, I think, is Gaia.
It makes all of it feel justalive compared to other video
(14:36):
games of the time.
And this was 1997, right.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And, yeah, this game also appealed to more
contemporary ideas and topics atthe time.
For instance, first of all,you're playing as eco-terrorists
and the Shinra Corporation isnot definitively evil yes, some
(15:04):
of the executives running it are, but it is a good entity for
many.
It's providing homes andelectricity, pharmaceuticals,
stuff like that.
They're not just a guy that's.
They're not an evil entitythat's out to murder people like
Kafka of Final Fantasy VI.
It's capitalism.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, it's capitalism .
It's also a really neat way toshare stories about how we treat
the planet and essentially, tobecome more aware of why things
like Earth Day, why recyclingand why paying attention to our
energy sources is important, andthat's the cool thing about
(15:47):
anything that is attempting toshare life lessons via mythology
.
As the delivery system is, youget ideas in there that would
have been blocked by politicalor religious ideologies and say
that's not how we think Yetbecause it's fictional.
(16:12):
You get pro-taking care of theplanet messages inside
households that maybe are not aslikely to be motivated by the
threat of global warming, forexample.
Right that there are energysources and what kinds of
(16:33):
vehicles and the carbonfootprint.
Final Fantasy VII, actually inthe first half of the game, is
talking a lot about that.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, and I think it's really interesting that
between both the original andthe remake, that a lot of these
people are simply going abouttheir regular jobs, getting a
salary.
They're just regular people.
They're not trying to destroythe planet.
A lot of them are just likepaper pushers.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
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 personalrisk to decide I'm not going to
do that job, because it's notexactly easy to just go get
(17:26):
another job all the time.
And in Final Fantasy VII, forexample, Midgar is the giant
circular city that is run by theShinra Corporation.
It seems like the entiresociety is working for Shinra.
(17:46):
Everything runs to Shinra.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, pretty much, except for the random small
businesses in the slums, becausethey don't really care.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
They're not characterized as real people,
though.
Right, yeah, I actually thoughtabout this when I was writing
my book is you get a lot ofconcepts that are similar to
medieval, like a caste system.
You have the royals, and thenyou have the people who are more
(18:18):
like security and the cityguards city watch, the Shinra
troopers and you get the peoplewhose jobs are in the royal
court.
Those are the Shinra employeeson the bullet trains going all
around the city just trying toget to work.
And then you have the peoplethat are just in the gutter.
(18:39):
Nobody knows their name.
You could drop the city on themand crush them, and it's not
even that's not the sad part.
The sad part is part of ourcity's missing now, those
terrorists, yeah and I thinkit's also interesting in the.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Not only is that what you just talked about the caste
situation but you are neverreally told at least not to the
remake.
You're never really told aboutall those people that live on
the upper end of that plate thatwas dropped on the slums and
then you're not sure oh did tonsof people die.
(19:19):
They were living in theirsuburban homes.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
They died too, Absolutely tons of people died.
But, gene, for us growing up aschildren at the time that Final
Fantasy VII comes out teenageyears, september 11th 2001 had
not happened yet.
And if you really think aboutthe imagery of them dropping the
(19:48):
plate and the terror of theregular people that you happen
to see and the aftermath andwalking through the rubble,
seeing the remake with thebetter graphics and having more
access to more characters on thescreen, it's like that, I mean,
as far as a video gamedepicting something that
(20:10):
terrible, the kind of grief andthe shock and the trauma and
just how scary that is and howcould they.
It's very similar to anunexpected terrorism or military
strike.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, and also, yeah, I like that away from that
instance of terrorism.
But they really played up howbig of a deal Avalanche blowing
up reactors was Granted.
In the remake they doctor upthe situation to make the
explosion worse, but the basicprinciple is the same You're
shutting down a chunk of a cityfor thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
And you're just hoping that slows down the
destruction that's running downdeep into the core of the planet
long enough for the planet torecover.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, I don't.
Basically had the game's plotnot gone the way it went.
I'm sure you would have had togo through and just done that.
What 13 more times?
Yeah, and then you would beleft in the city, mostly crater.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It seems like Barrett's entire plan was I need
to destroy all of Midgar.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, which I know he has his principles, but yeah,
that's a lot of people.
You will get killed, evenindirectly, because you take out
the power.
People don't have access tomedical equipment, all kinds of
things.
It's bad.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So we've talked about some of the world building.
We've talked about the city ofMidgar and how it's run by
Shinra Corporation.
And the thing that Shinra isdoing that is insulting to the
people who care about the planetof Gaia is they're harvesting
the energy source that keeps theplanet alive, called the
(22:12):
Lifestream, and this is aflowing of.
It's an energy source thatflows with a spiritual like kind
of energy that is also likeelectricity too, apparently, and
like fuel, and you can poweryour entire society and
technology and steam factoriesand everything with the
(22:34):
Lifestream.
But the Lifestream's energy ispeople who have lived on the
planet, all living things,anything that has any organism,
any plant life, anything with acellular structure that feeds
into, I guess, what Disney wouldcall the circle of life.
That's the Lifestream and it'snot just energy and that's maybe
(22:58):
Barrett is more focused on theplanet as a visceral entity and
not getting into the spiritualside like a Eryth type character
would, but at the same time,the Lifestream is all of those
things.
So what Barrett sees and whathe thinks he's saving, what
(23:21):
Eryth understands life to be andwhy she's called to do the
things that she does, they'reboth correct.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, and another thing I find interesting is that
it's so the use of this energyis really just centered on
Midgar and then, to a smallerextent, various small towns.
It's the idea that, unlike ourcurrent world now, where we're
(23:53):
like finally transition awayfrom gas, there seem Barrett and
Avalanche jumping into thisearly on into the cycle of the
cycle.
Yeah, yeah, we're not waitingfor there to be reactors all
over the planet and then saylet's try solar power.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
They're getting on this early.
As far as the history of thisworld, if you're playing Final
Fantasy VII, that is the firstgame that is featuring this
world.
But there are spin-off games andone of them is a prequel called
Crisis Core, final Fantasy VII,and that depicts periods of
(24:39):
time that are closer to the warbetween Shinra and oh man.
That's the name of the oh WuTai, wu Tai.
Yes, so there's also a bit ofpropaganda Shinra against Wu Tai
and trying to create the storythat Avalanche is in cahoots
(25:03):
with Wu Tai.
So everyone in Midgar that isanti-Wu Tai is going to be
anti-Avalanche.
And that machine of the mediayou see it on television
broadcasts or hear it over radiobroadcasts throughout the game,
very similar to what we do inour own human history at times
(25:25):
of war.
And when you do escape the cityof Midgar and go to other
places, you're faced with thatshift in perception as well.
And it seems like thedifference maker in that war is
probably what that Shinradecided to completely embrace
(25:48):
the corruption of the livestream and the use of Mako in
their militarization efforts.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yes, yeah, pretty much, because, as far as I
understand, the war was anenormous stalemate up until they
invented ways to empower peopleusing the Mako energy, which
led to the soldier program,which basically the entire story
(26:22):
revolves around the varioussoldiers.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.
So if you have a characterclaiming to be soldier, they are
claiming that they have thepower running through their
veins to be the chosen one.
Essentially and I want to drawmore parallels between Star Wars
and Final Fantasy 7 reallyquick it seems now as the
(26:48):
difference maker in a wartimeeffort harvesting Mako, these
big factory reactors.
Now it seems that Shinra's reallife parallel is maybe nuclear
energy.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, somewhat, because not only were they
injecting into the soldiers tomake them superheroes, but they
were also experimenting onmaking super monsters and super
materia in the world of FinalFantasy 7.
(27:24):
Almost no one actually knowsmagic.
The majority of people thatknow magic are extinct.
They take the live streamenergy and form it into little
nuggets called materia, and thenyou insert the nuggets into
your flesh or your gear and thenyou are imparted with the
(27:45):
knowledge of actual wizards fromthe past, and that's how you
learn to cast abilities.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, so it's all about augmenting materials.
