Tuesday, March 26, 2024

What Comes Next for the Final Fantasy VII Remake Series?

 I've said many times that no matter what you think of the FFVII remake games, you could never accuse Square Enix of half-assing these games. Taking a beloved classic and making an entire, long game out of essentially each disc of the original, creating a brand-new combat system that blends the fast-paced action of more recent Final Fantasy games with the strategic menu-navigating choices of the original, creating vastly detailed environments and tons of fully voiced characters - it's a whole lot.

Remake came out in 2020 - not long after the Covid 19 lockdowns started, which made it something of a lifeline for those of us suddenly shoved into isolation. It was another four years until Rebirth was released. But this is not the last part of the series. Rebirth ends with a highly significant moment in the plot of the game, but still leaves a good portion of it to go.

So, what can we expect from the next installment? And when can we expect it?

To talk about this, we're going to go into spoiler territory, so here's a cut for the spoiler-averse.

Monday, March 25, 2024

On the Subject of Remakes of Classic Games I Never Got Around to Playing Back in the Day...

 I never played Max Payne. Back in the day, this being the year 2000 (which, as an elder millennial, I have a hard time processing the fact that it was nearly a quarter of a century ago - I saw a meme at some point that said "Millennials think 1970 was thirty years ago," and that hit hard) Rockstar game out with this game and with Grand Theft Auto 3, a game that arguably launched the "open world" game as we know it now (I'd say largely in the way that the "missions" in that game took place in the same open world space that you could explore outside of the main story).

I have, as this blog can attest, recently finished the second part of Square Enix's remake trilogy of the beloved Final Fantasy VII. Announced long before the first of this trilogy was announced, I think most people expected it to be a pretty direct translation of the older game, but with upgraded graphics and full voice acting.

Instead, what Square did was to re-build the game from the ground up, expanding the game (the entire first game in the trilogy takes place in what is basically the original game's introductory hours, all in the dense and dystopian city of Midgar) and even introducing plot elements that contradict or at least supplement the original's story.

In the last year, I've become an obsessed adherent of Remedy games, for whom Max Payne was their first big hit. I never played it, though. I have a sense of it - the game's ambition was to give an action game the same depth of story that you usually only got in an RPG (you know, like Final Fantasy games) and so it was presented as a big hardboiled detective story involving conspiracies, personal tragedies, and vague references to Norse mythology.

Remedy is a small studio, but their recent successes with Control and Alan Wake II have given them a bit more resources to work on multiple projects. Aside from AW2's DLC expansions, we know Control 2 is in the works, along with a couple of other projects that I don't think have official names yet, but they're also planning to remake Max Payne 1 & 2.

Notably, Rockstar, which published the original games, made a Max Payne 3 around 2010, but this didn't involve Remedy. Still, the studio was able to secure the rights to remake their original games.

Remedy has also started making forays into a larger connected universe for their games - Control and Alan Wake explicitly take place in the same universe (though it's also a universe in which human thought and perception can overwrite reality, so we might say more broadly "cosmos.")

Remedy's games in this time have also been driven largely by the creative leadership of Sam Lake, their creative director, who is something of an auteur for the games (though I think he's the kind of artist who might not love the idea of a singular author for something as collaborative as a game - I honestly think the fact that Tom Zane refers to himself as an auteur is an indication that we shouldn't trust him). Lake was both the main writer for the Max Payne games as well as the model whose likeness the character's face was based on in the first game (though not in 2 or 3 - actually, 3 uses voice actor James McCaffrey as the model - something that Lake has said in retrospect he felt stupid for not thinking to do with the original. It just wasn't a common thing back then to do that with voice actors).

While not officially canon in the Remedy Universe, because of the fact that Rockstar owned the rights to the game, the character and stories of Alex Casey in Alan Wake are basically just Max Payne. We find out in Alan Wake II that Casey is actually a real person, and that Alan's popular novels were inspired by Alan's visions of Casey's work, which Alan thought was just his active imagination. Notably, like in the original Max Payne game, Casey's physical model is Sam Lake and his voice actor is James McCaffrey, making the connection to Max Payne all but explicit.

