SsjSora
Sorry, just- had to reserve this journal entry in the Monarch Edition to ease weight off the ol' tripod. No big deal.
Full review coming soon, as part of my ongoing blog series talking about my personal views on Vanillaware. Read part one now
Full review coming soon, as part of my ongoing blog series talking about my personal views on Vanillaware. Read part one now
(This review has no spoilers beyond referencing events that were in the original Final Fantasy VII to begin with, and the names of some minigames.)
Anyone can see the reviews I've written in 2024 so far. Everyone can see how often this game came up in them, as a goalpost on the horizon. The original Final Fantasy VII is displayed loud and proud in my five favorite games on my profile. I spent $391 total on the collector's edition with the enormous Sephiroth statue, and when the shipment got delayed I paid full $70 for a digital copy so I wouldn't have to wait around. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has meant everything to me for months upon months.
And I still couldn't have anticipated how much it means to me now.
It should be said first: I was not expecting to make a spoiler-free review. I was expecting the ending to fundamentally alter my brain chemistry and make me question my own reality the way Remake did, leaving me with endless things to talk about. But other than different variations of "oh I really loved that detail," I... shockingly have nothing to say. It came and went, and I see the direction we're headed for part 3. That much, I also could not have anticipated.
...it's almost daunting, figuring out where to start with this game. Probably the best place would be my "Materia and music" critiques from my short review of Remake. Happy to report, the devs were on the same page as me. The music is as drop-dead gorgeous as ever, though my personal "fan remix" gripe remains. And yet I must say again: that was the best decision they could have made. Sure, I may only really go back to listen to the original J-E-N-O-V-A, but would I like to live in a world where the boat fight against Jenova Emergent just used the same Quickening song from Remake? To not have that absolutely HORRIFYING new version? No. Never. The Materia system, though...
Hohohohohoho, baby. It is with greatest pleasure that I scream from the hills that the Materia system has finally returned to its original flourishing depth, through little else than volume increases. With the two key inclusions of three party formation shortcuts (which, by the way, Cloud's no longer locked in after you complete the main scenario- just in case someone who played the game didn't notice what the game DOESN'T TELL YOU FOR SOME REASON) and every character "participating" in most battles fixes arguably the largest incompatibility present in the original VII's design: the clash between the party and their Materia. With no real point slotting Materia on anyone other than your three active members, it became a matter of optimizing the three Materia loadouts you were to have in battle and swapping out the characters using said Materia as your whims decreed. And while I liked that- it made swapping party compositions to get different characters in cutscenes more often a viable tactic- everyone's at a moment's notice in Rebirth.
Meaning everyone gets AP all together.
Suddenly, tactics spring to mind. Perhaps build three unique teams with loadouts that complement each other well? Or perhaps build a catch-all team and let the others carry everything that's not maxed out in order to grind? Do you want to buy another Revive Materia to make a second viable party with Raise in case you ever want to swap around characters in the middle of a dungeon or Hard mode trek, or are you going to pinch those pennies and rely on only one? Maxing out the Materia doesn't give you a level-one spare anymore, so it's a real choice to make. Every last option is real, present, WACKY as all hell (thank you holy Lifestream for giving me back my strange and scrunkly enemy skills I love Plasma Discharge so much), viable, and varied.
(...I call absolute bull and believe that Phoenix's Rebirth Flame should revive all downed party members, INCLUDING the summoner whose death triggered the move's activation, but little use wallowing over petty grievances.)
The unique skill system from Remake was what I was most unsure of how it would be different- or if it would be at all. Giving everyone character-specific utility and moves is fun, certainly a concept with infinite growth and potential, but in which direction it would go was anyone's guess. Thankfully, not a single person guessed correct on how good it got- without replacing green and yellow Materia outright, which surprised me greatly. Individual spells still pack more of a punch than you remember, every time you use them. Trying to chip away at a boss's weak point with physical or even magic-oriented weapon skills might be a nightmare, until I remember to try Fira and it goes down in one hit. And yet their potency is never outclassed by the weapon skills' utility- no items and no easy MP recovery in Hard Mode, despite my reliance on weapon skills overall, is a key point of difficulty because weapon skills rarely match the raw output a good Thundaga can pack. Same with the new Folio-based elemental skills, their healthy utility is weakened by suboptimal potency. It's all choices and freedom- same as the original FFVII- and yet with more strategy and critical thought than ever. Somehow, they managed a system with both unlimited ways to do everything and anything you want and critical glaring weaknesses you have to carefully choose how to account for. HOW.
The weapon skills branch nicely into the character controls, and WHAT WAS IN BILL'S TRUCK?! Whatever got the party from Midgar to Kalm had some horrifying performance enhancers or something, because everyone (except for Barret) has gotten ABSOLUTELY BEEFY. Tifa's access to the synergy skill system grants her easy access to the air, fundamentally buffing her otherwise-unchanged-but-like-it-didn't-need-to-be physical single-target-annihilation playstyle; Barret gets a dedicated animation cancel for Charge to add just a pinch of spice to an otherwise safe-and-steady game plan (though given his role as simple ranged tank, I'd imagine that was the intent); Yuffie's new abilities and slightly reworked controls make it easier than ever to go into or out of the air and do exactly the kind of move you want, when you want; Cloud got ENORMOUSLY changed with default blade beams and the fundamental rework of aerial combat allowing him to get into the air even easier than Yuffie, along with his new abilities being ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING; and... okay I don't necessarily care for playing as Aerith, her default attacks are just too slow to build ATB for my patience levels, but not even a blind man could look away from her golden throne as the most buffed character since part 1. Radiant Ward being her best Ward across both games, Ward Shift being a fitting and fascinating tool to give such a non-confrontational character, adding Fleeting Familiar AND TEMPEST to her BASIC ATTACKS FOR EFFECTIVELY FREE, the slum drunk got her spotlight and it was a buff circle all along. But what of the new characters? What of Red XIII and Cait Sith?
I'm a Cait Sith main and I don't know how that happened. I'm scared, mom please pick me up game is making me love to play as funny Scottish cat.
To be actually detailed, Red XIII's entire game plan being around blocking and tanking attacks is incredibly fitting for his character ("I'm a big boy, not some child, watch me take this! See? I didn't feel it at all!"), and the amount of skills that make different use of his Vengeance is something that kept surprising me all the way to the end. Depleting the gauge for a strong attack, for a party-wide Haste cast, for an unexpectedly-strong PARTY HEAL, letting Red XIII get smacked in the snout is the best outcome for everyone and he became my tank-healer hybrid for most of the game. Cait Sith, by proxy, is... simply amazing in every way. I love him. I love his whimsical animations full of life, I love the way Mog looks (I'm still calling his steed Mog and not just "moogle" like the game wants YOU CANNOT MAKE ME) and animates, I love his adorable battle quotes, I love how they really did make him whack people with a megaphone while also giving him magic and projectile options by making him "sing" into it to make great mileage out of the concept, I love how random he can get with all-positive outcomes to make for the most chaotic experience I've ever had, I just love him. I don't know how you're going to die, God doesn't know how you're going to die, but the funny cat has got the die. So you're going to die.
But thankfully, the developers remembered how much of FFVII's appeal was derived from things that weren't combat. The Gold Saucer is back, the minigames are back, soooooooooo many minigames pepper this world and do so many strange and funny things that often loop back around to combat or just give you a damn fun time. Queen's Blood is obviously the biggest standout, finally giving the world of FFVII a card game like its PS1 brethren had, and I love QB far more than Triple Triad or Tetra Master. It's addicting, every NPC that plays it is memorable and silly in their own way, the story gets genuinely engaging and fleshes out this world, it gives us back Red XIII doing the Scooby-Doo bit, deck-building is fun, the challenges in Costa del Sol and the Saucer are fun, it's simply exemplary on all fronts. The Saucer's general selection is top-notch as well; turning the Chocobo races into Mario Kart is simultaneously the best decision anyone has ever made and the worst decision that could have been made for these poor racers, it didn't take much for me or any other veteran to smoke every last one of them like a fat blunt. I'm awful at 3D Brawler, but it's charming as hell; G-Bike is fun with stiffer controls like one of those motorcycle rigs at arcades and an unexpectedly phenomenal song behind it (like wwwwwwwwow it's good); and the Speed Square as a whole felt like I was walking into my deepest memories of Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. The minigames elsewhere are fun too- time trials with Mr Dolphin, the revamped Fort Condor, Gears and Gambits, Glide de Chocobo, Mog House, Cactuar Crush, they all can get INCREDIBLY difficult but besting them is a fun like no other. Fun fact, I kept procrastinating writing this review this morning because I kept trying at Cactuar Crush stage 3's hard mode. Yes, I am going for 100%, and YES, I am fully aware God can't help me anymore.