It's not about actuallyinnately possessing the ability.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, very few people have the innate ability and
those are well yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah.
So let's talk about some of thecharacters.
Gene, and I think thatobviously the first person you
have to talk about is Cloud.
You have to talk about Cloud asfar as being a video game hero
and realizing that he's a tinylittle character on a very big
(28:31):
screen in 1997.
And the blocks they use make itvery obvious that he's got
spiky, big, anime style blondehair, the purple jumpsuit and,
proportionally, the sword thathe has is gigantic, right, okay?
So he's very cool to look atand he is hired to be the
(28:57):
mercenary enforcer for theseavalanche missions to blow up
the reactors.
And he says that he is soldier.
He's from the former programcalled Soldier and he was at the
rank of first class, meaningI'm the chosen, one of the
chosen ones, so very formidable.
(29:21):
Then, of course, we have thehero.
We need the shadow figure, thedark side, to counter the hero.
And this is really why thewhole story actually is not
about eco-terrorism.
Is that you're doing all thesemissions and trying to stop
Shinra and then, halfway throughthe first disc of the game
(29:46):
because it was a three disc gameyou meet Sephiroth.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yes, and you basically realized that Shinra
made Anakin.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Okay, yeah, so we have already that.
Mako reactors are like Death,stars Cloud is like Luke If
Sephiroth is like Anakin, not inthe father's sunway.
But there are some deep ties ofuntold story that you have to
uncover to figure out what isgoing on between these two
(30:19):
characters.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But yeah, Sephiroth was the former war hero.
He has fan clubs.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
He was a celebrity.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And then he disappeared.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Did evil things apparently, and I don't really
think that we're going to spoilhuge amounts of content with the
story here.
I think that it's justimportant to understand Cloud
and Sephiroth have an appeal ashero and villains in the history
(30:52):
of video games that they'reinseparable.
For example, super SmashBrothers added Cloud and then
the next Super Smash Brothersgame added Sephiroth, and in a
game where the whole goal is tohave Mario and Samus and Lincoln
(31:12):
Donkey Kong fight each other,they're like we need Cloud and
Sephiroth to be able to fighteach other for this game to be
complete.
Okay, do these characters meanfor you and even some of the
other ones, if you want tointroduce them, gene, but just
these first two, the main two.
And then, why do you think thatthis game has so many
(31:33):
characters that are amazing?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I think that for the most part, besides Cloud's very
convoluted backstory, most ofthe characters are very normal,
so to speak.
They're not princesses orwizards, or there is regular
people.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Aerith's wizard, Gene , arguably you can fight me on
that yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Technically, she's just a flower girl.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, she's a flower girl.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, she's a flower girl.
Yuffie, if a was a, was abasically a tour guide and then
became a bartender.
Barrett was a miner, Sid was apilot and then Yuffie was a
thief and Vincent was acorporate bodyguard, basically
(32:24):
more or less.
Yeah, these are people ofregular jobs that regular people
can understand.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, I think also, if we're talking about the
psychology of the game, reallycapture archetypes well, they
seem to have an ability if youtake the time to play the game
or watch the movie Final FantasyVII, advent Children.
(32:50):
They're all characterized inways where you just feel like
you like certain ones of themand then there's more content to
go consume so that you can getto know them better.
There are some things that arecontroversial in the psychology
side you look at Is Tifa aneffective representation of a
(33:18):
female protagonist or is she amanifestation of male desires
and unrealistic body image kindsof things?
And it's a similar argument aswith Laura Croft, another
character that came intoexistence during the polygon era
of video games in the mid tolate 90s.
(33:38):
There are things that have beendone with both of these
characters that I think might beon the verge of poor taste.
Have you seen the statue thatSquare Enix came out with after
remake, with Tifa posed in frontof the Buster Sword in a pretty
provocative way?
Yeah, I believe so.
(34:00):
Yeah, tifa is sometimescharacterized in overly
sexualized ways, but in thevideo game itself, especially
since I'm playing through itagain right now, I don't really
feel like she is characterizedthat way at all in the game.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, definitely not in the game.
Interesting in game that no onereally makes note of it either.
No one says anything about theway people are dressed, or
whatever.
It just is.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Right.
So then I would argue and I'mreacting to some social media
posts that I saw this week aboutFinal Fantasy 7 even is just
people commenting on Tifa andtrying to shame developers who
create these sexualizedcharacters?
The reason I pointed out thatin the game she isn't portrayed
(35:01):
that way is we had Nick Yee onthe show.
He's a psychology researcherwho does motivation profiles,
and we were talking about avatarcreation.
And why do male game playerscreate female characters at the
rate that they do?
And it came up that females invideo games tend to have a wider
(35:23):
range of emotions.
Facial expressions are easierto detect, a wide range of
emotional experiences because ofour perception from the real
world.
Also, attractive charactersseem to work better for selling
games and getting peopleconnected to those characters.
(35:43):
The question is Tifa attractive, I would say extremely, but is
this a out of the way feature ofthe video game?
I personally don't see it thatway, but other people probably
do.
And then that's a question ofwhat they're bringing into the
game with them as players.
(36:03):
I'm bringing this up because,for example, if a counselor type
is listening to this episodeand needs to understand more
about what's the differencebetween characters as portrayed
in some Final Fantasy gamesversus games like Dead or Alive,
extreme Beach Volleyball.
(36:24):
That is not the same thing.
These are both video games, butthe goals of the developers are
not the same Exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
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 upmanipulation feature for any
Final Fantasy 7 character,Whereas games like Extreme Beach
(36:58):
Volleyball you can dress themup in all kinds of outfits.
You can give them all kinds ofaccessories.
That is the express goal.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
It is a plaything situation, right, but the Don
Corneo story is actuallydepicting that entire region of
the underside of Midgar, thepeople that are in power but
subordinate to him because he'sthe crime ward.
Their whole job is to sextraffic people to him.
(37:31):
That's how they avoidpunishment and having to suffer
the way everyone in theirsurroundings is suffering with
low socioeconomic opportunity.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, I found it interesting that in the remake,
one of the characters that youcan meet outside of the Honey
Bee Inn, which is like aburlesque dance, club Club, but
if they did bumblebees insteadof bunnies?
Right, and one of them isliterally one of the characters
(38:06):
that are going to dance.
There is literally a daycareand then, to make ends meet and
to pursue her dreams, she dancesat night.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Isn't that kind of like the maid service in Persona
5 with the school teacher?
I think that JRPGs areconsistently letting us know
also the hidden message that weneed to pay our teachers better.
Yes, yeah.
So we've talked about Cloud andSephiroth.
(38:40):
We've talked one sentence aboutsome of the others.
We've talked about how Tifa isa controversial figure, but that
disappoints me and I reallywish people just paid attention
to her actual characterizationin the game instead of all the
mods that thirsty game playersare putting on the internet.
(39:02):
So we need to talk about Aerith, I think.
Sure, because first off back toCloud for a second.
Cloud's backstory is a real.
One of the great earlyexpressions in video games of
mental health issues is.
I would diagnose Cloud, if hecame in for an assessment with
(39:25):
me, with at least post-traumaticstress disorder and some kind
of dissociation disorder,probably identity disorder,
because his explanation of whatit means to be soldier first
class from his memory may not beconsistent with the memory of
(39:49):
other people that were there.
And that's a fun part ofplaying the story and laying it
unfold.
Do you think I dodged spoilerterritory?
There Was that good.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely understand the
dissociation for sure, because,yeah, one of the conversations
they have with him is did youknow other people in first class
?
And he's nah not really.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
There's a moment in remake and it's not even in
chapter 12.
It's like in chapter four orfive where Cloud says something
about what his life is like andTifa's huh.
And I did not notice it threeyears ago or four whenever I
played the game for the firsttime.
(40:32):
But I noticed it this timebecause now I'm playing it with
the framework of I gotta beready for rebirth at the end of
February.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, and and this one.