So, that brings me to the remakes.

I think it's reasonable to assume that the remakes will be just that - more along the lines of the remakes we've seen of Demon's Souls or Shadow of the Colossus (which were both done by the same studio, I believe,) and which are basically just faithful recreations of the games with stunningly well-done updated graphics (I remember seeing Demon's Souls paused in photo mode and realizing that the individual rain drops in the Storm King fight seemed to be animated separately).

But given the audacity of Square Enix's approach to remaking Final Fantasy VII, I almost wonder if we'll see some substantial changes to these games.

One of the biggest challenges, though, is that James McCaffrey died not long after the release of Alan Wake II. His voice is such a huge part of what makes Max Payne Max Payne, and so I imagine it would be very difficult to find someone to replace him to record new dialogue (though I'd far prefer casting a sound-alike over the ghoulish notion of recreating his voice via AI).

If the plan is just to remake the games as they were but with modern graphics and perhaps tweaked and refined gameplay, it might be easy enough to just use the original recordings and maybe clean them up.

On the other hand, I personally have an appetite for Remedy's particular brand of weirdness and would be excited to see a connection made in these games to the larger RCU.

And I say that despite being very skeptical about the idea of shared universes. The MCU was such a huge success in this field (at least up through Endgame) that it was kind of disheartening to see how so many other franchises failed to actually make it work (DC, theoretically the franchise that should theoretically have the easiest time replicating it, basically couldn't make it work and now seems to be having more success by jettisoning the idea of a shared universe.) But I guess I don't find it grating with Remedy for two reasons:

One is that the properties here are new enough that it doesn't feel like they're being shoehorned together. Control was written from the ground up to coexist with Alan Wake, even while it very much stands on its own. Even dating back to the "This House of Dreams" blog, Remedy was playing with the idea of a government agency that looked into paranormal happenings (as late as Quantum Break they were the "Bureau of AWE" - I like FBC better).

And that ties into the second reason: that this is really inspired not by the recent MCU-style shared universe, but borrows instead from Stephen King's oeuvre, in which each story introduces its own rules, but there's an implication of an overlap - that Danny Torrance's Shine is actually the same as Alain John's "Touch" in the Dark Tower series. There's literal overlap, like how the protagonist of 11/22/63 meets a couple of the kids in the Loser's Club from IT back in the 1950s, but with few exceptions, you don't really feel like you have to have read everything King has written to get what you're reading.

But I also get that my lack of prior experience with Max Payne might make me more open to changes - much as my lack of experience playing Final Fantasy VII has allowed me to feel fine with most of the changes the remake trilogy has made to the story and even gameplay (while I've been frustrated by Square's abandonment of traditional turn-based combat ever since Final Fantasy XII, I actually love the way that the remake trilogy's combat work).

In other words, I'd be happy to see the plot of these noir/hardboiled stories tweaked to imply a connection to the broader RCU. Maybe that makes me a philistine or a rube. But I've also seen even just in the gap between Alan Wake and Alan Wake II how Remedy has evolved in their skill at telling stories through games, and while I think game preservation is a crucial goal that is woefully underserved, I think that's what a remaster is for, not a remake.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

FFVII Rebirth: Questions Remain

 I beat FFVII Rebirth. I don't really want to get into anything specific here because talking about the ending will naturally involve spoilers.

Spoilers ahead:

Fixing (by Replacing) Vulnerability in 5E

 Having been playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for the past month or so (I've logged over a hundred hours in the game - which does include when you're paused, to be fair,) it strikes me that one of the core aspects of the Final Fantasy series is elemental vulnerability. Nearly every monster has a weakness to one element or another, and while there are also plenty of physical attacks to use, many of these enemies are best dealt with by applying the appropriate damage type.

