Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review

In today's episode I try to collect my thoughts on the rebirth. Check it. 

Episode Transcript

(00:28):
What is going on people? Itis rob Oh lordie, It's hardly a
video game waffle, is it itis? Can you imagine that? Apologies
for the long gap and absence,there has probably been over a year in
or thereabouts. I think I talkedabout it probably in the last episode,

(00:51):
so I won't spend too much boringyou with details, but basically, long
story short, the idea for videogame waffles, I'd rather it be probably
a discussion based podcast. So I'mwaiting for the opportune time to grab a
cost and do it that way,and maybe, you know, before then,

(01:15):
maybe I'll keep doing these odd,one off kind of episodes. I
do plan on making our return tostreaming on Twitch. Actually that will probably
be the sort of main place whereI do things in the coming months.
What's really been holding me back isgetting the studio set up here and sorting

(01:36):
out this space. Obviously, myother podcast, Monster Fuzz takes priority,
so any sort of side projects havetaken the back seat until that gets sorted
nearly there now, though, andso you know, nothing to change.
I'm still playing lots of video games, so you know, I do have
lots of thoughts, lots of ideas, about games that I'm playing and gaming

(01:59):
news and not. And in termsof things that I'm really enjoying, I'm
actually really enjoying. I listened tothe Digital Foundry podcast a lot. Most
of the time, I don't knowwhat the fuck time lads you're talking about,
because it's about graphics and this andthat, but I do enjoy their
opinions on things a lot of thetime. And in terms of gaming,
I'm doing a lot of gaming onmy Steam deck. Just got the Oled

(02:21):
model there just before Christmas, andreally enjoying that. I mean, I've
been evangelical about the Steam deck toany of my friends then and all that
I've been bugging them about buying them. I just think they're so versatile,
such such a great piece of kit. And maybe I'll do an episode on
that as well in due time.But I'm playing a bit of follout for
on the Steam Deck, getting readyfor the TV show, which I hope

(02:46):
is not a steaming pile of dogshiteFingers crossed. Time will tell. But
this episode is not about Steam decks. This episode is not about Digital Foundry.
It's not about any of those things. It's about something very dear to
me. A game that has justreleased, well I said just released,
but now a month now. It'sFinal Fantasy Rebirths. You can obviously tell

(03:07):
from the description here and the title, So I suppose I never talked about
the original Final Fantasy seven remake onHair or indeed much about Final Fantasy seven
on this pod obviously on the MonsterFulls. People know well that myself and
I am and are huge fans ofFinal Fantasy seven. So what I'd like

(03:28):
to do in this episode is talkabout the new game, talk about sort
of my relationship with the old game, the original Final Fantasy seven, and
also just kind of spitball ideas andseries because the reality of the scenario is
a big. Part of the reasonI'm doing this episode is because all of
my friends and everyone else playing thegame haven't finished it yet, so I'm

(03:52):
one of the first ones out ofthe gate to get it done. Not
early by any means. It stilltook me a month to get it done,
but it's a big beefy games,so I wanted to sit down talk
about my experience with it because it'syeah, without spoilers, it's uh,
yeah, it was. It justblew my socks off, really, so
I think I think, like Iremember, whenever I'm playing these games,

(04:15):
as nostalgia hits you hard, youknow, it'd be like if they're re
released like a Sam Andreas and they'reremade it from top to bottom. I
think that would be huge nostalgia forme, you know, if you had
CJ as a protagonist or something.So And the reason is because I spent
so many hours as a kid onthese games, and Final Fantasy seven was
no different. I think I wasdrawn to us. I remember I remember

(04:39):
distinctly going into Final Fantasy seven onthe PS one and thinking just how different
than unusual it was for me atthat time. Funnily enough, I had
actually one of my very first gamingexperiences was playing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest,
which I believe was called just MysticQuest Legend here in Europe, So I
was kind of familiar with RPGs,although I mean I was super young trying

(05:02):
to play that, probably five orsix, maybe seven. So when I
my initial thoughts plan I find Fantasyseven was like, this is this weird
kind of it's so bizarre, sounusual. Everything felt kind of alien to
me. You all the weird pixelheaded characters and the pre rendered backdrops were

(05:25):
fantastic, obviously, which reminded meof Resident Evil at the time, but
I couldn't really understand why these graphicswere so kind of yanky, right,
why these characters looked kind of janky. Obviously the CG cut scenes were mind
blown as well, but I couldn'treally understand why they looked terrible. I
mean, it was the PAS oneera N sixty four era, so sprites

(05:45):
weren't great anyway, But that wasone of my first thoughts anyway, so
it's not really a big thing,but that was the first thing I thought,
and it wasn't until you kept playing, and I think it was really
when you got out of mid Garden. I remember to think it fucked me
that the scale, Like as achild, I was like, this is
this is insane? What is thisgame? I'm going from like stage to

(06:05):
stage, from backdrop to backdrop tothis huge job and map, and I
could just I can go to thesedifferent towns, like what's this about?
When I can, I can checkout all this other stuff and it was
just an experience like no other.I still remember their friend of mine,
Geene, She she give me likea copy page of like Enemy skills written

(06:27):
out and where to get them andthings, and that's what it was like
back then, And this was thefirst kind of game that inspired that in
me, I think, where itwas like you have to learn the mechanics,
you have to learn the materia,you have to figure out what works
and what doesn't. Mark For me, it was the first time where it
was like fires going against ice,all that kind of stuff. All the
j RPG sort of stables, allof that was introduced to me from Final

