Final Fantasy VIII - I'm your old friend amnesia

 

I have not been planning on writing about another Final Fantasy so soon, but here we are. Final Fantasy VIII has always been one of my favorites but whenever I tried to think about why, all I could remember was that I really liked Squall, the protagonist – I even cosplayed as Squall some 10-12 years ago (don’t look it up!). For better or worse, I decided to play it again on my recently refurbished VITA. I played the original PSX game from start to finish. And here we are. Apart from some scenes and key plot points, I have decided I will not be recapping the story of this 1999 game, primarily because it would drive me insane. I wish to write about some of its key elements, positive and negative. Word of warning, I did not have a good time playing VIII – it might seem I am too harsh on it; however, I believe that the character writing as well as the story is deeply flawed here. I will do my best to make sure that this post does not devolve into an incomprehensive mess.

            The protagonist of the game is the already mentioned Squall Leonhart, a name like only the 90s can give us. Squall is very shy, introverted and does not like to express his emotions or even admit he has any – Hello, Dexter Morgan. He is like this, because when he was a little boy he has lost his sister, or so the game makes you think. He is a member of a specialized military academy called the Balamb Garden and is training to become a “SEED”. There are more gardens. The game never really tells you what does it mean or what it stands for, all you get is the simple explanation that in the world of VIII there are sorceresses and they are bad, and the SEEDs are trained to fight them. Ok, so similar to witchers or other monster hunters, then? Not really. There usually is just one sorceress and there are hundreds of SEEDs. Perhaps these sorceresses are that powerful. The students at Balamb Garden also work as mercenaries and various nations of VIII hire them for various political assassinations or wars. Ok? And why hasn’t anyone destroyed these Gardens, then? Since they pose a threat to everyone and anyone who can pay them and can shift political power so easily? The game never says. Alright, so back to Squall. Apart from being very introverted, Squall is also anxious and is always afraid of being alone – which he is because he constantly pushes people away, even though he has literal people fighting over him. Existentialism was the theme of IX and the fear of being alone is the theme of VIII. It is all rather bleak and serious.

            The world of VIII also has a very distinct design – this is not a cyberpunk-ish setting like the one in VII or a high fantasy world of IX. Final Fantasy VIII is very futuristic with sleek curves, shiny walls and high-tech screens. If you can imagine it, it is here. You have flying buildings, nitro boosted motorcycles and dinosaur spaceships with power rangers. It is certainly unique and I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

            As is standard, the music of the game is fantastic. It has beautiful and relaxing tones in the world map as well as in interiors, it has great battle and boss themes and eerie scary and ominous atmospheric music for its other serious scenes. It is great and I cannot praise it enough. If you ever want anything to listen to, anything atmospheric, just randomly pick any Final Fantasy soundtrack and hit play. Nobuo Uematsu is a master of his craft.

            Another thing that is unique and you cannot find it in any other Final Fantasy game is the somewhat complex gameplay mechanic called the Junction system. In this game you collect magic from monsters and places in the world as if they were items and you can only carry 100 of any given magic. When you cast the magic, it depletes from your pool. However, you are mostly encouraged to stockpile it and then “junction” it to your various character’s stats for benefits and effects. This system is completely broken, because if you take some time to figure out which magic works best with which stat you can completely trivialize the game. This is not bad by any means! I have actually come to love it, because of how broken it is. After all this is a singleplayer game and personally I have always been a fan of fun over balance. Later you can learn to refine the magic from various items or monster parts, which makes the drawing (what you call collecting the magic in this world) that much easier. What makes junctioning possible are the GFs (it stands for Guardian Force). Just like in any other Final Fantasy (apart from XII), there are most of the usual summons – Ifrit, Shiva, Bahamut and my favourite Diablos. Honorable mention has to be Doomtrain, the Devil Thomas.

 

 

             I mean, just look at this guy. Doomtrain is my spirit animal. Apart from allowing characters to junction magic to their stats, the GFs also work as actual summons that you can use in battle. Every GF has a unique animation and attack. Some even provide beneficial effects to your characters. Some are useless. You also level them up and train them in various abilities. It reminds me a little bit of Pokémon or Shaman King. And I love both franchises. If I were to pass judgement on the controversial junction system, it is a 10/10 in my book. I love it and wish it were used again in a future entry.

