Remastering and Remaking

 One of the reasons I wanted to get the PS5 was because I wanted to play the Final Fantasy 7 remake.

I played the original FF7 with my laptop when I was young. I spent one whole month not doing anything else than playing FF7, during summer, and it was an incredible experience. It was like playing an anime series. The music was incredible, the combats were epic, the plot was complex and curious, dramatic, with twists and funny moments too, and well, it was a very emotional experience overall, especially at that age. 

So, when I saw about the remake and actually played the demo, I was impressed. Much better graphics, like a permanent CGI movie, better than the CGI movies of the original game, and with expanded story? I mean, evidently I wanted to get it and try the full game. So I did. 

For starters, the game is just the first part of a series that will remake the original game, but with unknown changes. This game only covers the plot until the party leaves Midgar, which is a sizeable chunk but represents around 15-20% of the total of the original one, I'd say. That's a lot of game left to do, which is a bit annoying, but oh well. 

The graphics are incredible. I didn't really play any FFs after the 9, and therefore I didn't see how they progressed, last I played was with the original PlayStation. Therefore the current graphics feel amazing. This is how the game played in my imagination basically, like when reading a book when you create your own visual world, the first game's limitations created such a world inside your head with the actions you could see. This new version actually plays as if you see what your inside world looks, with all the details and movements and everything. It's amazing. 

The gameplay, I have to say, is interesting, but now being more action-oriented instead of turn-based was not a plus for me. I quite like turn-based games, and while it's cool to perform actions yourself, the way this game works means you're usually controlling one character while others do whatever, while in the original you did order all characters, because there were turns. This new combat system means you always start with Cloud attacking, while sometimes I'd like to start with another character. It's cool though, that's undeniable. Again, maybe I missed the previous FFs that prepared the terrain for this gameplay and I'm just not used to it, but well, for me this is not an improvement from the original. 

The plot remains amazing, but with more in-depth. Some topics are explored with more detail, new characters are introduced, some characters are developed more, and in general it remains interesting while feeling also fresh. And there's a little twist: The game introduces the concept of....how to say it, continuity guardians. Basically, there's creatures trying to make the plot to happen like in the original game. However, you can fight them. And as you do, some plot things change. This has incredible potential and it's a great way to make the remake while changing the plot, and also allowing for a new fear/hope in this one: will Aerith die again, or you'll be able to change things enough to save her? It's a hard question that is not answered in this game, but the fact that now the plot may change opens up this interesting possibility. For sure there are several characters that all of a sudden have survived their previous demise, so it's clear that they're catering a bit to the fans and opening up possibilities. I'm quite excited about this, actually, and I found it was a genius move to go in different directions while having an explanation as to why is that possible, by linking both games as two different dimensions. 

The music...I have mixed feelings. Some songs are amazing as in the original or even improved with the better sound quality. However, some others have been...reduced? They feel more generic somehow, when trying to make them more commercial-like and actual, pop-like, which detracts from the experience. Some themes still caused goosebumps, that's for sure. 

In general, the game is pretty great. However, there's one little detail that made me...not like it as much as the original. And that's the combat length, and the new "padding" sections. The combat, again maybe I missed the previous FFs and it has evolved to be like this, but now every single monster has ungodly amounts of HP, which means that it takes forever to kill even the simplest ones. This feels like cheating, extending the game length and difficulty simply because some bosses require 30-min marathon sessions or similar. There's also the fact that in the original you could train and become god-like yourself, totally breaking the game, but hell, it was fun to achieve that and overpower all the enemies easily and quickly. I feel this change detracts from the game, especially considering I don't always have time to dedicate uninterrupted attention like this. Then there's these "padding" sections, sections where you need to do the same thing 3-4 times instead of just one, like the plate lights or Hojo's lab, apart that this last one breaks an important tense moment and delays it, which reduces drama. It feels a bit of  a copy-paste to extend the game without adding to the plot much and without advancing much, and doing one of these tasks just once would work perfectly well and enough. The game is long enough with the added content, so this feels like "cheating" to claim it's a very long game when some parts are repetitive.  

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, especially the parts that deviate from the original, and the PS5 exclusive section with Yuffie was a lot of fun and quite interesting too, and it was great to see a final secret video after finishing it. 

I have also to comment that playing this made me wanna play the other FFs I played, 8 and 9. I found them remastered and I've been playing 8 again lately, with slightly better graphics but same game. And I have to say, it's awesome still, and I'm enjoying it a lot and finding it was not as long as I remembered. For sure the remakes can be fun, but it's also really good when you can just replay the remastered version, getting all the original content.

Anyway, now I'm waiting for the next instalment to see in which direction they will go...

Music in games

I'm going to discuss the plots of some games, so be aware that I will post some mild (very mild) spoilers in this post. Here we go.

In Mass Effect 3, there are key moments in the plot where you accomplish something really big. Like the genophage cure and the end of the geth-quarian war. And in these moments the music makes you feel again the wonder of the universe with this simple theme from the first game, Vigil. This music is a reminder of the feelings I got playing the first game, when you have a universe to discover, everything is new, and the great scenery impresses you.