(06:47):
Fantasy Vin And so yeah, itwas a vibrancy of the characters. You
know, you had a little fuckingtalking dog, Red Tardine, it was
I think he looks kind of morelike a sort of some kind of lying
or maybe a Hyghena's besides the pointwhich had Red hard day, he seems
to be classified as a dog morethan anything else he had. Like kid

(07:10):
Sith, you had all these weird, bizarre characters. But what made it
all work, I suppose, wasthe majority of the story, even though
it was bizarre and very hard todigest for a child on my age at
the time, But the sort ofsimple themes resonated then and they're still resonent
now you know, the ideas oflife and death, the ideas of the

(07:31):
live stream, the afterlife, theideas of the planet being in danger.
You've got all this, like Ecaught terrorism tied into it, and it
just made it just made the same. It was digestible for me at that
age. I remember kind of thinkingthat at the very simple levels of the
message I got, I got thosebeats, the more abstract stuff with seth

(07:54):
Roth and stuff. You know,I had a very sort of basic understanding
of it. But anyway, thatwhole journey for me just imprinted on me
very heavily, and I've talked aboutit to my friends since then, where
I'm like, I think Final Fantayseven was one of those first games,
one of those first early era gamesfor me of the PS one where you

(08:15):
know, five years later I wasgoing back to Final Fantasy seven and this
would have been you know, probablya PS two era. Ten years later,
I was going back to Final Fantasyseven and this would have been Xbox
three sixty era ish fifteen twenty yearslater. You get the idea I was
always returning to that game, andthe reason being because the music, because

(08:37):
the locations, the story, itall made those little silly sprites seem much
more than what they actually were.It really fleshed out the whole experience it
was. It was just for me. It was unlike anything else so much
so. And I've been on therecord of saying is that even with Final
Fantasy eight and nine, I playeda bit of nine, but I almost

(09:01):
felt like I was cheating on seven, and it took me a while to
get over that. It wasn't untilprobably Final Fantasy fifteen that I actually well,
I planned nine. So I plannednine, and I think I got
I got like soft locked at apoint where I was like, right,
I can't really do much else here. And it was a boss fight,
I think at the top of atower or something. I loosely remember it.

(09:22):
But after nine, I just didn'treally touch a Final Fantasy until again,
we're coming back around to seven.Then obviously I tried out fifteen when
it was less of a mess,and I've played sixteen and things like that.
But yeah, so obviously Remake comesout. I loved Remax. Again,
I've been on the record talking aboutRemax, so I won't talk too
much about it. I really likedRemax. I thought Remax was a good

(09:43):
game. There was concerns that Ihad about the story. I was a
bit worried about how much they was, like, what was red herrings?
What were they going to do tokind of sub wort expectation in this new
Rebarth where they're going to do verybig divergences away from the original story in
ways that kind of seem contrived orkind of seem forced just to kind of

(10:11):
throw us off and at plased tosay that that they didn't do any of
that. When this game released,I think it was by the times,
by the time I got to thefirst open world area, which was the
Gratlands, I think I kind ofknew and felt that I was going to
entrust Square Enix completely. I justI just knew. I think that there

(10:35):
was just a vibe of even justgoing around calm, playing a bit of
Queen's Blood, talking to NPCs andstuff, and I kind of just knew
why. I was like this,this is going to be the fucking shit.
And I didn't really feel as muchthat way about Remac, like I
loved Remac. I did, butthis to me just eased all of my
angst and stuff about it, becauseyou know, there's such a shit between

(11:00):
in the original game, between Midguarand then the open world, right,
it just sort of changes, andso one of my main concerns was always
how are they going to handle thatchange, like, especially with Square Enix,
like they haven't really done very manytruly open world games, and even
sixteen most recently wasn't really an openworld game. It was actually broken up
in quite an unorganic inorganic which one'sthe right word, in a way that

(11:26):
I thought was quite strange quick tbreak. So I was a bit worried.
And again because to me, it'sprobably well it is I would say,
my most charged game of all time. I think that might fluctuate at
times, but I think it is, And so I was worried. I
was worried. And then yeah,as soon as I got to the Grasslands,

(11:48):
I was like, fuck, thisis this is amazing. Little did
I realized. And by the way, this is very very spoiler heavy,
So if you haven't completed the game, do yourself a favor and don't listen
to this, because yeah, you'reyou're really wanting to, you know,
experience that story, though, isn'tthe spoilers Even if you're someone who hasn't
played the game, and for somereason you're listening, go and fucking play

(12:09):
the games, really, even ifyou think it's not your thing. So
yeah, so so basically, youknow, I mean, I want to
talk about her. I suppose someof the highlights for me of the game
as someone who's enjoyed the franchise sinceI was very young, I think one

(12:31):
of the first thing is, Yeah, the comparison to the remake, that
was that was the big thing,was that how different it had gone.
The combat system has been enhanced greatly. It plays a lot better, and
the sense of scale has obviously beenpreserved, and it's now intact that that
shift from midguard to the open world, it was just was fantastic. It

(12:54):
felt the same in this game asit did back down, which was just
are you fucking shitting me? Andthat was one of the big things about
the original too, that they've reallymanaged to keep intact in this was the
sense of adventure, the sense ofjourney, the sense of travel. This
is like a kind of a finanFantasy seven is like a Lord of the
Ring style adventure right where it goesacross so many regions. You made so

(13:18):
many characters, there's there's so muchgoing on, and this managed to keep
that intact. And that was alwaysa concern because shit, you're dealing with
a quote unquote next chen game,and you obviously there's there's so many moving
parts. Now with these new games, these big blockbuster games, you're really
kind of wondering can they preserve allof that in a game like this?