            Final Fantasy VIII also has the best optional side content, a game inside a game the likes of Gwent from the Witcher III. This is also a card game and its called Triple Triad. As Squall, you collect various cards of monsters and famous (or infamous) characters and then you find NPCs that you challenge to a game. You can do this throughout the whole game – even during moments when the world is ending or an important character just died, it is hilarious. How does it work? Well, you have a playing board that is 3x3 spaces and you take turns with your opponent putting your cards into play. Each card has a different strength on each of its four sides ranging from 1 to A. Which side has a higher number automatically wins and takes over the other card. The player with the most cards wins the match. It is simple and addicting – and to be perfectly honest, if you like card games, it might be worthwhile to play VIII just for Triple Triad. Have I said that the music in VIII is fantastic? The song for Triple Triad is just perfect too.

            Another aspect that I really liked were the visuals. I played the original PSX game from 1999 and it looked magnificent – and I do not mean just the graphics themselves, but the composition and set design of each scene. These were meticulously crafted to convey specific emotions and appeal. For me this has always been a subjective topic, since obviously we all like something different, but I never really cared about graphics, whether something looks realistic or is „just pretty“. But when I pause and gaze at what is in front of me and start analyzing it and it evokes various feelings in me, I know they did something right. Looking at Final Fantasy VIII is like feasting your eyes on a beautiful painting. The first visit to the highly advanced city of Esthar for example, is incredible. Other backgrounds are strikingly beautiful too.

 

 

            Later in the game, there is one optional area that I really enjoyed, the Deep Sea Research Center. It is a mini dungeon, where you can acquire Bahamut and fight Ultima Weapon, the recurring boss from other Final Fantasy games. I liked it because it was challenging and reminded me a little bit of the Midlight Deep dungeon from the best game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics.

            I think that is enough with the positives, though. I praised the gameplay and its various systems, the beautiful music and stunning visuals. And for whatever reason, I like Squall. However, what really drags this game down into infamy is the absurd storyline and nonsensical plot. There is no reason in individually rating and describing the characters, because they are all terrible. The plot is predictable and boring – it does have impressive scenes that are highlighted by the visuals and music, however I believe that these were made before the story was even written. It is like when Zack Snyder creates an amazing storyboard for his movies, but fails at connecting these together. So, you have an impressive scene that does not make any sense.

I think it was in the middle of Disc 2 (there are four) where I completely gave up on the narrative. All six of the main characters, along with the secondary antagonist suddenly, out of nowhere, remember that they all come from the same orphanage where the main antagonist was their caretaker?! Not even Dallas had a twist this ridiculous. Of course, this does not go anywhere and serves no purpose.

Apart from the main theme of the game that is the fear of being alone, another very important plot point is the love story between Squall and the deuteragonist Rinoa, who really is the only other character that has any relevance out of all of them. The love story is incredibly cringeworthy and I felt embarrassed for these fictional people at every turn. Squall behaves as if he does not want any attention and does not want to be anywhere near Rinoa, who is constantly making very childish advances on him. She keeps referring to herself as the princess (she actually is) and to him as her gallant prince. Throughout the game, Squall consistently facepalms and expresses disdain and denial to Rinoa. No means no.

They are both supposed to be seventeen. I mean, I can hardly blame Squall for wanting to be alone when this is how you are bombarded every day. Eventually, Rinoa hounds him enough that he gives in and thinks he loves her now (?). I mean, I am no expert on troubles for those who romantically involved, but I think it is called coercion and it is a form of abuse. Squall is already mentally unhealthy, but Rinoa is there to persuade him that he in fact loves her.

Anyway, what is the gist of the main story? There is an evil sorceress from the future that wants to destroy all time everywhere. She works towards her goal by travelling to the present to possess the sorceresses that are alive. For some reason, there is another person called Ellone that can consciously manipulate time as well by sending someone she knows into the past and it is implied she could do that for the future as well. But wait! She is Squall’s long-lost sister whom he thought had died! Or is she? No, she is his step-sister! Oh ok. The evil sorceress from the future – her name is Ultimecia - possessed their caregiver from the orphanage who also turned out to be the wife of Robin Williams, I mean this game’s Cid, who is Squall’s headmaster. What a soap opera. There is more, of course.

Whatever… I played Triple Triad and worked on junctioning the best magics to my attributes. I breezed through these scenes and carried on. It is not until the end of Disc 2, when the love story actually becomes somewhat decent and I was rooting for Squall and Rinoa to be together. But what a twist! Rinoa turns out to also be a sorceress and Squall has to struggle with the fact that he might have to kill her, because Ultimecia might want to possess her next.