But what makes all of these minigames work is the sense that they're filling out this world. And... well, that's the strongest part of the entire game. This world, this planet of Gaea, has never felt so real. The original game thrived off the idea of representations- like miniatures on a D&D graph paper dungeon, this is not meant to be literal because we lack the capacity to do it literally. The idea of a "literal" version, in that sense, of FFVII never seemed possible- and after putting over 100 hours into the game it still doesn't feel real. The whole world is laid out for real in its own map. No matter where you go, your quest tracker will give you an actual distance readout to your next destination that you can travel MANUALLY. WITH NO LOADING. And this speaks nothing of the incredible visuals and art direction, giving the whole planet a richness and presence of place that defined the original and redefines Rebirth. It was always a striking visual to see the city of Junon with that enormous cannon, one to stick in your brain forever, but now it's just... hitting. Again. Despite not actually being different necessarily. It's unbelievable. Exploring this world at the behest of Chadley (whom I WILL defend from the haters with my life, he and MAI are precious) to discover so many unique quests, monsters, lore shreds, and buried treasures was a delight that never had the chance to become repetitive before something new was thrown at me- let alone get old even if it did start repeating ideas. The buried transmuter chips in particular were a delight, the silly 70s cop show music always had me giggling. Choco P.I.'s on the case... Heh.
I... really don't know what else to say. There's probably thousands more things I could go on about, like how turning Avalanche effectively into the Straw Hat Pirates (this outside-the-law chaotic good whirlwind of hijinks and dysfunctional found family dynamics) was the best decision humans have ever made, or how every interaction between these wonderful characters had me on the verge of closing the game just so I could take a moment and gather my screaming emotions, or I could have just structured this review not like the disparate ravings of a madman... but I just don't care.
I could never care when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is this. Damn. Good.
Anyone can see the reviews I've written in 2024 so far. Everyone can see how often this game came up in them, as a goalpost on the horizon. The original Final Fantasy VII is displayed loud and proud in my five favorite games on my profile. I spent $391 total on the collector's edition with the enormous Sephiroth statue, and when the shipment got delayed I paid full $70 for a digital copy so I wouldn't have to wait around. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has meant everything to me for months upon months.
And I still couldn't have anticipated how much it means to me now.
It should be said first: I was not expecting to make a spoiler-free review. I was expecting the ending to fundamentally alter my brain chemistry and make me question my own reality the way Remake did, leaving me with endless things to talk about. But other than different variations of "oh I really loved that detail," I... shockingly have nothing to say. It came and went, and I see the direction we're headed for part 3. That much, I also could not have anticipated.
...it's almost daunting, figuring out where to start with this game. Probably the best place would be my "Materia and music" critiques from my short review of Remake. Happy to report, the devs were on the same page as me. The music is as drop-dead gorgeous as ever, though my personal "fan remix" gripe remains. And yet I must say again: that was the best decision they could have made. Sure, I may only really go back to listen to the original J-E-N-O-V-A, but would I like to live in a world where the boat fight against Jenova Emergent just used the same Quickening song from Remake? To not have that absolutely HORRIFYING new version? No. Never. The Materia system, though...
Hohohohohoho, baby. It is with greatest pleasure that I scream from the hills that the Materia system has finally returned to its original flourishing depth, through little else than volume increases. With the two key inclusions of three party formation shortcuts (which, by the way, Cloud's no longer locked in after you complete the main scenario- just in case someone who played the game didn't notice what the game DOESN'T TELL YOU FOR SOME REASON) and every character "participating" in most battles fixes arguably the largest incompatibility present in the original VII's design: the clash between the party and their Materia. With no real point slotting Materia on anyone other than your three active members, it became a matter of optimizing the three Materia loadouts you were to have in battle and swapping out the characters using said Materia as your whims decreed. And while I liked that- it made swapping party compositions to get different characters in cutscenes more often a viable tactic- everyone's at a moment's notice in Rebirth.
Meaning everyone gets AP all together.
Suddenly, tactics spring to mind. Perhaps build three unique teams with loadouts that complement each other well? Or perhaps build a catch-all team and let the others carry everything that's not maxed out in order to grind? Do you want to buy another Revive Materia to make a second viable party with Raise in case you ever want to swap around characters in the middle of a dungeon or Hard mode trek, or are you going to pinch those pennies and rely on only one? Maxing out the Materia doesn't give you a level-one spare anymore, so it's a real choice to make. Every last option is real, present, WACKY as all hell (thank you holy Lifestream for giving me back my strange and scrunkly enemy skills I love Plasma Discharge so much), viable, and varied.
(...I call absolute bull and believe that Phoenix's Rebirth Flame should revive all downed party members, INCLUDING the summoner whose death triggered the move's activation, but little use wallowing over petty grievances.)
The unique skill system from Remake was what I was most unsure of how it would be different- or if it would be at all. Giving everyone character-specific utility and moves is fun, certainly a concept with infinite growth and potential, but in which direction it would go was anyone's guess. Thankfully, not a single person guessed correct on how good it got- without replacing green and yellow Materia outright, which surprised me greatly. Individual spells still pack more of a punch than you remember, every time you use them. Trying to chip away at a boss's weak point with physical or even magic-oriented weapon skills might be a nightmare, until I remember to try Fira and it goes down in one hit. And yet their potency is never outclassed by the weapon skills' utility- no items and no easy MP recovery in Hard Mode, despite my reliance on weapon skills overall, is a key point of difficulty because weapon skills rarely match the raw output a good Thundaga can pack. Same with the new Folio-based elemental skills, their healthy utility is weakened by suboptimal potency. It's all choices and freedom- same as the original FFVII- and yet with more strategy and critical thought than ever. Somehow, they managed a system with both unlimited ways to do everything and anything you want and critical glaring weaknesses you have to carefully choose how to account for. HOW.
The weapon skills branch nicely into the character controls, and WHAT WAS IN BILL'S TRUCK?! Whatever got the party from Midgar to Kalm had some horrifying performance enhancers or something, because everyone (except for Barret) has gotten ABSOLUTELY BEEFY. Tifa's access to the synergy skill system grants her easy access to the air, fundamentally buffing her otherwise-unchanged-but-like-it-didn't-need-to-be physical single-target-annihilation playstyle; Barret gets a dedicated animation cancel for Charge to add just a pinch of spice to an otherwise safe-and-steady game plan (though given his role as simple ranged tank, I'd imagine that was the intent); Yuffie's new abilities and slightly reworked controls make it easier than ever to go into or out of the air and do exactly the kind of move you want, when you want; Cloud got ENORMOUSLY changed with default blade beams and the fundamental rework of aerial combat allowing him to get into the air even easier than Yuffie, along with his new abilities being ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING; and... okay I don't necessarily care for playing as Aerith, her default attacks are just too slow to build ATB for my patience levels, but not even a blind man could look away from her golden throne as the most buffed character since part 1. Radiant Ward being her best Ward across both games, Ward Shift being a fitting and fascinating tool to give such a non-confrontational character, adding Fleeting Familiar AND TEMPEST to her BASIC ATTACKS FOR EFFECTIVELY FREE, the slum drunk got her spotlight and it was a buff circle all along. But what of the new characters? What of Red XIII and Cait Sith?
I'm a Cait Sith main and I don't know how that happened. I'm scared, mom please pick me up game is making me love to play as funny Scottish cat.
To be actually detailed, Red XIII's entire game plan being around blocking and tanking attacks is incredibly fitting for his character ("I'm a big boy, not some child, watch me take this! See? I didn't feel it at all!"), and the amount of skills that make different use of his Vengeance is something that kept surprising me all the way to the end. Depleting the gauge for a strong attack, for a party-wide Haste cast, for an unexpectedly-strong PARTY HEAL, letting Red XIII get smacked in the snout is the best outcome for everyone and he became my tank-healer hybrid for most of the game. Cait Sith, by proxy, is... simply amazing in every way. I love him. I love his whimsical animations full of life, I love the way Mog looks (I'm still calling his steed Mog and not just "moogle" like the game wants YOU CANNOT MAKE ME) and animates, I love his adorable battle quotes, I love how they really did make him whack people with a megaphone while also giving him magic and projectile options by making him "sing" into it to make great mileage out of the concept, I love how random he can get with all-positive outcomes to make for the most chaotic experience I've ever had, I just love him. I don't know how you're going to die, God doesn't know how you're going to die, but the funny cat has got the die. So you're going to die.
But thankfully, the developers remembered how much of FFVII's appeal was derived from things that weren't combat. The Gold Saucer is back, the minigames are back, soooooooooo many minigames pepper this world and do so many strange and funny things that often loop back around to combat or just give you a damn fun time. Queen's Blood is obviously the biggest standout, finally giving the world of FFVII a card game like its PS1 brethren had, and I love QB far more than Triple Triad or Tetra Master. It's addicting, every NPC that plays it is memorable and silly in their own way, the story gets genuinely engaging and fleshes out this world, it gives us back Red XIII doing the Scooby-Doo bit, deck-building is fun, the challenges in Costa del Sol and the Saucer are fun, it's simply exemplary on all fronts. The Saucer's general selection is top-notch as well; turning the Chocobo races into Mario Kart is simultaneously the best decision anyone has ever made and the worst decision that could have been made for these poor racers, it didn't take much for me or any other veteran to smoke every last one of them like a fat blunt. I'm awful at 3D Brawler, but it's charming as hell; G-Bike is fun with stiffer controls like one of those motorcycle rigs at arcades and an unexpectedly phenomenal song behind it (like wwwwwwwwow it's good); and the Speed Square as a whole felt like I was walking into my deepest memories of Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. The minigames elsewhere are fun too- time trials with Mr Dolphin, the revamped Fort Condor, Gears and Gambits, Glide de Chocobo, Mog House, Cactuar Crush, they all can get INCREDIBLY difficult but besting them is a fun like no other. Fun fact, I kept procrastinating writing this review this morning because I kept trying at Cactuar Crush stage 3's hard mode. Yes, I am going for 100%, and YES, I am fully aware God can't help me anymore.
