A Fangirl's Opinion - Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

With the release of Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- in Japan, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII should be complete. Many people think the entire Compilation was unnecessary, some think the original is overrated, and some, like me, think it's a mostly good thing. But in any case, this is a response to this post over on LiveJournal's Crisis Core community.

Final Fantasy VII and the rumored remake...
First, I've gotta confess that I only recently finished VII. I was seven when it came out, and only started playing games in 1998 with Pokemon. Zelda came in 2000. Therefore, a few of my opinions concerning the graphics and storyline differ from those who have been long-term fans of it. With that said, VII still ranks higher than most of the games I have played.

I can see why people (such as a friend of mine) say Final Fantasy VII is overrated. It was the first 3D Final Fantasy, so of course it was well-received. Ocarina of Time was the same way. That isn't saying that they were successful only because of their graphics, it's just a note on how they were initially received. And despite similarly awesome Final Fantasy games that came before and after it, VII is the one (at least before XII) usually referred to in comparison to other games. However, I still think it deserves the accolades it has received, and this is why.

The story and characters of VII are amazing. The overall story is simple: save the planet from the crazed pretty-boy trying to destroy it. But it's deeper than that. Cloud isn't your average, confident hero. He's a wreck, mentally and emotionally. While other heroes would get through their problems and be confident enough to deliver the obligatory feel-good message, VII delayed it until Advent Children. (Why not leave it out altogether, Squeenix?) The others have their own issues, as RPG characters will, but they are together enough to help him through the ending.

Another major thing with the characters is how easily you can get into the story and identify with them. I think Cloud's mental insecurity and confusion is a part of that. You, the player, are confused about what's going on. He doesn't know either, so he's easy to sympathize and identify with. A few other Final Fantasies (mostly XII, but X as well) haven't been that easy to get into, at least for me. XII's political intrigue and Vaan's annoying personality kept me from liking it too much. And I kept laughing during the serious moments of X. ("Hey, look, a town was destroyed by Sin! That's hilarious!!")

I believe a remake of VII would be a good thing for the people like me who were unable to play it back then. It would also clear up any mistranslation issues and give the fangirls (a.k.a. me) something new to squeal over. As long as it stays absolutely true to the original, bring it on, Squeenix.

Advent Children and On The Way To A Smile - movie and novella
I hate to make this analogy, but Advent Children is the Paris Hilton of the Compilation - pretty, but not much point to it. That's not to say I don't love it, because I really do. It did bring Cloud's story to a close, resolved the whole "what happened after Meteorfall" issue, and brought everyone back for a spectacular battle that occurred for no good reason. Because really, who needs plot anyway?

On the Way to A Smile was just more backstory, but it was well-written backstory. I especially liked Case of Denzel, because when I saw him in Advent Children, I was thinking, "Hey, it's a young Roxas clone!" I don't know how many people have read them, but it'd definitely worth the time.

Dirge of Cerberus - PS2
Okay, this is the only part of the Compilation I have major problems with. Not with Vincent's story, although I don't really like him that much. The thing I have to say about this to Squeenix is this - STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW!

Shooters are nice if they're well executed. Shooters are not nice if they're clumsily done in an attempt to cash in on Advent Children's popularity. I'm sure they had the best of intentions with it, but it's like playing Shadow the Hedgehog - an angsty guy with a gun looking to resolve him genetically engineered past. This is the one where I agree that the Compilation is a cash-in on VII's success.

Last Order and Before Crisis - anime OVA and cellphone
Nothing much to say about either of these, really. Last Order is a different perspective on the experimentation on Cloud and Zack, their escape, and Zack's (*sob*) death. Plus the Turks from Before Crisis got a cameo. The difference in the events are a part of Cloud's crazy personality, and I'll probably rant more about that later.