 

            The level design is mostly terrible and unintuitive, too. What you do in almost every scenario is run around and are constantly bombarded by random encounters at every step, pressing all the buttons on your controller and hoping that something happens, sometime. You have no idea where to go or what to do and there are instances of absolute insanity, where you cannot progress the plot unless you do something absolutely specific. For example, you are supposed to go from town A to town B by train. You get the tickets, you board the train with your companions and… nothing is happening. You are stuck. What the hell? So, you figure alright, I have to talk to all of them, I guess. You do that, but still nothing is happening. No one tells you any clue where to go or what to do. The train is not moving, the game is not doing anything. You walk around the room, you slowly walk into every corner while you are hammering buttons, but nothing is happening. What the fuck, I felt that the game has broken and I would have to reload an earlier save. What turns out you have to do, is try to leave the train you just got on! Oh, how obvious, right? This happens way too many times for it to be a coincidence.

            Other than the forced amnesia plot with the orphanage, the absolute worst part of the story are the sudden Laguna flashbacks. What are those, you ask? It is when the main cast who is in the middle of doing something, suddenly clutches their heads and falls down to the floor. Then you are transported who knows where and are put into control of a dude named Laguna and his two friends. These flashbacks serve no point to the story, are too long, too boring and they always try to be very funny which is in stark contrast to what is happening with Squall and Co. Who designed this? Who thought this was a good idea? I just cannot. What is this?

            In a similar manner to John Marston from Red Dead Redemption, I really like Squall, but not because they are similar, but because both games have varied issues with their story and its pacing. There are times when Red Dead Redemption is incredibly boring and annoying, but I really like John and I want him to succeed, so I press on and do these tedious missions. I felt like that throughout most of Final Fantasy VIII, too.

            There are a lot of instances where the game purposefully wastes your time where characters are forced to walk instead of run, in endless hallways with tons of enemies, mazes of various ways to go, but where every but one is a dead end and you have to backtrack to the correct one. If you do not know where to go, you are adding hours to your playtime. And this happens constantly! This is not a short game either – by just doing the main story, you will need 50+ hours. This is especially egregious during the later parts of the game, when the plot is running on fumes.

            At the very end of the game, you travel into the future where Ultimecia supposedly resides and have to work your way through her castle to defeat her. Time compression is in full effect and it is described that all time is being pushed together and with the pedigree of stunning visuals in this game, I hoped this would have been represented somewhat in the backgrounds, but its not. Ultimecia’s castle that is supposed to be in the far future simply looks like a gothic castle. And oh my god!!! The final level is infuriating. I liked it at first, because being in the future while time compression is happening, you are stripped of everything and have to work your way through the castle defeating various bosses to unlock abilities like using magic, using items, being able to revive fallen characters or even to have the ability to save the game. I loved this as a concept! But it becomes very annoying, very fast, because the castle suddenly becomes the Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil 1 – there are puzzles, there are hidden keys and items, there are sudden ambushes and the worst enemy in the whole game – the backtracking. For hours, you are running around the castle opening locked doors and trapdoors, and at the end I was just exhausted and wanted it to end. Initially I wanted to compare it to Scooby Doo, but that would have been a disservice to an amazing cartoon.

            What is ending like? It is fine. It is a happy end for everyone. The team defeats Ultimecia in her four phases that from a technical point were ridiculous and reminded me of the Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls, where you have to do certain things exactly or it is game over. The powerful sorceress is this ridiculous Lady Gaga impersonator with a bad eastern European accent where she pronounces every W with a V and every C with a K. Whatever, she dies and the universe is saved.

            Final Fantasy VIII is the pinnacle of what could have been. The gameplay design is truly fantastic as is the artistic direction of music and visuals, but the story is an abject failure in my opinion. Would it have been better had it been 20 hours shorter? Sure, but it would still be bad. It pains me to no end, because for whatever reason I really like Squall and have always seen bits of myself in him, but this ain’t it, chief. 4/10 – play it for the card game or skip it.