But what makes all of these minigames work is the sense that they're filling out this world. And... well, that's the strongest part of the entire game. This world, this planet of Gaea, has never felt so real. The original game thrived off the idea of representations- like miniatures on a D&D graph paper dungeon, this is not meant to be literal because we lack the capacity to do it literally. The idea of a "literal" version, in that sense, of FFVII never seemed possible- and after putting over 100 hours into the game it still doesn't feel real. The whole world is laid out for real in its own map. No matter where you go, your quest tracker will give you an actual distance readout to your next destination that you can travel MANUALLY. WITH NO LOADING. And this speaks nothing of the incredible visuals and art direction, giving the whole planet a richness and presence of place that defined the original and redefines Rebirth. It was always a striking visual to see the city of Junon with that enormous cannon, one to stick in your brain forever, but now it's just... hitting. Again. Despite not actually being different necessarily. It's unbelievable. Exploring this world at the behest of Chadley (whom I WILL defend from the haters with my life, he and MAI are precious) to discover so many unique quests, monsters, lore shreds, and buried treasures was a delight that never had the chance to become repetitive before something new was thrown at me- let alone get old even if it did start repeating ideas. The buried transmuter chips in particular were a delight, the silly 70s cop show music always had me giggling. Choco P.I.'s on the case... Heh.
I... really don't know what else to say. There's probably thousands more things I could go on about, like how turning Avalanche effectively into the Straw Hat Pirates (this outside-the-law chaotic good whirlwind of hijinks and dysfunctional found family dynamics) was the best decision humans have ever made, or how every interaction between these wonderful characters had me on the verge of closing the game just so I could take a moment and gather my screaming emotions, or I could have just structured this review not like the disparate ravings of a madman... but I just don't care.
I could never care when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is this. Damn. Good.
2022
Hardly a real review, I have 28 hours into my first run of Elden Ring which I always planned on dropping when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out anyway... I swear, it was never a matter of anti-Elden Ring bias- only "Rebirth is going to eat my life and I welcome this rapture-esque fate whole-heartedly" bias. But since Godrick now grafts his ashes to the winds, and great Tarnished warrior Bizzle Epistole rides off to reach Raya Lucaria... eventually... I have a lot I need to say. A lot I want to say.
Because it is so beyond liberating to say I get FromSoftware now.
For years upon YEARS, I stayed away from Dark Souls for an endless list of reasons. Hard fantasy was never really my thing (I'm coming around slowly), why would I want to play a game that hates me, isn't it all just stupid rage bait, and on and on and on. But now that I've beenforcefully brought before a FromSoft game with an open mind, I realize I was wrong about so much. Putting aside Elden Ring's open-world innovations to the formula (the ability to run away from something dangerous and come back stronger after doing other stuff, to be precise), as this first-impressions piece is more about broad genre strokes than a dedicated review, this is a formula that's dedicated to trial and error. You encounter, you examine, you die, you return in PB time to where you died, you overcome, you die again. And what makes this work is how... forgiving it is. Not of each mistake, GOD no you'll get ripped to shreds in five seconds for breathing the wrong way, but of the making of mistakes. The most you lose is currency, which is both easy enough to recover if you're paying attention and easy enough to re-accrue if you have the time and patience. For the most part, the game is an accommodating practice space. The game feels like it's actively telling me "it's okay. Take this at your own pace, no one's going anywhere. We know that swamp is evil, but once you have it down you have it down forever." I didn't expect Souls to feel so... cozy.
And you do have it down forever. Pattern recognition is your everything, as you decide when to attack with what weapon to stagger out of this one specific move as opposed to the moves you can afford to guard counter which is also opposed to the moves you absolutely HAVE to dodge-
yeah there's a lot. But it slowly gets memorized, and soon you could do what once had you taking a walk to clear your head and refresh blindfolded. That feeds into the increasing speeds- if it takes you an hour to practice a small dungeon that's objectively five minutes of travel time long, you'll be able to blitz that five minutes on command to get to either a new Grace or the next challenge. The process may start over from there, but you've unequivocally got this now! Adding to that the brilliant shortcut design (yes I totally get the FromSoft shortcuts now) to make it somehow even smoother, and it's overall a mastery of encouraging design.
I'm so happy I finally get it. Hope you FromSoft aficionados have fun dunking your summer into Shadow of the Erdtree. Bizzle Epistole will for certain continue his journey through the Lands Between...
...eventually.
Because it is so beyond liberating to say I get FromSoftware now.
For years upon YEARS, I stayed away from Dark Souls for an endless list of reasons. Hard fantasy was never really my thing (I'm coming around slowly), why would I want to play a game that hates me, isn't it all just stupid rage bait, and on and on and on. But now that I've been
And you do have it down forever. Pattern recognition is your everything, as you decide when to attack with what weapon to stagger out of this one specific move as opposed to the moves you can afford to guard counter which is also opposed to the moves you absolutely HAVE to dodge-
yeah there's a lot. But it slowly gets memorized, and soon you could do what once had you taking a walk to clear your head and refresh blindfolded. That feeds into the increasing speeds- if it takes you an hour to practice a small dungeon that's objectively five minutes of travel time long, you'll be able to blitz that five minutes on command to get to either a new Grace or the next challenge. The process may start over from there, but you've unequivocally got this now! Adding to that the brilliant shortcut design (yes I totally get the FromSoft shortcuts now) to make it somehow even smoother, and it's overall a mastery of encouraging design.
I'm so happy I finally get it. Hope you FromSoft aficionados have fun dunking your summer into Shadow of the Erdtree. Bizzle Epistole will for certain continue his journey through the Lands Between...
...eventually.
Having played the Rebirth demo, I wanted to properly express my mixed feelings on Remake in succinct fashion- if only to set the record straight before the main course arrives. I... like Final Fantasy VII Remake fine enough overall. No more, no less.
The writing of these characters, seeing my fourth-favorite game come to life the way it does here in such fleshed-out detail, is nothing short of perfect. That extends to the visuals, voice cast, combat design, side content and prevalence of interactivity and minigames as a whole. Everyone who fell so deeply in love with Remake, I agree with them; the spirit of Final Fantasy VII is here...
pretty much. And that's for both better and worse in my eyes.
What that means boils down to two major factors: Materia and music. (I swear the alliteration was a coincidence and not me fishing for problems in a dry well, please trust me on that). The music in Remake is extremely complicated for me to think about. My personal feeling is that the songs feel like fan remixes- in the best possible way I could mean, but still. They don't feel like the original Uematsu masterpieces, they feel like hyper-specialized versions of those original songs meant to fit more specific situations and tones. It's not just the Turks theme anymore, it's the loud and brash version you hear when it's time to throw down and a slow version for the cutscene where the group reflects in Shinra HQ. It's not just one boss theme anymore, each battle has its own unique arrangement of that original track to suit itself. And this isn't a bad approach- far from it, this is probably better than the best decision anyone could have made- but there's a reason the original game is so prominent on my Spotify, while Remake gets Hollow and just a handful of others.
As for the Materia, I hesitate to even call this Remake's fault, but it must be said. The original FFVII thrived as a gameplay experience off of its customizability. The ability to start from nothing but a basic attack command and grow to having eleven basic commands and submenus within submenus of gimmicks and summons and god-knows-how-many-more little options is the most intoxicating form of progression in RPG history, and an enormous part of why I love it so much. Remake provides the perfect template to create that feeling again in an action space, but... we're just in Midgar. They aren't giving us all that many options yet. Silly as it sounds, the game feels lesser because it's trying to be its own whole and yet doesn't get as crazy as the original. It's entirely personal, that much I understand, but I can't help but feel myself straining against the game and praying for sixteen more options to be in my menu where there just aren't yet. I can't count on them to come in this game at all. Remake is a template, not the full potential unleashed.
All the criticisms aside, the amount of unique Materia in the Rebirth demo alone alongside the piano and literally everything else about it prove that my pre-order of the Collector's Edition was a good choice and that my faith shall be rewarded as we WILL be delivered unto the Promised Land OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO MY GOD I PHYSICALLY CANNOT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT
The writing of these characters, seeing my fourth-favorite game come to life the way it does here in such fleshed-out detail, is nothing short of perfect. That extends to the visuals, voice cast, combat design, side content and prevalence of interactivity and minigames as a whole. Everyone who fell so deeply in love with Remake, I agree with them; the spirit of Final Fantasy VII is here...
pretty much. And that's for both better and worse in my eyes.
