Nothing really specific to report on today, so let’s talk
generals. Even though I’ve only played through the game once and it was more
than 10 years ago, a lot of it came flooding back to me; mostly music and
specific FMV sequences. Some of it’s good, some bad, but let’s start with the
good.
.. ..
So less than 10 hours in, I’m pleasantly surprised with the
writing thus far. Cloud and co. each have a clear voice in their dialogue, and
it most of it reads like natural conversation should. The transition from tough-talking,
no-nonsense Cloud to nice-guy, protect-my-pals Cloud seemed a bit too fast for
me, particularly in contrast to FFVIII’s
main jerk Squall (who’s particular brand of assholery lasted a gloriously large
chunk of the game), but it doesn’t mar his character in any way so far, and the
transition doesn’t seem out of place. Sephiroth is still a compelling villain,
as shown by the scene where he burns Nibbelheim. Watching him tear off the robotic
face to find the encapsulated remains of Jenova is as frightening as it is
fascinating. This scene and the burning of Nibbelheim cements his descent into
madness, not so unlike MacBeth killing his king, but, like other great video
game villains like Luc from Suikoden III,
his motivations are far more sympathetic than the black and white personality
of his genre peers. Sepheroth still stands as a prime example of the depth of
an interesting, layered RPG enemy should be. I expect great things from both
him and the plot of the game throughout after such a good start.
.. ..
The other side to all of this is a heap of problems that I
even recalled from the first time I played it. The most glaring of which is the
lack of clear entrances and exits from most areas. Since the addition of the
minimap in later FF games (like X), wandering through an area for 10+
minutes trying to find which is the way out gets old pretty fast. I’ll put most
of the blame here on the Square’s design team. I’m sure they tried to throw as
much little detail into their environments as the Playstation’s memory would
let them, but at the cost of having dumb level design. Areas that look like
exits probably aren’t, and took me far too long slogging through Midgard to
find where I should really be going. On that note, the context specific
movements and interactions (such as falling on to the swinging wire while
climbing out of Midgard) is downright painful. Never are you given a lot of
direction as to the best approach to clearing these obstacles, so you’re stuck
in an annoying trial and error session that can last far longer than the pace
of the game should allow. It’s nice, really, that they would try some thing a
little different than a point A- point B scenario, but not when it just starts
to pad the length of the game as opposed to fun distraction.
.. ..
At the risk of sounding kind of redundant to the rest of
internet community, the graphics for this game have aged very poorly. In fact,
many sections of this game –particularly the character models- look like trash compared
to even Final Fantasy VIII. Now, I
know that the game is long in the tooth and it was the first of its kind in
many ways, but Playstation games simply do not age well. The sound is fun and
interesting, particularly the music, but the bleeps and blops of the combat
scenes and spell effects are pretty lame by today’s standards. Granted, it’s
still pretty early in the game and I haven’t gotten into too many of the summon
spells yet (which I’m not really looking forward to. Those animations are long), but I’m unimpressed so far on the
audiovisual front. I’m going to try my best to be as even handed about this as
I can be from now on, but a spade’s a spade; these graphics suck.
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