(13:45):
And they really fucking did. Likeit's crazy, and they really did.
They managed to to make all ofthese regions and sort of expand on them
in a way that just really makessense even as a diehard fan who like
really cherished Cherishes the ship. Theyjust handled every region so well, you're

(14:07):
like, okay, fucking Cosmo Canyonregion, Yeah, that feels like Cosmo
Canyon, you know. And thenexpanding and totally adding like gon Gaga as
a whole region, You're like,what the fuck? Because that's when I
was going off of my head.I think it was Gone Gaga was the
first region where I was like,oh wait, this is fucking insane,
because like Correll was pretty insane becauseit had the gold Sauce or Corral,

(14:31):
it had fucking the desert in itall in that area, that area where
you go around and the buggy isall in that one place and you're like,
mounta nibble is there no Carl Correl? So he's just saying Carl.
That's another thing with names from fromall j RPGs. Kate Sis kait Sis
is another one. But yeah,I just when I got to gon Gaga,

(14:54):
I was like, Oh, fuckJesus, we're in for something crazy
here, like for something crazy,because I just heard that soundtrack kicking in
and You're like, what is this? This is all new stuff. I
haven't heard this before. Just traversein this world. It's almost like Avatar
like or something, and how it'spresented and travarsal is really unusual there,

(15:18):
and I want to touch on that. Actually, I see some people have
sort of kind of been winging about, you know, gonk Gaga being a
bit difficult to travarse or Cosmo Canyonbeing difficult to traverse. They should be
in my opinion, I think theyshould. I think I think if you've
got like six seven regions, Idon't even know from maybe five main regions

(15:39):
or something. If you've got thatmany regions and you have the easiest to
traverse grasslands and you have easier areasaround Corral and things like that. It
makes sense to have difficulty to traverseregions. The original Final Fantasy had difficult
to traverse regions, like you know, I'm personally cleaned the original and at

(16:00):
the minute and that fucking mountain andthe snow areas and not that was difficult
to traverse at the time. Itwas a penal in the ass. But
that's part of the adventure. Youknow, you have the good, you
have the bad, and I thinkthey're designed well, I mean bad in
a sense of you as a character, rather than a gameplay perspective. You
sort of you should have that,Like I don't really understand the alternative if

(16:26):
you have like a flying jets oryou're going to run on a jet pack
or something. Yeah, obviously it'sgoing to be easier to traverse, but
it doesn't make sense to the journey. So with that in mind, I
think that the the the traversal inthose areas was fine. I get it.
It was a bit annoying. Itwas a bit annoying, but that's
that's what gives these places flavor.It's like, yeah, it's a fucking

(16:48):
it's a jungle. It's supposed tobe tough, do you know. I
just I love that idea of everyregion having a very distinct flavor. I
don't think there was really any ofthat were too similar. I think that
the filler content quote unquote filler contentwas enough to make it engaging in fun,

(17:10):
and that was another thing I wantedto kind of touch base on all
of that content. And I don'tthink it's just because I'm a super fanboy.
And I did go on record beforethis game released saying, if I
open my game case and you know, the developers had just taken a shite
in the case, I would havegiven this game at ten out of ten
probably, So that's where my biasis. But I yeah, I'm trying

(17:36):
to that's me trying to talk there, and I'm talking about JRPG's JRPG debisiting
in game cases. But I thinkthat the whole idea, the whole traversal,
everything was fantastic. It was allwell executed, and I think the
flavor between the regions was immense,the music immense. I'm going to look

(17:57):
at my notes there and see whatwanted to talk about her. Yeah,
the music like to get into it. I think Final Fanty seven soundtrack was
one of the first soundtracks where Iwas just like, what the fuck this
is like legitimately an excellent soundtrack thatI wanted to come back to over and
over again. It really felt withthat original game that this was one of

(18:21):
like this was every single person marketon that project was fully trying to express
themselves, in articulate the message theywanted to deliver and express creativity, and
it seemed like they had all ofthe parts came together to make just like
a really good project, And thisgame feels the same. The soundtrack is

(18:41):
absolutely amazing, and of course thereis nostalgia there. Yes, nostalgia is
a very potent drug. High onthat nostalgia, but fucked me, the
soundtrack is so good, both newtracks and originals and remixes. I'm what
remixes are always a bit funny becausefor me, the original soundtracks, some

(19:07):
of those tracks are like, youknow, let it bees or stare at
the heavens. It sounds completely dumb, but that's how I feel about those
soundtracks, So to remix them,I'm always a bit like, fucking get
it right, lads. But again, I think, by and large,
almost every tune and this is aspoiler as well, fairly heavy spoiler.