What that means boils down to two major factors: Materia and music. (I swear the alliteration was a coincidence and not me fishing for problems in a dry well, please trust me on that). The music in Remake is extremely complicated for me to think about. My personal feeling is that the songs feel like fan remixes- in the best possible way I could mean, but still. They don't feel like the original Uematsu masterpieces, they feel like hyper-specialized versions of those original songs meant to fit more specific situations and tones. It's not just the Turks theme anymore, it's the loud and brash version you hear when it's time to throw down and a slow version for the cutscene where the group reflects in Shinra HQ. It's not just one boss theme anymore, each battle has its own unique arrangement of that original track to suit itself. And this isn't a bad approach- far from it, this is probably better than the best decision anyone could have made- but there's a reason the original game is so prominent on my Spotify, while Remake gets Hollow and just a handful of others.
As for the Materia, I hesitate to even call this Remake's fault, but it must be said. The original FFVII thrived as a gameplay experience off of its customizability. The ability to start from nothing but a basic attack command and grow to having eleven basic commands and submenus within submenus of gimmicks and summons and god-knows-how-many-more little options is the most intoxicating form of progression in RPG history, and an enormous part of why I love it so much. Remake provides the perfect template to create that feeling again in an action space, but... we're just in Midgar. They aren't giving us all that many options yet. Silly as it sounds, the game feels lesser because it's trying to be its own whole and yet doesn't get as crazy as the original. It's entirely personal, that much I understand, but I can't help but feel myself straining against the game and praying for sixteen more options to be in my menu where there just aren't yet. I can't count on them to come in this game at all. Remake is a template, not the full potential unleashed.
All the criticisms aside, the amount of unique Materia in the Rebirth demo alone alongside the piano and literally everything else about it prove that my pre-order of the Collector's Edition was a good choice and that my faith shall be rewarded as we WILL be delivered unto the Promised Land OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO MY GOD I PHYSICALLY CANNOT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT
2020
I have less to say about this game than I think most people would expect of me. I played 2016 and this game out of... it would probably be best described as a reverent obligation. "You GOTTA play some DOOM eventually, and those two new ones are pretty dang cool it seems!" So much rides on this name, this pioneer of PC gaming and 3D design and the shooter genre as a whole, that I was excited to eventually give these games their due. And yes, they are indeed ridiculously fun. My brain is not built for first-person navigation and my hands are not built for keyboard and mouse necessarily, so making do in both titles as things got hectic proved taxing to the point of exhaustion sometimes, but I'd be stupid to not acknowledge the superb foundation that is DOOM 2016 and the mad brilliance that is DOOM Eternal. I got too exhausted to keep going for all the secrets, despite the secret design and optional content being wonderful; I got too exhausted to engage with the games at their hardest, sticking to Hurt Me Plenty for the sake of completing the games; and I got too exhausted to partake in my favorite pastime of consuming lore like a power-hungry crypto mine, even though what I have understood of it is positively my favorite flavor of ludicrous.
Modern DOOM is truly great, but it works against how I'm wired and it wears me the hell out. That's the best way to describe it, I feel. Rip and tear, friends.
Modern DOOM is truly great, but it works against how I'm wired and it wears me the hell out. That's the best way to describe it, I feel. Rip and tear, friends.
This review contains spoilers
Matt Braly’s Amphibia is my favorite TV show of all time right now, and yet I paid it no consideration when it first premiered. I saw the pilot episode uploaded to YouTube within its first week, and gave it no consideration at all. The humor was silly when I was looking for something meatier, and something about the setup of its “plot” and teased mysteries felt hollow or unpromising. Then, after years of forgetting about it, I heard rumblings online; Amphibia fans were upset because the season two finale, “True Colors,” was delayed. “Good for them,” I thought. “The show found its audience. Whatever. Fun. Happy to see it.” It wasn’t until “True Colors” was released that I saw the clips. The clips of the protagonist I had met so long ago in this nothing-seeming kids’ show attain a form not unlike Super Saiyan to destroy the guard robots of the massive and imposing king. The clips of the young girls sword fighting with unexpected ferocity, down to Anne cleverly twisting Sasha’s cape over her head and punching her in the nose. The clips of a character, live on the Disney channel, getting stabbed through the chest by a burning sword. I realized in those moments that Amphibia was then something more akin to what I had sought all that time prior, that its first impression was merely disingenuous. So, I binged the series up to that point. I saw the slow, extensive first season build out the town of Wartwood in a manner I’d never truly seen from an episodic comedy before. Despite every episode being as wacky and self-contained as I had expected, the plot kept moving in subtle ways I hadn’t anticipated. Hop Pop’s cart was closed down, and a good few episodes touched on the struggle the Plantar family had to stay afloat. Anne helped a background character build up his “diner” into a respectable restaurant in one particularly funny episode- a restaurant that continues to be used as a location and point of reference for the rest of the show. Characters learned lessons about selfishness or other such sins and virtues, in classic childrens’ television fashion, but those lessons stuck deeply and carried forward to every succeeding episode. I got invested in so many more things than I expected to, found so many moving parts that I could appreciate on their own terms and not just in how they served larger wholes, that when I got back to “True Colors”- an episode I’d basically already seen in full from the start thanks to all the clips- I… couldn’t even move in my seat. My jaw was on the floor, my throat choked up with emotions I could only describe as reverence for the sheer masterpiece achievement I was witnessing.
With all the sweet time FC took to establish things, that I couldn’t see SC winning me over in the same fashion feels like a fundamental failure of foresight on my part and I feel deeply stupid for it.
I feel compelled to start with the things I didn’t like about SC, or caveats I should address. I’ve gotten word that people dislike chapter 8 because of the ZFG system locking more and more of your characters’ Arts as the chapter drags on. I can see that, but the strategy of it was something I adapted to fairly quickly and it didn’t bother me as a result. It kept with the lore well enough, and I appreciate the story showing enough self-respect to keep its consistency the way it does (EP and specific Orbal Arts like Anti-Sept being known quantities within this world that characters reference in conversation, as another example). What I dislike is the lack of fast-travel, at least to Bracer Guilds akin to towns in Octopath Traveler. Throughout FC and SC, the lack of fast-travel was always something of an annoyance, but so long as your routing through side quest objectives had forethought put in it was never that bad.
Then the side quest in Elmo Village has you run to Zeiss, then the landing port, then the factory basement, then UP TO THE SOUTH SIDE OF RUAN before finally forcing you to run allllllllll the way back down to Elmo Village, far south of Zeiss. And this involves trekking the now-darkened Kaldia Tunnels twice. The entire chapter is this arduous journey of repetition as not a single gameplay convenience is afforded to the player. Taking away Arts is more than enough to sell the circumstance, I don’t need to walk every square inch that I’ve walked six times before. I think we can just kinda skip that with no consequences.
Party management similarly got under my skin a bit. Using Octopath Traveler as a basis again, I can tolerate only switching party members at specified locations and having to travel back. What gets obnoxious is the menu not clarifying the gear of absentee members. Perhaps it’s best explained with a hypothetical: I’d prefer if the menu showed every item you had, with a symbol to indicate it being equipped by a character in or out of your party, rather than having the item disappear from the menu. I’d rather the menu showed me how many Attack 4 quartz I’ve created and a small icon indicating one of them is on Agate (who’s not in my party) instead of just showing me the one I still have available to equip. As it stands, it’s paranoid party-switching to see if I potentially forgot to unequip things from one character, robbing my current party of their best potential Quartz and gear.
…and that appears to be the end of the list. Hm… I guess… I could say…
Alright, there’s nothing for dancing around it, Sky SC is one of the best video games I’ve ever played and writing this has been incredibly daunting as a result; it feels almost impossible to decide where to begin. What’s changed from FC feels both perfect and inadequate as a starting point, with how little has changed. Full transparency, I was warned to play this game with a guide for fear of its missable content, and though I absolutely would not have seen half of it without that guide (and the dungeons are still awful, requiring online maps to make them tolerable), the general design is far more interesting. Taken with maps (an enormous caveat, but one I find as worth making), the winding corridors are well-laid and clearly had effort put in. Were there even just a minimap, there wouldn’t be an issue in sight. Funny how that means there are issues as it stands, and yet… it doesn’t register as such. Shocking what love can do, eh?
What registers FAR more than it did in FC is the soundtrack. Good Aureole above, the music goes so much harder. Strepitoso Fight has the higher BPM and energy I crave in my battle themes, Fight with Assailant brings more of the guitars that complete my balanced breakfast, every rendition of the Whereabouts of Light-motif (eh? Like a leitmotif? Ay…) is gorgeous, and… The Enforcers.
Do Organization XIII members introduce themselves with guitars? No. No they do not. That honor is reserved for the cooler Organization XIII. The Kingdom Hearts fan in me screamed with every letter I just typed, but the truth must be spoken.