I really don't have an opinion on Before Crisis, as I have never played it (the whole 'cellphones' and 'in Japan' thing is a bit of a problem), but it just seems a little pointless. Of course, it does establish the origins of AVALANCHE, but they could've easily put that in the Ultimania Omega guide. Since it probably won't come out in America, I suppose it doesn't really matter much to the Compilation here.

Crisis Core - PSP
Four words - I want this game! If I could understand more than a few words of Japanese, I'd have preordered it from Japan, but my skills are sadly lacking. The FMV's I've seen (i.e. all of them) are amazing, and the story is something that I actually wanted to see. In VII, Zack is an enigma. He dies, Cloud snaps and takes on his life, and that's the last we see of him. Last Order expanded on him and his personality, but this is like...wow. I love Zack. I'll probably talk about him later, but suffice it to say that I believe this time, Squeenix made a title that's more than a cash-in, but a good game on its own.

In Conclusion... (woot!)
Yes, the Compilation is, for some fans, too much. For others, like me, all this extra information is a godsend. Sometimes (most of the time, actually), the game isn't enough. It's the little stories before and afterwards that make a universe complete, and for the most part, Squeenix has done a good job with this one.

The Girl in the Zelda Hat will be covering Final Fantasy for a while until I get Phantom Hourglass!

Voice acting makes all the difference...

Lately, my gaming exploits have been more in the realm of Final Fantasy, along with a little Devil May Cry 3. The other day, though, I had the urge to play Tales of Symphonia again (what with the second episode of the OVA releasing and all), and, well...

"I have flooded the corridor to the Mana Cannon with SEA WATER!!"

Cue me laughing like a maniac for five minutes straight.

Symphonia is your average RPG - save the world, get the girl, etc. - made better by a surprisingly twisting story and some really good characters. The only problem is that said characters are hampered by voices that sound like Namco hired people off the street to get it done on time. (Something like that, I don't know.) There are good voices, like Zelos and especially Botta, but then there's Colette and a good deal of the cast. The above quote was provided by Rodyle, who seemed so proud of his nefarious plan.

I mean, there are good American voice actors. Most of them seem to work with Square Enix. Still, people, try to be a little more motivated for these things! I swear it would make some good games a lot better.

Ganondorf to Ganon - A Late Night Theory

As we all know, our favorite Legend of Zelda villain has made many appearances over the course of the series in one guise or another. Today's random theory deals with him and his transformation from a semi-sane would-be dictator to a maniacal pig...thing. So first, for the sake of my bad memory, here's a list of his appearances and which forms he was in!

The Legend of Zelda: Ganon
Adventure of Link: None, except for being resurrected if you die
A Link to the Past: Ganon, also controlling Agahnim
Link's Awakening: None
Ocarina of Time: Ganondorf, then Ganon, then back to Ganondorf after being sealed
Majora's Mask: None
Oracle series: A mindless, resurrected Ganon
Wind Waker: Ganondorf, Puppet and Phantom Ganon are separate entities
Minish Cap: None
Twilight Princess: Ganondorf, also Dark Beast Ganon and working through Zant

So if we go by my timeline theory that Ocarina is chronologically first, that was when he was born and decided to rule the world. And sometime between the time he was born and the start of the actual game, the Imprisoning War occurred and he got his hands on the Triforce of Power. The Triforce, like Zelda said after the first fight with Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time, is the reason why Ganon exists. Because of his impure heart and desire to control everything, he was unable to control the power of the Triforce and it transformed him into Ganon. His sealing in the Sacred Realm suppressed the powers of the Triforce, which would be why he reappears as (semi-sane) Ganondorf while spinning into the abyss of the Sacred Realm.

So from there we go to Twilight Princess. In this form, his time in the Sacred Realm has apparently unhinged him (although if it's all white like what we saw him spinning into, I don't blame him), and his first sealing is nearly unsuccessful. The Triforce of Power plays a part in this again, reacting to his anger by giving him even more power than before. Still, even though he's gaining more power, he has more control over it, which his transformation to Dark Beast Ganon and back shows. But his defeat at the hands of Link severs his connection to the Triforce for at least a little while, and he is thrown back into the Sacred Realm (or the Twilight Realm, either one).