(19:29):
First fight, first time you fightGenova on the the ship on the way
over the cost of that's all.They didn't fully go into the team the
Genova thing. But then when theydid at the end towards the end of
the game, when you fight Genovajust after Earth dies, fucked me,
that was all good. It wasjust like goosebomps the whole way through.
You're like, what the fuck?It was like crying. It's the first

(19:52):
game I think i've ever I thinkI did cry in the original when Earth
died, actually when I was nine. But here we are gay Nice shed
a single here during that whole thing, just that whole end sequence and that
music going through and shod I wasfucking yeah. I was like properly in
it. I was like, Jesus, this is so fucking good. Fuck

(20:14):
me. That was the whole basicallyfrom the Temple of the Engines on which,
by the way, to handle theTemple of the Engines way better than
the original, I think personally,Temple of the Edgines was a fucking pain
in the ass in the original,but Temple of the Engines team sang in
the original. I still think isbetter than this new one. I had
flavors of it in there, butI don't think it did enough. But

(20:34):
yeah, fuck me. That thatended. We we'll talk a little bit
more a bit more about that later. The characters in terms of UFI in
terms of Red, I mean Redwas one of my party characters in the
original so I'm not going to talktoo much about him. I think the
handle them amazingly. The whole CosmoCanyon section was very good as well.

(20:56):
I like, how to change thatup. I know that I couldn't use
a phoenix down to kill the boss. That was an all day stray from
the original game. I really thoughtthey'd do that, and I really thought
they'd trying an achievement for doing thattoo. I was like, that's surely
going to be something that we getin here. But I feel like that
was a missed opportunity. I knowmost people know about them, but there's

(21:18):
a lot of people who played theoriginal series who don't know about that.
For people that don't know, basically, the original boss in Cosmo Canyon very
fucking tough. There was a reallyeasy way to beat it, which was
just throw a phoenix down at him, which a phoenix down resurrects things,
and this guy was undead, soobviously you give him a Phoenix down get
rid of the undaid, right,sobviously go a little shortcutting on East dragg

(21:38):
So a bit disappointed to see thatgoal kit Tis was great. I really
enjoyed him. Didn't enjoy the partwhere enable where you have to fucking go
around the factoryism That was probably thelowest point of the game, but still
perfectly fine, but it was justa bit felt a bit sloggy, especially

(22:00):
where you were in the plot.I think that's always key as well.
You don't mind mucking around early inthe game, but when you're getting to
like, you know, you getinto the vinegars rocks, you kind of
want to You don't want to befucking run around the factory throwing boxes and
holes. It does kind of dilutethe sense of urgency a bit, I
suppose, But UFI has been brilliant. Look, I didn't play Integred.

(22:22):
Don't ask me why I didn't playIntrogred. I think it came out with
a time where I was probably playingother things, and eventually it just slipped
to the back of my mind.I actually do have it and I will
play through, and eventually I've probablymentioned on this very pod my intentions to
play that, So yeah, theintentions are there. The plot, I
suppose before we get into the plot, I'll touch on that towards the end

(22:45):
of the episode there. What Iwant to come in as well was just
the ambition of the developers here toreally cram as much into this game as
possible. Societe quests way better thanany Final Fantasy before that, which is
not the same much because the FinalFantasy has always had a very poor side
quests in my opinion. But theside question in this what I like about

(23:07):
him is yet some of them arebox ticking kind of stuff, but there
are stories tied in that make itworthwhile, right. I really enjoyed the
Cosmo Canyon one when you're doing thekind of avalanche side quests and you're getting
a bit more of Bigs and Wedgeand all the old team. So yeah,
really enjoyed that. I think Ithink that the the attempts to just

(23:33):
go, how can we make thisgame as good as possible for Final Fantasy
seven fans. I think that's whatthe attempt was, and I think that's
what came across. It really didfeel like that I haven't even explored the
fucking the ocean area yet. Like, I haven't touched that yet at all.
I've one hundred percent of a goodcouple of regions up to Cosmo Canyon,

(23:57):
but I haven't touched that era reallyat tall. So that's a whole
other fucking thing. And I'm like, this is like crazy that had it
all this. There's a fucking craftingsystem in the game, Like that's insane,
Like a full proper crafting system whereyou can level up and stuff like
that. Even that alone, you'relike, oh gee, and it matters.
It's cool to use, Like I'msure you can play through the game

(24:18):
and not use it at all.You don't have to use it, right,
But it's so fucking good t break, it's so well done. So
yeah, I really enjoyed that sideof it. I really enjoyed Four Condor
was great. The mini games Ithought were very good. I know some
people were kind of a bit iffyabout some of them, but the variety

(24:41):
and share amount of them is justlike, yeah, some aerre more just
kind of here's a quick minichrest kindof side questy thing. But they were
all really fun. That robot youon is a pound in the ass.
I can't remember the name of it. Queen's Blood. It's fucking amazing.
I mean, I hope there willleast some kind of I don't know how

(25:02):
it would translate, but an attemptat a physical version of Queen's Blood could
be quite fun. And no onesquare Enix and their love for making money
from March. I could absolutely seeit, and they're not too distant future,
so I'd be pretty excited about that. But yeah, all the characters,

(25:22):
in terms of the representations see itis the only one where I'm like,
oh, that's what you guys wantto see. To sound like I
always in my head said was alwaysmore rough and brash. This guy is
kind of like a happy, golucky pilot almost, you know, whereas
we'd said, I always found thema bit more abrasive, and I loved
Sid. He did come in andout of my original parody back in the

(25:45):
day too. Vincent has been handledgreat, so much so that I was
like, will they do a VincentIntegrad style DLC? Probably, but they've
been on record of saying no.But I could I could absolutely see that.
I could absolutely see them with Vincentstyle underground, the LCA or perhaps
the sid DLC of his story,you know, like, maybe they'll maybe

(26:07):
they will change up rocket Town.I think it's called rocket Town. It's
been that long since I've been there. Maybe they'll just change that up completely,
you know, going forward, it'sreally hard to say what with what
will stay the same and what willchange. And I did like that about
it as well. I have tosay that I liked that they were playing