It's a lot more interesting,like what you just said, because
now it's a question of is Tifajust going along with this to
maintain his cool guy persona?
Is he she really now having aninternal crisis about what
(41:02):
happened?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
No, I think that she's definitely preserving his
psyche and helping him along thepath to eventually he's got to
remember.
Maybe she feels like there'ssomething about the day when all
the things happened, that daywas hard for her too, so Tifa's
not living a nice life, and thencloud comes back.
(41:27):
It's been five tough years.
Cloud comes back.
That represents a lot ofmemories for her too, and I
think the game the original gameon PS1, cloud is easily the
main protagonist.
This game.
You get a lot more opportunityto understand the other
characters because it's socinematic.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
So what I was saying earlier, so a thing that's not
delved into very much, is theidea that cloud is technically a
what's the word?
Probably a traitor to thecountry.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
So are the eco terrorists.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But so I'm not sure how much Tifa is.
Has to just be like you'retotally not the guy, one of the
guys that had to go shoot Osamabin Laden.
There's that secret agentaspect of it, right.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
That's a good point.
So Soldier is Black Ops,classified stuff.
What they actually do on theirmissions is run through the
propaganda machine and we knowthat from crisis score, the
prequel.
Nobody actually knows whatSoldier does, except we should
(42:45):
really appreciate them, becausethere are heroes.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah.
So I was thinking like if cloudshows up and says this story,
is this the propaganda machineat work?
And now Tifa is, is this thepropaganda?
Because she hates Shenra?
Speaker 1 (43:01):
With good reason too.
We did have believe it, or not?
Everyone that's still with uson the episode.
We did have a road of trialsegment prepared, but it didn't
turn out to be necessary because, look at us, we're just, we're
explaining the characters in theworld and we're still up in the
(43:21):
clouds on this looking down onthe big picture question.
But why do you think this gamehas mattered so much that Sony
chose let's just remake theopening video to show off what
the PS3 will be able to do?
(43:41):
Why does this game matter somuch that, 22 years later, they
needed to remake it and releaseit?
Speaker 2 (43:52):
One of it is, I think , the like around the original
release of in 1997, was thecultural stuff that was
happening.
The 90s was the time.
The 80s and 90s was when awhole lot of Japanese media was
(44:14):
gaining popularity.
The 80s and 90s were when animewas taking off in America,
where people were getting intothings like Dragon Ball Z and
Pokemon, and so FAMHAS7 had thebenefit of riding that wave into
its massive success.
And so part of that is themassive nostalgia amongst people
(44:38):
.
That 90s time where you werewatching things like Toonami and
you were like this is the bestthing that could ever happen to
a teenager, and so I feel likethey really wanted to try to
recapture that lightning in abottle and remember that time of
(44:59):
your life.
This game was great and it'sstill great.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Also I think FAMHAS7 started things on that PS1 with
Final Fantasy.
Then, of course, final Fantasy8 and 9 come out on the PS1.
Final Fantasy 10 starts outFinal Fantasy on the PS2 and is
also an amazing game.
Final Fantasy 11 continues thatbut it's an MMO and not as
(45:27):
approachable for a lot of people, I don't think.
Then you get 12, whichcontinues what 10 was doing.
Then you get 13 starting outFinal Fantasy on the PS3.
And if you think about thosethree generations of consoles
PS1, 2, and 3, those are for ourgeneration of adults now Gene,
(45:54):
those are probably where some ofthe best memories of our lives
come from.
Cloud and Sephiroth, aerith andTifa, barrett and Euphie and
Vincent and even Sid and alsoeven Kateseth were all a part of
that period of time.
(46:15):
I'm in that 10 to 12 year oldrange at the time the Final
Fantasy 7 comes out.
I eventually played it for thefirst time, actually in college,
so I didn't get to enjoy it asa teenager, but still it worked,
it fit.
I had learned already fromgames like Pokemon that I really
(46:37):
love turn based fighting and Ilike leveling up characters.
It's not just leveling upcharacters, you level up your
materia as well the stones thatgive you your powers.
So it had a lot of really goodgame design for that mentality
of game player.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah and yeah.
That system of gaming, what youdescribed, the materia that's
been now copied in many otherRPGs.
Afterwards it started a wholesystem I don't know how to
describe it, but Resident Evil 4, on our favorite game of art,
it popularized that system whereyou can toggle items around in
(47:19):
the backpack.
But Final Fantasy 7 startedthis materia slot system where
you can equip abilities andslide them around to different
characters and create level upindividual things like that in
that granularity.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It also adds so much customizability and meta
strategy to the game because youhave the ability, with
arranging your materia correctlyfor specific purposes, to turn
certain characters intooverpowered, god tier fighters,
(47:59):
which is necessary if you wantto kill Emerald and Ruby weapon
and all of those extra bossfights.
So there's a lot of secretthings to discover in the games
too, and Final Fantasy 7 just asa going away idea before we
(48:20):
wrap up the conversation today.
It is a game that meant so muchto millions of people in the
90s that the demand of pleasejust make it look better.
I remember that throughout myentire college through adult
life, I remember hearing thatrequest on podcasts and YouTube
(48:45):
videos and some of the firstmods that I ever attempted to
install on games but neversucceeded.
They were just cell shaders forFinal Fantasy 7 to update the
graphics.
So instead of a PS1 game, itlooks like a Game Boy Advance
game, if you can imagine tryingto fix the PC version so it just
(49:08):
looks like a mobile phone game.
People really just wanted toexperience it again, but have it
look like their generation ofgraphics, and now it looks
better than a movie.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
It's interesting in that for,like, when Advent Children came
out the movie sequel to originalFinal Fantasy 7, people were
like this is what we want, let'smake a game that looks like
this.
And now we got it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Yeah, At that time I don't think that quite was
possible.
But Final Fantasy games alsoare leaders in visuals.
I think that's true.
I think if you look at whatfinal fantasy 16 looks like, if
you look at what final fantasy15 looked like on the ps4 and 13
on the ps3?
(50:03):
I think it's always leading theway.
And what can these consoles do?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, that is definitely true.
It's it's gone to the strange,not strange.
An interesting point in thelast couple of Generations, like
the ps3 generation, wetechnically only had One final
fantasy.
If you're including all three,five answer 13's into one
(50:31):
umbrella.
Yeah, they basically invest awhole lot of technology and
money into making one platformFor each generation and then
they just keep working on it.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, absolutely, and it shows so Last week, when we
did part one of what is filefantasy and we talked about how
Final fantasy is one of the keygame franchises for me to be
able to talk about thepsychology Inside the characters
(51:06):
of video games, the mythologythat's packaged inside the
stories of video games.
Without this franchise, I Don'tthink that conversation would
be anywhere close to ascompelling as it actually is.
Yeah, and without Final Fantasy7, I Don't think I would be a
(51:29):
person trying to have thatconversation All the time every
week.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, I'm trying to think of if, finally, seven
didn't exist, what would be thenext equivalent Star Wars level
mass appeal JRPG, and that's areal struggle.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Fantasy 7 doesn't exist.
Do any of the final fantasygames after it exists?
Speaker 2 (51:54):
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 (52:05):
Yes, but we don't know what it would be named
because, it was created in aAlternate universe where Star
Wars doesn't exist.
Therefore, yeah, we don't knowwhat themes would have been Done
to make that franchise.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
I'm just thinking, without finally set, finally
seven, I don't think I'm I don'tknow of what other franchise
would step up to take its place.
I think the JRPG Genre wouldnot have the appeal that it
currently does.
Okay, it would be.
It would still be a game fornerds.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
I wonder.
You said that about an hour ago, jean, and the first thing that
popped in my head is I hearsome people Tell me all the time
that Final Fantasy 6 is thebest Final Fantasy, and even me
certified geek therapist, doctor, game ology in my head thinks
nerd.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Charlotte says Star Trek, but I don't think Star
Trek hits that mass Appeal thesame way, because it's maybe JJ
Abrams version, that's maybe ourwars.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
So yeah, his version wouldn't exist.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Because Star Trek is like it's a good Franchise
overall, but it's not that sameSpace, a venture story, some of
the series are.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
It's science fiction.
