Ep 124: Final Fantasy 7 (Part 6) - Story and Themes

As we continue down the road of dissecting Final Fantasy 7 like some bizarre Hojo experiment, we arrive at story and themes. From the opening tales of corporate greed and environmental espionage to the eventual themes of literal life versus death, there's a good deal to unpack in this PS1 classic. Listen, won't you?

STARRING (all handles from Twitter)

Eddie Varnell (@thatretrocode) of the Boss Rush Network (@BossRushNetwork)
James and JJ of RetroFits on YouTube (@FitsRetro)
John Trenbeath (@crazyjohnt) 
Julian Titus (@julian_titus) of The Stage Select Podcast (@StageSelectPod)
Matt (@dj_stormageddon) and Geoff (@geoffmakesnoise) of the "Fun" & Games Podcast (@funandgamespod)
Mekel Kasanova (@MekelKasanova)
The Lets Play Princess (@TheLPPrincess) 
Ryan aka @GameswCoffee

SONG COVERS

Those Who Fight (Final Fantasy VII) | Classical Guitar Cover by John Oeth Guitar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PXLw0u5nWo

Red XIII's Theme (Final Fantasy VII) | Classical Guitar Cover by John Oeth Guitar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FArKFnpHUw

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Transcript

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As we continue down the road of dissecting Final Fantasy VII we're treating this game like some sort of unhinged hojo experiment, getting down to the cellular level to see what really makes this game tick. Apologies for the belabored analogy, but it's been a lot of Final Fantasy 7 over the last few months. But this week's episode is no exception to that rule. From the early themes of corporate greed and environmental espionage to the overarching ideas of life versus death, Final Fantasy 7's story covers a wide swath of emotional ground in some unexpected and unconventional ways. and based on your personal opinion and taste for better or for worse. Time to toss on our lab coat, brush off the Jenova project and see if we still have some leftover Mako chilling in the fridge as we continue dissecting in episode 124, Final Fantasy VII, part six, story and themes. cities, hundreds of characters, and thousands of different environments. Starting us off on our journey is the one and only Julian from Stage Select Podcast as he discusses the opening story, Inherent Edginess, and the overall tonal shift of the entire franchise. I think Final Fantasy VII for sure marks a change in tone and grew up with those gamers. That was the game that grew up with us. And I respected a lot for that because even though, it's got the swearing, the mature themes of that story and the places that story goes and the complexity. It's a pretty, and that story that jumps times all over the place. It's always going back and forth and back and forth. It's, there's a lot going on in that story. I, I respect it for being that bridge game that for, for, for kids to becoming adults, it felt like it was very of its time, which I think is why it was part of why it was so successful. absolutely. And I think, the core like impetus of the story, at least, at least how it starts out, is That actually is even more relevant now than it was in 1997, right? Like the idea of the evil, money-hungry corporation literally sucking the planet dry, right? And knowing that it's bad for the planet, but not caring because the profits are so good, right? Like I got that as a teenager, but like now it's like, man, okay. This is really relevant to... everything. Yeah, that's an interesting and this is the and this is the game that definitely started that trend. This is the sea change of the Final Fantasy series. This is the giant hinge. So when you state that this is probably the most important Final Fantasy. Yeah, I think I don't think there is much of an argument for that for sure. As much as you know, as much as I will, you know, criticize the game now for a lot of things like both both of its design and also what it it meant for the series going forward. I will never take away how impactful it was or how monumental it was. And I will never take away from people's love of it. Right. No, absolutely. I think I do have an issue like just like there's Final Fantasy fans and there's Final Fantasy seven fans, That's fair. And Final Fantasy VII fans kind of really turned to be on Final Fantasy VII like back in the day because they got obsessed with it in a way that like, I get it. I just can't follow you there. And I won't take anything away from you. Like if this is your favorite of all time, it's a great game to be your favorite of all time. totally understandable, especially if it was your first one. You never had a chance. Like, holy crap, this thing was amazing. And it's still amazing. It's just, know, again, I feel that there was a lot that was lost in the transition from 16-bit sprites to 3D polygons. And we never really got it back. We got it back for a split second with Final Fantasy IX, but that wasn't even supposed to be a mainline Final Fantasy when they started making it. And then we... Now we kind of see it in little bits and pieces here with other games like Bravely Default or Octopath Traveler. But really like Final Fantasy as a franchise. It's like, nah, no, we're this now. We're, you know, we're Hollywood. Yeah. it's for better or worse. For better or worse. And I think that's a good place to land the plane because that really is it really depends on what you got introduced to. You're right. I can't imagine being 11. My last guest who I was talking to, he played this when he was 11. How? No chance. No chance. There's no way. Sephiroth imprinted upon you, like in your DNA now. There's nothing you can do about it. What I find very interesting, I'm actually going to be talking to a Sephiroth cosplayer next week who thinks it'd be very interesting to get her opinion on Sephiroth and that connection. I find it fascinating. I look, you said how you say you're not going to take away from people if you do love this game. There are people who love eight and I don't understand. I couldn't do it. And there's people who are chopping at the bit to talk about eight. They are like, when we talk about eight, I'm in, cause I love that game. like, I think it's going to be as not quite as meta as the Chrono Trigger episode, but it might be an episode of people convincing me while I final, I should try Final Fantasy eight again. It might be just people trying to convince me. to give it one more try. It's one of my least favorite in the series, but it is the number one game that I'm most interested in revisiting because I know I played it wrong. When it came out, I don't want to figure out how to play it right. I don't know. I'm going to keep playing nine. I fell off of nine for a bit, but I really enjoyed it. I enjoy I was enjoying nine a lot. I do want to finish that one properly. Eight. I'm like I gave it a solid three hours. I give it a solid three hours, Julian. And I That's from dad dad time. That's that's precious. yeah, and and you you saw the intro like you're good Yeah, that is that is still one of the best intros like it's pretty incredible. Yeah No, I you got you got the gist of it I got the gist of it the junction system is extremely confusing and I don't understand it and I'm not a jerk Balls a jerk and I don't want to hang out with them. So great and triple triad is fine I don't know. It's fine anyway There's a reason why I left GamePro and Nintendo Power and gravitated towards EGM, then flipped over to Die Hard, because they were edgier. But then when I got a little bit more mature, I went