Well in any case, it was nice to hear Jim Sterling express feelings similar to mine. I often feel like such an anomaly for accepting Nomura trout and just in general embracing the more scant garde type of storytelling. Today has also been harsh because I felt I should press on, but every step was painful. I long for the days when I could just sit down and write and it would just... come. Almost unbidden. And don’t be so harsh on yourself. Elly definitely wasn’t garbage
Lol, I can feel that on the inner critic issue. I got inspired to write another piece for that Elly character I made you read last year. I still need to go through it and tweak it, but between the new piece and that awful corny 90s sitcom bulltrout I made you read last year, I'm not exactly as excited as I should be for finishing a piece.
Thankfully I have more faith in Nomura than I have in Toriyama in that regard. So I’m hoping any bad Toriyama ideas get shot down And to be perfectly fair, Toriyama was also responsible for the quirky little gem of the SNES era called Bahamut Lagoon, so he’s got that going for him. I’m more optimistic because, even with people who hated the ending, the worst criticisms seem to amount to “I liked 95% of the game but that ending”. Which is exactly why I’m excited for the future installments. I’m here enjoying this post-modern stuff and judging by how they handled the characters so far, I’m fairly confident that wherever this game might go, it’s gonna be important. Like Jim himself said (who I personally also watch only occasionally), this is exactly the new SE stuff I expected to happen, but somehow it all seems to work. The only thing that’s really bothering me when I’m watching stuff from this game is how incredibly similar the Materia stuff looks to the Crystarium. I’m not saying that it’s a given that it’s gonna be bad, just that I’m getting PTSD just looking at it. In the meantime, I’ve significantly reduced my video game time, boosted my reading time, and my writing time has increased along with it. My inner critic has also received an upgrade now, however, so despite writing more just today than I have all of last week, I am feeling miserable about my writing.
You have far more tolerance for Nomura's bulltrout than I do. I can agree he has a distinct style, but I honestly feel Nomura usually fails to stick the landing of those ideas. I mean if I want bonkers narrative, I'd just read JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, cause at least Araki can write a more cohesive narrative, even if he is just as guilty about pulling story details out of his ass to keep a story momentum going or to write himself out of a corner he put himself into. Nomura's more self-indulgent aspects is a large part of why I was eventually turned off from KH. I've had KHIII for over a year now, and I still have no interest in actually going through it cause I kind of know there is nothing going on in it that I will like. Even replaying KH last year only showed me how much potential Nomura bungled with changing goal lines, and power of friendship nonsense. I even came away from entries I liked deciding I didn't enjoy them as much as I had before cause I could see ho squandered their potential really was. I have just learned over time that I am in the "hate" camp when it comes to Nomura's style. I can only have so many self-indulgent auteur directors in my life, and Kojima himself already pushes the boundaries of good taste in my mind. Yet, at least I feel he has a better track record of paying off the player for going down his crazy road. Nomura does not. Nomura's style is definitely more visual focus and strong archetypes, he just can't seem to translate any of it to actual good writing. I don't mind the idea of the game being meta, or how the Whispers are an analogy for fans who wanted the game to be a 1:1 remake. I just feel it lacks the subtlety and impact of works that have pulled off the concept in the past better. Jim mentions MGS2, and while that game's narrative has a lot of issues, the meta analogy it gives of players who expect sequels to be more of the same was honestly executed better, even if the game still had to come out in the end and explain it to the player. I feel the staff played their hand way too early regarding the Whispers and their meta role in the story. I feel my other issue here is that I feel VII really had the potential to be super awesome, and it just always missed the mark for me. So there was a part of me hoping the Remake would address those issues, but now that the staff has given themselves full permission to go all Rebuild on the project, I just don't see any of that happening anymore. I now fully expect the game to diverge radically from here on out and maybe keep just the major story beats from the original. I mean Meteor is going to show up eventually, I just don't believe it's going to play out like it did in the original. That's not to say I'm not interested in the new direction, but considering who is helming this project, I don't have as much faith that it will be as strong as it could have been. Also, while Toriyama is listed as a event director, we both know SE is usually very collaborative in their works, so I'm sure if he comes up with some awful story idea and mentions it to Nomura, he may actually take him up on it and throw it in.
Eh, I'm past the point of caring aqbout that tbh. I've always been of the opinion that nothing in art is sacred, and as someone who has been quite critical of FFVII for a while now, I welcome everything new. I can tell that they do care about the characters and the way they're fleshed out along the way to make them more human than ever before gives me hope that that element will stay put, and I'm all for the crazy stuff Nomura comes up with, even if it ends up being incoherent. Sure, a lot of it is dumb, but the dude has a distinct style of his own. No one else can really do a Nomura thing, so I embrace him going all out on this. He's a lot like Kojima in that regard - love him or hate him, the dude does what he wants and he's the only one that can really do it. Also, to be perfectly fair, Toriyama is just an event director here, and it looks like he does the job here (I don't particularly have a lot of bones to pick with him here, tbh, I'm just not a fan of him as a scenario writer and director, but if it;s about making stuff make sense from a cinematography standpoint, he's fine), and there are more shades to Nomura than people care to admit. They rail on him for the overarching story of KH, forgetting that he knows how to make those games super exciting, satisfying, and have some genuinely touching moments with characters that make you feel stuff. So like yeah, I don't give a damn if he makes the end game of the entire remake be fifty Sephiroth clones or whatver - I want to see what he does with this. Good or bad, it's a companion piece to the original, and I'm all for that post-modern intertextual dialogue.
Amusing, though I've never liked Jim Sterling, he's a little too self-congratulatory for my taste, which is how the ending of his review goes. I can see his point about how interesting it is that VIIR is going off rails, I just disagree that it was executed well. I also fully expect the Whispers to return in the sequels. Nomura and Toriyama are going to KH/XIII this trout up. I fully expect the games top start using time travel and play around with alternate timelines.
Nice arrangement! I’m not usually a fan of those faux-orchestral takes on FFVI’s OST, but this was good. Meanwhile, here’s a take I agree with wholeheartedly regarding FFVIIR: I mean, as far as I can agree without playing it
Found a great cover and underrated VI track. Been listening to a lot of FF music while I write my FFVI Retrospective.
Oh its a must whenever I get around to picking up a Switch, but that will be a long ways off right now. I can't really justify a new console at the moment and I'm honestly really enjoying my PS4. Its been a real turn around from the PS3.
You’re talking to someone who didn’t even start playing Zelda games (aside from a little bit of ALTTP in junior high) up until their twenties You did mention there’s likely a Switch in your near future, so I figured youd probably get this when that happens. I am eager to see what happens once you get to play it