It's not space opera.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah, like some of our attempt to replicate it, but
a lot, especially the originaland then the next generation
it's here are individualepisodes of what we did on this
planet.
It's not this overarching thing.
My jig like Star Wars is untilyou start talking about some of
the sequel movies, like when thecar comes back for Star Trek
(53:47):
nemesis.
But let's not, because that's abad movie.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
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 justhave 10 minute to 15 minute
coffee chats every morning wherewe discuss Firefly and other
such things.
I Really cannot think of a gamethat fills the void that would
(54:19):
be left if we deleted FinalFantasy 7 from the history of
video games.
I think it's one of those gamesthat is so important to
understand the gaming persona aswe currently understand it.
For game players, it's likeZelda, it's like Mario, it's
like all those other charactersthat are in Super Smash Brothers
(54:43):
, which is kind of like thevideo game Hall of Fame in my
mind, by the way.
But Final Fantasy 7 is the gamethat showed me that these
stories are mythological, theyare epic.
The characters are timeless.
I don't think the world Whilehumans are living on it We'll
(55:05):
have a point in time where everysingle person on the planet has
forgotten about cloud andSephiroth.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, okay, so maybe I got it.
I think JRPGs would be stuck inthat Very nerd zone all the way
until Persona 4 releases.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
Persona 4 Golden.
I think would have been Persona4 Golden regardless of Final
Fantasy 7 existing.
Yeah, and that game is amasterpiece as well.
It's not Final Fantasy 7,though.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
But I think that's the next other game that would
have that capture what it's liketo be a teen and deal with
contemporary topics and, again,giant media blitz where there's
TV shows and whatever around it.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
But, jean, without Final Fantasy 7, would Sony have
become so profitable that theycreate the PSP and eventually
the PlayStation Vita?
Because Persona 4 is notPersona 4?
Golden, I Think that game tookoff because of Golden and the
(56:20):
Vita.
It's the one game that became abetter known property because
of the Vita.
Sure, possibly.
Okay, I think we havethoroughly summarized all of the
things that we can cram into anhour plus Conversation, but
without becoming a two hour plusconversation.
I think this went very well.
(56:43):
We have so much left that wecan 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 tohave an understanding of what
it's like for me to be theshowrunner.
I guess that's what we wouldcall me.
I Found a video that is eighthours long.
(57:06):
That's all the cutscenes fromFinal Fantasy 7 remake.
I said Jenny, watch this entirevideo in preparation for our
episode next week.
Ashley, no, she flew away.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Yeah, she got plane time oh.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
I'm sure someday she will watch it on double or
triple speed so that she can.
What she needs to do is havethe boyfriend play Final Fantasy
7 remake while she does whatshe did with the Witcher.
It's perfect.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, yeah that, that's a great idea.
I.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Really would love to continue this conversation with
her as a three person, so Iactually would Enjoy putting a
pin in this and saying we're notdone with Final Fantasy 7.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Yeah, tell your boyfriend to beat it in the next
year.
What were you at it?
Speaker 1 (58:03):
No, next week, beat the whole game this week, all
right, oh boy, yeah.
So if these conversations soundfun to you and you're looking
for some great people to playonline games with, check out AIE
at AIE dashgillorg.
I have one last quest foreveryone to collect for the day,
even as a gamer save the planetand continue the journey.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Bye-bye.
Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
.
I'm your host, dr Gamology, onYouTube and online classrooms
across the country, and I'mjoined by one of my very best
friends for my gaming journey,gene Wong.
Gene, how are you doing thisweek?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm doing great.
We are contained to weathersnow.
We're playing in snow for thefirst time.
Trying to Building a snowman isdeceptively hard if you've
never done it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh man, it's been a couple decades, so we have a
little bit of a shift in ourpersonnel for tonight.
Jenny could not be with us thisevening, but I'm sure she's
doing great and we're going tosee her on the show soon.
So you can find me, as at DrGamology, on YouTube and all the
(01:09):
social places, but I'm focusingon YouTube and threads are my
primary two, and you can find meon this show every week.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And the game of Persona can be found on Apple
Podcasts, spotify, google andmost 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 (01:32):
Yes, absolutely, Gene .
What are we talking about thisweek from the worlds of video
games?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We are going to continue our topic discussing
what is Final Fantasy, but thistime we're going to hone in a
bit on Final Fantasy 7, as it isPretty sure the most popular
entry in the franchise maybe notare debatably against 14, but
that's a different beast.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, so we're going to go into Final Fantasy 7
tonight, and then that opens upall kinds of fun things we can
do with future episodes, becausethere are 15 others that we can
get into after this.
So I'm really excited aboutthis one.
(02:22):
Let's go into our ordinaryworld.
All right, gene, what have youbeen up to as a game player and
person who thinks video gamesare pretty neat?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I have finally completed Baldur 2, gate 3 with
my wife.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
What that's possible.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yes, and funny actually not a funny non-spoiler
During the end, prior to theending, you could choose to have
Gale blow up and you gostraight to the ending.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
What yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
you could skip the final battles.
Okay, if you were fed up withthe game at that point, you
could do that.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But I get a sense.
Probably that's not what youchose to do.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I did it both ways just because we were very
curious about if Gale makes hischoice.
Is the game just go straight toblack?
Game over it did not?
You go to the ending andeveryone just gales, the savior
of our realm.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
That's like when you're playing D&D and the DM
has plans, but you blow up theworld and it just scraps 20
hours of content and you have tocontinue the story.
Okay, so how do you feel aboutthat conclusion?
(03:52):
For you, the Gale conclusion isa real one.
How you got there?
Do you feel like it cheated youout of some experiences because
of the just pushing through topiece together the ending with
your actions?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh, only a little, because in so I don't know if
you are aware of Carlax plotline.
She has a demot or a infernalengine.
Yeah, yes, that is also going tomelt down and blow her up In
(04:28):
order to save her from that fate.
Our option was very odd.
Okay, because I don't know ifyou got into the part of her
story yet where one of the waysthat people had figured out hey,
maybe, like your engine wasbuilt in hell, you maybe need to
(04:51):
go back to hell to try to fixit.
And she's no, I'm never goingback.
I thought so hard to escape it.
And so, because of that and thedialogue choices we made, where
we're like, okay, your life isyour life, you got to do what
makes you happy.
That whole argument was nolonger available.
And the other way that I won'tspoil of saving her is really
(05:19):
weird.
And we're like, okay, but wedon't want Carly could die.
So, as weird as this is, we'regoing to do it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, neat.
Well, for me, my Baldur's Gatethree experience this week was
actually pretty substantial, butit really echoes what it is I
am as a game player, especiallywhen you look at the motivations
for playing games questionnairethat I continue to use in my
(05:51):
research.
I really need my charactersthat I created to look cool.
It's just a thing, and Baldur'sGate was actually proving to be
a little problematic.
Yeah, and I certainlyunderstand that.
That is essentially that.
(06:12):
I want to play well, but Ireally need the character I
created to look good as in theidea I had when I created them,
and I got stuck wearing somestupid clothing for, oh yeah,
tens of hours.
So, I started looking at waysto fix that problem.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
If you're on PC, they do make clothing mods.
Other than that, yeah, most ofthe stuff that doesn't look like
garbage is not to act.
Three.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Okay.
The solution I found is I foundout about the tutorial chest
mod where they put all the campclothing 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 aboutBaldur's Gate three mod manager
(07:12):
and learning all the.
Let's launch the game this timeand see if it worked.
Let's launch the game this timeand see if it worked.
And I did eventually figure itout, and I didn't even know that
they had the hide combat armorwhere oh yeah we run around the
world in the camp outfit, asopposed to right the whatever
(07:34):
janky armor they have youwearing for stats.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They dumb thing about that future is that you can't
have a hat because it counts asarmor, and so you're forever
hatless when you use thatfeature, it's well but the head
attires that I have in myinventory all make you look
really dumb too.
