Apropos of nothing, I wanted to report a fun bit of LTD-discourse shared by some pretty well-known journalists in the games industry.
The podcast Triple Click is hosted by Jason Schreier, Mandy Myers and Kirk Hamilton. I believe they all worked together at Kotaku once upon a time. Jason writes for Bloomberg now and has published two books about games development that some of you might be familiar with. Mandy Myers is an editor at Polygon and Kirk focuses on his music and music podcast (Strong Songs) these days.
Triple Click has been going for a few years now within the Maximum Fun Co-Op. If you want to listen to the podcast you should be able to find it on most of your standard podcast platforms (Spotify; the Apple Podcasts app). I believe its roots lie in an earlier podcast the trio did at Kotaku. I listen to Triple Click every now and then, mainly when they cover a game I’m interested in. They were very positive on Remake back in 2020, but they were quite lukewarm on XVI when it released last year. They’ve been quite positive on Rebirth too - so much so that they’ve done 3 podcast episodes on it. The first two are free to the public and the final, spoiler one is behind the Maximum Fun paywall.
“Dr Crane - what on earth does this have to do with the LTD?” I hear you ask
I’m getting to the point. I promise.
So Jason, Mandy and Kirk are all pretty accomplished, down-to-earth people that I would not have previously described as “afflicted with LTD brainrot”. Nevertheless, they are nerdier than your average person (they have all written about video games for a living - and that’s not a bad thing!) and I believe they are of the precise age cohort that would have been besotted with FFVII when it first came out in 1997. Jason in fact is
really into JRPGs - so much so that for multiple years he has strong-armed Maddy and Kirk into playing a few JRPG classics that neither had previously touched (FFVI; Suikoden 2).
So imagine my surprise when the LTD suddenly emerged as a topic of discussion during episode 2 of Triple Click’s Rebirth coverage! Not only did they discuss it, but both Maddy and Kirk got quite passionate about it! Usually journalists dance around the LTD and their preference for one side or the other, but here in the parameters of an easy-listening podcast we suddenly had fiery, but good-spirited debate.
Now I’m going to paraphrase and misremember bits from episode 2 but this was the gist of it:
- Kirk prefers Cloud and Tifa and relates it to his real-life experience of having loved and married a girl from his hometown
- Maddy prefers Aerith and Cloud and reflects that she is married to a woman that is more akin to Aerith in personality
- Hilariously, even though Jason is the big JRPG guy, he couldn’t remember who he took on the date (although I believe he later clarified he was talking about the first date in Chapter 8)
- At the time of episode 2, Kirk believed the game leaned in favour of Cloti while Maddy believed the game leaned in favour of Clerith
Now, here’s where things get interesting. I finally got around to listening to their final, spoilers episode where they discuss the ending and their thoughts of the game. Once again, it’s behind a paywall, but I will summarise the LTD points:
- Kirk got Barret as the final date but wanted to get Tifa; nevertheless he thought Barret was encouraging Cloud to confess specifically to Tifa during their talk
- Maddy and Jason both got Aerith as the final date - however, Maddy had come around since episode 2 and was now agreeing with Kirk’s perspective that the game appeared to favour Cloud and Tifa as a couple
- Maddy agreed that Barret was likely talking about Tifa, and agreed with Kirk that the game had distinguished Cloud and Tifa as a romantic pair by giving them a kiss during their date (if high affection is achieved, of course)
- Jason humorously continued to be fairly un-fussed about the topic of romance and the LTD, but did add that he was unsurprised about the kiss between Cloud and Tifa as he believed the original game was very un-subtle about the two having sex
I had wanted to post previously about the curiosity of having listened to Triple Click’s second Rebirth episode and hearing LTD discussion suddenly derail Triple Click’s typical harmony. But now having listened to their final spoiler episode, I couldn’t resist any longer.
So here are my key takeaways:
- I think many people who are into Final Fantasy VII have a strong opinion about the love triangle, whether they want to admit it or not
- I think many, more flexible observers, can admit that the Remake trilogy is being more clear and specific about who loves who in this story
- As has been discussed in the past, observers of the love triangle debate often bring their own preferences and beliefs about love and relationships and this informs which side of the triangle they prefer
It was a lot of fun to hear more casual observers of the LTD share their thoughts on it, as while there’s certainly plenty of streamers sharing their views on this topic these days, I hadn’t heard the LTD discussed on what is a pretty premium podcast format before. If anyone else has heard the LTD pop up on other podcasts or discussions, I’d love to hear about it!