This article contains hella spoilers for Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and a Thornton Wilder play. It happens. If you wish to experience FF7R untainted by foreknowledge, you have been warned. Now back to that play…
In 1938, Thornton Wilder released Our Town. For anyone that has not seen or read the play, it is a deliberately simple production that showcases three different stages in the lives of the residents of Grover’s Corners. It begins with a focus on “daily life”, like children going to school and milk being delivered, proceeds to “love & marriage” with a joyous and stressful wedding day, and finally ends with “death and eternity”, a supernatural visit with the spirits literally haunting the local cemetery. The whole while, the play is hosted by the Stage Manager, a character that bleats his dialogue against the fourth wall. This “manager” separates their role between being a character in Grover’s Corners, narrator, and a congenial guy (or lady) that addresses questions from the audience. The Stage Manager and the general tone of the whole production was a result of Wilder acknowledging that he didn’t like the direction “the theater” was taking at the time, and Our Town was intended to drop intricate sets and impersonal narratives for a simple setup and direct interaction with the audience. Possibly because of this, Our Town has been popular since its premiere; however, Wilder often said the play was rarely performed correctly, as, in his own words, it “should be performed without sentimentality or ponderousness–simply, dryly, and sincerely.” Good luck with that, Thorn, as the final act of Our Town contains one of the most beautiful and insightful exchanges ever directly lifted by Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
“No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”
If you’re curious about the context of such a statement: Emily, one of the stars of Our Town that has been showcased since her childhood days, has died during childbirth. She meets the other ghosts of the graveyard, and learns that, while she is unable to join the skeleton army, she can re-experience any moment from her past. She is warned not to try it, but she chooses to live out a mundane memory from her 12th birthday. Despite the fact that this is a typical, fairly boring day (children’s birthday parties in the early 20th Century rarely included enough N64 games to make them worthwhile), Emily can barely bear the weight of experiencing a time when her family was content, happy, and, most importantly, alive. Emily knows what happens to the people close to her 12 year old self, and she knows the hardships and death that await herself and others. Items as humble as sizzling bacon or a kiss from her mother are things Emily will never experience ever again, so this living memory of happier times is agonizing. Do people realize how good they have it when they have it? How every little piece of life is precious, and even something as routine as seeing a family member for breakfast can be lost in an instant? No. Of course not. The Saints and poets sometimes think about such, but you’re here reading a videogame essay, and gradually getting distracted by the fact that I mentioned bacon. Get a goddamn snack and then think about how good you have it, you frivolous living person.
So, after explaining one of the most important plays of the last century for 500 words, I’m going to go ahead and assume you’ve played Final Fantasy 7. You know the drill, right?
Like the ouroboros, here is the tail of the Final Fantasy 7 Compilation, and the head of the Final Fantasy 7 story.
Zack appeared onscreen for very much of Final Fantasy 7’s original release (hey, who’s that in the picture?), FF7 NA included a few scenes of Cloud and Zack escaping from Hojo, and Zack… dying. Zack, ultimately, is the Uncle Ben to Cloud’s Spider-Man, so, right from jump street, there was no way Crisis Core would wrap up with a happy ending. Additionally, this forces Crisis Core into being a prequel, and thus cursed with all the problems that great men like George Lucas have never been able to overcome. Enjoy all these amazing characters achieving grand goals? Great! Now you get to watch them before they got anything done, and, by plot rules, will be incapable of accomplishing anything!
But, despite all the prequel problems inherit to the story, Crisis Core seems to be the only worthy successor to the Final Fantasy 7 name within the compilation. And it’s not because it’s the first game to even try to simulate something like a “real” Final Fantasy 7 feel, it’s because it’s finally about something.
Zack is an actual SOLDIER 2nd Class at the start of the game (which, incidentally, means AVALANCHE likely would have slaughtered the guy had he never received a promotion), but eventually becomes an actual SOLDIER 1st Class to stand with the greats like legendary Black Trench Coat and easily forgotten Red Trench Coat. Zack spends most of his life following orders, not only during the plot, but also through a series of side missions that are assigned via Shrina and various other hangers-on. Zack, here’s a tip, when you’re taking orders from a pre-pubescent Yuffie, you’re maybe a little too obedient.
Knowing Zack’s fate, every action, every life saved, every afternoon wasted punching ostriches has that much more meaning for a man with a death sentence. Maybe Zack completes every mission, maybe he just speeds through “his” story, but no matter the choices he makes, there’s no getting off the train Zack’s on, and his last stop isn’t Midgar Station, but a forgotten hill that will be seared into Cloud’s (repressed) memory.
bite-sized missions (for leveling, materia acquisition, etc), but must be played on the big screen during dedicated couch time would not be nearly as enjoyable.
Dirge of Cerberus promised to be more Final Fantasy 7, and what could go wrong with that? Turns out the answer is “everything”. I mean, more Final Fantasy 7, right? Well what would you like more of, Goggle Bob of 1997?
went ahead and made its hidden characters actual characters, with Yuffie the ninja genki girl, and Vincent Valentine, the silent, brooding type with a tragic past and the ability to transform into monsters. Really, coming off of Chrono Trigger, it seemed like Square was trying to ape the popularity of Magus with another anti-hero that spoke exclusively in ellipses, but, like CT, this was likely a narrative cheat to account for a character that may or may not be present. Since Vincent (or Magus) can’t say anything earthshaking after their possible joining, why not just make the character stoic and almost mute? The audience will fill in the blanks!
And Reeve… I don’t have a clue what’s going on there. I think he has a split personality? Like, Cait Sith is part of his brain… and… Scottish for some reason? I really have no idea what’s happening, just that, as ever, Reeve is a well-meaning administrator and Cait Sith is the remote muscle.
but her plot is some kind of Star Trek: The Next Generation rejected plot nonsense. Aw, she’s a science experiment like Vincent, and lost her emotions, but an inexplicable cyber/psychic connection with Lucrecia causes her emotions to reawaken, and, oh, Chaos, what is this emotion humans call… wuv? It’s a storyline that’s pulpy and obvious from its introduction, but the game stretches the razor thin premise from start to finish, so by the time Shelke finally finds love and… wait… did Vincent just ride off into the sunset with a nine year old quasi-clone of his ex? 
The choice isn’t the bad thing here, it’s that the player has no indication what choice is even being made. What’s more valuable: a potion that restores health, or having more health in the first place? It’s a question for the ages, and Dirge offers no answers.
But, once again, Dirge sticks the landing, and Omega Weapon, the true, final Weapon is unleashed. Rather than being a simple, force of nature monster created by the very planet you’re sworn to protect (basically the universe’s worst personnel screw up, ever), Omega Weapon has a complicated backstory involving a planet that is, at best, really confused. Omega Weapon was created to drag the Lifestream off planet, with Chaos (yes, what was simply Vincent’s final limit break in FF7) as a harbinger who… kills whatever is left? But there’s a proto-materia, and its purpose is to work as a remote control for both entities, because there’s no chance that could go horribly wrong. In the end, this whole train wreck is solved by Vincent transforming into a “controlled” Chaos, and slashing a reawakened Omega Weapon into oblivion (or at least some kind of extra celestial body).
Number of Players: Did you know there was a multiplayer mode in the original Japanese release, but it was dropped for the American release? It’s true! It had its own storyline and everything. Can you imagine just how bad it had to be to be completely dropped from the Western release?
As it is, aside from the whole “lotta effort to go into a hidden character thing”, Proto-Vincent was dropped because the original plan was to have him transformed for overworld/dungeon/town scenes, and not just battles. That would require a lot of modeling that’s just not happening.