Oh yeah, that is also a problemfor a big chunk of the game.
(08:00):
But later on you do get classicGandalf style wizard hats and
it's I want to wear a robe andmy wizard hat and I can't.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, out of the three games I've played where I
get this feeling of I createdthis character, and for me
that's Baldur's Gate 3, finalFantasy 14, star Wars, the Old
Republic Baldur's Gate 3 easilyhas the worst fashion out of all
three.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, so it's bad until you get to the end.
Towards the end, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
But what's the point of finally looking good at the
end?
You don't get to enjoy it.
It's like ugly pajamas theentire 30 hours to get there.
I do still have my characterthat's in Act 3 looking stupid,
so I'm splitting my playtimelearning the differences between
(08:54):
Sorcerer, my low levelcharacter, and then Wizard,
which is my higher levelcharacter that's in Act 3, but
stuck wearing ugly clothes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, well, if you wanted to learn our class, you
could just respect Respect.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Oh, I haven't gotten involved in any of that either,
but I think that, see, here'sthe thing.
I didn't know the features tohide your armor until I started
looking things up.
I didn't know about the modmanager until I looked things up
and they're like here's a modto put all of the outfits in the
(09:36):
first ship, the ship at thevery beginning of the game.
As far as Act 3, I'm having alot of fun with the story.
I'm not going to spoil or getdetailed at all because I
noticed a lot of people that Iwouldn'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 adouble Nat 20 today and I know
(10:03):
that doesn't matter, you onlyneed 120.
But I rolled two and I couldn'tget to my keyboard fast enough
to screenshot it before it wentaway and it just said critical
success on the one dice.
But I was like that screenshotis everything and I missed it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Vorpal weapons exist in this game, but they don't.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Can you explain what you just said?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Okay, so a Vorpal weapon is, at least in older
versions of D&D and Pathfinder.
If you roll a 20, so you'reabout to critical hit, and then
you roll another 20, then it'sbasically a super critical where
things instantly die, youdecapitate them.
(10:50):
But it's a special type ofweapon called a Vorpal weapon.
It's incredibly expensive.
You generally don't get untilreally late in the game.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, yeah, it is too bad they don't have those
.
Let's answer the call toadventure and get into our topic
for the week.
All right, gene, we are on ourpart two of what is Final
Fantasy for our show, and I hada lot of fun editing the part
one.
I think it turned out reallywell and I hope everyone who
(11:24):
didn't catch us live last weekhas time to listen.
But if you're listening to thisepisode, you probably already
have.
So that's an interesting cyclethat I just put us on.
But now we're going to talkabout Final Fantasy 7.
Why is Final Fantasy VIIimportant?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Well, as far as I am aware, final Fantasy VII is
basically the JRPG equivalent ofwhat Star Wars did to sci-fi.
It's the one that made it verybroadly accessible to a wide
(12:06):
swath of people, whereas beforenot that Final Fantasy I through
VI weren't great.
They were seen as games fornerds, more or less.
But VII they did lots ofmarketing, they did the
cinematic trailers and thingslike a Hollywood fashion.
(12:27):
They really tried to make it abroad mass appeal situation and
it worked.
It sold absurd amounts ofcopies.
It also was just like Star Warsa showcase of the technology of
the time.
It was one of the first 3D RPGsfor most people because, other
(12:47):
than owning the firstPlayStation, you had to own a
gaming-capable PC, which backthen was a lot rarer for most
people.
Oh yeah, that's a big dealright there.
Yeah, so for a lot of peoplethey were completely blown away
by the special effects aspect ofit, Just like Star Wars did to
(13:07):
sci-fi movies.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It did a lot of trickery too, special
effects-wise, of pairing cameratechniques with matte paintings
in that original trilogy era.
And Ralph McQuarrie, I think, asthe principal person for those
matte paintings, is just ascreditworthy as the people who
(13:31):
were operating the cameras anddoing the special effects with
the models.
The scene, for example, withLando and Han talking about
you're going to take the Falconand return to the Jedi, that's
them standing on a stage withpaintings behind them.
And I remember when I wasplaying Final Fantasy VII, the
(13:53):
first time you have your 3Denvironments, then you have
artwork as the background ofthose environments.
So if you look at it and youbreak the illusion of this is a
game and you think about what amI actually looking at?
You clearly are never going tointeract with those things in
the background.
They're not the walking path,you're not running by them,
(14:16):
you're not going to click,select on them.
But it makes Midgar and I thinkthe world is named Gaia, the
whole world, I think, is Gaia.
It makes all of it feel justalive compared to other video
(14:36):
games of the time.
And this was 1997, right.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And, yeah, this game also appealed to more
contemporary ideas and topics atthe time.
For instance, first of all,you're playing as eco-terrorists
and the Shinra Corporation isnot definitively evil yes, some
(15:04):
of the executives running it are, but it is a good entity for
many.
It's providing homes andelectricity, pharmaceuticals,
stuff like that.
They're not just a guy that's.
They're not an evil entitythat's out to murder people like
Kafka of Final Fantasy VI.
It's capitalism.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, it's capitalism .
It's also a really neat way toshare stories about how we treat
the planet and essentially, tobecome more aware of why things
like Earth Day, why recyclingand why paying attention to our
energy sources is important, andthat's the cool thing about
(15:47):
anything that is attempting toshare life lessons via mythology
.
As the delivery system is, youget ideas in there that would
have been blocked by politicalor religious ideologies and say
that's not how we think Yetbecause it's fictional.
(16:12):
You get pro-taking care of theplanet messages inside
households that maybe are not aslikely to be motivated by the
threat of global warming, forexample.
Right that there are energysources and what kinds of
(16:33):
vehicles and the carbonfootprint.
Final Fantasy VII, actually inthe first half of the game, is
talking a lot about that.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, and I think it's really interesting that
between both the original andthe remake, that a lot of these
people are simply going abouttheir regular jobs, getting a
salary.
They're just regular people.
They're not trying to destroythe planet.
A lot of them are just likepaper pushers.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
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 personalrisk to decide I'm not going to
do that job, because it's notexactly easy to just go get
(17:26):
another job all the time.
And in Final Fantasy VII, forexample, Midgar is the giant
circular city that is run by theShinra Corporation.
It seems like the entiresociety is working for Shinra.
(17:46):
Everything runs to Shinra.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, pretty much, except for the random small
businesses in the slums, becausethey don't really care.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
They're not characterized as real people,
though.
Right, yeah, I actually thoughtabout this when I was writing
my book is you get a lot ofconcepts that are similar to
medieval, like a caste system.
You have the royals, and thenyou have the people who are more
(18:18):
like security and the cityguards city watch, the Shinra
troopers and you get the peoplewhose jobs are in the royal
court.
Those are the Shinra employeeson the bullet trains going all
around the city just trying toget to work.
And then you have the peoplethat are just in the gutter.
(18:39):
Nobody knows their name.
You could drop the city on themand crush them, and it's not
even that's not the sad part.
The sad part is part of ourcity's missing now, those
terrorists, yeah and I thinkit's also interesting in the.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Not only is that what you just talked about the caste
situation but you are neverreally told at least not to the
remake.
You're never really told aboutall those people that live on
the upper end of that plate thatwas dropped on the slums and
then you're not sure oh did tonsof people die.
(19:19):
They were living in theirsuburban homes.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
They died too, Absolutely tons of people died.
But, gene, for us growing up aschildren at the time that Final
Fantasy VII comes out teenageyears, september 11th 2001 had
not happened yet.
And if you really think aboutthe imagery of them dropping the
(19:48):
plate and the terror of theregular people that you happen
to see and the aftermath andwalking through the rubble,
seeing the remake with thebetter graphics and having more
access to more characters on thescreen, it's like that, I mean,
as far as a video gamedepicting something that
(20:10):
terrible, the kind of grief andthe shock and the trauma and
just how scary that is and howcould they.