back to EGM in a big way. And I was like, no, EGM has actually matured with me as well. And this feels like a magazine for adults. And I felt that way with video games as well. And I think that's what the PlayStation represented for me. was a lot of the big games on the PlayStation were games for older teenagers and adults. I was like, yeah, this is what I want. I think if games had just, if we just had the Nintendo 64, I probably would have ended up falling off of video games in this time. It would have been like, okay, these are fun, but I'm not really being challenged, like either gameplay wise or really mentally. And I think I'm done. Like, I think I'm good. And I would probably come back to them later, but as it is, like, I've never fallen off of video games in, you know, like since I first got my hands on a controller. And I think a big part of that is that I felt the games kind of aging up with me. Yeah. And I, it's very interesting you say that. And again, this is a slight diversion, but that's perfectly fine. I like, I like these conversations when they come up. I was very different in that I matured, I was the same age as I was 17 when in 97. So I think you and I are the same age basically. And I I matured a lot later in life than a lot of my peers because I think a lot of it had to do with I had very young brother and sister. My brother and sister were both five and six years younger. So they were still kids. So whenever I was doing stuff with the family, we were still doing kid stuff. Like I was never real. And I was not, I didn't have a very large social circle. My mom did not allow me to hang out with people at like high school. So I did have like high school hangout friends. So was always home with my younger brother and sister still doing younger kid things. So for me, Nintendo was still appealing. so for me, but I did have that drop off when I was in college where I really didn't play a lot of games. I played some GoldenEye and I was very casually playing, but I definitely had that drop off. Like I never had a PlayStation. I only had a PS2 because my brother wanted to play GTA. So. Yeah, that's how you turn into a well rounded adult, Bill. If you go down my route, you spec the way that I spec'd, you know a lot about video games at the expense of everything else. please. In college, all I did was do radio and pretend we were Howard Stern on the radio and try to be edgy and yeah. yeah. I'm sure knowing how to do radio has not helped you at all with anything else that you've done since. This is fair. Fair point. But I will say there is a big swath though of video games that I just don't have a personal attachment to. Like even with with the PS2, my brother who again, at the time he was probably 18 and I lived at home pretty much until I was in my mid twenties, all through college. I didn't go away to college. I went to school very close to where I grew up, hometown. And I, so I was getting back into games through my younger brother who was like, oh, I want to play GTA. I want to play. The getaway, which we still quote to this day because it's fantastic and fabulous and silly and strange. But anyway, diversion. Man, what are the thoughts? I want to just hear you just go on about Final Fantasy 7 because I know you got thoughts, man. And I don't think you've exhausted them all. oh, yeah. mean, yeah. Fire away. You know, again, like I loved it at the time. And but I really felt like I said years later and it was really like once Final Fantasy 8. came out and I kind of saw what Final Fantasy 8 was and that's when I realized how much we had lost with Final Fantasy 7. I know you don't talk a lot about mechanics in the series, but I think it's worth mentioning how slight Final Fantasy 7 is on that. Interesting, because I am going to have a section on mechanics because it's been coming up more and more with this particular game, so this is perfectly fine. Yeah, what's your take on it? You know, going down to three party members was a big blow for me, especially since my favorite was a game where you could have up to five party members in Final Fantasy IV. And then those characters kind of all being blank slates with the materia system. Like, I understand that the materia system gives you a lot of flexibility in how you want to build your character. But the Magisite system in Six also gave you that. but the characters still had distinct roles and abilities that were unique to them. Where the characters in Seven, they have their limit breaks and they have their unique weapons and that's about it. And this is gonna sound counterintuitive to what I just said, but bear with me. The fact that they each only have like a weapon that they can equip, I think also takes away from them where, you know, I always liked the idea of like, well, okay, this character is a warrior so they can equip any type of weapon. You know, this character is a mage, so they're gonna use daggers or staffs or sometimes a bow and arrow, but that's about it. But there is that little flexibility there where you can do different things with them in accordance with their jobs where, you know, there's not really, the characters don't really have like jobs, per se. I mean, definitely, I mean, obviously like Sid is a dragoon, right? right down to the fact that his last name is High Wind, which ties into other High Winds that had been dragoons in the series before and later on. But for the most part, they're just kind of blank characters when it comes to combat until you load them up with materia. And then they kind of double down on that with Final Fantasy VIII. And then when we got to IX, where then we once again had characters that were very bespoke and had unique utility in battle. I was like, no, this is, yeah, we've lost so much. I think also equipment wise, right? Like all of a sudden it's like you have a weapon, a piece of armor and an accessory. Because like, even though like it was only, it didn't change your character visually. In my head playing Final Fantasy IV, like when I would get to the end of the game and I was like, man, Cecil probably looks so cool with his diamond armor and shield and gloves and everything, right? And now it's like, okay, yeah, you can see the cloud has a new weapon. That was very cool. But they also had been doing that in the series for years anyway. The weapons would definitely change. But then it's like, okay, and he's got like a new, I guess he's wearing a new like wrist guard. That's neat. I don't know. It really felt like a big step back. But in the moment, it didn't feel like that because yo, those visuals. Next up, content creator, Mikhail Casanova discusses Final Fantasy VII's less than linear storytelling and attempts to uncover if it hurt or helped the final product. Let's listen in. Well, that's a great segue into the story of Final Fantasy VII. In preparation for this series, I watched a chronological retelling of Final Fantasy VII, story. So it of started from the very beginning, all the way through. And when I watched that, my thought was like, wow, I forgot there's a character named Hojo who that's really the big bad. I forgot about Rufus. I forgot about this person. And the way I've been describing it to my other guests is if the original Final Fantasy games were these straight line stories with paths that would converge and diverge and, but you still had this one path. Final Fantasy seven is like this coiled mass of it's like the strands of time in the second season of Loki. It's this big, there's a through point. But it's inside of it, it's all this stuff