Damage types are also somewhat more limited in Final Fantasy. Damage can be either physical or magical, and then magical damage can be either "non-elemental" or of one of the elements - in VII Remake and Rebirth, at least, there are four elements, which are Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Wind. Fire is often useful against humanoid enemies, Ice often best against beasts, lightning usually best against constructs and robots (given FFVII's modern/futuristic setting, robots are pretty common) and Wind is often best against flying enemies, though there are exceptions to all of these.

In the VII Reboot series, they also implement a system of "pressuring" and then "staggering" enemies. Pressuring an enemy usually requires doing something specific, like dodging or perfect-blocking certain attacks or, most often, hitting them enough with the element they're weakest to. Pressuring, I believe, also increases the rate at which you build up their stagger meter, at which point the enemy gets stunned and takes bonus damage.

While Pressuring and Staggering are cool, I think they'd be hard to implement in a TTRPG - Final Fantasy gets away with being able to have a lot more happen in a fight than in a TTRPG because each "turn" is more like a quick decision made by a single player in a fast-paced game, and the number of actions taken over the course of a fight would take hours to resolve at a table.

Now, damage vulnerabilities are certainly a thing in D&D 5E. But they're rare. And I think the reason is that vulnerability is too strong a mechanic.

I love using Skeletons as low-level monsters. For one, I'm always a fan of spooky vibes in my broader fantasy worlds, but also I like them because they're pretty straightforward but unquestionably magical.

Skeletons are, also, one of the few types of monsters that have a vulnerability - and not just any vulnerability, but one to a very common damage type: bludgeoning. A skeleton only has 13 hit points. That means that in most cases a normal hit from a first-level character will not be able to take one down (unless you're using a d10 or higher weapon) but most skeletons won't be able to survive two hits. But if you have a maul, a warhammer, the catapult spell, or you're a Monk that is punching and kicking, you'll be literally twice as effective at fighting these things.

Here's the thing: when a monster is designed to go down in two hits, it's not actually that big of a problem if they go down in one.

Where this becomes a bigger problem is boss monsters.

The Lich is already a somewhat flawed stat block - I'm sure that very good DMs who are very good at thinking things out ahead of time can make them deadly opponents, but as a creature that's basically designed to be a campaign end-boss, its rather pitiful 135 HP is fairly underwhelming. (I've seen at least a YouTube thumbnail that suggests having a literal thousand zombies between the Lich and the party, which I think could work, possibly, but boy would it be a pain to run). But given that a Lich is often a kind of skeletal wizard, you could imagine giving it the same vulnerability to bludgeoning damage. But this could effectively halve its already low HP.

The thing is, I like rewarding players for thinking to use a damage type that should work well on the type of monster (Mummies and Mummy Lords do, in fact, have vulnerability to fire damage, but as a result, I think a Mummy Lord would be even harder to make a real threat to a party, despite clearly being meant to act as a powerful boss monster).

I sort of wish that most monsters had a vulnerability, similar to how they work in Final Fantasy.

However, I think the problem lies in the doubling of damage.

D&D is a game of rocket-tag - especially at high levels, really the only way to keep a monster up for more than a couple rounds is to ensure that there are minions that require the party's attention before they can focus-fire the boss.

So, if the party happens to have the right damage type available to them (and surely the fun of having a vulnerability is for them to have it) you run the risk of trivializing a monster that's supposed to be a threat.

What to do?

Well, though I haven't sung its praises in a while, we can look to how MCDM's Flee, Mortals! introduces something akin to vulnerability with its Vampires. The book's Vampire and Vampire spawn (though not its named "villain" vampire) have something called "Radiant Aversion." This causes them to take an additional 10 damage whenever they are dealt radiant damage.

It's pretty simple, right? But I think it solves a lot of problems. FM!'s Vampires have 204 hit points. So, you're guaranteed to knock off an extra 5% (or so) of their HP if you can get any radiant damage in there. A crit Divine Smite that lands for 10d8 (about 45) damage is going to get boosted a little bit by this to be 55 (on top of the weapon damage,) so it definitely feels like a bigger impact but it won't one-shot your monster. But if you hit it with a Sacred Flame (doing 9 damage on average at tier 2) you'll more than double that.

