Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. February is a gift that just keeps giving. We began with Endwalker and now we have a whole bunch of other Final Fantasy news. And it also proves that SE considers the Final Fantasy VII compillation its most valuable IP, because all three new games are related.
The first one is called The First Soldier. And odd one out in the series that is not something C. This will be a mobile battle royal where you play, well one of the first SOLDIERs. So according to this game the SOLDIER project was in full swing even before the JENOVA project was launched and lead to Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth. You have regular dudes with no alien DNA but a truckload of Mako infusion who fight it out around Midgar in whatever training Shinra deems necessary. It's less plot than what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but this is what it is. An excuse to fight others in Midgar. Also if you are wondering, this is still the old continuity before the remake. We know this because....
We are going to get another mobile game. That one if Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. This is a weird one. It will go over the entire story of the compillation from TFS (not team four star) and Before Crisis (formerly a Japanese only mobile game) all the way to Dirge of Cerberus (poorly received shooter featuring totally not vampire Vincent Valentine). Supposedly it will be chapter based and you can decide which chapter you want to do regardless of completing the others or not. Even with that it will be hard to follow the chronology as events often overlap. There are two pivotal points in the story. The Nibelheim incident (Sephiroth going crazy) and Meteorfall (the endgame of the original Final Fantasy VII).
Before Crisis is like a B-plot where the Turks do their own thing behind the scenes. It begins before even Crisis Core, but has the Nibelheim incident about halfway in and the endgame is during Meteorfall. Crisis Core is pretty straightforward. It ends a little bit before Final Fantasy VII, although it always bothered me that it suggested that only a few hours pass between the two, but Tifa already arranged from Cloud to have a job with AVALANCHE. Anyway things go on smoothly untill the end of Advent Children. Apparently we will be able to play the events of AC which is amazing. Then you have the arleady mentioned Dirge of Cerberus which begins during Meteorfall. Or at least shows it during the opening, but mostly it is after AC. Ever Crisis will cover it all, and supposedly will even include extra stuff. Like the early years of Sephiroth. Now I must stress that we never got the chance to play as him. In fighting games, yes, but never in single player games. I don't think I want to see him struggle with sahagin and cactuars as a fresh recruit, but this mighth be a good chance to give us a taste of true power and provide extra content.
And now for the largest and most controversial of the reveals: The PS5 version. Now obviously a PS5 version is no surprise. It looks even better on the PS4Pro and runs faster. Okay, it takes advantage of the new hardware. Nothing wrong with that. BUT, because there's always a but. It includes something that made many people upset and rightfully so. A PS5 exclusive DLC. Yes, you can't even by it on the PS4. You have to upgrade to an out of stock console to play the new story confent. Now adding payed DLC is bad enogh when you cut down what used to be a full game into god nows how many parts that each cost as much as a full game yet don't give the same whole story or the open world feel. But making that story DLC platform exclusive is just wrong. Admittedly it is an ever greater incentive than the graphic updates, but I sincerely hope that Square Enix reconsiders this idea and makes the DLC available for PS4 players as well.
But enough about this, I'm not the Money Hungry Corporations Vampire. I am the Lore Vampire. Let us look at the DLC itself. Episode Yuffie.
In the original timeline and game Yuffie was an optional party member that you didn't have to recruit, but if you didn't you missed out on some very cool stuff. Like the cutest and funniest Gold Saucer date, or the whole Wutai questline. In my first playthrough I was worried that she won't be strong enough if her stats are too low, so I only gave her materia that boost stats. This ended up turning her into an unstoppable monster. Good times. She isn't very popular in the west due to her age appropriate behaviour and her initial mistrust of the party that includes several members of the company that turned her homeland into a theme park. But she appears in every installment of the compillation so she probably has a strong fanbase in Japan. Now I already mentioned in a previous blog entry how much I like how her foreignness is portrayed. It is an important plot point and crucial to her character development. Which, in my oppinion, the only way to portray exotic characters. I mention all this because most of what I like about Yuffie seemed to have disappeared in the timeline of the Remake. More on that later. First the good part:
So one thing is for sure. Yuffie looks amazing. And I don't mean it in a pedophilic weeb way. Look at pictures and videos of episode Yuffie and compare her looks to Advent Childen. The hair quality alone improved a lot. She also seemed to have aged up a bit. Not surprisingly her combat style also changed. In the Original she was strictly ranged, but one giant shuriken that works like a boomerang doesn't translate well to fun action combat. So now instead she plays a bit like the TERA online ninja. She jumps, she cuts and mows down everything. The animations look great. Interestingly enough one of her attack aninmations include mapple leaves. A much more original choice than the cliché sakura petals.
Storywise we are looking at a B-plot much like Before Crisis, Yuffie comes to Midgar to steal some kind of special Materia from Shinra with the help of AVALANCHE. But not the AVALANCHE we know. This is a different cell. We do see the main gang from afar, but we don't join them. This by the way is set during Cloud's time in the slums with Aerith. We get to see what went on the plates. Frankly this is a great idea. It expands the world, but it is no big deal if you miss it. We don't know how long the DLC will be, how many chapters it will cover, but I would hazard that at least two. For one, Yuffie starts the game wearing a moogle costume as a disguise, but in several scenes she is seen without it. Plus while the story begins near 7th Heaven there are many scenes inside what is most likely a Shinra base. And what is inside that base is even more interesting. Yuffie will have a run in with Deepground, the main enemy force in Dirge of Cerberus. In the original timeline they were deep underground, hence the name, and only managed to climb out after Midgar was devastated by Meteor. Apparently things will be slightly different here. Then again in DoC it was Vincent and Yuffie who did most of the fight against Deepground, so it makes sense for her to encounter them.
Now on to the bad part. Oh dear. So in the trailer Yuffie introduces herself to us and AVALANCHE as an agent of the Wutai government. This might be a lie, but considering Heidegger mentioned that he needs an excuse to attack Wutai, we can at least infer that they are not a theme park in this continuity. Which is kinda problematic. While there are many different places in Final Fantasy VII it still has a more or less western aesthetic, and Wutai stands out. Of course Don Corneo's mansion also has asian elements, but it was always assumed to be from Wutai as well. Now in the original Wutai wasn't far eastern just to be cool. It was a plot point. Because it was different, Shinra decided to turn it into a tourist attraction which of course angered the population who used various methods to restore them to their former glory. This was the motivation of Yuffie as well. She didn't just steal materia because she was a kleptomaniac. She wanted to use those to arm her homeland. So now Wutai is a completely free state with an active government. Okay. All the heroes of the Wutai war didn't accomplish anything at all, Wutai's difference is no longer a plot point and both Yuffie and her father Godo lost their motivation. So far so good. Speaking of Godo. In the original she was acting on her own and her relationship with her father was strained to say the least. Godo was the Suzaku to Yuffie's Lelouch. But even though he does not openly fight against Shinra he still cares deeply for his home and for his daughter, But Yuffie only learns this when she finds the courage to stand up to his father and the strength to beat him in battle. This shows how much she has grown both as a person and as a warrior. Growth is very important. If you start with a cool character and don't go anywhere, you end up with Rey. And I fear that the new direction Nomura and his team are taking Yuffie and Wutai will deprive her of just that. What made either of them great in the original is changing. Obviously Wutai will look amazing on screen when we get there. But looks without substance won't make another classic. Nomura should understand this as he worked on the original. I'm worried, but I will keep an open mind as we learn more.
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