The Last of Us Part II

Name: The Last of Us Part II

Platform: PS4 (2020)

My partner does not play video games. Last fall, we moved in together and I began learning how to balance playing games while living with a partner who does not have interest in them. On occasion, my partner will catch a glimpse of what I'm playing or sit and watch for a few minutes. It wasn't until The Last of Part II that she asked that I not play a game while she was around, and I honestly can't blame her.

In 2015 I was able to get a used PS4 with The Last of Us Remastered pre-installed on it. Having not owned a PlayStation 3, I kicked off my next-gen gaming by playing through it. Between high school and college I had done the majority of my gaming on the Xbox 360, and was intimately familiar with third person shooters of the era. The Last of Us Remastered was easy for me to pick up, and I enjoyed the characters and plot for the most part. 

Coming to the sequel seven years later, I'd become more jaded when hearing games press discuss the "cinematic" or "prestige TV-like writing" of large budget games. I'd avoided most of the discourse about the game on release, knowing that it was praised in similar ways to the first game and that it had received a PS5 update that I could play on my shiny new machine. I had read an article about the game's themes of violence and revenge and how the game's director had directly been inspired by the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, as well as reporting of overwork and crunch the development team underwent. This didn't paint a positive picture to me going in, but I endeavored to try the game and draw my own conclusions from it.

As I played through the first 5 hours, I was impressed by the presentation. The game certainly looked and sounded incredible, and I enjoyed exploring the wider portions of the game. One thing quickly became apparent - this game was violent and gross. Whether you were dispatching screaming mushroom zombies or regular humans, every stealth kill had the camera spin and zoom in to show just how much time was spent making each assassination look and sound as disgusting as possible. 

These displays were gruesome, even for me who had played my fair share of violent games. At first, my partner didn't say anything as she sat with me or passed by the room as I played. But after the dozens of times time she saw me stab a human in the neck, she was getting tired of it. After a week or so of play, she asked if I could stop playing it while she was around. I couldn't blame her for asking, and after one or two more sessions while she was out I decided I was done with it too.

Maybe I would have stuck with The Last of Us Part 2 if we weren't living together, but I'm not so sure. While the game's opening hours were gripping, by the 5 hour mark I was wondering if I had seen what much of the gameplay would be for the 20-30 hour long story. Was it that I didn't trust the plot to make something of meaning out of this violence? Was it the graphic fidelity of 4K, 60 FPS brain splatter while enemies called out their dying friend's names before I killed them too? I think a little of column A, a little of column B.

More than anything, The Last of Use Part II helped me consider my own gaming habits and how they affect people around me. Even if I was completely enamored by the game, I don't think I would want to play something I could only cram in while my partner was away. There are so many games out there to enjoy, and I'm more interested in some we can enjoy together. 

FF7R EPISODE INTERmission

Name: Final Fantasy 7 Remake EPISODE INTERmission

Platform: PS5 (2021), PC (2022)

 *Note - this post includes specific plot spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Remake and discusses the narrative arc of EPISODE INTERmission, but does not include specific plot spoilers*

When discussing Final Fantasy 7 as a complete work, the starting place is easy - the 1997 release of Final Fantasy 7 on the Playstation. Launching Square Enix's (just Squaresoft back in 1997)'s beloved RPG series into the third dimension, the game enjoyed enormous success. For many in the west, FF7 was an introduction into "JRPGs", seen at the time as largely turn-based combat affairs that blended combat and exploration into a lengthy, multi-disc journey.

Prior to FF7, some of the mainline Final Fantasy games saw some kind of continuation through materials outside the main game. Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals took place hundreds of years after FF5, though connections to the plot of FF5 were tenuous given the long stretch of time between. Beginning in 2004, Square Enix embarked on what it would call The Compilation of Final Fantasy 7. The Compilation would include a half dozen media projects including anime, games, and 3D movies throughout the first decade of the new century. While gaming media and fans were excited for new visions into the world of FF7, releases like Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children saw mixed reception upon release. After releasing a torrent of FF7 related media, Square Enix concluded its compilation and focused on releasing versions of the original game on modern consoles and PC.