 

Silent Hill 2: Remake - Same, but different

 

 

 

Recently I have finished the Silent Hill 2 Remake and I have some things to say about it. These are purely subjective as always and this will not be structured like my previous blog entry, just for the sake of trying to keep this short(er). I want to express how much I love the original. It has been a companion to me for a while now, it lives in my head constantly and rent free. It is absolutely amazing and I love it to bits. The atmosphere, the characters, the immersion and the amazing music create a game that is a fantastic experience and I consider it easily as one of my 10/10. When I heard there was a remake coming, I was naturally skeptical (despite the pretty good new adaptations of the Resident Evil series) and I was even more worried when the Bloober team was announced as those who were doing the remake. After finishing it several times (I got all the original endings), my feelings are mixed to positive. 

        First, let me start with the positives. Maria is absolutely 100% amazing and done much better here than she was in the original. She is more attractive and not just physically; her subtle movements and inflections are done in such a way as to allure James and lead him down a certain path. She is also much more grounded. The voice actress has done a phenomenal job – especially since she also voices Mary. Her lines (as well as everyone else’s) are 1:1 of the original and some of the weirdness thus remains in the game, but the new dialogue is just so well done. Maria presents this new opportunity for James and exists as a manifestation of his desires and dreams. Her new version truly reflects that and I feel like she better represents how she was born from a dream of wanting back Mary, who is lying in pain and suffering for three years. Truly well done. The designers as well as the voice actress deserves all the praise they can get.

        I also loved that one scene in Heaven’s Night, when Maria pours James a drink. What follows is for me one of the best silent portrayals of a recovering alcoholic. I do not know who made this scene up, whether it was up to the screenwriters, the animators or maybe even the voice actor(s), but it is once again fantastic. James refuses the drink, Maria sighs, drinks her own and walks to the door near the exit. She calls to James to follow him and to leave, however James is somewhat unable to leave the poured drink on the table. He looks at it, licks his lips, displays something that can be described as pure agony and visibly shivers for a second. Maria once again calls to him, he turns around to face her, still sitting on the bar stool and one last time glances at that drink. He wants to drink it so badly, but then again feels like if he does, he will be undoing his efforts of temperance. It is a short scene, but it is fantastic in what it wants to do. Often, whenever watching movies or playing games, I am of the opinion that these are a visual medium and makers should stick to the good old golden rule of “show, don’t tell” (especially you, M. Night. Shyamalan). This one scene shows a lot, without telling.

        Finally, that scene at the very end of the game, at the rooftop, where James has to defeat the final boss of the game is done exceptionally well too. During the scene, the entity that looks like Mary and Maria is taunting James and also commenting upon his journey through Silent Hill. Depending on the ending the player has acquired, the scene shifts slightly. What I absolutely loved about it was how effortlessly the voice actress switched from Mary to Maria and one could hear the abrupt change in her voice. It was masterful.

        I also enjoyed how in the remake, Bloober team remained faithful to the original endings. There is Leave, In Water, Maria as well Dog, Ufo and Rebirth. I will not be describing the endings here, since those pertain more to the original than they do to this remake, especially since all of them are 90% identical in lines, shots, etc. I commend the team behind the remake for this. They could have easily just done one and call it quits. They also added two new endings, I haven’t had yet the chance to see these, but I want to come back to the game for them. If nothing else, my desire to replay the game again is a very positive thing about it.

        Lastly, I also want to praise the level design. The areas in the game were not 1 to 1 recreation of the original, they were largely expanded and even completely new areas were added. This is a good thing! There were certain areas, like the Toluca prison that felt like I was playing Dark Souls 1. You had opening shortcuts, interconnected areas, various puzzles that required you to backtrack, but rarely you were running in the same hallways back and forth, it was excellent. This is a short paragraph, but I cannot stress enough how good the levels were designed.

        Now, for the negatives. All of this is obviously my subjective opinion and I am by no means a flawless person. However, I felt that in the Leave ending, when James recognizes what he has done and leaves Silent Hill with Laura in hope for a new and maybe better life, the voice actress for Maria/Mary reads Mary’s letter to James. I know I was just praising her above, and she does extremely well during the game, but reading the letter, it felt flat. It felt like an actress reading a script into the microphone. In the original, the scene goes on forever and is heartbreaking. In the letter, Mary describes her love for James, how she was afraid of dying and also of hurting James simply by being ill and dying. An absurd approach to a terrible situation. But the original voice actress just poured her heart into it and I remember when I first played the original game, I cried. Here it just did not feel emotional at all.