It's very similar to anunexpected terrorism or military
strike.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, and also, yeah, I like that away from that
instance of terrorism.
But they really played up howbig of a deal Avalanche blowing
up reactors was Granted.
In the remake they doctor upthe situation to make the
explosion worse, but the basicprinciple is the same You're
shutting down a chunk of a cityfor thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
And you're just hoping that slows down the
destruction that's running downdeep into the core of the planet
long enough for the planet torecover.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, I don't.
Basically had the game's plotnot gone the way it went.
I'm sure you would have had togo through and just done that.
What 13 more times?
Yeah, and then you would beleft in the city, mostly crater.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It seems like Barrett's entire plan was I need
to destroy all of Midgar.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, which I know he has his principles, but yeah,
that's a lot of people.
You will get killed, evenindirectly, because you take out
the power.
People don't have access tomedical equipment, all kinds of
things.
It's bad.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So we've talked about some of the world building.
We've talked about the city ofMidgar and how it's run by
Shinra Corporation.
And the thing that Shinra isdoing that is insulting to the
people who care about the planetof Gaia is they're harvesting
the energy source that keeps theplanet alive, called the
(22:12):
Lifestream, and this is aflowing of.
It's an energy source thatflows with a spiritual like kind
of energy that is also likeelectricity too, apparently, and
like fuel, and you can poweryour entire society and
technology and steam factoriesand everything with the
(22:34):
Lifestream.
But the Lifestream's energy ispeople who have lived on the
planet, all living things,anything that has any organism,
any plant life, anything with acellular structure that feeds
into, I guess, what Disney wouldcall the circle of life.
That's the Lifestream and it'snot just energy and that's maybe
(22:58):
Barrett is more focused on theplanet as a visceral entity and
not getting into the spiritualside like a Eryth type character
would, but at the same time,the Lifestream is all of those
things.
So what Barrett sees and whathe thinks he's saving, what
(23:21):
Eryth understands life to be andwhy she's called to do the
things that she does, they'reboth correct.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, and another thing I find interesting is that
it's so the use of this energyis really just centered on
Midgar and then, to a smallerextent, various small towns.
It's the idea that, unlike ourcurrent world now, where we're
(23:53):
like finally transition awayfrom gas, there seem Barrett and
Avalanche jumping into thisearly on into the cycle of the
cycle.
Yeah, yeah, we're not waitingfor there to be reactors all
over the planet and then saylet's try solar power.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
They're getting on this early.
As far as the history of thisworld, if you're playing Final
Fantasy VII, that is the firstgame that is featuring this
world.
But there are spin-off games andone of them is a prequel called
Crisis Core, final Fantasy VII,and that depicts periods of
(24:39):
time that are closer to the warbetween Shinra and oh man.
That's the name of the oh WuTai, wu Tai.
Yes, so there's also a bit ofpropaganda Shinra against Wu Tai
and trying to create the storythat Avalanche is in cahoots
(25:03):
with Wu Tai.
So everyone in Midgar that isanti-Wu Tai is going to be
anti-Avalanche.
And that machine of the mediayou see it on television
broadcasts or hear it over radiobroadcasts throughout the game,
very similar to what we do inour own human history at times
(25:25):
of war.
And when you do escape the cityof Midgar and go to other
places, you're faced with thatshift in perception as well.
And it seems like thedifference maker in that war is
probably what that Shinradecided to completely embrace
(25:48):
the corruption of the livestream and the use of Mako in
their militarization efforts.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yes, yeah, pretty much, because, as far as I
understand, the war was anenormous stalemate up until they
invented ways to empower peopleusing the Mako energy, which
led to the soldier program,which basically the entire story
(26:22):
revolves around the varioussoldiers.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.
So if you have a characterclaiming to be soldier, they are
claiming that they have thepower running through their
veins to be the chosen one.
Essentially and I want to drawmore parallels between Star Wars
and Final Fantasy 7 reallyquick it seems now as the
(26:48):
difference maker in a wartimeeffort harvesting Mako, these
big factory reactors.
Now it seems that Shinra's reallife parallel is maybe nuclear
energy.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, somewhat, because not only were they
injecting into the soldiers tomake them superheroes, but they
were also experimenting onmaking super monsters and super
materia in the world of FinalFantasy 7.
(27:24):
Almost no one actually knowsmagic.
The majority of people thatknow magic are extinct.
They take the live streamenergy and form it into little
nuggets called materia, and thenyou insert the nuggets into
your flesh or your gear and thenyou are imparted with the
(27:45):
knowledge of actual wizards fromthe past, and that's how you
learn to cast abilities.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, so it's all about augmenting materials.
It's not about actuallyinnately possessing the ability.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, very few people have the innate ability and
those are well yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah.
So let's talk about some of thecharacters.
Gene, and I think thatobviously the first person you
have to talk about is Cloud.
You have to talk about Cloud asfar as being a video game hero
and realizing that he's a tinylittle character on a very big
(28:31):
screen in 1997.
And the blocks they use make itvery obvious that he's got
spiky, big, anime style blondehair, the purple jumpsuit and,
proportionally, the sword thathe has is gigantic, right, okay?
So he's very cool to look atand he is hired to be the
(28:57):
mercenary enforcer for theseavalanche missions to blow up
the reactors.
And he says that he is soldier.
He's from the former programcalled Soldier and he was at the
rank of first class, meaningI'm the chosen, one of the
chosen ones, so very formidable.
(29:21):
Then, of course, we have thehero.
We need the shadow figure, thedark side, to counter the hero.
And this is really why thewhole story actually is not
about eco-terrorism.
Is that you're doing all thesemissions and trying to stop
Shinra and then, halfway throughthe first disc of the game
(29:46):
because it was a three disc gameyou meet Sephiroth.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yes, and you basically realized that Shinra
made Anakin.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Okay, yeah, so we have already that.
Mako reactors are like Death,stars Cloud is like Luke If
Sephiroth is like Anakin, not inthe father's sunway.
But there are some deep ties ofuntold story that you have to
uncover to figure out what isgoing on between these two
(30:19):
characters.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But yeah, Sephiroth was the former war hero.
He has fan clubs.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
He was a celebrity.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And then he disappeared.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Did evil things apparently, and I don't really
think that we're going to spoilhuge amounts of content with the
story here.
I think that it's justimportant to understand Cloud
and Sephiroth have an appeal ashero and villains in the history
(30:52):
of video games that they'reinseparable.
For example, super SmashBrothers added Cloud and then
the next Super Smash Brothersgame added Sephiroth, and in a
game where the whole goal is tohave Mario and Samus and Lincoln
(31:12):
Donkey Kong fight each other,they're like we need Cloud and
Sephiroth to be able to fighteach other for this game to be
complete.
Okay, do these characters meanfor you and even some of the
other ones, if you want tointroduce them, gene, but just
these first two, the main two.
And then, why do you think thatthis game has so many
(31:33):
characters that are amazing?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I think that for the most part, besides Cloud's very
convoluted backstory, most ofthe characters are very normal,
so to speak.
They're not princesses orwizards, or there is regular
people.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Aerith's wizard, Gene , arguably you can fight me on
that yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Technically, she's just a flower girl.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, she's a flower girl.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, she's a flower girl.
Yuffie, if a was a, was abasically a tour guide and then
became a bartender.
Barrett was a miner, Sid was apilot and then Yuffie was a
thief and Vincent was acorporate bodyguard, basically
(32:24):
more or less.
Yeah, these are people ofregular jobs that regular people
can understand.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, I think also, if we're talking about the
psychology of the game, reallycapture archetypes well, they
seem to have an ability if youtake the time to play the game
or watch the movie Final FantasyVII, advent Children.
(32:50):
They're all characterized inways where you just feel like
you like certain ones of themand then there's more content to
go consume so that you can getto know them better.
There are some things that arecontroversial in the psychology
side you look at Is Tifa aneffective representation of a
(33:18):
female protagonist or is she amanifestation of male desires
and unrealistic body image kindsof things?
