Questions 4 – Fave Game
Okay now I’ve gone overboard where’s it’s taking me the same amount of time as a regular comic. Will have to shorten these up and/or simplify them in the future!
And so… to Ryan’s question – what is my favourite game – I chose Final Fantasy VII. FFVII is a typical response probably I know. But really, I think this game changed my life. My world got a little bigger that year, I think. It’s by no means the best game in any sense – the plot has some holes in it, the battle system is a bit old-fashioned, and the translation was shoddy. However, the depth of personality and character imbued in every scene really was and still is stellar. Nothing will ever make me feel the way I do when I hear “Anxious Hearts” (and think accordingly of the train man, whose speech I still have memorised), or hear the main theme from the world map, or see the uneasy colour scheme of the lower plate of Midgar. And part of me still pines for that sense of discovery that was shared between me and my FFVII party, which can never be recaptured (sequels, prequels, and movies be damned!)
Speaking of which, I plan on colouring this when I’ve time. Unless someone wants to colour it for me. Aaaaand now I’ve gone super overboard. Next week’s comics are going to be barebones! It’s nice to get away from the 3D modelling and rendering of my dissertation, especially to work on some traditional colouring for some perspective, but now I think I’ve spent way too much on the comic. Bah! But it was nice to revisit these old friends…
July 19th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Plugged into the good ole cure materia, huh?
July 19th, 2012 at 10:09 am
Ish Holy…. cause I didn’t feel like drawing Aeris
July 19th, 2012 at 5:57 pm
i know nothing of this game o.o
July 19th, 2012 at 6:57 pm
I played it over and over on PS1 in French and recently on emulator in English… one of the my best game too!
July 19th, 2012 at 8:03 pm
Aww, little cute Ashes is sleeping on your lap.
July 20th, 2012 at 4:47 am
I was working in Germany when this came out. I bought it in German, finished it, then when I went home I bought it in English, finished it. Squeenix has never been able to capture again what they did with FF VII… and quite frankly, even if they did spent a lotta money and dd a HD remake, it wouldn’t be the same. FF VII was right time, right place for then. Not now.
July 20th, 2012 at 4:48 am
Also….. SEPIROTH! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn71hIsm0U8
July 20th, 2012 at 6:16 am
@Pingu – For me, since FFVII, there are many games that have captured the wonder, depth, and beauty of my first playthroughs of FFVII, including: Shadow of Colossus, Final Fantasy XII, the Suikoden series, and Xenogears to name a few (also, I did very much enjoy VIII and IX). But you’re right – there was a time and a place for FFVII in my life and it had to come at that point. If it was any later I could see regarding it as simple, but it hit a chord with me then because it was so right for me at that point.
Agree on the idea of a remake too. While I enjoy seeing some clips here and there done in that new style, Cloud and the others really excel at showing their personalities off as tiny little cubes.
July 20th, 2012 at 10:36 pm
@Auilix, can you stuff the genie back in the bottle? Or is the beach littered with different kinds of genies? Anyway, did you get any of the other games and films built around FF VII? (I, for my sins, still have Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core AND Advent Children. Advent Children!).
July 21st, 2012 at 8:30 am
To be honest, once I saw Advent Children I was completely turned off by the whole FFVII spin-offs, and I have never played any of the sequel games. My favourites have to be the cameo appearances by FF characters in Kingdom Hearts, because it’s usually kept casual and without overblowing their plight.
However, I really think the humour and innocence of the original FFVII game was kind of tossed to the wayside when Square discovered “good graphics,” and everything I see nowadays has so much of that wistful staring into the middle distance that annoys me so much.
July 21st, 2012 at 11:51 am
“It’s not a game, it’s a franchise”. Having looked into Squeenix’s business philosphy ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Enix ), the game that is a manga that is an anime all have to share common elements, and it looks like the common element games share with their sister media is overly-long cutscenes, extensive exposition and whatever looks cool in anime right now.