Okay. Going to start my FF7R playthrough thread here.

Going to try to avoid mid-to-big spoilers, but if you don't want to chance it, I'm going to tag all these (and any other images/videos) with #DiaPlaysFF7R, so mute that.

Square is still very good at creating compelling and engaging world aesthetics.

But...

They've really lost any capacity to communicate senses of both space and place. #DiaPlaysFF7R

The individual components in the reactor area, Sector 8, and the Slums are great and seem to arise from a cohesive understanding of what this world is, but the actual construction of these spaces, how they're inhabited, and are communicated feels empty and game-y. #DiaPlaysFF7R

There's a distinct lack of tone and tempo in these spaces. They feel flat and too vast (even when cramped). There's an amorphous quality to them like KOTOR or basically any Ubisoft game. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Which, like, in a sense. I do get it. Those are hard things to control moving away from pre-renders. Free cameras and the permissiveness to movement of contemporary 3D games makes this level of direction difficult.

But... *points at Dark Souls* it's not impossible. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Also, aside from Hip Hop de Chocobo...

I hate the music, which is just so nothing it can't bring any sense emotional cohesion. Square has always been great about music as a resonance anchor. Glue that affixes player to the sense of these spaces to meaning. #DiaPlaysFF7R

But here it's all very wink and nod and "oh see we're not limited by the PS1 audio chip anymore, but you remember this, right? It's 'prettier' now." It's hitting very flatly for me (e.g. The Shinra Corporation theme? It's lost all menace. It's toothless here). #DiaPlaysFF7R

The reimagining of Cloud is interesting though. He's much less of an asshole. He's honestly kinda genial and sensitive, just not wanting to appear it. He's not really aggressively standoffish like the original. #DiaPlaysFF7

There's something here about Cloud wanting & failing to achieve a certain kind of Impenetrable Masculinity, and ending up in an in-between state, where he can't find the access to emotion he wants, but can't even really maintain the hotshit pretense out of combat. #DiaPlaysFF7

He kind of ends up the loser boyfriend who doesn't want to sit on the couch playing Xbox, but is really reluctant to get his shit together because of what that might mean. But so far he's not the overcooked traumatized jerk characterization of the original.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

I like Jesse and Tifa. I'm glad they're getting more room to breathe in small ways. Especially Jesse.

Also move over Tifa/Cloud/Aerith shippers.

It's Jesse/Tifa, and it's fraught. I'm holding firm. #DiaPlaysFF7

Tifa is every bisexual girl who tries so hard to make a whole man out of her dopey fragile boyfriend, when Jesse is right there with her shit already together, swallowing her frustrated longing, and waiting with the strapon harness hanging from her bed post. #DiaPlaysFF7

Seriously though, Tifa's introduction here is really kind of charming and feels fitting in a way her original writing didn't have space or consideration for. #DiaPlaysFF7

Her childhood boyfriend comes to town after five years and she gets him a free apartment (a nice one compared to the rest of the Slums) and then drives him to job interviews and peps him up. She's doing so much work here. #DiaPlaysFF7

Here's my question: What characterization of Tifa do I (we?) remember that genuinely, and directly, comes from the original text? Because I remember her as being fairly nothing aside from her big trauma reveal and lingering crush on Cloud. Everything else is fanfic. #DiaPlaysFF7

Like... Tifa = punchy, big bap, big trauma, vague love interest.

Every additional layer, as I recall, comes from friends and fans affixing their own meaning to her.

#DiaPlaysFF7

So, seeing her get an actual personality (even if it's in contrast to some of those dearly held outside ideas) is great if simply bc it gives me something to bite into and chew on. I'm actually invested in Tifa being in my party for the first time in twenty years? #DiaPlaysFF7

Okay, stagger is boring. Stagger is EXTREMELY boring. And that's really all there is? I'm not seeing any potential where the depth expands beyond "how do you achieve stagger on X?" Which ... it's all focused on using elemental weakness and damage thresholds? Yawn. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Which coming off of a game with genuine mechanical complexity (Treachery in Beatdown City), it creates a meaningless tension between feeling visually good to wreck shit, but systemically underwhelming. #DiaPlaysFF7R

The whole "you gotta walk real close to people to trigger their incidental dialogue, but also we have weird reactive collision detection on them so you just come across as this really invasive douchebag with no spatial awareness" thing isn't my fave. #DiaPlaysFF7R

I just sat through the whole new take on the Prelude theme while writing that last tweet, and I gotta say...I'm not a fan. It's just so burdened with extraneousness now. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Everyone in the Sector 7 Slums is either a Real Cool Guy, a lesbian, a mom, or a cat. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Yes, Square-Enix. We get it. You run a hugely successful MMO. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Why do I have to HOLD Triangle to flip a switch? This is silly. #DiaPlaysFF7R

The motorcycle fight with Jesse is probably the first time I really felt like this game knew what its pedigree is, but also what it's capable of. Also, the zone immediately after is the first that feels like it has a cohesive identity and context. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Okay, I finished the Sector 7 Factory mission with Jesse, Biggs, & Wedge, and honestly ... Yes.