And it's a similar argument aswith Laura Croft, another
character that came intoexistence during the polygon era
of video games in the mid tolate 90s.
(33:38):
There are things that have beendone with both of these
characters that I think might beon the verge of poor taste.
Have you seen the statue thatSquare Enix came out with after
remake, with Tifa posed in frontof the Buster Sword in a pretty
provocative way?
Yeah, I believe so.
(34:00):
Yeah, tifa is sometimescharacterized in overly
sexualized ways, but in thevideo game itself, especially
since I'm playing through itagain right now, I don't really
feel like she is characterizedthat way at all in the game.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, definitely not in the game.
Interesting in game that no onereally makes note of it either.
No one says anything about theway people are dressed, or
whatever.
It just is.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Right.
So then I would argue and I'mreacting to some social media
posts that I saw this week aboutFinal Fantasy 7 even is just
people commenting on Tifa andtrying to shame developers who
create these sexualizedcharacters?
The reason I pointed out thatin the game she isn't portrayed
(35:01):
that way is we had Nick Yee onthe show.
He's a psychology researcherwho does motivation profiles,
and we were talking about avatarcreation.
And why do male game playerscreate female characters at the
rate that they do?
And it came up that females invideo games tend to have a wider
(35:23):
range of emotions.
Facial expressions are easierto detect, a wide range of
emotional experiences because ofour perception from the real
world.
Also, attractive charactersseem to work better for selling
games and getting peopleconnected to those characters.
(35:43):
The question is Tifa attractive, I would say extremely, but is
this a out of the way feature ofthe video game?
I personally don't see it thatway, but other people probably
do.
And then that's a question ofwhat they're bringing into the
game with them as players.
(36:03):
I'm bringing this up because,for example, if a counselor type
is listening to this episodeand needs to understand more
about what's the differencebetween characters as portrayed
in some Final Fantasy gamesversus games like Dead or Alive,
extreme Beach Volleyball.
(36:24):
That is not the same thing.
These are both video games, butthe goals of the developers are
not the same Exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
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 upmanipulation feature for any
Final Fantasy 7 character,Whereas games like Extreme Beach
(36:58):
Volleyball you can dress themup in all kinds of outfits.
You can give them all kinds ofaccessories.
That is the express goal.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
It is a plaything situation, right, but the Don
Corneo story is actuallydepicting that entire region of
the underside of Midgar, thepeople that are in power but
subordinate to him because he'sthe crime ward.
Their whole job is to sextraffic people to him.
(37:31):
That's how they avoidpunishment and having to suffer
the way everyone in theirsurroundings is suffering with
low socioeconomic opportunity.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, I found it interesting that in the remake,
one of the characters that youcan meet outside of the Honey
Bee Inn, which is like aburlesque dance, club Club, but
if they did bumblebees insteadof bunnies?
Right, and one of them isliterally one of the characters
(38:06):
that are going to dance.
There is literally a daycareand then, to make ends meet and
to pursue her dreams, she dancesat night.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Isn't that kind of like the maid service in Persona
5 with the school teacher?
I think that JRPGs areconsistently letting us know
also the hidden message that weneed to pay our teachers better.
Yes, yeah.
So we've talked about Cloud andSephiroth.
(38:40):
We've talked one sentence aboutsome of the others.
We've talked about how Tifa isa controversial figure, but that
disappoints me and I reallywish people just paid attention
to her actual characterizationin the game instead of all the
mods that thirsty game playersare putting on the internet.
(39:02):
So we need to talk about Aerith, I think.
Sure, because first off back toCloud for a second.
Cloud's backstory is a real.
One of the great earlyexpressions in video games of
mental health issues is.
I would diagnose Cloud, if hecame in for an assessment with
(39:25):
me, with at least post-traumaticstress disorder and some kind
of dissociation disorder,probably identity disorder,
because his explanation of whatit means to be soldier first
class from his memory may not beconsistent with the memory of
(39:49):
other people that were there.
And that's a fun part ofplaying the story and laying it
unfold.
Do you think I dodged spoilerterritory?
There Was that good.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely understand the
dissociation for sure, because,yeah, one of the conversations
they have with him is did youknow other people in first class
?
And he's nah not really.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
There's a moment in remake and it's not even in
chapter 12.
It's like in chapter four orfive where Cloud says something
about what his life is like andTifa's huh.
And I did not notice it threeyears ago or four whenever I
played the game for the firsttime.
(40:32):
But I noticed it this timebecause now I'm playing it with
the framework of I gotta beready for rebirth at the end of
February.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, and and this one.
It's a lot more interesting,like what you just said, because
now it's a question of is Tifajust going along with this to
maintain his cool guy persona?
Is he she really now having aninternal crisis about what
(41:02):
happened?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
No, I think that she's definitely preserving his
psyche and helping him along thepath to eventually he's got to
remember.
Maybe she feels like there'ssomething about the day when all
the things happened, that daywas hard for her too, so Tifa's
not living a nice life, and thencloud comes back.
(41:27):
It's been five tough years.
Cloud comes back.
That represents a lot ofmemories for her too, and I
think the game the original gameon PS1, cloud is easily the
main protagonist.
This game.
You get a lot more opportunityto understand the other
characters because it's socinematic.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
So what I was saying earlier, so a thing that's not
delved into very much, is theidea that cloud is technically a
what's the word?
Probably a traitor to thecountry.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
So are the eco terrorists.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But so I'm not sure how much Tifa is.
Has to just be like you'retotally not the guy, one of the
guys that had to go shoot Osamabin Laden.
There's that secret agentaspect of it, right.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
That's a good point.
So Soldier is Black Ops,classified stuff.
What they actually do on theirmissions is run through the
propaganda machine and we knowthat from crisis score, the
prequel.
Nobody actually knows whatSoldier does, except we should
(42:45):
really appreciate them, becausethere are heroes.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah.
So I was thinking like if cloudshows up and says this story,
is this the propaganda machineat work?
And now Tifa is, is this thepropaganda?
Because she hates Shenra?
Speaker 1 (43:01):
With good reason too.
We did have believe it, or not?
Everyone that's still with uson the episode.
We did have a road of trialsegment prepared, but it didn't
turn out to be necessary because, look at us, we're just, we're
explaining the characters in theworld and we're still up in the
(43:21):
clouds on this looking down onthe big picture question.
But why do you think this gamehas mattered so much that Sony
chose let's just remake theopening video to show off what
the PS3 will be able to do?
(43:41):
Why does this game matter somuch that, 22 years later, they
needed to remake it and releaseit?
Speaker 2 (43:52):
One of it is, I think , the like around the original
release of in 1997, was thecultural stuff that was
happening.
The 90s was the time.
The 80s and 90s was when awhole lot of Japanese media was
(44:14):
gaining popularity.
The 80s and 90s were when animewas taking off in America,
where people were getting intothings like Dragon Ball Z and
Pokemon, and so FAMHAS7 had thebenefit of riding that wave into
its massive success.
And so part of that is themassive nostalgia amongst people
(44:38):
.
That 90s time where you werewatching things like Toonami and
you were like this is the bestthing that could ever happen to
a teenager, and so I feel likethey really wanted to try to
recapture that lightning in abottle and remember that time of
(44:59):
your life.
This game was great and it'sstill great.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Also I think FAMHAS7 started things on that PS1 with
Final Fantasy.
Then, of course, final Fantasy8 and 9 come out on the PS1.
Final Fantasy 10 starts outFinal Fantasy on the PS2 and is
also an amazing game.
Final Fantasy 11 continues thatbut it's an MMO and not as
(45:27):
approachable for a lot of people, I don't think.
Then you get 12, whichcontinues what 10 was doing.
Then you get 13 starting outFinal Fantasy on the PS3.
And if you think about thosethree generations of consoles
PS1, 2, and 3, those are for ourgeneration of adults now Gene,
(45:54):
those are probably where some ofthe best memories of our lives
come from.