SC manipulates every last vector of emotion I have like this, in ways not even Amphibia took advantage of. In exploring the country the way we did in FC, slowly and deliberately taking a counter-clockwise tour of Liberl, every location suddenly has purpose and place. The beach scene at the end of chapter 6 isn’t just on some beach we don’t care about, that’s the beach by Ruan! Up that path there is Jenis Academy, and further back the other way is the road to the old orphanage! I did some side quests around here, saved an idiot in a little nook from monsters! It’s right over there! Side quests carry over from FC, with everyone who needs help again recognizing you from your first go-around and giving you extra rewards. When I saw that Junior Bracer Notebook, exactly the same, hidden in the menu… I still don’t know what word explains the emotion I felt in that moment. That was mine. Even the two quests I gave up on and missed, they’re there and marked up. That’s… wow.
Every character feels so much more interesting than ever. Estelle’s struggles to mature towards the start of the game are nothing short of heartbreaking; the first minutes of SC alone hit me more than all of FC added exponentially on top of itself multiple times over and almost scared me with such an omen of how emotional this game was going to make me. Chapter 6… can vouch for the validity of those omens. Joshua’s struggles are so damn captivating. Every moment of his journey, from Weissmann’s grand entrance at the end of FC to his unlikely but EXTREMELY welcome stint with the Capua family (Josette is best girl and I will die on that hill absolutely do not test me #dirtytomboynation), his reunion with Estelle where she gives him the most gut-wrenching and emotionally uplifting deconstruction I’ve ever seen in my life, his solemn reunions with every NPC and party member (especially in Rolent), to his glorious reversal on Weissmann in the finale… it’s a journey I’m not soon forgetting, and I can’t wait for some later game to have Estelle and Joshua show up out of nowhere to save the new protagonists like a Marvel cameo. I will be cheering that hard.
Finally ripping into Agate’s issues and Schera’s past was extremely welcome; the more time goes on, the more I understand that every Trails character exists as a legitimate and equivalent part of this enormous tapestry. Agate and Tita’s relationship is so incredibly cute and wholesome, it pulls every heartstring like a harp. The romantic teasing from Estelle makes me want to ask Joshua for a quick death, but thankfully there was VERY little of it. Seeing the origin of Scherazard’s current emotional support network was equally adorable, and her relationship with Luciola was more subdued than I expected- in a way I quite liked.
And on the subject of Luciola, every new character is fantastic in their own ways. I’d never loved a character an amount equal to my desire to punch them in the face before the day I met Kevin Graham, and this new sensation ensures I never want to go back to the before times. Definitely excited to see where his story goes in 3rd. The Enforcers are a fun spread as well; Renne’s whole reveal was phenomenally paced, her boss fights are intense, she’s such a fun character overall. I can’t wait to see where she goes next. Same goes for Luciola, the most obvious fake-out death paired with the plausible deniability of the circumstances surrounding her final encounter creates the most engaging coin flip I’ve seen in a long time- not bad, Trails. Not bad. I don’t know where Walter’s gonna go next, considering he doesn’t seem like he’s going to change the way Renne will and he didn’t die regardless of that, but I suppose it’s going to be fun to see him lackadaisically pursuing some other villainous goal as his Final Fantasy VIII-lookin-ass keeps punching people.
(Seriously, I can’t tell if he belongs more at school with Squall or getting recruited by the Turks. Someone weigh in, please.)
Though, special attention obviously goes to Loewe. I didn’t care for Lorence much in FC, I thought he had too much confidence and walked all over like he owned the place despite being only a lackey in a larger plan, but Loewe ceasing to act like that and finally getting his backstory revealed leaves him the clear frontrunner of the Enforcer pack. Powerscaling seems to be all over the place a bit in Trails so far, leaving me with a bit of a disconnected view of how he’s exactly supposed to rank, but he remains intimidating, tragic, and refreshingly composed for his archetype. Watching him take Joshua proving him wrong in stride was a level of emotional maturity I never thought this character trope was capable of. The destruction of Hamel he teases proves to me Trails isn’t afraid of the horrors of war crimes, and all the better for it- the story is captivating and haunting in ways that remind me of my middle school self first reading One Piece. And Weissmann… is only okay. I like that his seeming ignorance of his own stupidly over-the-top evil existence stems from him following the Grandmaster’s prophecy, making it not a confidence in himself but in the things he trusts, but that just makes for a justification and not a more engaging villain. Despite the organ in chapter 6 he didn’t exactly chew the scenery like a Dio Brando, nor did he play into his sympathetic tendencies like a Colonel Richard. Just alright, overall.
Weissmann’s contributions in bringing to light ancient Zemurian society can’t be ignored any longer, however. Though I completely ignored the high-tech nature of FC’s finale in my review, the larger look in SC is a magical thought experiment that I was unable to tear myself away from. Whereas a game like Xenoblade Chronicles doesn’t necessarily require so much thought to appreciate what the narrative point of the past civilization is, using shorthand reminiscent of our own world to communicate the intention of “it’s supposed to be like the world you know,” Trails gives us a similar amount of information that speaks to a society wholly original. Picking apart every data log and public service announcement on Liber Ark is an utter joy, as my theories kept shifting around. Are they a democracy? So the Gospels are like iPhones, but government-provided ID then? But… it grants wishes? How much does it control? What’s the level of government control, were they more authoritarian? They must be, considering their personalized devices are government-issued and monitored, but how much of that is the Aureole? Just how sentient is it? WHAT ARE THE OTHER GIFTS? HOW CULPABLE IS AIDIOS?! WHAT WAS HER INTENTION AND WHERE DID EVERYTHING GO WRONG?!?!
It’s so much fun.
This game is so much fun.
Trails in the Sky SC is so much damn fun.
It may be a minute before I buy more of the games and keep going, money is a concern, but I’m on this ride. From here to eternity, I’m here with Kiseki.
With all the sweet time FC took to establish things, that I couldn’t see SC winning me over in the same fashion feels like a fundamental failure of foresight on my part and I feel deeply stupid for it.
I feel compelled to start with the things I didn’t like about SC, or caveats I should address. I’ve gotten word that people dislike chapter 8 because of the ZFG system locking more and more of your characters’ Arts as the chapter drags on. I can see that, but the strategy of it was something I adapted to fairly quickly and it didn’t bother me as a result. It kept with the lore well enough, and I appreciate the story showing enough self-respect to keep its consistency the way it does (EP and specific Orbal Arts like Anti-Sept being known quantities within this world that characters reference in conversation, as another example). What I dislike is the lack of fast-travel, at least to Bracer Guilds akin to towns in Octopath Traveler. Throughout FC and SC, the lack of fast-travel was always something of an annoyance, but so long as your routing through side quest objectives had forethought put in it was never that bad.
Then the side quest in Elmo Village has you run to Zeiss, then the landing port, then the factory basement, then UP TO THE SOUTH SIDE OF RUAN before finally forcing you to run allllllllll the way back down to Elmo Village, far south of Zeiss. And this involves trekking the now-darkened Kaldia Tunnels twice. The entire chapter is this arduous journey of repetition as not a single gameplay convenience is afforded to the player. Taking away Arts is more than enough to sell the circumstance, I don’t need to walk every square inch that I’ve walked six times before. I think we can just kinda skip that with no consequences.
Party management similarly got under my skin a bit. Using Octopath Traveler as a basis again, I can tolerate only switching party members at specified locations and having to travel back. What gets obnoxious is the menu not clarifying the gear of absentee members. Perhaps it’s best explained with a hypothetical: I’d prefer if the menu showed every item you had, with a symbol to indicate it being equipped by a character in or out of your party, rather than having the item disappear from the menu. I’d rather the menu showed me how many Attack 4 quartz I’ve created and a small icon indicating one of them is on Agate (who’s not in my party) instead of just showing me the one I still have available to equip. As it stands, it’s paranoid party-switching to see if I potentially forgot to unequip things from one character, robbing my current party of their best potential Quartz and gear.
…and that appears to be the end of the list. Hm… I guess… I could say…
Alright, there’s nothing for dancing around it, Sky SC is one of the best video games I’ve ever played and writing this has been incredibly daunting as a result; it feels almost impossible to decide where to begin. What’s changed from FC feels both perfect and inadequate as a starting point, with how little has changed. Full transparency, I was warned to play this game with a guide for fear of its missable content, and though I absolutely would not have seen half of it without that guide (and the dungeons are still awful, requiring online maps to make them tolerable), the general design is far more interesting. Taken with maps (an enormous caveat, but one I find as worth making), the winding corridors are well-laid and clearly had effort put in. Were there even just a minimap, there wouldn’t be an issue in sight. Funny how that means there are issues as it stands, and yet… it doesn’t register as such. Shocking what love can do, eh?