interwoven. And I just remember the story being very confusing and playing it as a late 20 something on my PS3. Being like, I don't understand what's going on here. But there's so much cool stuff in that story. I think the story tell, what's take on the storytelling of Final Fantasy VII? Because for me, there's a lot of cool stuff in there. that gets really lost and all the time jumps and the flashbacks and all that. What's your, what's your take on it? So when I was playing that back then, I literally had a notebook to write stuff down. Wow. You know, cause I think I said before, like, you know, with the translation of English, you know, from Samoan to English are or vice the other way around. There's a lot of it where I didn't understand it and some of the terms were like words that I didn't know. So like I would write them down or write down characters and I would go to my older brothers and I'd be like, can you explain what this is to me? Like, I don't like what is the English? What does this mean in Samoan? Or what is, you know, what is this? The context of it, because, I was young and I guess it was like a third grader at the time. I didn't really completely comprehend it. Um, but no, um, it was, the narrative was not, and I don't think it even is now. I think it's even worse now. If we look at remake rebirth, um, it was very all over the place because there was way too many things, too many plot threads that were going on. Like you said, the flashbacks, the whole thing when cloud would hear the voice, it was never clear. in the original whose voice that was. Sure. You're right. didn't I didn't know who I'm like, wait, who is that? There's no context of that. OK, why does not anyone else other than cloud understand what that is? And like, you know, they don't really dive into what's going on with cloud until like what? Midway through this to end of this. The closing towards the end of this, too. So it was like a lot of stuff that was just I didn't get that. They would throw hojo in there and make it seem like he was very important and pull him out then throw him back in but it sometimes make him seem like he was just a joke character like he's a lesser Kafka which yes, so I still kind of be in this lesser Kafka in many ways, but anyways You can you can make that argument you can make that argument. You know yeah, it's like so I would look at it, and I'm just like I don't really understand that. Then you had Hedegaard and then Scarlett and then you had Reeve. And then when they brought in Kate Sith, and maybe this is a translation issue, because now I'm thinking about this. When you got to the Temple of the Ancients and you had Kate Sith take the Black Interior, the Temple of the Ancients collapsed upon itself. You had a cut scene where Kate said it was like, oh, but there's only one me. I am now he had a self actual actualization, self realization. I was like, I was confused. I was like, wait, but I thought he was controlled by Reeve. And I was so confused. And then right after that, then you have another case to come on. I'm Kate's number that I don't like. Right. Yeah. The. Game doesn't do itself a lot of favors. It really doesn't when it to its storytelling. I feel like Final Fantasy VII is the first time the developers had seemingly unlimited resources. The doors are blown off. have as many CDs as you want. You got three CDs, you got three CDs. You want 10? Go for 10, who cares? All the doors are blown off of it. And with all that stuff, I think they put lots of stuff in there, but they lost the efficiency of those original six Final Fantasy games. And I think that's like the key word for me is like efficiency. Because like Final Fantasy four, like we discussed, that game is tight. Like that narratively is tight. It's so good. And six is a little more bloated, but it's still tight. You have very clear things going on. Seven always felt confusing. Even though when you look at it from like that chronological standpoint and you see it like just presented as a complete story, you know, wow, that's actually really cool. There's a lot of cool stuff in there, but man, does it get lost behind the big swords and the spectacle of it. That's for me. No, no. I mean, I'm completely there with you with that because it it it it did not do. mean, I think it was a was it Ted Woosley? Was he the translator for that? So it's like there's later for yeah, think I think he still is translating first seven, I believe. Yes. OK, so I I feel like just with the translation, there's a lot of stuff that just got lost. mean, a lot of people like, oh, Arif, Gainsborough. But in the game and the manual, she was it was Ares. I believe Ares. Yeah, Ares. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like there is so. It was so many different things like characters, like I said, they eliminate brought in characters who should be very important, such as Professor gas and Ilfana. They're presented and then there's nothing else. You know, it's like, okay, but you're supposed to, you know, remember that Lucrezia. Like there's so many things that were optional, which I feel like should not have been optional. Vincent, you feel. Yeah. You know, like because that that gives you so much more of an understanding, but easily you can miss it. I mean, getting you fee, if you didn't have a guide or you weren't just roaming around, you never would have gotten her. There's no indication of how to get her. Same thing I feel like with Vincent, when you go to Niebelheim and go to the mansion, easily missable. And then like that side quest of finding Lucrecia in the cave. How would you even know? You would not have known that she was a mother of Sephiroth. it just that was just a detail. Oh, OK. Yeah. You know, that's cool if you want to go find that same thing with Zach and how important Zach is. And in the version we got, apparently international version, it's it it happens automatically. That's a completely missable cut scene. So, like, I remember the first time I played it and I beat it. I never got the Zach ending or not Zach ending, but that Zach cut scene. So when I play our guys, which, hey, you know, you know, that was a fun game back in the day, kind of broken. But it was a lot of fun, especially in our case. When I, unlike Unlocked Zach, I was like, Who's this guy? And I was like, confused. I'm like, why does he look like cloud? And then come to find out, I went through, I think game pro had a whole article on him or on the game and that he was in there all the how to unlock all the Final Fantasy characters. And they brought up he was, you know, a soldier. And I was like, wait, what? And then they talked about, yeah. And you can go back to Nibelheim after certain part in this too, then you can go and have that cutscene trigger. And I was like, What? There's nothing to tell you that. No, no, it's very strange. But again, and that's why I think we can kind of transfer to Cloud a little bit. I never liked playing as Cloud. I never enjoyed being in that character. And you really don't get a good redemptive arc until you're like two thirds the way through where you start realizing what's going on. I think if they hadn't held those cards so close to the vest. that they had let that on a little earlier. You'd like, wow, he's struggling with basically two, three people's worth of memories rattling around in his head. And all that stuff, again, is interesting because it creates this character that is very, that becomes very sympathetic. Even Sephiroth is pretty sympathetic towards the end. He's just basically