Video games are good again.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Gonna unpack my feelings about this section a bit. #Spoilers for FF7R.

Finally decent music, and a sense of cohesion to space. The Shinra housing district feels real and present. There's a clear identity and it's conveyed well partly bc it's very controlled. #DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

The facial animators really sell this section. The characters still grossly animate like they're acting in a middle school play, but that more or less works given the melodramatic nature of shonen anime bullshit FFs/JRPGs trade in. #DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

But there's a great deal of nuance to Cloud's face in his reactions to Jesse's flirtations, the reveal of her father's illness, Biggs and Wedge expressing a mixture of hero worship and camaraderie he didn't expect or ask for, and can't deal with #DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

I actually really love what we see of Jesse here, both directly and in how Biggs, Wedge, & Cloud see her?

It's easy to dismiss the surprise comatose parent and her tragic backstory as cheap and trope, but it works. It comports with the world. #DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

Earlier today I saw a thread arguing that Jesse exists as a titillating fantasy, that she's just here to flirt bomb Cloud. And I see how you get there, but that's too easy and shallow a read. Especially given how it's addressed in the fiction.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

Jesse's a middle class, pretty girl who gravitated to the theater and ended up starring in a production at the Golden Saucer. She became radicalized through personal tragedy. There's a lot going on in just these bits that is pretty revelatory? #DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

Jesse likes (and is good at) pretending to be someone she's not. Her radicalization was through personal tragedy, is a coping mechanism, just like her aggressive flirting. And it seems likely these were preexisting traits fashioned into armor. #DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

And Jesse *literally* wears sexualized, fashion armor.

She also likes to blow things up. You really don't get closer to metaphorized, externalized emotion than that.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

#Spoilers for FF7R

But she also is deeply concerned about her explosives causing unnecessary harm. She knows it's inevitable, but she wants to reduce that to the bare minimum. She's kind of a neat counterpoint to Cloud in this regard #DiaPlaysFF7R

Anyway this was a really well done section that builds out characters and relationships that we never really got before but adds a great deal of specific & global depth and humanity in a very tidy and fun shonen anime package.

Also the music rips here.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

So one weird thing is that I'm really having a hard time investing in these characters on a systemic level? Like even if this game is 40+ hours, and even if there is an "end boss" because I know it isn't ENDING here (properly) I just don't care about building them? #DiaPlaysFF7R

And any future game is going to come out for PS5 at the earliest, if at all, and I've heard nothing about porting your save at the end or anything like it. So it's safe to assume it's a fresh start in the next game whatever that is. So it feels pretty pointless? #DiaPlaysFF7R

Remembering the Crab Warden fight and I think the thing is that all of the boss fights feel like FFXIV 2.0 bosses where you're definitely overleveled but you're running brand new players through by yourself. #DiaPlaysFF7R

I think I honestly want way more dungeon trash in this game? Things just feel a little too empty, and the combat is satisfying enough that I kind of just want me and my squad of ultimate earth justice badasses to get to go apeshit.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Like the trip to Reactor 5 almost feels like a proper modernization of old JRPG dungeons, but it doesn't wear me out. I get to the end of it with plenty of resources. I can even stock up along the way and rest. Which is fine, but also...

Why even do it then?

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Cloud & Co. really need just a bit more poise. Also a way to cancel at least some animations. Because getting stunlocked repeatedly for five minutes on some bullshit while you're wrestling with the camera to get your bro over to your other bro to help sucks.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

The interrupts come so fucking hard and fast and they are relentless with them. But like...

Do /I/ get an interrupt?

No. I just get "you see that pressure meter? You can increment it."

Still good shit all in all. But I maintain combat system gripes.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Y'all. I hate this weapon upgrade galaxy shit. This is the most convoluted UI. And I don't really feel like it's hanging together? I'm ~15 hours in and it still really feels like I'm dealing with SL10 Dark Souls characters who really haven't hit their builds yet. #DiaPlaysFF7R

#FF7spoilers

It cracks me up there's this very low stakes handwringing moment over the giant sun lamps and how that means the Slums will be plunged into darkness with no "Sun", but...

That is clearly not the case given the horizon shots?

Cracks me up.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

God when you don't control a character in FF7R they're just absolutely moronic.

Tifa who has lightning material just sat there punching a wall instead of casting Thunder on the turret on the other side. Even Donald Duck is less worthless.

#DiaPlaysFF7

#FF7Rspoilers

Okay, but like...

All JRPGs are basically about kicking Fate/Destiny/Determinism in the dick and saying "I love my friends, God."

