Obviously NFTs are the next step in innovation in the gaming industry.
Memeing aside, I generally avoid “innovation” as a metric of quality unless it’s an expressed goal of the creator. Pretty much everything I consume is derivative of
something, so I try not to get too caught up with whether or not something is as innovative or impactful as I expect it to be lest I be perpetually disappointed at everything.
I’m not convinced that the FF7 devs predicted just how impactful the game would be, which to me feels far more genuine than if every emotional beat was so manufactured that it comes across as Oscar-bait (I love TLOU and I even like TLOU2, but for me those games are guilty of this sometimes, even the first one). I know we live in the age of YouTube video essays analyzing and explaining everything but I’m a big proponent of art just existing and speaking for itself.
With so much nostalgia bait and fanservice in the air, I wonder if we’ve been groomed into ascribing value to art based on whether it meets expectations outside of the creator’s intent, which can sometimes be unfair if not tempered realistically. “If it’s not like THIS, it’s sucks.” It’s no wonder we have so many remakes, reboots, sequels etc. in the first place, it’s all just chasing that high we once felt in our youth.
And so, how exactly does one go about making FF7R as impactful as the OG without also recreating the exact conditions that the OG was created in? And if that were possible, why even make a remake in the first place? I’m all for remastering stuff to make it more accessible and even updating visuals to meet modern standards, but the concept of remakes in general is honestly redundant to me.
Naturally, my response to FF7R’s direction was “don’t mind the naysayers, tell the story YOU want.” Isn’t that how we get innovation in the first place, when creators are allowed to do what they want instead of being confined by whatever’s expected of them? Not that I consider FF7R especially impactful or innovative in the grander scheme of gaming, I’m just not so sure it really matters all that much if it isn’t what the OG was in that regard. If I want the OG experience, then I can just…