(26:29):
with this whole idea of motherfuckers,we can change the story, like and
I can change in really weird ways, and I did. I did enjoy
that. I enjoyed the self awareCephrath, the Cephroth that is aware of
his original demise in the original gamesand is actively trying to change it.
I believe this is the same cephrathat is aware of the crisis that Crisis

(26:52):
Care, Advent children's stuff, andso he's, you know, he's trying
to change that whole timeline. SoI enjoyed all of that. I really
enjoyed that they were messing with thatidea too. And it seems like Aris
is also in the same boat whereshe is aware of everything too, and
You're basically having this live stream battlebetween the two, and I'm trying to

(27:12):
affect faith basically, right, Cephrawants to change faith faith so that he
doesn't his demise doesn't happen, andobviously Aris then is trying to course correct
what seth Roth is doing. Now, i'd imagine right, seems to be
the idea. But before we gettoo much into the plot, Yeah,

(27:33):
the combat system amazing, really enjoyed. At this time around. I wasn't
huge on it in remake. Iwas just kind of like it was leaving
me still kind of going, wouldI like some kind of reimagining of a
turn based system, which kind ofsounds insane having played Rebard there, but
that is how I felt, Andnow having played the new game, the

(27:57):
combat system is so good. It'sso much more fleshed out. Weaknesses really
matter, pressure really matters. It'sso fun to just flip between characters and
do these synchronized attacks and throwing magicadam and all kinds of crazy shit.
There's bunches of stuff flying around.We've got fucking summons, throwing fucking bricks
at fucking bag eyes and shit.It's crazy. Loved it really did love

(28:21):
it. Yeah. I thought thecombat was great so much so that,
like I haven't put away at thegame. I'm not ready to say goodbye
to this game. I'm probably goingto try and do a Platinum or on
it, and that's because the gameplayhas been so fun. I think my
thinking is I'll probably try and doall the side quests, box stick and
stuff on normal and then do ahard mode run through of just the story.

(28:48):
I think that's probably the best wayto go about it. That's kind
of what I'm thinking. And so, yeah, I suppose we'll talk about
you know, it's funny like thisis a we're getting to like a half
an hour here, and this isjust me talking. This is what I'm
saying. I could probably do hoursof speculation about this this thing, and
as a matter of fact, I'mwaiting to do hours of speculation about this

(29:10):
thing. Both the story. Yeah, I mean, going into this,
I thought, are they going tothrow in something crazy? Are they going
to kill like teeth instead of ears? I thought they were going to do
something kind of crazy just to likecompletely fuck with and kind of do like
a right, here's one of themain characters that you know in Love that's

(29:34):
dead now, but Earth is stillgoing to try and bring her back and
work a timeline to where that doesn'thappen, you know, like they were
going to throw in a red herringlike that, like, here's dead fucking
Tifa, but don't worry. Inthe next game, you'll probably bring her
back. That kind of thing.I was. I don't so worried about
that, but I was just kindof like, what are they going to
take it? Like, what arethey going to do? Because they kind
of did play with that in thelast one as well, with barrattet and

(29:57):
stabbed that time by Sephal or whateverhappened to them, and they're like,
fuck, are they going to dosomething crazy? And all the beats have
kind of more or less said thesame. I was a little bit surprised
that they did end at the endof disc one, simply because the next
game is going to be fucking massiveto really crime in those last two discs.

(30:18):
But yeah, I think the wholeEarth sequence was too much. I
mean, even just getting there.This is one of the first games pretty
much ever where I've like stopped inmy tracks a lot and just taken in
the environment. I don't do thatoften. With games. I'm sure there's

(30:38):
plenty of people that listen that dodo that with games, but I don't.
So this to me was like oneof those first games Where'm like,
fuck, this looks so good,like the areas are so well fleshed out,
and yeah, the whole Earth sequencefucking playing with Zach, I mean

(31:00):
to the Cloud and Earth fighting Cephrothfinal sequence, which was fucking tough.
By the way, I watched MaximilianDoo his live streaming yesterday. He's just
beaten the game too, and Iwatched him fighting and and he did pretty
much one hundred percent almost before fightingSephrath, and even he was struggling because
like I was like seventy two hoursin, but I think he had like

(31:22):
one hundred and twenty hours in orsomething. No, it was about said
I was about seventy five seventy six, So I was surprised to see him
lose as well. I think helost maybe the first time to Sephyroth,
and I was like, yeah,that happened to me like two or three
times, simply because I just didn'thave items. I was actually running out
of items. I was like shit. But for the whole just the whole

(31:44):
idea of they were trying that bizarremental sephyrath. He was there, which
you don't normally see until right atthe end of the game. He's one
of the like stepping stones, rightand yeah, just see him. You're
like, what the fuck is goingon here, Zach showing up? As

(32:05):
it seems like I suppose right now, I'm not going to try and I'm
one of these people right that I'mgoing to take in the theories. I'm
going to listen to what people haveto say. But I do feel like
I kind of go into these thingson doub mode on purpose. I've said
this before to m and my cohost and masterful of that, I like
kind of just not speculating too muchbecause it can get crazy, right,

(32:30):
it can get fucking crazy. I'ma super fan of Game of Thrones,
a Song of Ice and Fire,and like, when that TV show was
out, it was crazy with thetheories. The theories were crazy. Now,
it was fun to a point,but a lot of them are fucking
wrong. A lot were wrong,and a lot of people are getting into
fucking arguments about things that ultimately weretotally inconsequential. So sometimes with stories like