a puppet of Genova and Hojo. It's, but you don't get any of that. You know, some of the Final Fantasy lore people. those YouTubers, you know, essayists, they, they go, they go into that. actually, I will, I will let me deliver my actually that's, that's my, that's my actually it's been used by my friends at gamers week podcast. I'm officially a drop on their show and everyone's done this gets actually you hear me doing actually that's my, my contribution to the world of voiceovers is my actually. But yes, you're right. I'm sure I screwed that up. it's it's it's I feel I feel like Final Fantasy seven. The bigness of that game and the event status of that game almost did it a disservice in its storytelling because again, whenever I talk to people about this game, the main thing are like the cloud in the Sephiroth in the opening. And again, it's world class like the opening of Final Fantasy seven is world class. It is phenomenal. I played it recently and it still holds up and it's still great. But you miss out on all this other stuff. Like you said, missing out on Vincent's backstory with his with his I think with his mother, right? I think with his mother and and you're like, if missing out on that stuff, Vincent is just maybe a go go. He's just a person. But if you if you miss out on that piece, he's just like a school side vampire character. Like, that's cool. It's really wild. And I think the bigness of that game again dilutes and or masks all the interesting stuff it was trying to do, which there is quite a bit of interesting stuff it's trying to do. It just doesn't come across as easily as it did in the other versions. No, it really didn't. And it's like when you look at stuff like Red 13 or Nanaki's tribe, the ego to Cosmo was a Cosmo Kangen. And you learn about his father seto and going up against the I forgot the name of that tribe. They were like ghost or something like that. Because you could eat that boss if you threw a Phoenix down at him. right. Right. I don't. I can't think of the name of that tribe. But like there is a backstory that they kind of built up there and then never touched on again. Right. You know, and I'm like, wait, OK. Interesting. You know, and then with the whole weapons, they kind the. They didn't really dive into that as much like, OK, wait, the weapons of the planet's defense. But why are they going around destroying? With my. Yeah, yeah. It feels like, again, there are there's a lot of ideas that then the doors are open. Can we make a giant a giant weapon? Sure. By all means, weapon away. But but but they but again, it's in this like big. cauldron is big cylindrical cauldron of all these threads that are mixed in with each other. And it's it's honestly hard to decipher. It really is. I mean, for me again, and I'm playing this as a 29 year old, you know, like I wasn't of its age. So that's why it's always find it interesting to talk to people who played of its time and those big fans. Because again, I watched that watch the YouTube video or explains everything. And I'm like, I don't remember. I remember a Rufus. I don't remember him. doing all this stuff. I remember a hojo, but I don't remember any of this stuff. This is actually pretty cool. Like this is good fiction. I dig this. And I think it's that's part of the problem. Yeah. Yeah. The narrative need to be a lot tighter. And I think they could have, they could have done it. And I feel like by them not only not making it tighter, but then going so far as to with the compilation of all fantasy and expanding upon things because OK, I don't mind if you want to clear up questions a lot of us had, because I'm sorry that game had a lot of questions just sitting. had no answers to and certain things like I know apparently people hate crisis for now. I'm like, I love it. I love Zach as a character. And it really I felt like gave us additional context. Same thing with before crisis, letting us know about the Turks is when you start shifting the narrative into something it's you know, it never originally was. And I know I'm upset the remake. There's a lot of remake fans. Yeah. A lot of a lot of YouTubers have built careers off of Lead Meek and Weedworth. And I'm just like, yep, yep. I'm just like, look, I'm happy that you guys are happy like for it. And you like it and enjoy it. But this is not the final fantasy seven I grew up with and. The re like when I saw a remake, I was like, that's subtype. It's not a literal remake. And if people like, it's remake. Yeah, you don't need to play the original. Sure, sure, you don't. Yeah. got it. I can't even, I can't Yeah. It's yeah. It's there. It's not a replacement. It's not a replacement in any way, or form. It's a continuation. And then the game literally says it when it starts showing all the events from the original and the extended universe that they built. including stuff from Final Fantasy 10 with Shinra. Which was okay. What? What? A square Enix? Why did you tie Shinra 10? It is time once again to say thank you, thank you, thank you to our wonderful patrons. with Seth Sergel of the All In Media Network. Julian of Stage Select. Tim Knowles, formerly of The Leadest. BT Gobbles, the Let's Play Princess of Nerds Abroadcast. Games with Coffee. Greg Seward of the Player One Podcast and Generation 16 series of videos. Terry Knair, the one and only Joe Coro of Joe Kade and Perfect Storm Gaming. Philip Becker. Lindsay Harney and the one and only editor extraordinaire Pete Harney. If you would like to join these amazing human beings mosey on over to patreon.com forward slash a gamer looks at 40 check out the tiers and sign up today and if not a rating or review on your pod player of choice is always greatly appreciated. Continuing our conversation is the Let's Play Princess of Nerds of Broadcast, followed by Matt and Jeff of the Fun and Games podcast. So what was your first impressions when you popped it in and started playing it? And how about, and you said you were about 16? Oh God, no, this would be around the age of 11 to 13. Oh, 11, okay, so earlier, okay. So yeah, what was your first impression? It was really cool. I loved the graphics. I loved the gameplay style of the ATB bar and filling it up and the idea that you could actually hold circle to make it fill up just a little bit faster memory serves. I really enjoyed that the manual actually gave you an idea of how bosses work, know, use it gave you the little guide to the end of the first bombing run. it did it really? That's interesting. the instruction manual gives a guide for the first bombing run up until and including the scorpion sentinel, scorpion tank, whatever they called it back then. Yeah. So it actually tells you, hey, when its tail is raised, don't attack it. Do you have the thunder materia? Use it. that's interesting. So it actually actually put some information in there for new for newer gamers who may not be so used to an RPG. That's interesting. I didn't know that it did that. Yeah. And got later on that game for me because I wasn't, you know, power leveling or really going after specific things because I didn't know what I was looking for. So it was actually a lot harder, probably for me than what a lot of people might be saying in their story. I probably reset like hard reset started this game three separate times. Wow. Wow. at a Gienatic. once at the materia keeper in Nibelheim and then once at, I can't remember the name of it, but the crane robot boss that's in the underwater reactor. And I remember somebody in sixth grade actually had the strategy guide for this game. So two years later after I'm playing it, know, I'm not getting that, I've reset the game a few times. And it's just like, wait a minute. Okay, so what am I doing wrong? Is there a... Is there a thing to this? And somebody had the guy and I'm like, hey, you have that real quick. Did you beat this boss? And they go, yeah. I go, cool. Is there like some special thing you can do and everything? They just go use the phoenix now. I'm like, I can't remember. That six is like my favorite Final Fantasy, but it's not my first. This is my first. So I didn't have that idea of, hey, ghost enemies. take damage to the curing spells. Oh, that's awesome. That's right. And that's pretty far along in the game, if I'm not mistaken. Again, I've been refreshing myself on Final Fantasy VII. I attempted to run through and then the version on Steam I bought broke and I lost progress and I said, ah, that's enough of that. How did the Steam version break? It broke. I don't know what happened. I can't get past the, it's early on too. It's after the first couple of hours when you're in. after you blow up the second reactor, you have to go around and, and, I had to get to find something and it's, it's fine. Somebody's in a bar, but the person in the bar never triggers, never shows up. So now I can't get past it because it's right before you do all of the weird stuff at the, at the honeybee in or whatever that's called. Okay, so it was like right before squats and getting the vitamins for the people and all that fun stuff. You were just getting to Walmart, but just past the airbuster. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So just, I mean, super early on. So I didn't like lose this kind of progress, but for some reason, the character that, and I looked it up and I'm like, they're like, yeah, it's just characters supposed to be there for you to talk to, to do the little handoff and sure enough, I was not able to. So I was like, you know what? Forget it. Maybe my Steam Deck did something weird, I don't know. But anyway, that is, but yeah, anyway, so I've been refreshing myself on the story over the last couple of days in preparation for these interviews. so yeah, I think I have a pretty decent handle on that. I played it when I was like my 30s on the PS3. They had a, you know, they had a little, the PS3 store where you could buy the PlayStation 1 classics, the PS1 classics. digitally, so I downloaded one. Then I see what this Final Fantasy 7 is all about. And I liked it. I thought was fine. I'm like, this is good. I found it very confusing story-wise. I've since learned more about the story, but yeah, that's interesting. As an 11-year-old, did the story confound you at all? Because that story goes back and forth and forward and back and it's jumping all over place. I always grew up with harder hitting books. My mom had me reading and, you know, starting to talk when I was around two. Oh, wow. So around this time would be Artemis Fowl. Oh, wow. Maybe even my first iteration of getting into Stephen King. OK. Wow. That's super advanced for 11. Wow, that's really cool. So you already understood story structure well enough. I remember just thinking, wow, this leg is just jumping all over the place. And it was cool. And again, I'm 30. I should know much better. But I can imagine for someone younger like that, it'd be a challenge. But you found it was pretty easy to follow. interesting. When was the last time you played the original Final Fantasy VII? God. Did I load up the file when I visited back home is the question. The answer is yes, seven years ago. Okay, so seven years ago. So that's still relatively recently, lot sooner than I Has it, does it hit it for you differently now as more of an adult as it did seven years ago? Or as it did when you were a kid, sorry. No, it's still a great game. Interesting. It aged very well in my mind. Yeah. And now we have these even, I don't want to say better, they're different. But remake and rebirth definitely hold. charm at points and the exploration. They know what they're doing. Yeah. And it's, I think, again, I haven't played those two games, but from what I understand, they're not replacements, but they're great companion pieces. Yes. To the original game. Yes, they are. That's kind of the prevailing opinion I've heard on those that they're worthwhile companion pieces. The only potentially negative thing you can say about them is that The second one is maybe a little bloated and some of the stuff could have been saved for part three because there's a lot of side quests in that game. I've heard I heard it's a ton of side quests going off that main the main thread. Yeah, I've heard that about too. That's about the second one. But yeah, I will be playing those at some point in my life when time allows. Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I find it interesting that the game, does this game you think holds up more than other Final Fantasy games for you? that's a good question. I think it holds up as well as Six does, which is perfectly. There's probably some things in Final Fantasy VII that don't hold up as much. Like, I remember fondly the prison escape with Tifa. But at the end of the day that is a weird combination of button presses because you're controlling each individual part of her body like some This was QWOP before QWOP came out Or man the rebirth version of Mr. Dolphin is a lot better. You don't have to give CPR to anybody. Really? No, I don't know which version of the Junon Parade I like more though. That's the fun part. Ooh You'll see The original is, know, marching in place, pressing the buttons as they take the formation, trying to be as one-to-one as possible, but in the new one, it's a rhythm game. Ooh, I think I'd like the rhythm game probably better. I prefer rhythm games to the button... Not the button press, obviously, they're both button press, but you know what I mean. I prefer rhythm game. If you're gonna make me do a side quest like that, make it rhythm based. I'm happy. So, Bell, you should play deep rhythm. What's this now? Beat Rhythm? Beat Rhythm, yeah. Have I played Beat The Final Fantasy rhythm game? No, I have not played this. you need it. It's on PS4, the Switch, the Final Bar line. Both of the 3DS versions are also very good. If somebody out there is selling an arcade cabinet of the arcade version, please email me. Nice. I'd love to move into Cloud as a character and some of the characters. I think that's a really good transition because when I played it for the first time, I remember thinking the way Final Fantasy 7 tells its story can be a little convoluted and confusing. But when I researched it again for this series and played it again for this series and watched a chronological retelling of the story, I was taken aback by how much cool stuff is in the story of Final Fantasy 7. Final Fantasy 7... is a really cool piece of fiction when you kind of look at it from a bird's eye view and you're not in the middle trying to do levels and such. What's your take? Let's start with story first, then characters, because they're kind of intertwined. What's your take on the story of Final Fantasy VII? I mean, I think, again, being that every kind of game I played that had to do with role playing was very fantasy based, whether it was growing up playing D &D or, like I said, know, Chrono Trigger has a futuristic bent, but in this different kind of science fiction way, But like, Mario RPG, which is very much rooted in the rules of Mario, whereas this game was like big buildings, energy draining the planets, like, technology, was less about magic, even though there was magic, and more about the tech in this world. And I think that the, that- Already made me like really excited for this story because it just felt so different from anything we had seen before even though there have been other cyberpunk stories and video games before that but I don't think quite on the main stage like this was And the narrative as far as the narrative goes. I love it. Like I said Why the holes I see that other people poke in it are most of them are pretty valid I think for me the reason I love it so unabashedly is because again, it was the first time I really felt like the sad cinematic movie style storytelling in a video game and also I'm a sucker for emotional beats like there are some truly sad moments in this game and Before getting into the nitty-gritty of that like those like I'm someone who cries at video games I've cried a video game since I was a kid and this was one of the first though I would say the second because Chrono Trigger was probably the first to do it and like That is powerful, and I think the story is really powerful. Is it perfect? No It's waned as my favorite Final Fantasy. I think nine after playing it last year, two years ago, times like, I really fell in love with that game, especially in the final act, and so that might be my favorite. But also I played four for the first time last year, and I really loved four. I thought it was an incredible story. And I played the Pixar remaster, and so that skyrocketed up my list, and I am a Final Fantasy 16 defender. I really love that game. And so I think Final Fantasy's always had really unique storytelling. I don't think any of the stories are inherently bad. I think when those games get a bad rap like eight which is tough to get through I don't think it's the story. That's the problem. It's not perfect, but I think it's the bouncing off the mechanics and But but seven I think has become like Jeff said the storytelling has become a trope but it wasn't at the time. It is now because it was the blueprint. But at the time, I thought the story was great and I still really quite love it. And I think a lot of that is nostalgia, but a lot of that is also because it was like an originator. It definitely has that Seinfeld problem of why was this so groundbreaking? You everybody does this, but no one did at the time. But there is something so cool in Final Fantasy 7's, Like you were saying, Bill, kind of that bird's eye view of the story. And all of the pieces are in fact there. Sometimes you really have to go out of your way to watch the sequence of, say, Zack and Cloud escaping from the Nibelheim mansion and making their way to Midgar. That's in the original game. There is so much supplementary material to Final Fantasy VII. And I always have pause when properties, no matter what the medium, are like, well, they release this other thing that totally explains that, so there's nothing wrong with the story. Sure, great. but what about the original presentation? Final Fantasy VII has all of those pieces there and just as disjointed as it is within Cloud's head, it is for us. And whether that is, you know, trying to sound smart to explain anything away, I don't care. That's there. No, I totally agree. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I like the way that you said that all the pieces are there and it does take a little bit of effort to mine them. But again, you're playing as a character who has all of his pieces jumbled and shattered and scrambled anyway. it's right. There are some parallels there for sure. And finally, closing out this discussion of all things story and themed is games with coffee, followed by James and JJ of retrofits, then John Trimbeth of the Beat Crohn's Foundation, and finally Eddie Varnell of the Boss Rush Network. As I've been reliving it and I've only played through it once and I tried playing through it again for this podcast, but a Steam version of my game messed up and I lost progress and I was like, I'm out of time. So what I've been doing is just kind of watching YouTube videos on the story and just kind of refreshing myself on the whole experience. what struck me is a couple of things. One, how complex the story is. Yes. You are jumping around all over the place time wise. I mean, you are going forward, back 2000 years ago. It's a lot of jumping around, is is cool. But also how well integrated all the personal stories are to the main story. I would even say more than Final Fantasy 6. The story of Final Fantasy 7 has a relatively straight, it doesn't have a straightforward progression. It feels like it's complex web that's constantly moving forward. It's like the blob, it feels like. But in a good way, where it's like all of this richness comes from the interactions with the characters and... Whereas Final Fantasy VI feels like here's your main story, here's your side story. And even modern Final Fantasies, your main story, get your side quests, then you can do those side quests. In Final Fantasy VII, it doesn't feel like that. Everything feels so closely integrated with the overall experience. And I think that's really interesting storytelling. And it makes for a complex game, but also makes for a very rich one because you get those moments where everybody gets a chance to grow and shine. Yeah, it's like life. Like, basically, I mean, that's the theme of the game. It's life. It's life and death. It's, you know, you take the good things in life and then you also have the bad things in life and you kind of have to deal with that complexity behind that. Like, one of the more interesting things is that, like, is that Final Fantasy VII has the capability of being both serious and silly at the same time. And it just has... It just has a way of presenting the theme of life and how everything is interconnected to one another. That complex web of things where we have losses on some sides, but there's some hope, there's joy, there's hope, there's ignorance, there's fear. All those emotions. You can kind of perceive that through the game. And I mean, like the biggest moment, of course, like when when Aerith dies, it's. man, it's it's it's heart wrenching, you know, and you know, it's funny, too, because I was already in trouble. mean, that loss, that loss actually was indicative of what happened to director Yoshinori Katase during that time. Not many people know this, but during that time, he his mother passed away. wow. Right. And that kind of influenced his direction. It kind of influenced the direction of how Final Fantasy 7 kind of came about. There's this really fantastic quote, and it's one of the most memorable quotes. In fact, I was almost able to recite it off of memory. I typed it out and everything. I didn't have to look it up. just remember it from thing. And it goes a little something like this. He says, in this world, things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there's no notion of good or bad. It leaves not a dramatic feeling, but a great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much, you feel this big empty space and think, if I had known this was coming, I would have done things differently. And that quote pretty much encapsulates Final Fantasy VII. in a nutshell. Wow. Yeah, you're right. Wow. Especially when, especially, yeah, especially when you, when you're talking about like, uh, the moments between Cloud and Aerith, um, like from, from sector six, when they were talking about themselves a little bit on the playground and you know, Cloud's like, Oh, who's your, who's your boyfriend? It's like, yeah, he was a, he was a former soldier. He was like, probably knew him. What's his name? And then they get interrupted. It's like those little moments there. Like when you're, when you're talking with Aerith and she's trying to peel back the layers that that's just trying to peel back the layers of Cloud Strife to see who the real Cloud is. Right? And that's that's another conversation like we can go into. Oh, totally. The wonderful psyche of Clown Cloud Strife. What's gears a little bit to the story of Final Fantasy 7? Some people say it's a mess. Some people love it. What's what's y'all take on it? I'll start with you, JJ. What's your what's your take on the story of Final Fantasy 7? Admittedly, it is a mess. That's because it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief in order to get has like so we're just going to. have complete control over all the entire world. There's no other the other countries have already been lost the war and we're just going to go and do this stuff. And then this motley crew of seven people are going to stop us. Yeah, the nine eco terrorists versus the massive worldwide mega corporation that has access to literally all of the weapons in the world. Yeah, that's not gonna end the way that it ends in that game. You never know, just a few determined people can topple an empire, I mean, who knows. But you a good point. To your point though, Final Fantasy VII's story, I think is actually really interesting when you look at it from a chronological standpoint. The actual story is actually pretty good, but it's told in such a weird... back and forth, jumping back and this and that. Yeah, go for it, go please. I think that part of that is by design. Sure. Because as Cloud is the main character, it's not always told in such a way that like he's the one telling the stories, but all of the really, really disjointed parts are. a hunt where it's a hundred percent his perspective. So there's there's parts of it where like, oh, this makes sense. We're just regular people going on a story. Oh, no, wait, we have to go on this this weird tangent where like five things that clearly could not have happened back to back are now being told as a single story. OK, you know, we're good. I think that Yeah, I think that having Cloud as the as the main character. from whose perspective you are supposed to experience the story, having the story be a mess, it's kind of the only way you could write it and still have it line up with everything else. Because if it was well organized, like it was like a novel where you sat down and you edited it and you organize it and you move chapters around, you know, that were from slightly different perspectives, just to have stuff make sense chronologically, then none of the reveals would be that meaningful. It would be like, okay, I had absolutely no clue that something was broken about this person, but I guess we're here now in his mind with like four ghost versions of him and one of them's a kid and here we are. Hello, hey, Yeah. Flashback. good, Tifa. Tifa's here to save us. OK, good. What about you, JJ? What's your take on the story? disjointed hot mess that I absolutely love. Okay, I love that. Go for it. I love that. Yeah, because again, it's just with the fact that there's just so much convoluted stuff that you have to accept. And then of course, the massive greed and over the top villainess that some of the I mean, actually Sephiroth is actually more grounded than President Shinra. That's totally totally. yeah, Sephiroth is actually a sad character. It's actually a very sympathetic character like, yeah, he didn't ask for any of this. He's just being used. opening holds up. It's still good. played it last month. still holds up. That opening is fantastic. It drops you right in. Now, you did mention one thing, though, that the story can be a little convoluted. What's take on the story itself and kind how that articulates in that game? It maybe tries to do a little bit too much because it's starting off with you're saving the planet, know, go planet to you. And which was a very 90s thing. No, being environmentally conscious was very big in the 90s. OK, great. We're an eco terrorist group, even though we're not going to call ourselves that. And we're trying to stick it to the man and then it delves into like legend in history and the world is ending because someone has mommy issues. And you may or may not actually be who you think you are. You might just be a clone. You don't even have a past, but you do. Or do you? There's a lot. And having played through it again last year, it wasn't as bad as I had it in my head that it was because I think the internet has kind of changed its mind. Like it goes back and forth on how the internet feels about Final Fantasy VII. And you know, the last video I probably watched on it said, you know, it's a little convoluted mess. It's not as good as you think it is or you remember it. It's like, oh, maybe it's not. But then I played through it again. I was like, now this game's still pretty cool. Yeah, some of that story does get a little bit grander than it needs to be. But it it holds up and it's and it's fun. That's the name of the game with with video games. That's key. That's a key observation in that it's still very, very fun. I find the story of Final Fantasy VII, and again, for this podcast series, I tried replaying it and my Steam version messed up and I lost progress. And I said, that's fine. I got enough of it to get my flavor for it. So I'm watching videos on it, like the story videos or refreshing myself on the beats. And when you watch the story in chronological order, I watched a video where it's like literally... It goes from 2000 years ago up until the modern time of the actual chronological order of the story. It's actually fascinating and really good. It's really, really, really good fiction. The way the game tells a story though, through all of these flashbacks and all of these time jumps, when you're in the midst of it, especially when you're trying to play it like a final fantasy game and do the grinding and do well and level your characters and mix and match your materia. The, for me, the thread that really Tangled thread that's really good Kind of gets lost in the blockbuster in the blockbuster action movie Vibe of the game. It's it's almost like the game is so big that it obscures its small moments Which is interesting because I part of the questions are like hey you are some small moments remember so far in my interviews Final fantasy one through six everyone's got them like yeah this moment that moment this game Sephiroth stabbed Aerith and there's a cold saucer and there's the lifestream and make because and but there are so many cool grace notes in this game. But again, it's like it feels like a Marvel movie. you take on the story of Final Fantasy VII? goodness. It's a jumble mess when you look at it now. When I... So it was very... It's a halfway point theme with the story. I was so much into it until Eref got killed. And once Eref got killed off and Cloud started having his mental breakdown, it kind of lost me for the rest of the game. because I'm just like, what am I doing now? I know it is to go after Sephiroth, but I'm like, it was just a confusing mess after that and everything because, know, they're playing around with flashbacks, what is real and what is not. You know, they try to add Zach to it. Is this vision right? What like, what's the truth about Cloud's background? and everything and it was just like it really felt like you guys had