So I'm not sure that I can care all that much about this iteration.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

#FF7Rspoilers

Sure, it's not a bad way to do this kind of metanarrative work about fandom and canon and AU and textuality. But also, I'm just not sure how coherently deployed it is, or why we're doing it here, now, with this.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

There's so much dead weight in this game that exists just because.
I got /nothing/ out of the "let's take the rooftops, no but for real, let's take the rooftops, come on cloud, the fucking rooftops, let's do it." That the original didn't do in 20 seconds. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Video games, like YouTube video game vloggers, need fucking editors. #DiaPlaysFF7R

#ff7rspoilers

Damn. Rude is no joke.

And not spectacularly worth it as a fight.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Cloud really isn't an asshole in this. Like he's even /pretty/ chill around kids. And these orphans are annoying in the way only 7yos can be.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Ms. Folia, or how watching uplifting dramas about overly devoted educators will ruin your life. #DiaPlaysFF7

Am I scamming these children out of participation award Moogle Medals?

Absolutely.

It's wild how much you can get done in 1:30.

Move over tomato timer, I'm going to clean the whole apartment and have 100 of these shits.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Fuck these kids. #DiaPlaysFF7R

So does MATK impact elemental damage from attacks or just spells? This font is too small for me to read to tell from direct observation.

#DiaPlaysFF7

Failing this ridiculous stealth section repeatedly to force Aerith to CLEAN HER DAMN HOUSE. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Why is Leslie just What if Cloud But Steve Buscemi?

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Wall Market was both so much less than it needed to be and so extremely too much more.

But the last couple of boss fights really crystallized just how over this combat system I am.

Probably going to drop it to Easy and snooze through it from here on out.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Take it from someone who replays Wizardry games for fun...

These dungeons are fucking boring. Oh my god.

Shinra Tower better really fucking nail it, or I'm going to scream.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Tifa's leopard print rubber dress is fire tho.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

I like Tifa in this game. It's fun peeking over (or taking direct control) and just watching dozens of numbers burst up on a dude like you're hitting them dead on with submachine guns in Borderlands. Or when she goes ripshit with that breakthrough stagger.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Which is why it's a shame that FF7R isn't capable of handling what it offloads onto her most often. And it's weird, like, everyone but Barret (and I guess Biggs and Wedge) end up pushing against revolutionary violence simply because "well someone has to say it" #DiaPlaysFF7R

Which is a weird choice. Like, you don't /have/ to do that. But to fully realize a character like Tifa, it makes sense to. But for her, this is her thing. And it needs to be written in a way that makes sense and isn't just perfunctory.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

There needs to be a space for Tifa, and really just Tifa, to go "I know these people. I see them every day. I pour their drinks, I listen to their bullshit. I care about them, and I am not okay with treating them as collateral damage" is a real and valid thing. #DiaPlaysFF7R

And then that needs to be dealt with in as equally a meaningful way. Like, if you're going to give voice to this, and problematize this character when we're all rooting "Fuck yeah, blow up Shinra" - you need to Do The Thing.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Maybe she doesn't come around. Maybe she's like "No you know, this is a line I have to draw." And then what do you do with that person? How does Tifa square w her Avalanche cell when she sticks to this? What changes when her beliefs are treated as real, intrinsic?
#DiaPlaysFF7R

But having her voice her concerns and then shut down in literally the line of dialogue it cheapens her & the thesis. It makes that inquiry worthless, but doesn't prop up the main claim that this is Necessary and that means innocent people we care about will suffer. #DiaPlaysFF7R

Jesse has similar problems. She /is/ plate people. And she wants to minimize the damage she does, but still believes in doing it. She never goes beyond this. Which sucks bc Tifa is right there & the two positions could have an interesting tension if developed fully. #DiaPlaysFF7R

We get a lot about how she copes with trauma in one specific way. But we never get her trauma/feelings about it in a real sense. She's just quasi-fucky as coping mechanism. It's a major let down given the time devoted to long dungeons and mostly tedious sidequests.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Having actually gone through Wall Market. I think I'm actually chillier on it than like everyone else I know.

Like, I think it might actually suck harder than the original? Dunno.

Following it up with the sewers sucks. A lot.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

Also the whole "lmao look we changed incidental dialogue to street harassment isn't that daring and clever and funny of us?" is trash.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

The only good thing about the Sewers is how aggressively it panders to the Aerith/Tifa shippers. Because whoa buddy. You can even pinpoint the exact moment Cloud realizes he'll aways just be their service sub.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

The funny thing about Aerith/Tifa in the Sewers is that it really comes out of nowhere. There's no reason for these characters to interact in this way. They've just met. Suddenly they're in fanservice low key yuri mode.

#DiaPlaysFF7R

And yes, Remake does play with the legacy and text and player understanding of the original. And yes, I have definitely been the girl hanging out with a friend who has immediately hit it off with his girlfriend... But none of that really conveys here #DiaPlaysFF7R