(32:52):
this, one too. When you'rebringing in multiple timelines, you're bringing all
this fucking crazy shit. I don'twant to get too involved in anyone kind
of theory. One that Max Dudehas gotten into is that the Earth that
you're seeing in the end is Genova, and that Genova is basically, yeah,
it's part of the whole Northern Creatersequence and getting Clover up to the

(33:13):
Northern Crater to hand over black Materiaall that stuff. I'm not really on
that theory. I don't think thatis what's happening right there. I don't
think they do that with Earth.I don't think. I don't think they
have to. That's what I'm saying. He has black materia, right the
black materia is kind of assuming intohim, and unless this Earth is basically

(33:36):
a representation of him losing his mind, I can kind of get it then.
But I don't directly think it's Genovaas a kind of a stealthy partisher
because I don't think it needs tobe. But it could be the whole
shit with like Cloud is seeing stuffthat the rest are seeing is Earth in
a different timeline. Is it aghost? What's going on there is going

(34:00):
to come back in some way inthe next game, Like, is that
what's happened? Obviously Earth is awar with Cephroth, Right, is that
happening so that Earth can come back? Because the timeline from the original Final
Fantasy seven is only that now it'sa timeline, it's not the facto thing
that is going to happen. It'snot the best thing that's going to happen,

(34:22):
because that was a bad ending.Now, canonically, I suppose you
could say, because we know whathappens, You've got the whole fucking advent
children. Shit that happens after isnot really a great ending, right,
You've got the geo stigma, allthat Zephrath comes back, you know,
Yeah, they do Insinuette that theplanet starts to bounce back. But it

(34:42):
wasn't a great ending. So thenyou have to wonder what is a good
ending and are we going to getthat? And I'm okay with either.
I mean, I don't think FinalFantasy seven's original ending was necessarily a good
ending, even at the time,Like I do mean good is in.
I love the ending at the time, But for the world of Final Fantasy

(35:04):
seven, was it a good ending? Maybe? Not so maybe they are
going to like give you everyone lives, happy everyone after ending. And to
be honest, look, I wouldn'tbe against the leader. I wouldn't be
against the leader. We've had alot of sorrow as Final Fantasy seven fans,
you know what I mean. Wehad the real big plot twist flip

(35:25):
with Earth dying back in the day. You know, we had that already.
So if they if they do changeit up like that, I mean,
is it a bad thing? CouldI see Earth coming back? Perhaps?
My prediction for this game initially wasthat we see Earth and Zach.
I thought Earth would die somewhere atthe midpoint of this game, because I
just didn't realize them on the fuckingscale they were going to throw at you.

(35:50):
I thought Earth was going to diesome place around the midpoint. And
I thought the whole point of Zachand the whole point of Biggs was that
you were going to basically play asthem as a party of three in another
timeline, and they were working tokind of unify the timeline or to correct
sepher Off or whatever he was doingwithin that timeline or whatever. You know,

(36:13):
That's what I thought. That's tome, what made a lot of
sense based on the Platt it seemslike Biggs is gone, Zach is still
possibly around, and Earth well,Zach is still around because he had that
part where he disappeared, right andhe's like save her or whatever, but
then he shows back up in thecharge after that? What charge that is?
When? When? What timeline?That is? Who the fucking knowles?

(36:36):
And so you yeah, you thenhave basically a final game with anything
can fucking happen. You also havea final game which is going to be
really interesting because I feel like mostpeople's memories of Final Fantasy seven was up
until Earth is dying, right,that whole thing. A lot of my
good friends are like that, andthey don't remember much of the after that

(36:59):
part. After that party is alot more forgettable, I will say,
because you're you know, you're sortof well, it's weird because your main
character falls into the livestream and goesfucking mental, right, so you're not
really playing the same for a beat, and like you've kind of lost the
hero of the game, which isanother reason why I fucking love Final Fantasy
seven as well as like that wholething. And then you're, yeah,

(37:22):
you're I suppose you've got the weapons. You've got the high Wind. I'm
really curious to see how to handlethe high Wind. I actually kind of
think like Final Fantasy six stains hubWorld was maybe a little beta test for
the high Wind. I can seethe high Wind being a floating hub World

(37:46):
right where wherever you park it upin whatever region, it'll probably have predestined
parking spots, maybe it will interactwith that region, it will have things
that change based on the region it'sin. And then yeah, you can
with your crew on the high Windin new ways based on the region you're
in. It looks like we're goingto be getting woot high that. It

(38:06):
seems like the civil war plot linethere is going to be fairly well fleshed
out, So that's really exciting.I'm looking forward to seeing what to do
with that. Obviously, you've gotthe whole Snow region, so like this
is like almost like this is likea Final Fantasy seven face kind of moment.
Right. I picked up Final Fantasyseven, the original on the switch

(38:31):
maybe five six years ago, Idon't know, and I was playing through
it and just by fucking chance,I stopped right outside the snow section just
before you do the snowboarding just afterEarth dies, right just by chance,
something else must have grabbed my attentionor whatever. It was not deliberate or

(38:54):
anything like that, and herey Clairefucking rebars Like shit. I have a
save that on the original that picksup right after this, and I can
now play the original again to refreshmy memory on all the stuff that happens
Paul's to Earth dying, you know. And so I'm getting really excited because

(39:15):
you're seeing the Northern Crater. Stuffis going to be so good in the
new one. And that's the thing. I'm just like legitimately excited to see
what a fucking crazy game they're goingto cook up, you know, with
the weapons, with the meat,you're hanging out over the fucking planet,