(Oh, wow. The Twilight Realm. I just had a theory about that, but it'll wait for another day. Back to Ganondorf.)

Right, so in the prologue to Wind Waker, maniacal Ganon gets loose and begins wreaking havoc as usual. The people pray for aid, and he is sealed along with the rest of Hyrule under the Great Sea. However, during this sealing, he apparently has time to think about things, becoming less maniacal and more understandable. Instead of trying to conquer everything for no apparent reason, he wants to conquer everything so he and his people can have a nicer place to live. (At least that's what I got from it. It's better than listening to his crazy laugh as he destroys Hyrule just because he feels like it.) Because of his calmer nature, he has more control over the Triforce, and Ganon only manifests as Puppet and Phantom Ganon. In the end, however, he dies at the hands of little Link and Zelda.

Since the Triforce came together to grant the King's wish and then disappeared (which made me a little mad, actually...), and Ganondorf became sealed with the Master Sword, all three parts of the Triforce returned to the Sacred Realm for another century or so. In that time, more people struggle to obtain the Triforce and someone ends up claiming the Triforce of Power. The problem with that is that Ganondorf held it for at least three centuries (probably longer). The individual pieces of the Triforce end up with people who are most like the ones that held them before (Link and Zelda, anyone?) and in this case, the person who ended up with the Triforce of Power was transformed into Ganon because of his Ganondorf-like nature. The same went on in A Link to the Past. The resurrected Ganon in the Oracle series is nothing more than a shell of the general personality that all the Ganons had.

So that about wraps up this theory of the day! If it makes any sense, that is. Hopefully, it does, so stick around for another theory of the day, along with random, somewhat serious rants about random, somewhat serious topics.

Soundtracks and Imports

At the moment, I'm sitting here listening to the Twilight Princess soundtrack here while really wishing I could get it. I've been searching all over for the past week or so trying to find it so I can download or buy it, with absolutely no luck. For one thing, why couldn't Nintendo have included it with that package they had a while ago? That would have been better than the one they did include. Oh well. Guess I'll have to wait til Blue Laguna gets it or something. (Imports are expensive, and I'm broke.)

The Obligatory Zelda Timeline Theory - Ocarina to Wind Waker

Every Zelda fan has to do a timeline theory at least once in their lives. It's like a tradition or something, passed down from fan to fan until we're all arguing whether there is irrefutable evidence that Wind Waker comes after Twilight Princess while everyone else wonders what the hell's going on. As for me, I follow most people's theories for the first four games, Four Swords Adventures, and Minish Cap, since I've never gotten all the way through them. So this is just my theory for the last four major console games - Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess - and how I think Hyrule developed during those four. (Except in the case of Majora's Mask, which wasn't in Hyrule. Still, I have things to say about it.)

Right. First, obviously I believe that Ocarina is the first in the series. As everyone knows, the goddesses Din, Farore, and Nayru created Hyrule, then left, creating the Triforce and the Sacred Realm when they departed. An evil king rose up from the Gerudo tribe, obtained the Triforce of Power (which was Link's fault...), and took over Hyrule. And a hero rose up, gained the Master Sword and the Triforce of Courage, and defeated him. You know the story. So the question is: what comes after that?

If we're going on location continuity, then Twilight Princess should come after Ocarina/Majora and before Wind Waker. First off, assuming that about a hundred years passed between Twilight Princess and the game before it, the geography of Ocarina had the time to change to that of Twilight Princess (except for a few strangely unexplainable things, like Lake Hylia and Zora's Domain making a sudden jump to the area north of Hyrule Castle). And the Hyrule Castle of Twilight Princess looks like the one from Wind Waker, and the position of the lake behind it makes sense.

