VII Up

 We're officially past the Pixel Remasters, and as such, an hour into the original Final Fantasy VII has required an adjustment from the homogenized UI that the recent recreations of the first six games in the series provided.

Despite the N64/PS1 era being pretty foundational for me as a gamer (I got my first console, an SNES, in 5th grade, and my second, an N64, in 6th, so the two consoles more or less overlapped for me) I will say that I feel less of a nostalgic connection to those earliest of 3D graphics. So, playing through the fixed-camera environments of Midgar so far has felt mixed. I've seen these places recreated 23 years later with Final Fantasy VII Remake, and they look damned good in that 2020 release.

I suppose there's a bit of a nostalgic connection I feel to the grimy industrial pre-rendered (but still unimpressive by standards that are now like 15 years old) 3D environments with much simpler polygonal characters going through them. It's funny because I think that grimy, grungey look was A: likely so popular at the time because it was easier to render light scattering off of shiny metal in the early days of computer graphics and B: also liable to make me kind of depressed as a kid, but now, paradoxically, as something that was popular at a time of innocence and safety (for those younger millennials and Gen Zers, the 1990s was a time that, at least for a straight white kid in an affluent suburb, was decidedly less anxiety-ridden).

Anyway, being familiar with the story, but getting a somewhat simpler version of it compared to the fleshed-out version seen in Remake, is kind of interesting. I think Remake really drew out, for example, the second reactor mission (which ends with the Airbuster and Cloud joining up with Aerith) with an entire chapter prior to that mission in which you visit Jesse's family to steal her father's keycard. Here, it looks like we're going straight there.

I'm curious to see how long it will take for me to get out of Midgar - I don't remember what my total playtime on Remake was before I beat the game, but Rebirth I think I beat a little past the 100-hour mark.

It's also interesting to see that Materia doesn't work precisely like it does in the Remake games - there seem to be more passive bonuses - and penalties - involved, like "Restore" materia, which grants Cure, etc., also reduces your Strength and Max HP while increasing your Magic and Max MP.

Anyway, I think I'll have to get through a fair amount of the game before I get any truly new story content, but it's interesting to see how the various beats of the Remake originated.