(39:37):
with the high wind, with allthe areas that you see later on Banora.
This is one of the areas I'mcurious to say, what to do
with Banora. I think the climbing, Like I was playing a little climbing
minigame yesterday. If you remember,you have to keep yourself warm, like
they're probably going to do a fuckingproper climbing game in this shit. You

(39:58):
know, they're going to be likeAlex hannovers that is that every gonna be
like free claiming and sship, butit's probably going to be a properly fleshed
out mini game, and that hasbeen excited. It's the snowboard and the
same like, are we going tohave a SSX tricky here on her hands?
Part two? You know, buildinto this game, and it's very
rare that you play a game whereyou're excited about the minigames. And the
reason I'm excited is because of howwell they handle the minigames in this game.

(40:22):
This game is unlike no other.And that's what it felt like for
me playing seven as a kid.It felt like this is like no other.
I've never experienced anything like this.This is insane. That's how it
feels for me. That's how theRebarth has felt for me. Or if
you want to call it the remakeproject or trilogy, if they bundle all

(40:43):
this shit together on say your PSsix, and you have it from start
to finish as one cohesive product,like you can buy the trilogy as one
game. That's insane. That'll beinsane. That like you're then looking at
like a two hundred, two hundredand fifty our adventure that is just again
onlike no other and I know thegame is like over ninety a Metacritic and

(41:08):
it should be. I do geta little bit pay with reviewers with Square
Enix games. I feel like they'realways out for blood with Squarrey Nix,
and understandably so. I mean,fifteen released like a shit show. A
couple of the other games didn't havegood launches, they did go through a
dark age there for a while.But I really really think that this game

(41:29):
should be commended at the highest level. I think if it was a Nintendo
game, it would have been aten out of ten. These developers will
are these reviewers would have given ita ten out of ten if it had
an Nintendo slap Planet. I thinkthat it is one of the most ambitious
video games that has ever been released. I think that it is like when

(41:50):
you compare a game of this lengthand size to other games that have a
similar amount in them, they're justdogshit. Compare them. That's the screened
Valhalla, for example, is agame that you could probably spend one hundred
hours in and look, it's nothingagainst people who like Valhalla, but when
you compare the two of these games, saples and oranges. It's just they're

(42:10):
not comparable. And the reason they'renot comparable, and I want to articulate
why I feel like this is thelevel of cut scenes, the level of
story talent, the level of voiceacting, the level of music, the
variety of textures, the variety ofareas, the amount of minigames, the
depth, the sense of adventure thatthis game provides is unparalleled in my opinion,

(42:35):
and it really makes a lot.There's nothing particularly new in the game
when you're talking about box ticking sidequest. Right, It's got the fucking
towers that you get up to UbiSoft towers, It's got those. It's
got a lot of stuff. Iwas told last night that the little birdy
following you to the things, that'sa Ghost of Sushima kind of thing.
It borrows from all of these things, but it expands on them, it
makes it better. It wraps themall up in one package as well.

(42:59):
That's the thing, and deliver somethingon a scale just unlike anything else.
I had been saying to people thatit's an eleven out of ten, right
because I'm such a fan boy findfancy seven. But Max dude, actually,
Maximilian, do it onto it.He doesn't need any shout out from
a very small scale video game podcaster, but he said that I laughed my

(43:21):
ownrosophen. He said that he waslike, critically, it's a ten out
of ten, and for me,it's a fifteen out of ten. And
that's kind of how I felt thatI laughed because I was saying similar before
he got to the end. Soit is that way. I think that
I am fully confident now that thatSquare Enix are going to deliver something that

(43:43):
is a real treat for us fans. I don't think now that they can
drop the ball too much. Andthe reason I'll say that is because the
main thing I think a lot ofpeople held there with this franchise was how
they handled Earth Dying, because itwas a huge impact on us when we
play it as kids, right,and how that how the post that happens,

(44:05):
and how it pans out. Ithink that they've really handled it well
here, and I just think thatI trust them to deliver something that is,
yeah, just unlike anything else.And yeah, look, I could,
like I said, I could keepon going and going. I think
I've said the important things about howI feel about the game. There's a

(44:30):
couple of little things that I gripes. I'm not I don't know how sore
I am on the summons system still, And the only reason I'll say that
is because I feel like I'm notgetting out summons enough right. I feel
like I'm in locking all these summons. And the summons were a very important
part of the original, probably becauseyou had to sit through fucking two Minilan
called scenes watching them every single timehe used them. But they felt like

(44:52):
such a big thing in the original, you know, like I knew every
beat of the summons, I knewevery mood that they were going to make
all that, and in this theydon't feel as important. They're nice,
but I felt I felt like theywere never essential or I never had to
really use them. So I don'tknow. Maybe the Someone's that would be
one little thing if I was tonitpick, I'm like, I wish to

(45:13):
handle the summons. Maybe I don'tknow how you could do it, but
it's just an idea in my headthat maybe the Someone's could have been perhaps
done in a different way. Andreally, other than that, I don't
have much more to add. Ireally loved the humor. At times,
there was a couple of go laughingmoments. I really loved the gold Saucer.
The Haunted Hotel was amazing. Iloved the Cam's little Hotel. I

(45:37):
always loved those parts in the original, those little cozy moments where the party
were all together and they're talking aboutwhat to do next. I feel like
they captured all that really well inthis game. I'm glad they left sid
in Vincent for the next game.I think that playing is them is going
to be a big thing. Ifeel like Vincent is probably going to be