Totally lost my train of thought on this, so I'll end it here.

Five minutes later...

Okay, I'm very bored right now. I need to rant about stuff. So I'm going to rant about games, series, and so on that seem to go on and on and on when really, they just need to stop and give everyone something new!!

So the first series I have to do is Pokemon. I'm not saying I don't like Pokemon, because I do. As a matter of fact, Pokemon Yellow was my first game ever. (Unless you count that time I played Rampage...nah.) Still, only the newest players/watchers think that it's original - sorry to burst your bubble, kids, but it really isn't. I can sum up the plot of the games and show in about three sentences. Three short sentences. Let's see: Kid leaves home to become Pokemon Master. Kid runs into Team (insert name here) and defeats them. Kid becomes most powerful trainer on the planet. See, easy.

The trouble with complaining about that is that most of the time when they try something new, it ends up being pretty bad (i.e., Pokemon Ranger, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Channel...you get where I'm going with this). Personally, I think the last really good Pokemon games were Gold, Silver, and Crystal, but maybe I'm just getting old. In any case, Nintendo, when you do something new to try and revive a series, try to do it well. That's all I'm asking. (And maybe a remake of G/S/C, you know...)

The other one that comes immediately to mind is the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII games/movies/etc. I'm almost at a point where I'm saying 'Enough's enough', but not quite because I'd love to see a remake of VII on PS2. But aside from that, there's only so long you can milk a license, and I think VII's about done.

Okay, that's enough of that for now.

Console Wars: Chrystasen Style!

Ah, the wonderful issue of console wars. Everyone is convinced that one will triumph over the other, and thus come to dominate an era of gaming. Even if you're not a fanboy (or fangirl, though that's an entirely different issue sometimes), there's still normally one system you root for over the other, for the sake of a game or a series that'll appear on said console.

I've gotta admit, until last summer, I was a Nintendo fangirl. I still am, a little (Zelda hat, anyone?), but not as much as I was. For one, I've just come to realize how stupid it is to root for one company that has no idea who you are and doesn't really care, as long as you buy their stuff. And I finally got a PS2. That had a lot to do with it. Anyway, the point is, here's a former Nintendo fangirl's opinion on the consoles and what could happen in the industry from now on.

Nintendo: I used to get all indignant when people called Nintendo a kid's company, and I still do, to an extent. The problem is that the DS and Wii sorta lend themselves to 'cutesy' games like Elebits, or 'those weird games from Japan' like Elite Beat Agents. Along with the Wii's appeal to everyone of any age instead of seasoned gamers (except in the case of Twilight Princess), I think Nintendo might be losing (or have already lost) those original gamers who started out on the NES. (Which, weirdly enough, doesn't include me, since I started in 1999 or 2000 with my Game Boy Color. Oh well.)

The only question is: does that really matter? If they do what they say they're going to do, it might not hurt them so much to lose those old gamers. And the lower price might sway some people over. But some people (rich bastards...) care more about gameplay and graphics than price, and it looks as if that might become an issue. Especially in the case of Far Cry: Vengeance, which pretty much every source says was downsized in graphics and gameplay. With the lower, almost current-gen capabilities of the Wii, this'll probably be an issue later on.

Do I think Nintendo can do it? I think they're taking a step in the right direction, with the ability to interact with Miis, the Virtual Console, and everything else that comes with it. But they definitely need to get more third party games on there this time around, and a few more 'mature' games wouldn't hurt, either.

Sony: I've gotta admit, some of the people at Sony scare me. Then again, so does the 600 dollars I'd have to shell out to get a PS3. Not that I'm saying it's not worth it. The graphics I've seen so far are absolutely stunning, and if developers start focusing on gameplay along with making everything look shiny (although I like the shiny), they'll be pretty hard to beat. The only problem I see with the PS3, like everyone else, is...