What registers FAR more than it did in FC is the soundtrack. Good Aureole above, the music goes so much harder. Strepitoso Fight has the higher BPM and energy I crave in my battle themes, Fight with Assailant brings more of the guitars that complete my balanced breakfast, every rendition of the Whereabouts of Light-motif (eh? Like a leitmotif? Ay…) is gorgeous, and… The Enforcers.
Do Organization XIII members introduce themselves with guitars? No. No they do not. That honor is reserved for the cooler Organization XIII. The Kingdom Hearts fan in me screamed with every letter I just typed, but the truth must be spoken.
SC manipulates every last vector of emotion I have like this, in ways not even Amphibia took advantage of. In exploring the country the way we did in FC, slowly and deliberately taking a counter-clockwise tour of Liberl, every location suddenly has purpose and place. The beach scene at the end of chapter 6 isn’t just on some beach we don’t care about, that’s the beach by Ruan! Up that path there is Jenis Academy, and further back the other way is the road to the old orphanage! I did some side quests around here, saved an idiot in a little nook from monsters! It’s right over there! Side quests carry over from FC, with everyone who needs help again recognizing you from your first go-around and giving you extra rewards. When I saw that Junior Bracer Notebook, exactly the same, hidden in the menu… I still don’t know what word explains the emotion I felt in that moment. That was mine. Even the two quests I gave up on and missed, they’re there and marked up. That’s… wow.
Every character feels so much more interesting than ever. Estelle’s struggles to mature towards the start of the game are nothing short of heartbreaking; the first minutes of SC alone hit me more than all of FC added exponentially on top of itself multiple times over and almost scared me with such an omen of how emotional this game was going to make me. Chapter 6… can vouch for the validity of those omens. Joshua’s struggles are so damn captivating. Every moment of his journey, from Weissmann’s grand entrance at the end of FC to his unlikely but EXTREMELY welcome stint with the Capua family (Josette is best girl and I will die on that hill absolutely do not test me #dirtytomboynation), his reunion with Estelle where she gives him the most gut-wrenching and emotionally uplifting deconstruction I’ve ever seen in my life, his solemn reunions with every NPC and party member (especially in Rolent), to his glorious reversal on Weissmann in the finale… it’s a journey I’m not soon forgetting, and I can’t wait for some later game to have Estelle and Joshua show up out of nowhere to save the new protagonists like a Marvel cameo. I will be cheering that hard.
Finally ripping into Agate’s issues and Schera’s past was extremely welcome; the more time goes on, the more I understand that every Trails character exists as a legitimate and equivalent part of this enormous tapestry. Agate and Tita’s relationship is so incredibly cute and wholesome, it pulls every heartstring like a harp. The romantic teasing from Estelle makes me want to ask Joshua for a quick death, but thankfully there was VERY little of it. Seeing the origin of Scherazard’s current emotional support network was equally adorable, and her relationship with Luciola was more subdued than I expected- in a way I quite liked.
And on the subject of Luciola, every new character is fantastic in their own ways. I’d never loved a character an amount equal to my desire to punch them in the face before the day I met Kevin Graham, and this new sensation ensures I never want to go back to the before times. Definitely excited to see where his story goes in 3rd. The Enforcers are a fun spread as well; Renne’s whole reveal was phenomenally paced, her boss fights are intense, she’s such a fun character overall. I can’t wait to see where she goes next. Same goes for Luciola, the most obvious fake-out death paired with the plausible deniability of the circumstances surrounding her final encounter creates the most engaging coin flip I’ve seen in a long time- not bad, Trails. Not bad. I don’t know where Walter’s gonna go next, considering he doesn’t seem like he’s going to change the way Renne will and he didn’t die regardless of that, but I suppose it’s going to be fun to see him lackadaisically pursuing some other villainous goal as his Final Fantasy VIII-lookin-ass keeps punching people.
(Seriously, I can’t tell if he belongs more at school with Squall or getting recruited by the Turks. Someone weigh in, please.)
Though, special attention obviously goes to Loewe. I didn’t care for Lorence much in FC, I thought he had too much confidence and walked all over like he owned the place despite being only a lackey in a larger plan, but Loewe ceasing to act like that and finally getting his backstory revealed leaves him the clear frontrunner of the Enforcer pack. Powerscaling seems to be all over the place a bit in Trails so far, leaving me with a bit of a disconnected view of how he’s exactly supposed to rank, but he remains intimidating, tragic, and refreshingly composed for his archetype. Watching him take Joshua proving him wrong in stride was a level of emotional maturity I never thought this character trope was capable of. The destruction of Hamel he teases proves to me Trails isn’t afraid of the horrors of war crimes, and all the better for it- the story is captivating and haunting in ways that remind me of my middle school self first reading One Piece. And Weissmann… is only okay. I like that his seeming ignorance of his own stupidly over-the-top evil existence stems from him following the Grandmaster’s prophecy, making it not a confidence in himself but in the things he trusts, but that just makes for a justification and not a more engaging villain. Despite the organ in chapter 6 he didn’t exactly chew the scenery like a Dio Brando, nor did he play into his sympathetic tendencies like a Colonel Richard. Just alright, overall.
Weissmann’s contributions in bringing to light ancient Zemurian society can’t be ignored any longer, however. Though I completely ignored the high-tech nature of FC’s finale in my review, the larger look in SC is a magical thought experiment that I was unable to tear myself away from. Whereas a game like Xenoblade Chronicles doesn’t necessarily require so much thought to appreciate what the narrative point of the past civilization is, using shorthand reminiscent of our own world to communicate the intention of “it’s supposed to be like the world you know,” Trails gives us a similar amount of information that speaks to a society wholly original. Picking apart every data log and public service announcement on Liber Ark is an utter joy, as my theories kept shifting around. Are they a democracy? So the Gospels are like iPhones, but government-provided ID then? But… it grants wishes? How much does it control? What’s the level of government control, were they more authoritarian? They must be, considering their personalized devices are government-issued and monitored, but how much of that is the Aureole? Just how sentient is it? WHAT ARE THE OTHER GIFTS? HOW CULPABLE IS AIDIOS?! WHAT WAS HER INTENTION AND WHERE DID EVERYTHING GO WRONG?!?!
It’s so much fun.
This game is so much fun.
Trails in the Sky SC is so much damn fun.
It may be a minute before I buy more of the games and keep going, money is a concern, but I’m on this ride. From here to eternity, I’m here with Kiseki.
2020
I feel a little bad abandoning Ultrakill. I simultaneously despise the migraine and hand pain that comes with every attempt I make at booting it up, and also cannot disagree with anything anyone has said about it. I think I got to like 1-2 before I decided I don't actually have to force myself on things that make me feel uncomfortable, and that it doesn't invalidate Ultrakill's existence nor its audience. Rock on, y'all.
One day, I'll own my own fucking copy and give this the review it more than deserves. One day...
2019
...how do I explain that this is a genuinely positive score for a game that just doesn't click with me that much? Like, it's a puzzle game that doesn't fundamentally mesh with my thought process, leading to so many moments where I look up the solution and go "...oh, that was it? I mean, that's fair, I just... man, I must work weird because I never would have thought to try that in a thousand years." Idk, I wasn't even expecting much. I just needed something to play between Trails games because I never like playing JUST an RPG, I always want something shorter and more active to complement it.
This review contains spoilers
My largest takeaway from Trails in the Sky FC is that everyone I know is terrible at setting expectations.
They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step- even one taken out of impulse boredom while waiting for FFVII Rebirth- and yet the enormity of this Trails journey hasn't quite set in. Rather, I find myself feeling... comfortable. Cozy, even. The patient, pastoral fantasy adventure of Estelle and Joshua wormed its way into my mind with such ease that it's hard to believe I haven't been aware of the two young Bracers all my life. Could that be down to the enormously slow pace and jovial atmosphere? The homely PS1-sounding soundtrack that's clearly trying to sing its way into a cottagecore Nobuo Uematsu compilation? The fact that this is the first RPG I've seen to truly nail the justification of why we both stop the end of the world and rescue cats from trees with the very idea of Bracers, flashing me directly back to Majora's Mask and hitting me unfairly in the heart as a result?
It's probably some combination of all of these, but still I look for a root cause regardless.
It's likely worth starting where my attention first got hooked- the presentation. I genuinely knew nothing about the circumstances of FC's release, and for the first scenes I believed this was a game for the PlayStation. Imagine my shock, then, when I learned the game is as old as me and was released on the PSP. It's interesting how the game... well, I wouldn't say "chooses" to look like a PS1 title, but rather how it chooses to use much simpler pre-rendered sprites on a fully-modeled environment. Not even Final Fantasy kept that up for the battles, and yet even the enemies are pre-rendered. It's a charming look, reminiscent of an earlier age of RPGs- exactly what the doctor ordered for me right now. Not all of that "retro" charm is welcome, for certain, but the aesthetics definitely benefit. The soundtrack also clearly yearns for that classic PS1 Final Fantasy feeling, eschewing more complex instrumentation and recordings that games like Birth By Sleep and Peace Walker got (I'm not terribly familiar with the PSP's library) in favor of an extremely old-school sound. The "guitar" samples in the final boss theme feel directly lifted from Final Fantasy VII's boss track in particular.