(45:57):
a big thing in the next gameas well. I think he is probably
going to be a big player interms of story. I think they're going
to give him a lot. Imean, they already gave him Dirgers Sarbers
back in the day. I thinkthey're definitely very favoritive of him as favorite
of Award. He's one of herfavorites, I think, and so I
can definitely see and he looks coolwith fucking shit in this game, so
I could definitely see them giving himhis jewels. You know, I really

(46:23):
love how to handle Doofie, LikeI love what they've done with her as
a character. I mean, fuckme, playing as her is amazing,
and just like Horror as a characteris fucking brilliant because in the original she
was kind of optional, right,she was just a pendast that was there
or wasn't there. You had thekind of coax her into the parody and
stuff, so she was always kindof and then when you play it as

(46:44):
her, like I never really likedUfi in the original to play as she
was like, I literally never playedas her. Horror k Sif never played
as either one of them. Theywere always never there sometimes Barrett as well,
actually ashamedly. But yeah, I'mjust I'm just ranting her about how
much I like the game, Andyeah, I'm glad I didn't watch too

(47:07):
many trailers because fucking squaring in hislove spoiling games and their trailers. Jesus
Christ, It's crazy how much theyhave put out about the game before released.
It's like, I don't want tofucking know. And it's the same
with the next one. I'll watcha teaser, I might watch an introductory
trailer. After that, I'm done. I don't want to know anything else
after that, Like, because thatmight sound like a lot, but Squarreing

(47:29):
Nix will probably try like twelve trailersyou know, shown every fucking thing Sewan,
you're flying the high wind and Chip, I'm very curious how to handle
the high wind though, that's athat's a big thing. I think it'll
be like the Normandy and mass Effect, and I'm fucking all on for that.
They have said themselves that they've beenwatching like other RPGs, and that's
where like Wicher was a big influence, they said, And you can tell

(47:52):
that the team have done that,Like, right, what's what makes a
good open world action rpg, Let'sdo that. I can see them definitely
looking at Mass Effect and the Normandyfor the high wind definitely. So yeah,
look, eleven out of ten,such a good fucking game, probably,

(48:15):
and there is recncy bias there willlet the Dust sell. Probably my
favorite game of all time probably,I think that, Yeah, I think
I think that when I like andthat's overwriting fucking nostalgia, right, and

(48:36):
nostalgia is so powerful. But Ithink for me that this is just so
good and I'm so glad that likenew generations are getting to experience this game.
I'm so glad that it's a relevantip. Still, it feels like
we were out there even as kids. You know with like if you had

(48:57):
a fucking handed this to me whenI was fucking nine, just after fucking
clar the original or some shit,or as a teenageer, just that of
Clarity Original, you know, nuts, like if they had to shown me,
if they had handed me like ahandheld, like what's that little PS
goal or not the past goal butthe portal, little PS portal, if
you had to handed me a PSportal with that game orn or not?

(49:22):
In fucking like, I don't knowtwo thousand and two, two thousand and
three, I said, what wouldyou do to be able to play this
right now? I don't fucking know, man, I want to watch out.
But yeah, that's how I feelabout it. I feel like it's
just amazing, amazing stuff. Checkit out. If you haven't for some

(49:44):
reason, you're listening to some idiot, some nostalgic idiot random for fifteen minutes
and you haven't played Final Fantasy Reward, go and give it a go.
If you have played it, thenyou want to talk to me about it,
Yeah, find me on Instagram orif you're a Monster Fuls fan obviously
just interact with some of the discor the chat about it in terms of

(50:07):
what's next for me in the podcastand things like that. Yeah, like
this is I would class this podcastas on ice and until I have things
I want to talk about, I'mstill completing games. I really do love
talking about games. Right now,I don't know if I'm satisfied with this
format, like where I just talkabout something for an hour and that's it.
Like I don't know, like becauseI can do that until the fucking

(50:28):
cows come home, But I justdon't know if that's good enough for people.
Do you know? That's kind ofwhere I'm at with this right now.
I'm kind of having an identity crisis. I'm like cloud that are falling
into the live stream? Who amI? What is a podcast? Should
people listen? Do people want tolisten? That's how I feel a little
bit with this pod right now,and I feel like maybe either go into

(50:51):
a live streaming format or maybe perhapsback to YouTube and literally recording gameplay of
the game and sticking it over mightbe the way forward for me and this
medium. I will be going moreinto it. I definitely am going to
be focusing more on the content creationside of things going forward, because that's

(51:12):
what I want to do full time, really, so I'm going to be
looking at different ways to try andbranch out and expand on things. So
yeah, folx, I hope youhave had as good time with the game
as I have. There's so muchI could talk about. I could break
down region by region and this fuckingthing, and who knows, I may
yet, I fucking may yet.It almost feels like, given a game

(51:36):
that took me eighty hours, anhour of talking is not good enough.
But I might come back to it. I might talk about it more.
Thanks to Square Nix, first offfor making this, I mean it's crazy.
Fair play to them. Hats off, amazing shit, one of the
best games of all time in myopinion, fucking brilliant. I know it's

(51:59):
not for everyone, and all peoplearen't into fucking stories that are two Japanese.
I get it, and I'm oneof those people. But for me,
Final Fantasy seven is just in aleg of a town, I've been
robbed. This has been video gameawful of Thanks everyone for listening, and
if you're still here, I loveyou lots, over and out. Peace,