There's a reward there for picking the correct damage type, but you're also not going to trivialize the encounter by using it.

Of course, in a game like Final Fantasy, access to different damage types is typically not hard to come by - in VII, I'll usually try to equip every character with Materia that allows them to cast the four main elements, and in Rebirth in particular your characters can unlock free abilities that deal those damage types, meaning every character will at least be able to provide three of the four, if not all four, on-demand even without the right Materia equipped.

But in D&D, your options are more limited or at least harder to swap out. A Wizard is usually going to have only one, maybe two damage cantrips. That does provide some recourse if your main damage type is something a monster is resistant or immune to, but it makes it far harder to target a particular type to take advantage of - in other words, your damage type is more often a liability than a boon.

Still, it looks like the new Sorcerous Burst cantrip will at least give Sorcerers some huge versatility in this regard.

I think in my homebrewing of monsters, I might implement more of this style of "damage aversion" to give players a fun tool in fighting monsters.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

FFVII Rebirth: Past the Point of No Return

 Well, I couldn't quite do it.

In order to fully 100% the game (as far as I know) I'd have needed to beat every minigame at the highest score in order to gain the materials to craft all the enhanced accessories, which is required to get to the highest crafting level in order to make the Genji armor pieces. Then, I'd have to beat the "Ultimate Party Animal's" high scores in all the games at the Gold Saucer (which may have gotten me the necessary materials).

I tried. I tried so damn hard. But oh well.

In fact, there are bouts at the Musclehead Coliseum at the Saucer that are designed for level 70 - my characters are level 49 at this point. This is clearly meant to be post New Game Plus in hard mode. (Indeed, some even don't unlock until you've finished the full game).

So, I'll take some consolation from the fact that I've done some very hard things - beating Gilgamesh was probably the biggest challenge the game has thrown at me (and that after the second, third, and fourth hardest). But it was time to progress the story, and that means hitting Rebirth's point of no return.

Spoilers ahead:

Friday, March 22, 2024

FFVII Rebirth's Omega Dungeon?

 Despite growing up in the 90s (born in the mid 80s), who played Secret of Mana and Mario RPG during that decade, I must confess that my first Final Fantasy game was X, and I played it in my Sophomore year of college, back in 2005 or 2006. In that game, very late in it, you gain the ability to travel back to areas that you passed through on the very linear pilgrimage that makes up the essence of that journey. But along with all those old locations, you also get access to the Omega Dungeon, which is basically the super-hard area that is tougher than the endgame dungeon for the main story. I had a different level of patience back then, so even after defeating the final boss of that area, I kept wandering around grinding monsters there until I could take them down in one or two hits, which led to the most hilarious final boss experience in which I only had to smack Yu Yevon - basically the evil being who has made himself the god of that world - in two strikes.

Level caps, of course, prevent this kind of thing in more recent games. But I'm given to understand that most Final Fantasy games have that extra-hard thing you can try late in the game to give yourself a really profound challenge.

Spoilers ahead.

FFVII Rebirth Travelogue: Seeing the End of the Road

 Gotta hand it to Square Enix: they make games that last a long time. That's not always a good thing: I never finished Final Fantasy XVI because I ran out of steam trying to complete all the sidequests in the increasingly bleak and empty world of the game. But while FFVII Rebirth's side quests vary in quality, I've really been enjoying my trek across its world from the Grasslands to the Nibel region.

However, I've hit a point where I'm pretty sure I'm near the end of the game. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm near the end of the story - there's a whole third game (I assume only a third and not a fourth) in this reboot trilogy that I suspect I'll be in my 40s before I get to play (Rebirth came out four years after Remake).

At this stage, I have a single side-quest left, but it's a doozy - trying to get a bunch of high scores at the Gold Saucer. On top of that, I also have the conclusion of the game-spanning Protorelic questline, which I think is essentially this game's version of FFX's Omega Dungeon. It appears to involve facing off against two super-powered summons at a time - I tried fighting Bahamut and Titan and found myself... well, my ass got handed to me.

Plot stuff to follow: