Just a concentrated burst of what has become one of my favourite games of all time. Yuffie is one of the most fun characters to embody in recent memory, being both delightful to play and watch in cutscenes. I was extremely sceptical about removing character switching - such a cornerstone of the base game - for this DLC expansion but damn if they didn't manage to pull it off, and the cutscenes well and truly speak for themselves, some of the most expressive and well directed and animated cutscenes in the entire medium. Watching the cutscenes for this straight after a session of the technically impressive but creatively limp Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was like "Oh, shit. Cinematography!!!"
Hanging out in Sector 7 playing Fort Condor, listening to the BANGIN' Happy Turtle Jingles, seeing all the incidental NPCs, it's a reminder of just how good FF7R was at constructing lived-in spaces, and while there's a degree of artifice in certain elements (forcing Roche in was a bit much), it remains a joy simply to Exist under this steel sky. Certain segments (the chase in Chapter One) feel overly long in the tooth, but that's about the only complaint I can level at one of the most consistently enjoyable slices of Game that I've played in some time.
There's a temptation to dismiss this as inconsequential filler, but I would strongly disagree with that sentiment. Not only is Yuffie's character arc extremely well done, with its exploration of the weight and expectations that her nation has projected onto her poetically embodied in the fraught and interesting Sonon, but thematically this feels like a strong next step for this series. If Final Fantasy VII Remake set out to prove, emphatically, that a better world is possible, and the moral imperative that exists to reject our comfortable status quo in order to fight for it, then INTERmission is an exploration of the obstacles in our way, of the divisions that keep us from uniting against the boot on all our heads.
The stuff with the Avalanche cell we interact with in Chapter One is undoubtedly the highlight, exploring the dynamics of division in the struggle through a cast of likeable but ultimately kinda shitty casual racists and centrists whose unwillingness to work with Barret's Avalanche causes both their individual causes to falter and where both the cells distrust and cynicism towards Wutai ultimately allows Shinra to get away with their evil plans, while the tunnel vision of the Wutaian characters recontextualises the Sector 7 disaster as something horribly preventable. The context and way in which this has explored takes what is a fairly stock JRPG arc of learning to Work Together and brushes it up against a more nuanced statement on Class Consciousness than anyone could reasonably expect. It's really good, pointed stuff, and while it's mostly front-loaded, they still manage to tie it into the later stuff through, of all things, Deepground, an exploited class of Shinra living weapons whose Tsviet leaders are literally vampiric forces leeching off the misplaced loyalty of their underlings for their own benefit. The treat of getting to see ludicrous characters like Weiss and Nero again would be worth it all on it's own, but the fact that this story manages to make their presence meaningful blows me away. It won't affect me quite the way the original Remake did, but this is still an exciting, well-told story about knowing who the Real Enemy is, and knowing you can't take them alone.
The irony of all this being exclusive to the most exclusive console in the market is not lost on me. Capitalism's a bitch, huh?
I've been on record as saying that I was very satisfied by the ending of Remake, and do not feel the burning desire for a follow-up that has apparently consumed the discourse surrounding it on all sides, eroding any discussion of what the game might be saying on its own in favour of what might come next. Even if the next Remake thing is bad, even if it never comes out, Remake remains a deeply powerful game all its own that satisfactorily concludes its themes. But INTERmission gives me hope that the future for this series is bright.
They might do it. They might actually do it.
Boundless, terrifying, freedom. It's a hell of a thing, huh?
Hanging out in Sector 7 playing Fort Condor, listening to the BANGIN' Happy Turtle Jingles, seeing all the incidental NPCs, it's a reminder of just how good FF7R was at constructing lived-in spaces, and while there's a degree of artifice in certain elements (forcing Roche in was a bit much), it remains a joy simply to Exist under this steel sky. Certain segments (the chase in Chapter One) feel overly long in the tooth, but that's about the only complaint I can level at one of the most consistently enjoyable slices of Game that I've played in some time.
There's a temptation to dismiss this as inconsequential filler, but I would strongly disagree with that sentiment. Not only is Yuffie's character arc extremely well done, with its exploration of the weight and expectations that her nation has projected onto her poetically embodied in the fraught and interesting Sonon, but thematically this feels like a strong next step for this series. If Final Fantasy VII Remake set out to prove, emphatically, that a better world is possible, and the moral imperative that exists to reject our comfortable status quo in order to fight for it, then INTERmission is an exploration of the obstacles in our way, of the divisions that keep us from uniting against the boot on all our heads.
The stuff with the Avalanche cell we interact with in Chapter One is undoubtedly the highlight, exploring the dynamics of division in the struggle through a cast of likeable but ultimately kinda shitty casual racists and centrists whose unwillingness to work with Barret's Avalanche causes both their individual causes to falter and where both the cells distrust and cynicism towards Wutai ultimately allows Shinra to get away with their evil plans, while the tunnel vision of the Wutaian characters recontextualises the Sector 7 disaster as something horribly preventable. The context and way in which this has explored takes what is a fairly stock JRPG arc of learning to Work Together and brushes it up against a more nuanced statement on Class Consciousness than anyone could reasonably expect. It's really good, pointed stuff, and while it's mostly front-loaded, they still manage to tie it into the later stuff through, of all things, Deepground, an exploited class of Shinra living weapons whose Tsviet leaders are literally vampiric forces leeching off the misplaced loyalty of their underlings for their own benefit. The treat of getting to see ludicrous characters like Weiss and Nero again would be worth it all on it's own, but the fact that this story manages to make their presence meaningful blows me away. It won't affect me quite the way the original Remake did, but this is still an exciting, well-told story about knowing who the Real Enemy is, and knowing you can't take them alone.
The irony of all this being exclusive to the most exclusive console in the market is not lost on me. Capitalism's a bitch, huh?
I've been on record as saying that I was very satisfied by the ending of Remake, and do not feel the burning desire for a follow-up that has apparently consumed the discourse surrounding it on all sides, eroding any discussion of what the game might be saying on its own in favour of what might come next. Even if the next Remake thing is bad, even if it never comes out, Remake remains a deeply powerful game all its own that satisfactorily concludes its themes. But INTERmission gives me hope that the future for this series is bright.
They might do it. They might actually do it.
Boundless, terrifying, freedom. It's a hell of a thing, huh?
2 Comments
thank you for the kind words!!! someone on twitter described this game as feeling luxurious in a way big-budget games haven't in a while and I completely agree with that sentiment and your own...as much as Square Enix is a deeply frustrating company they're also the only company in the AAA space that does anything to convince that you still can make strange, uniquely appealing games in that space. now if only they would release the stranglehold they have on their Eidos studios making Marvel game after Marvel game...
PansyDragoonSaga
2 years ago