everything great going to after to the point where it ever died and then now it's fast like um that you guys just started making up the script of the rest of the game like you started making up the story and everything and i'm like okay i'm going to see this all the way through Um, even with red 13 and advancing and all of that and uh, see what I see how it plays out and then it just felt like Even when I got to the end and I kind of felt like I was robbed of it interesting Um with it. Yeah, and I wonder if that's a because you did mention after erith goes That's when everything kind of started going narratively south for you. It sounds like yeah And I wonder if that's the symptom of having such a heartbreaking moment that can overshadow everything in that game. Because when you talk to people about Final Fantasy VII, even those who played it back in the day, the big talk is always about like that opening and Saffron off in cloud. And I'm kind of repeating myself a little bit here, but there are so many other stories in that game that are actually really cool if you look at it just as a chronological story. But I think the way I've described it in other interviews is that if like Final Fantasy VI or IV, is this straight line story with branching paths that'll link back up. The story of Final Fantasy VII is like the second season of Loki, like the time, the strands of time, this big jumbled mess. it's a, it's a, it's a cylinder and it goes from beginning to end, but there are so many things interwoven within it. It's just dense and hard to pull apart when you're in the middle of also grinding for levels and figuring out your materia and doing all that stuff. It gets lost. Yeah, because the thing about it, you feel like... What really took over Final Fantasy VII at the era, you know, at the era and as she passed away, it's not Red 13 story. It should have been that because, you know, trying to get the dad back in, trying to, know, trying to, you know, stop. There should have been a better revenge plot against Sephiroth, but it didn't feel that way. And so, With that, I really felt like Hojo should have really stepped in and became something that the game focused on and everything. And be like, you are the cause of this. And then finish Hojo and then go on to self-report and everything. But it just felt like they spent so much time on Cloud and his mental state that it just didn't play well and everything. Like it didn't play. Offer to moving what the game? Set up to be And stuff like I think if cloud was having a more mental issues In the beginning instead of then just be like, he fell into the manatee Give him all the mental issues and everything call it a day. Right, It felt rushed so it kind of feels just like it wasn't balanced after the Set like half of the other part of the game before you got to the conclusion and stuff So I think that makes a lot of sense and I remember feeling the same way when I played it, you know, again, 15 years ago, whatever it was. And definitely when I tried to replay it now, it's again, it's got a lot of cool stuff in there. There really is some cool stuff. I will say this, Final Fantasy VII gave us the name at the time battle, which I think retronauts ended up calling it because of that, ATB. And I love the fact that, you know, the material system was easy to use and you get your powers. Like Final Fantasy 7, I put about 69 plus 70 hours in that game because I was grinding everything. I didn't really fight the like the three monsters to get the ultimate sword or I didn't do all of like the side quests and stuff. I think when I got to a point where I'm like 75 levels, I could go ahead and fight Sephiroth. You're good. Yeah. So I kind of was good with that. The ending of this game and so spoilers for anybody who hasn't played from 57 or, you know, we're just talking about it. But if you haven't seen it, I would still say go play the game to see the buildup that led to this ending. The reason I feel that I was robbed of this ending, why I say that is that I love the fact that know, Holy was stopping Meteor, but it wasn't enough. And so the live stream came and you see Eirith part of the live stream with it. And it was such a, like, was such a pleasant surprise that, you know, even though her body was gone, her spirit and her power was still there. It was in the earth now. It was part of where, you know, it was part of the live stream to help fight off Meteor. And that was really cool. It didn't jump 500 years. And it just like, you see this in it. I'm like, no, I want to know what happened with the people. I'm like, you can't jump 500 years. I don't care about, I don't care about all of this nonsense. Like, of course they're going to be dead and gone. Of course the city is going to look a mess, but I wanted to know what happened after they defeated Sephiroth. How did they get back? Did they all go their separate ways or what? Like did, you know, Cloud go back to his home or did he go back to the, not go to Saucedor, Heaven's, the bar. right, right, yes. Yeah. Like, like where did Cloud go? Because I wanna know like how did he get these seven swords and everything? Like they don't. They don't explain that and they were just like 500 years. You see this place where the game like really takes place and stuff. Why do I want to say metropolis and it's not metropolis? I know it's fair. So it's a fair point. Yeah. So it was just like, I, I just felt like I didn't get a satisfactory ending like that. Indie felt rushed after you and after cloud and suffer off fight and you defeat suffer off. I felt like I wanted to know what happened to the characters after. And that's really interesting because in other Final Fantasy games, you get that closure. Like you get that closure in Final Fantasy IV. You get a bit of it. VI is phenomenal with it. you, it's hot. It feels like it ties everything together and future ones do too. But you're right, VII just kind of ends. And then it's like 500 years later. Yeah, I read VII at 13 looking above the shattered Midgar. Midgar, yeah. And it's basically, that's it. I think you're right. I think it doesn't allow for those narrative things to close. And I think other properties have tried to close those, you know? I've never played any of the side stuff. I never played like Durgis Cerberus. I never did play any of the other like Final Fantasy VII stuff. But, and I've seen the movie many years ago. I haven't seen it since. You're right, I think I can see why you would say it's disappointing because it leaves a lot of the narrative and the character things, the character beats unresolved where Final Fantasy was better at that in previous entries. Yes, correct. That makes sense. Six episodes down, a few more to go. Just a few, I think. As we continue exploring Final Fantasy VII, we have a couple more to go. And I think they're going to be interesting experiments in just, again, diving into this game and seeing what makes it tick. Hope you've been enjoying this very exhaustive two months of content. It's been a lot of fun exploring this game and really hearing these stories of how Final Fantasy VII affected people back in the day and even right now. Thank you as always to Pete Harney and Kev from the discord for helping me cut up these interviews and creating the clips that make up these main episodes. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you again to my patrons for your financial support and thank you for listening to this edition of a gamer looks at 40 and until next time, just be kind to yourselves and each other.