The Mass Effect saga understands quite well the importance of good music when creating a story. Plenty of times I feel that the right theme can create emotions and associate states of mind with characters or scenes. I'm not a big fan of certain typical action movies, and therefore sometimes certain music doesn't even register in my brain as something special. For example, in the first Mass Effect game when you become a spectre there is some intense music I could not care less about. However, some games add... something. This something is hard to describe, I can only refer to it as music that connects with you. Sometimes it's energetic, sometimes it's sad and tragic, sometimes it's a soppy love song, but in all the cases that music reaches you deeply, and affects you. I'll put some examples I have from my gaming life. We'll start with a very old one^^:

Sonic 2: Mystic Cave Zone: Sonic 2 is one of the first games I had with my first console, the mega drive. It was a really addictive and fun game, but it had some difficult moments. One of the first stages that spikes the difficulty quite a bit, in my opinion, was Mystic Cave. The earlier stages were not easy, but this one was full of nasty traps, places where you got squashed, enemies that were following you through walls, spikes...and the infamous pit of death, that was inescapable even when you were invincible, so you had to wait to lose your invincibility to properly die and start again. To add to the feeling, we got this music on this stage. You can clearly hear the evilness of the stage, mixed with the feeling that it's laughing at you. It's really awesome.

Soleil: Boss Music:  Since I had the mega drive I didn't play Zelda games...but instead we got this game, Soleil (I think it has a different name depending on the country). I enjoyed it a lot. The plot was really nice and kid-friendly, while having some depth to it. But from time to time, there was some boss fights. The easy ones had special music, but nothing spectacular. And then you fought the big ones, epic fights against powerful creatures, and you got this music, which pumped you up a lot. You had to destroy them, it was urgent, and you had to keep moving and attacking faster and faster...

Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Hell's March: Once I had my first computer, my uncle let me borrow one cd of the first Command & Conquer. It was awesome, and I loved the game. It's true that the game was pretty broken, and both sides had weapons that could destroy you in a matter of minutes even if you had prepared defences, but that was part of the fun^^. After this first game, came C&C: Red Alert. It was still addictive while being a little more balanced, and it came with this music in the intro and during the game. It really motivated me^^.

Final Fantasy VII: Aerith's Theme: Final Fantasies should get a special mention by the number of amazing songs they have, and most of them achieved that something special that I was commenting at the beginning. Whatever you may say about the games, the story they tell is usually quite polished, and the music fits perfectly. In this case I talk about this particular song because of the emotional impact it had. You hear it several times during the game, but the crucial moment, of course, is when Aerith dies. It was traumatizing, after so many hours invested in the game, knowing the characters, one of them died. And then a battle ensues with this music as the background. In one of my replays I went to the bother of getting the ommnislash in disc 1 only to use it against that boss and one-hit the bastard....

Final Fantasy VIII: The Castle: Here again it's hard to pick a song for this game. I didn't select Eyes On Me as the main example because it's a well known song, but the way this song is used is really devastating: The first time it sounds with lyrics, you just rescued Rinoa from a cold death in space. This whole moment is extremely tense, because since Aerith died  in the last game I was not confident Rinoa would survive this one. After several cinematics, lots of text and time with oppressive, minimalistic music, when she's alive, you got an airship and everything is ok, this music sounds and it's a really happy moment. This is repeated in the end: You are lost in time, remembering things that happened without being able to focus on Rinoa, as if something is wrong and does not fit. The images speed up, in a sickening way, and then you get an image of her dying in space, as if you didn't save her, with a single feather on a white floor. I thought for a second they would end it like this (it would have been cruel, but it would have been amazing: The whole time after space you were in some fantasy world, completely broken, and you just now managed to remember what happened: Fade to black, and the end...). And then Eyes on me start playing again, making everything right, and continuing to an amazing ending song, that finishes in a high point, as an example of how to do happy endings correctly, implicating the player in all of it while keeping the tension until the very end. And well, after this long rant...The Castle song is the song of the final dungeon. You arrive to a haunted castle, and this cheerful music starts to play....and then, the organ enters the scene, showing you're in a proper haunted castle, full of tricks, corners, mysteries and secret passages. It creates an eerie atmosphere, and makes this section one of my favourites.

Metal Gear Solid: The Best Is Yet To Come: The first modern Metal Gear is an incredible game: With the graphics of the time, it makes you feel you're in some kind of realistic movie, and I recall it as if the squared graphics were actors shown in HD. The gampeplay is based on stealth and combat while the story punches you at every opportunity with the message "War is REALLY bad", without becoming tiresome or overly dramatic. This song, which appears in some key moments in the game, makes you feel the isolation and the cold in Alaska, mixed with the hopelessness of war, punctuated with some hope once it becomes a little bit more cheerful.

Halo: Mjolnir Mix: I didn't play many different games during a long period of time after the first playstation, and I concentrated more on PC games (Lineage 2). When I re-encountered console games, the first one I played was Halo, and I really loved it. It had simple mechanics, a good story and great gameplay. And the music was excellent as well, guiding the story and making battles so much more epic. The key here, I believe, is that it does not use your typical action music. It adds more...well, weird instruments and sounds, more "futuristic", combined with traditional instruments. It manages to repeat what I commented at the beginning, this feeling of wonder towards the universe and the futuristic places that you're visiting, but this time more action-oriented.  In the 3rd game, even if the campaign itself is pretty short, the music and the story combine to make playing it an incredible experience.

Well, there's more games that could appear on the list, of course, but these games and musics left quite an impression on me^^.