As for the music itself, it's... unique. Whereabouts of Light is as classically whimsical and somber as any 90s RPG theme etched into the annals of history (I'm personally reminded of "A Place To Call Home" from FFIX), and the soundtrack takes that thesis statement of cozy whimsy and runs it all the way across Liberl. It's an alright soundtrack overall, even if my brain kept filtering out certain songs and replacing them with songs from other games (the New Delsta theme from Octopath II was the only thing in my head when the theme of Bose played). Standout honors go to every song in Grancel and the Sealed Area. That final dungeon may give me a reflexive urge to kill when seeing the words "Donkey Missiles," but the music is genuinely great. And of course... Sophisticated Fight. I'd be remiss to not mention it, but sadly I don't think I'm going to miss it going forward. I can see how someone would adore it, though.
What I do adore is the battle system and customization. FC's combat-so-classic is so unbelievably refreshing to me right now; a refined taste from a more civilized age, if you will. Any glimpse at my profile will show my boundless love for Final Fantasy VII, and the Orbment system obviously appeals on a deeply personal level as a result. Once the system finally clicked, following each diverging line on the Orbment and manipulating Sepith values to get every last spell that character could possibly need, using Quartz-type requirements as vague indicators of a character's role yet branching out into pure freedom beyond that, it is EXTREMELY satisfying. Not perfect- funneling everything through the limited pools of Arts & Crafts, as well as the more egregious trade-offs, prevent FC from getting to that pure freedom of a game like FFVII, but being 70% of the way there is damn impressive enough that I don't much care.
The game's systems outside of combat and Quartz leave a bit more to be desired, sadly. Despite it being tied understandably to story progression, it's nevertheless deflating to have party members leave so often. The slow progression of powers and abilities is what makes a game like this so engaging to play, and having a full party is a power in of itself. Stripping that away at intervals is just... cruel. As hinted previously, I adore the concept of Bracers as a meaningful excuse to give us side quests to help the average citizen as RPGs tend to do anyway, and it results in a fairly decent pace of switching gears from "plot mode" to "Bracer work mode." That being said, the requirements of certain hidden quests and items (I gave up on Carnelia so quickly after missing chapter 3 you have NO DAMN IDEA) are absurd. Locking BP behind dialogue and scene choices- and NOT WARNING THE PLAYER ABOUT THAT- is an incredibly stupid idea; the only saving grace is that you can make it to Rank 1 without maxed BP, which is good- the only reason I could see for engaging with the BP system at all is getting rank rewards, and those aren't locked behind impossible perfection. And that's hardly the only way the game feels tough to play "optimally" without a guide; the lacking of any dungeon maps of any kind is AWFUL. The layouts of everything except for the Tetracyclic Towers are so incredibly samey and impossible to memorize that maps are nearly required, and yet the game gives you nothing at all. At least a game like Final Fantasy VII is phenomenal and well-paced enough to encourage multiple playthroughs to keep trying to find new secrets- that, and its structure does encourage that kind of exploration and discovery. I have also been told SC gets worse in this department, and yes, that is making my ass clench as I write these words.
Aidios save us all.
And yet, none of this feels like what anyone wants to hear, because I feel every Trails fan breathing on the back of my neck anticipating my opinions on the story and ending. And while that's entirely fair, I feel that those who "warned" me about FC's slow pace once again misplaced my expectations. I was told that it's a game defined by being "slow, but worth it," to put it one way. And frankly? No. It's not. Not entirely. Though even saying that feels too harsh... I suppose Joshua's the best case study of all this. Is that twist ending foreshadowed? Yes. Did I miss ALL of the clues about Professor Alba, leading to me feeling like an utter moron ever since Joshua laid out his case? Yes! Is that ending scene incredibly effective and haunting, especially considering how long we've spent with Joshua and Alba? Absolutely yes!
...and yet, was it all necessary? Unfortunately, not. Hints like Joshua hating himself on the farm in the prologue, or fearing the worst when Sieg delivers the letter to their hotel room in Chapter 4, are genuinely great moments- but so many times, Joshua will get "reminded" of something and ellipses off into the middle distance in the exact same fashion, and it simply gets repetitive! The whole game is not a necessary slow burn. About 70% of it is a necessary slow burn, and the remaining 30% is blatant padding with no new information. I feel deeply connected to the kingdom of Liberl and desire to bring Joshua home safely, but I wholeheartedly believe that could have still been done in 35 hours and not 45.
I feel almost bad for being so negative on something that I feel deserves it, when the positives deserve equal and opposite amounts of praise- the cast is, pardon the pun, STELLAR. Estelle and Joshua are two of the most charismatic leads I've had the pleasure of journeying with, riding the lines of their sibling dynamic's genuine support and relentless mockery as their personalities clash hilariously well. Estelle in particular, for being possibly the dumbest "Shonen-type" hero I've yet come across (her EQ is almost as low as her IQ, contrasting a character like Monkey D Luffy), is just a treat to follow. And most importantly, she never gets too stupid to still be likable.Dorothy sponges that up nooooo sweat. /lh
(An aside about the romance: It initially made me want to punch my screen. I suppose it's well-paced enough for such a thing, and Estelle's internal dialogue and Freudian slips are beyond adorable, but the adopted sibling romance dynamic is one of those anime tropes that just... REAAAAALLY gets under my skin. Joshua's insinuation at the end that he has a biological sister gives me pause in this, because their relationship can easily be spun as childhood friends if SC goes all-in on establishing Joshua's actual family and past while maintaining that "his time with them was a five-year dream" or some such, so I have hope for it to get better... but that doesn't make chapter 2 any less annoying. Same goes for micro-misogynistic and homophobic sentiments littered all throughout the game. It was a different time, I can ignore it, I don't want to dwell when the game doesn't necessarily want to either, but... bleh. At least Dunan's anti-feminist agenda falling apart right before the girl squad at the end was one of the most priceless moments in gaming history.)
And the rest of the cast is no slouch, either. Schera's a ton of fun, with a great design (though her similarities in backstory and role to Primrose Azelhart getting her into my personal waifu hall of fame kind of makes her the first one to enter the hall on the basis of... basically nepotism, funny how that works); Olivier is a FAR more interesting and endearing character than I expected out of "the gay one," with his hedonistic tendencies often standing aside for his very genuine view of the world and smelling the roses as the most important thing in life; Tita and Agate don't feel complete enough for me to REALLY dig into right now, I nearly guarantee SC is just going to rip their stories wide open; and Zin's just fun. He never left my party, and the amount of times enemies just hit him for 0 damage after he taunted the entire board was pure cocaine into my system.
The standout, however, goes to Colonel Richard. I did NOT expect this game to have a villain this good. Everyone, to the point of frustration and exhaustion, sings the sheer glory and brilliance of Cassius "Tripod" Bright, but to have the villain play off of that and into that is fascinating. Cassius is pegged as the hero of the military, the very reason the war was won, Liberl's own veritable Achilles. For someone like Richard studying under him, he saw his nation freed by the sheer might of this one man. But Cassius never saw it that way. He saw his tactics and prowess as nothing without the entire armed forces backing him up. That, and such displays of might prompted retaliation- retaliation which killed his wife and left his daughter in her dying arms. And yet, swept up in the hype of his mentor, Richard only saw that power saved their nation. Little wonder, then, that he saw fit to unearth the greatest power imaginable. The small chat he has with Estelle and Joshua in Grancel Castle, where he remarks that he finally has a clean conscience about his actions after taking the kids' words to mean that Cassius would have wanted this too... it's my favorite scene in the game. Colonel Richard, the lying puppetmaster who engineered a coup d'etat for the sake of an artifact that might not even exist, is little more than a naive child with misguided priorities.
Damn. A powerful message, told through engaging politics, resulting in good fighting, yet all of it could have been done with much fewer words.
An ending note for my review fitting of FC itself, no?
They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step- even one taken out of impulse boredom while waiting for FFVII Rebirth- and yet the enormity of this Trails journey hasn't quite set in. Rather, I find myself feeling... comfortable. Cozy, even. The patient, pastoral fantasy adventure of Estelle and Joshua wormed its way into my mind with such ease that it's hard to believe I haven't been aware of the two young Bracers all my life. Could that be down to the enormously slow pace and jovial atmosphere? The homely PS1-sounding soundtrack that's clearly trying to sing its way into a cottagecore Nobuo Uematsu compilation? The fact that this is the first RPG I've seen to truly nail the justification of why we both stop the end of the world and rescue cats from trees with the very idea of Bracers, flashing me directly back to Majora's Mask and hitting me unfairly in the heart as a result?
It's probably some combination of all of these, but still I look for a root cause regardless.