        Akira Yamaoka is the composer of the original soundtrack that is fantastic. It is another thing that I keep on my Spotify playlist and listen to it almost every day. The music of the Silent Hill series has been a constant positive about the franchise even when some of the entries were not so great. In the remake, the original music is present and is also once again done (remade) by Akira, however I felt like when there was not a scene that was a 1 to 1 recreation of an original scene with the original music, there was barely any music at all. I had to crank up the volume on my TV to even hear if anything was playing in the background at all. In the original, the music was always there. In the remake, I had to go look for it.

        Even at the very beginning of the gameplay sections, the game is just too dark, there is no going about it. After I got the flashlight, I was hoping the situation would improve, but it did not. Once again, the videogame equivalent of what a flashlight is does not work here. It barely illuminates a small circle in front of James and you can and will miss items, enemies and collectibles. I had to turn the brightness all the way up in certain sections which made the game look terrible on my TV, which goes to show that the darkness in Silent Hill 2 Remake was a deliberate choice. You might think, who complains about dark in a horror game? Well, me, because I like to know where I am going and what is in front of me as well as around me.

        At the beginning, when James is still in South Vale, the number of enemies feels just about right, not too many and yet there is a lying figure around (almost) every corner. It is unnerving. However, once you move into the Apartments later in the game, there are way too many enemies. In later parts of the game, it gets ridiculous. It feels like Resident Evil on crack. There are so many mannequins it is hilarious. No hospital I ever had the misfortune of being in had that many nurses like the Brookhaven hospital in Silent Hill. I feel like the lying figures have taken all the zip bags in the state of Maine, not just from the town the game takes place in (Silent Hill is now in Maine, ok?). What this does is that it makes an otherwise slow and immersive story and atmosphere rich game, an action game. I was expecting Mike to show up and pepper the demons with machine gun fire and invite James for drinks at a bar he knows about. But what makes that particular scene in Resident Evil 4 fun is that in that game, it has full on switched from a horror game to an action scene akin from James Cameron movies. In Resident Evil 4, Leon S. Kennedy is on a mission to save the president’s daughter whose trail he follows to a military base on an island in Spain and a fellow secret service pilot shows up in a helicopter and starts blasting Leon’s enemies with the helicopter’s machine guns while actiony music starts playing. In my opinion, running and gunning does not belong in Silent Hill.

        Oh well, when it comes to the characters themselves, apart from Maria I felt like they were all more or less ok. James in the original is a regular guy, who is socially awkward and talks as if he is in a stupor. He is extremely tired, barely fumbling around like me every morning at work. It is all a part of the dreamy hazy vision of Silent Hill that is so reminiscent of Twin Peaks. I felt that while the actor who does remake James really tried hard, they made him sound way too confident. I do not hate the remake James at all, in fact I am praising the actor for his work, however I just felt that the original was better. The remake James leans closer to the role of a big blockbuster movie. More handsome, more confident, more resolute. A typical Hollywood protagonist.

        And so it goes with the rest of the characters too. Angela was fine. She looked like a regular shy teenager. She sounded like a troubled teenager. Laura was an annoying kid, just as she was in the original game. Eddie was alright, although he had the stereotypical fat guy voice of which I was not a fan.

        What about Pyramid head? I felt he was great; he was still a threatening presence that was judging James from the beginning. When he first shows up, in the Apartments behind the bars and just stares at James without moving, while the radio goes insane is a very strong moment. Bloober has done Pyramind head justice.

        In conclusion, I cannot help but make comparisons with the Resident Evil 4 Remake. The original Resident Evil 4 is another game that means a lot to me and has for or better or worse shaped the kind of individual I am today. I enjoyed the remake of Resi 4, however just like with that one, I feel like the remake of Silent Hill 2 was not entirely necessary. I am not overly fond of remakes, whether they are videogames or movies. I prefer remasters myself, upscaled graphics, textures, modern controls and the ability to run the game on modern systems. 

 

 

         

        What would I rate the Silent Hill 2 Remake? I could not decide. But I completed the game twice in a row, in one sitting and achieved the 5 various endings that there are. And I still want to play it again. In the most important aspects of the game – the story, characters and immersion the game is very strong. However, it has shortcomings in the other areas. I am planning on playing it some more, to get the other two new endings, but after that I am going back to the original. Would I recommend it? Absolutely. I want to say 7/10, because some of the negatives were rather significant, but because I just love the universe and the original so much, I am as subjective as I can be and rate Silent Hill 2 Remake an 8/10. If they add the original soundtrack via an update like they did with Resident Evil 4 Remake, this would be even higher.