...the price. 600-someodd dollars for a system is way too much. Add that to the fact that I'd have to get a whole new TV in the thousands-of-dollars range is really way too much. (And I know my current TV wouldn't work. It's a 13-inch, 60 dollar one I got at Wal-Mart about two weeks before Twilight Princess released because my better TV died on me.) In any case, there'd have to be some kick-ass titles and a few price drops before I got a PS3. I think Sony's a strong competitor, they just have to have good and shiny games, not just shiny ones.

Microsoft: The Xbox 360. What can I say about this? Xbox Live and the Achievements are holding people, so truthfully, I'd say Microsoft's perfectly fine. (The inner RPG fangirl in me wants to scream 'DOWN WITH XBOX!!' because there are so few (good ones) on it, but...)

So who do I think will win the console war? Truthfully, no one. At least not in the way people tend to think of as winning. I think as time goes on, each company will move into their own little niche, maybe not to the point where you absolutely have to get the Xbox for great online play, but where it's your preferred system for it. As I just said, the Xbox 360 will most likely have the largest number of the people who like people to know how good they are at what they do. The PS3 will be for the people who don't necessarily care about other people knowing what they've achieved, but more about gameplay (I would say the serious, older gamers, but that might not be the case). As for the Wii, it'll be more towards the family crowd and the longtime Nintendo fanboys and girls.

There you have it: my opinion, nothing more and nothing less. (Although maybe a little rambly. Sorry about that.)

Beginnings, and New vs. Old: Zelda!

Ah, the first post. The post where intentions are stated and all that good stuff. The only problem with that is that I have absolutely no idea what my intentions are for this, except to provide my own commentary on games as they come and go, the people who make said games, and the people who don't like the games. I might throw in some non-game related things in depending on the day and what's happening in the world. It all depends.

So anyway, the first thing on my mind is Zelda. Obviously, since this is called The Girl In The Zelda Hat. I don't know if it's been done, but I was thinking about Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time, trying to figure out which one is better. In other words...comparison time!

Story: Twilight Princess has definitely upped the ante in terms of the storyline and the general 'really getting into what's happening feeling'. In Ocarina, it was all basic - young kid discovers his destiny and goes on to save the world. Not to say that the story didn't have parts that I loved (mostly the parts involving Sheik, and the last scene with Link and Zelda) but it was really all just little things to get you from place to place and eventually defeat Ganondorf. Twilight Princess, on the other hand... While the scenes aren't as cinematic as those in, say, a Square Enix game, the epic, 'Omigod, I've really gotta save Hyrule' feeling definitely comes through. And the good thing is that there's story apart from the saving Hyrule. Sure, some involves getting Ilia's memory back, or saving Colin, but it's a start! So yeah, TP's story wins out.

Atmosphere: It's kinda hard to compare an N64 game to a GameCube (and Wii...) game in terms of graphics. But the general atmosphere can be more important than graphics (I play handheld games more than consoles, so trust me on this), which is why this one's a tie. Both of them had this feeling that you're really wandering through Hyrule as an intrepid green-clad adventurer with an annoying sidekick. And although Zelda is nowhere near as horrific as some other games I could mention, three areas, namely Ocarina's Shadow Temple and the Palace of Twilight and Hyrule Castle in Twilight Princess had me freaked out. Meh, enough rambling on this, though. They're tied.

Music: My favorite category. Koji Kondo has done the music in most of the Zelda games I've played, along with someone else for Wind Waker. I'm pretty sure he came back for TP, though I can't be sure, because the soundtrack just screams 'good old Zelda!' at me. A lot of people are complaining because it's not fully orchestrated, which doesn't really matter too much to me. Okay, I take that back, it does a little, especially after playing Final Fantasy X, but still... Definite improvements in the fact that there's a little music at night, and the sheer freakiness of Hyrule Castle, so of course this goes to Twilight Princess.

If I think of more categories later, I'll add them in later posts. Gotta run for now, but more rambling shall come soon!