Despite the mixed reception of games in the compilation, one project excited games media and fans for close to a decade - the idea of a remake of FF7. First shown as a tech demo in 2005 for the newly releasing PlayStation 3, many who saw the demo interpreted it as an intent to remake the game with updated visuals while retaining its traditional gameplay. Over a decade after the tech demo release, Square Enix confirmed that development on Final Fantasy 7 Remake was underway for release on the PlayStation 4. It was teased as just the start of the Remake, focusing on the game's opening in Midgar and allowing more space to explore it while saving additional content for future titles. On release, players learned that Remake was more of a verb than a noun; the game's plot finds the player fighting against the expectations of the story continuing as it did in 1997, and instead left the players with the idea that this Remake would see substantial changes to the FF7 cannon. 

Twenty years have passed since the original game's release, and more than a decade since the conclusion of The Compilation. The previous compilation focused on releasing ancillary stories taking place before, during, and after the main plot of FF7. On the games front, the compilation saw releases on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and mobile phones. This strategy of multiple releases on multiple platforms was not unique to The Compilation, particularly in the days before HD-quality graphics technology. In 2020, games played on different consoles (and even on cell phones) resemble each other much more closely than the era of The Compilation Square Enix themselves had already struggled to enter the HD era alongside countless of other JRPG studios throughout the 2010's. Digital distribution and modern concepts of downloadable content and digital-only games saw a similar upheaval. How then would FF7R and its supporting narratives be affected?

inal Fantasy 7 Remake EPISODE INTERmission focuses on Yuffie Kisaragi, an optional character that could be recruited into the party in FF7. While Yuffie and her home of Wutai had stories and places the player could explore, it was designed to be separate from the "main plot" of the game. Designers had to create a pathway that allowed for players to completely ignore her. Such a concept today is unthinkable - why spend money and development time on content that a player may not engage with? 

EPISODE INTERmission balances this line along with a market reality; it's content can't be too closely tied to the main narrative, in order to make sure players who only played FF7R (as well as those who may have skipped both) can be marketed to to buy the next FF7R game on release for $70. Ancillary stories like this need to strike a balance of being interesting to players while not being "vital" enough to split the player base and affect potential sales in the future. True to this, the story of EPISODE INTERmissino takes place in the background of the main game's plot. While there are a few glimpses of the cast from FF7R, Yuffie's story is mostly contained to either new characters exclusive to the DLC or characters who appear infrequently and can focus on Yuffie without taking attention away from the main cast.

EPISODE INTERmission feels like a success built on top of previous missteps. The previous release, Final Fantasy 15, also saw a series of DLC focusing on party and side characters from the main game. These side excursions were much more pronounced in the main game, and felt more like missing content; every party member at some point disappears and has some physical change happen to them before returning to the party with little explanation. It reminded me of the much-mocked red arm for C-3PO in the new Star Wars trilogy; an in-your-face excuse to tell (read, sell) additional content that ultimately wouldn't affect the "main plot". 

I can't recall any time in FF7R that felt like it was trying to sell this additional content - it runs in parallel, and callbacks to the main plot feel like a better way of tying them together instead of using the main game to push this content. The plot grows to focus not only on Yuffie, but newcomer Sonon and his motivations on taking down Shinra. As I finished up the game, it was easy to see the points where a single dialogue conversation with Yuffie  in FF7R2 could quickly get a player up to speed. 

Despite these market pressures on the story of EPISOED INTERmission, I enjoyed its smaller focus on the world of FF7R. I've seen others criticize it as inconsequential, or filler. Arguing the importance of its cannon is impossible, given that we don't know the scope of FF7R and all of its future releases. I would argue a major theme of the remake so far has been bringing together these disparate parts of The Compilation to make one new, more cohesive story bringing in all the parts of the cannon that its creators see fit to. For the market based reasons I described already, I think it's unlikely that Sonon or other characters from this will be meaningfully integrated into the "main" plot of FF7R. I also think it's fine for such media to exist, and give players the opportunity to see the world from the perspective of new characters. In a time where all media seems to focus on drawing together as much content as possible in overarching stories, its nice to have a short visit back to the world that captivated me last year.  