It's likely worth starting where my attention first got hooked- the presentation. I genuinely knew nothing about the circumstances of FC's release, and for the first scenes I believed this was a game for the PlayStation. Imagine my shock, then, when I learned the game is as old as me and was released on the PSP. It's interesting how the game... well, I wouldn't say "chooses" to look like a PS1 title, but rather how it chooses to use much simpler pre-rendered sprites on a fully-modeled environment. Not even Final Fantasy kept that up for the battles, and yet even the enemies are pre-rendered. It's a charming look, reminiscent of an earlier age of RPGs- exactly what the doctor ordered for me right now. Not all of that "retro" charm is welcome, for certain, but the aesthetics definitely benefit. The soundtrack also clearly yearns for that classic PS1 Final Fantasy feeling, eschewing more complex instrumentation and recordings that games like Birth By Sleep and Peace Walker got (I'm not terribly familiar with the PSP's library) in favor of an extremely old-school sound. The "guitar" samples in the final boss theme feel directly lifted from Final Fantasy VII's boss track in particular.
As for the music itself, it's... unique. Whereabouts of Light is as classically whimsical and somber as any 90s RPG theme etched into the annals of history (I'm personally reminded of "A Place To Call Home" from FFIX), and the soundtrack takes that thesis statement of cozy whimsy and runs it all the way across Liberl. It's an alright soundtrack overall, even if my brain kept filtering out certain songs and replacing them with songs from other games (the New Delsta theme from Octopath II was the only thing in my head when the theme of Bose played). Standout honors go to every song in Grancel and the Sealed Area. That final dungeon may give me a reflexive urge to kill when seeing the words "Donkey Missiles," but the music is genuinely great. And of course... Sophisticated Fight. I'd be remiss to not mention it, but sadly I don't think I'm going to miss it going forward. I can see how someone would adore it, though.
What I do adore is the battle system and customization. FC's combat-so-classic is so unbelievably refreshing to me right now; a refined taste from a more civilized age, if you will. Any glimpse at my profile will show my boundless love for Final Fantasy VII, and the Orbment system obviously appeals on a deeply personal level as a result. Once the system finally clicked, following each diverging line on the Orbment and manipulating Sepith values to get every last spell that character could possibly need, using Quartz-type requirements as vague indicators of a character's role yet branching out into pure freedom beyond that, it is EXTREMELY satisfying. Not perfect- funneling everything through the limited pools of Arts & Crafts, as well as the more egregious trade-offs, prevent FC from getting to that pure freedom of a game like FFVII, but being 70% of the way there is damn impressive enough that I don't much care.
The game's systems outside of combat and Quartz leave a bit more to be desired, sadly. Despite it being tied understandably to story progression, it's nevertheless deflating to have party members leave so often. The slow progression of powers and abilities is what makes a game like this so engaging to play, and having a full party is a power in of itself. Stripping that away at intervals is just... cruel. As hinted previously, I adore the concept of Bracers as a meaningful excuse to give us side quests to help the average citizen as RPGs tend to do anyway, and it results in a fairly decent pace of switching gears from "plot mode" to "Bracer work mode." That being said, the requirements of certain hidden quests and items (I gave up on Carnelia so quickly after missing chapter 3 you have NO DAMN IDEA) are absurd. Locking BP behind dialogue and scene choices- and NOT WARNING THE PLAYER ABOUT THAT- is an incredibly stupid idea; the only saving grace is that you can make it to Rank 1 without maxed BP, which is good- the only reason I could see for engaging with the BP system at all is getting rank rewards, and those aren't locked behind impossible perfection. And that's hardly the only way the game feels tough to play "optimally" without a guide; the lacking of any dungeon maps of any kind is AWFUL. The layouts of everything except for the Tetracyclic Towers are so incredibly samey and impossible to memorize that maps are nearly required, and yet the game gives you nothing at all. At least a game like Final Fantasy VII is phenomenal and well-paced enough to encourage multiple playthroughs to keep trying to find new secrets- that, and its structure does encourage that kind of exploration and discovery. I have also been told SC gets worse in this department, and yes, that is making my ass clench as I write these words.
Aidios save us all.
And yet, none of this feels like what anyone wants to hear, because I feel every Trails fan breathing on the back of my neck anticipating my opinions on the story and ending. And while that's entirely fair, I feel that those who "warned" me about FC's slow pace once again misplaced my expectations. I was told that it's a game defined by being "slow, but worth it," to put it one way. And frankly? No. It's not. Not entirely. Though even saying that feels too harsh... I suppose Joshua's the best case study of all this. Is that twist ending foreshadowed? Yes. Did I miss ALL of the clues about Professor Alba, leading to me feeling like an utter moron ever since Joshua laid out his case? Yes! Is that ending scene incredibly effective and haunting, especially considering how long we've spent with Joshua and Alba? Absolutely yes!
...and yet, was it all necessary? Unfortunately, not. Hints like Joshua hating himself on the farm in the prologue, or fearing the worst when Sieg delivers the letter to their hotel room in Chapter 4, are genuinely great moments- but so many times, Joshua will get "reminded" of something and ellipses off into the middle distance in the exact same fashion, and it simply gets repetitive! The whole game is not a necessary slow burn. About 70% of it is a necessary slow burn, and the remaining 30% is blatant padding with no new information. I feel deeply connected to the kingdom of Liberl and desire to bring Joshua home safely, but I wholeheartedly believe that could have still been done in 35 hours and not 45.
I feel almost bad for being so negative on something that I feel deserves it, when the positives deserve equal and opposite amounts of praise- the cast is, pardon the pun, STELLAR. Estelle and Joshua are two of the most charismatic leads I've had the pleasure of journeying with, riding the lines of their sibling dynamic's genuine support and relentless mockery as their personalities clash hilariously well. Estelle in particular, for being possibly the dumbest "Shonen-type" hero I've yet come across (her EQ is almost as low as her IQ, contrasting a character like Monkey D Luffy), is just a treat to follow. And most importantly, she never gets too stupid to still be likable.
(An aside about the romance: It initially made me want to punch my screen. I suppose it's well-paced enough for such a thing, and Estelle's internal dialogue and Freudian slips are beyond adorable, but the adopted sibling romance dynamic is one of those anime tropes that just... REAAAAALLY gets under my skin. Joshua's insinuation at the end that he has a biological sister gives me pause in this, because their relationship can easily be spun as childhood friends if SC goes all-in on establishing Joshua's actual family and past while maintaining that "his time with them was a five-year dream" or some such, so I have hope for it to get better... but that doesn't make chapter 2 any less annoying. Same goes for micro-misogynistic and homophobic sentiments littered all throughout the game. It was a different time, I can ignore it, I don't want to dwell when the game doesn't necessarily want to either, but... bleh. At least Dunan's anti-feminist agenda falling apart right before the girl squad at the end was one of the most priceless moments in gaming history.)
And the rest of the cast is no slouch, either. Schera's a ton of fun, with a great design (though her similarities in backstory and role to Primrose Azelhart getting her into my personal waifu hall of fame kind of makes her the first one to enter the hall on the basis of... basically nepotism, funny how that works); Olivier is a FAR more interesting and endearing character than I expected out of "the gay one," with his hedonistic tendencies often standing aside for his very genuine view of the world and smelling the roses as the most important thing in life; Tita and Agate don't feel complete enough for me to REALLY dig into right now, I nearly guarantee SC is just going to rip their stories wide open; and Zin's just fun. He never left my party, and the amount of times enemies just hit him for 0 damage after he taunted the entire board was pure cocaine into my system.
The standout, however, goes to Colonel Richard. I did NOT expect this game to have a villain this good. Everyone, to the point of frustration and exhaustion, sings the sheer glory and brilliance of Cassius "Tripod" Bright, but to have the villain play off of that and into that is fascinating. Cassius is pegged as the hero of the military, the very reason the war was won, Liberl's own veritable Achilles. For someone like Richard studying under him, he saw his nation freed by the sheer might of this one man. But Cassius never saw it that way. He saw his tactics and prowess as nothing without the entire armed forces backing him up. That, and such displays of might prompted retaliation- retaliation which killed his wife and left his daughter in her dying arms. And yet, swept up in the hype of his mentor, Richard only saw that power saved their nation. Little wonder, then, that he saw fit to unearth the greatest power imaginable. The small chat he has with Estelle and Joshua in Grancel Castle, where he remarks that he finally has a clean conscience about his actions after taking the kids' words to mean that Cassius would have wanted this too... it's my favorite scene in the game. Colonel Richard, the lying puppetmaster who engineered a coup d'etat for the sake of an artifact that might not even exist, is little more than a naive child with misguided priorities.
Damn. A powerful message, told through engaging politics, resulting in good fighting, yet all of it could have been done with much fewer words.
An ending note for my review fitting of FC itself, no?
2021
you're just as beautiful as the day i... well I never lost my copy, so the joke doesn't exactly work huh
2018
dude how did they just blow the whole series out of the water like it aint no thing but a chicken wing
2015
...the nostalgia buff has worn off and the ending is so stupidly repetitive but the puzzles are still peak sooooooo
2013
I am physically incapable of saying bad things about this game the nostalgia is too real
2012
Playing this game today shot me back to 2012 in a way I could never have fathomed, OHHHH the memories