Cloud and Sephiroth, aerith andTifa, barrett and Euphie and
Vincent and even Sid and alsoeven Kateseth were all a part of
that period of time.
(46:15):
I'm in that 10 to 12 year oldrange at the time the Final
Fantasy 7 comes out.
I eventually played it for thefirst time, actually in college,
so I didn't get to enjoy it asa teenager, but still it worked,
it fit.
I had learned already fromgames like Pokemon that I really
(46:37):
love turn based fighting and Ilike leveling up characters.
It's not just leveling upcharacters, you level up your
materia as well the stones thatgive you your powers.
So it had a lot of really goodgame design for that mentality
of game player.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah and yeah.
That system of gaming, what youdescribed, the materia that's
been now copied in many otherRPGs.
Afterwards it started a wholesystem I don't know how to
describe it, but Resident Evil 4, on our favorite game of art,
it popularized that system whereyou can toggle items around in
(47:19):
the backpack.
But Final Fantasy 7 startedthis materia slot system where
you can equip abilities andslide them around to different
characters and create level upindividual things like that in
that granularity.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It also adds so much customizability and meta
strategy to the game because youhave the ability, with
arranging your materia correctlyfor specific purposes, to turn
certain characters intooverpowered, god tier fighters,
(47:59):
which is necessary if you wantto kill Emerald and Ruby weapon
and all of those extra bossfights.
So there's a lot of secretthings to discover in the games
too, and Final Fantasy 7 just asa going away idea before we
(48:20):
wrap up the conversation today.
It is a game that meant so muchto millions of people in the
90s that the demand of pleasejust make it look better.
I remember that throughout myentire college through adult
life, I remember hearing thatrequest on podcasts and YouTube
(48:45):
videos and some of the firstmods that I ever attempted to
install on games but neversucceeded.
They were just cell shaders forFinal Fantasy 7 to update the
graphics.
So instead of a PS1 game, itlooks like a Game Boy Advance
game, if you can imagine tryingto fix the PC version so it just
(49:08):
looks like a mobile phone game.
People really just wanted toexperience it again, but have it
look like their generation ofgraphics, and now it looks
better than a movie.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
It's interesting in that for,like, when Advent Children came
out the movie sequel to originalFinal Fantasy 7, people were
like this is what we want, let'smake a game that looks like
this.
And now we got it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Yeah, At that time I don't think that quite was
possible.
But Final Fantasy games alsoare leaders in visuals.
I think that's true.
I think if you look at whatfinal fantasy 16 looks like, if
you look at what final fantasy15 looked like on the ps4 and 13
on the ps3?
(50:03):
I think it's always leading theway.
And what can these consoles do?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, that is definitely true.
It's it's gone to the strange,not strange.
An interesting point in thelast couple of Generations, like
the ps3 generation, wetechnically only had One final
fantasy.
If you're including all three,five answer 13's into one
(50:31):
umbrella.
Yeah, they basically invest awhole lot of technology and
money into making one platformFor each generation and then
they just keep working on it.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, absolutely, and it shows so Last week, when we
did part one of what is filefantasy and we talked about how
Final fantasy is one of the keygame franchises for me to be
able to talk about thepsychology Inside the characters
(51:06):
of video games, the mythologythat's packaged inside the
stories of video games.
Without this franchise, I Don'tthink that conversation would
be anywhere close to ascompelling as it actually is.
Yeah, and without Final Fantasy7, I Don't think I would be a
(51:29):
person trying to have thatconversation All the time every
week.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, I'm trying to think of if, finally, seven
didn't exist, what would be thenext equivalent Star Wars level
mass appeal JRPG, and that's areal struggle.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Fantasy 7 doesn't exist.
Do any of the final fantasygames after it exists?
Speaker 2 (51:54):
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 (52:05):
Yes, but we don't know what it would be named
because, it was created in aAlternate universe where Star
Wars doesn't exist.
Therefore, yeah, we don't knowwhat themes would have been Done
to make that franchise.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
I'm just thinking, without finally set, finally
seven, I don't think I'm I don'tknow of what other franchise
would step up to take its place.
I think the JRPG Genre wouldnot have the appeal that it
currently does.
Okay, it would be.
It would still be a game fornerds.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
I wonder.
You said that about an hour ago, jean, and the first thing that
popped in my head is I hearsome people Tell me all the time
that Final Fantasy 6 is thebest Final Fantasy, and even me
certified geek therapist, doctor, game ology in my head thinks
nerd.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Charlotte says Star Trek, but I don't think Star
Trek hits that mass Appeal thesame way, because it's maybe JJ
Abrams version, that's maybe ourwars.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
So yeah, his version wouldn't exist.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Because Star Trek is like it's a good Franchise
overall, but it's not that sameSpace, a venture story, some of
the series are.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
It's science fiction.
It's not space opera.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah, like some of our attempt to replicate it, but
a lot, especially the originaland then the next generation
it's here are individualepisodes of what we did on this
planet.
It's not this overarching thing.
My jig like Star Wars is untilyou start talking about some of
the sequel movies, like when thecar comes back for Star Trek
(53:47):
nemesis.
But let's not, because that's abad movie.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
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 justhave 10 minute to 15 minute
coffee chats every morning wherewe discuss Firefly and other
such things.
I Really cannot think of a gamethat fills the void that would
(54:19):
be left if we deleted FinalFantasy 7 from the history of
video games.
I think it's one of those gamesthat is so important to
understand the gaming persona aswe currently understand it.
For game players, it's likeZelda, it's like Mario, it's
like all those other charactersthat are in Super Smash Brothers
(54:43):
, which is kind of like thevideo game Hall of Fame in my
mind, by the way.
But Final Fantasy 7 is the gamethat showed me that these
stories are mythological, theyare epic.
The characters are timeless.
I don't think the world Whilehumans are living on it We'll
(55:05):
have a point in time where everysingle person on the planet has
forgotten about cloud andSephiroth.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, okay, so maybe I got it.
I think JRPGs would be stuck inthat Very nerd zone all the way
until Persona 4 releases.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
Persona 4 Golden.
I think would have been Persona4 Golden regardless of Final
Fantasy 7 existing.
Yeah, and that game is amasterpiece as well.
It's not Final Fantasy 7,though.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
But I think that's the next other game that would
have that capture what it's liketo be a teen and deal with
contemporary topics and, again,giant media blitz where there's
TV shows and whatever around it.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
But, jean, without Final Fantasy 7, would Sony have
become so profitable that theycreate the PSP and eventually
the PlayStation Vita?
Because Persona 4 is notPersona 4?
Golden, I Think that game tookoff because of Golden and the
(56:20):
Vita.
It's the one game that became abetter known property because
of the Vita.
Sure, possibly.
Okay, I think we havethoroughly summarized all of the
things that we can cram into anhour plus Conversation, but
without becoming a two hour plusconversation.
I think this went very well.
(56:43):
We have so much left that wecan 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 tohave an understanding of what
it's like for me to be theshowrunner.
I guess that's what we wouldcall me.
I Found a video that is eighthours long.
(57:06):
That's all the cutscenes fromFinal Fantasy 7 remake.
I said Jenny, watch this entirevideo in preparation for our
episode next week.
Ashley, no, she flew away.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Yeah, she got plane time oh.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
I'm sure someday she will watch it on double or
triple speed so that she can.
What she needs to do is havethe boyfriend play Final Fantasy
7 remake while she does whatshe did with the Witcher.
It's perfect.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, yeah that, that's a great idea.
I.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Really would love to continue this conversation with
her as a three person, so Iactually would Enjoy putting a
pin in this and saying we're notdone with Final Fantasy 7.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Yeah, tell your boyfriend to beat it in the next
year.
What were you at it?
Speaker 1 (58:03):
No, next week, beat the whole game this week, all
right, oh boy, yeah.
So if these conversations soundfun to you and you're looking
for some great people to playonline games with, check out AIE
at AIE dashgillorg.
I have one last quest foreveryone to collect for the day,
even as a gamer save the planetand continue the journey.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Bye-bye.
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