Super Robot Pinball

Name: Super Robot Pinball

Platform: Game Boy Color (2001)

Growing up with Toonami, I had the opportunity to watch Mobile Fighter G Gundam, The Big O and a handful of other mecha anime. I also had my typical teenage infatuation with Evangelion. It wasn't until 2020 I really *got* into mecha anime, primarily through a virtual watch-along of the three Gundam compilation movies with friends. Sorting through over forty years of mecha anime, I found myself spending more time reading forum posts and watching Youtube videos than I did with the source material. The ever expanding cannon of mecha before me felt both daunting and exciting.

Domo's Golden Finger shouts were some of the first Youtube videos I watched

Before this mecha journey, I had a passing familiarity with Super Robot Wars. I'd actually played one of the few games officially translated into English, Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier. I had no idea at the time that it had any relationship to Gundam or the other mecha I knew, and for good reason - it happened to be a release in the sub-franchise that featured only Banpresto characters and a couple of Namco Bandai cameos. When I tried to learn more about the core Super Robot Wars games, I was overwhelmed. Dozens of games across nearly as many consoles, with only a handful fan translated into English. It didn't help that I'm often intimidated by strategy roll-playing games, and that there was no clear "starting" point I could find. Podcasters and articles I found spoke highly of the music, animations, and the amusing "what if" crossovers across Super Robot Wars games. After cycling through a couple of fan translation download pages, I shook my head and told myself I'd be wasting my time.

In the final days of 2021, a fan translation was released for Super Robot Pinball. I'd never heard of it before, and only saw its release because of a Romhacking.net tweet. "Man, this looks a lot like Pokemon Pinball," I thought to myself while looking at the four included screenshots on the translation page. I spent a month of 2020 learning how to mod my Gameboy Color with an IPS screen, and decided to load up the game to play on it. 

As the opening credits scrolled past, I recognized the Jupiter logo from the handful of Picross games I'd played on Nintendo platforms. I hadn't realized that the same Jupiter made Pokemon Pinball, and that Super Robot Pinball was released just two years after Pokemon. How could Jupiter possibly follow up the iconic designs of Pokemon? It turns out that chibi versions of everyone's favorite mecha and their enemies is a good substitution. 

The game feels like a refined version of Pokemon Pinball, most notably switching from a two-screen transitioning field to a scrolling field. I'm not the most experienced virtual pinball player, but the scrolling field made the table feel more cohesive and fun to shoot around. I found myself impressed with the light RPG elements. Pokemon Pinball incorporated traditional pinball design alongside a "shoot to catch" system that has the player shooting the ball into sprites of each Pokemon. Super Robot Pinball more closely resembles a menu-based RPG, with options like attack and healing mapped to specific routes on the board. While there were RPG trimmings like character stats and special attacks, they felt mostly inconsequential to the gameplay. I was free to pick Eva unit 2 to fight against a Z'Gok, as long as I hit the right attack sequence. 

Battles in Super Robot Pinball opened my eyes to the greater Robot Wars connection. Like in those games, the sprite work in Super Robot Pinball is superb. Chibi renditions of nearly a hundred characters are beautifully drawn in some of the best sprites I've seen on the platforms. Each also has a couple of unique animations alongside great chiptune renditions of their theme songs. I picked Eva Unit 1 for every fight at first just so I could keep hearing the game's rendition of Cruel Angel's Thesis (an absolute banger of course). I finally got over my Evangalion fixation to try some of the rest of the cast including shows I was unfamiliar with. Thanks to a Library function, it was easy to check which series a character came from as well as watch loops of their fight animation. 

Look at the cute lil' Sachiel!!

As I looped between games of pinball and dives into the Library, I felt like I was beginning to understand the appeal of the Super Robot Wars games. It turns out its fun to watch the mecha you like bash into each other like virtual figurines. Robot Wars' strategy RPG gameplay intimidated me, and pinball allowed me to dip my toes into the franchise without the weight of mainline games. 

I am unsure if I will ever try a Super Robot Wars game, though the recently released Super Robot Wars 30 certainly caught my eye. Super Robot Pinball took what I thought was an intimidating game and got me to have fun in its world.