Editorials

The Potential Of: “Wacky & Whimsical” Vs. “Epic & Dark”

by X-SOLDIER May 14, 2018 0 comments

World-Design:

This section is gonna be all about the some of the game’s most odd enemies in the world and why we absolutely need them to be in the Remake with every little bit of that strangeness left intact.

BEST ENEMY – THE MOTHA F@$#%*’ HELL HOUSE

Oh yeah, we’re starting up with the best enemy ever. What is even going on with these things? Are they some sort of sick mechanical murder device Shinra unleashed on the slums? Why are they bigger than a doll-house, but too small for a real house? Who knows! They’re like the most wonderfully ill-conceived Mimics in the history of time. They have the extremely stealthy and inviting disguise of being just a normal smoke-shooting shack – because nothing about that is suspicious at all. If you manage to wreck through that false front, it blows its cover to reveal its true form, and Mobius’ depiction of them is pretty wonderfully absurd.

The question is how exactly do you use something like this in the context of the Remake? This is where the concept of them being a form of Mimic might come into play in a bit more believable way. Encounters are likely to happen actively in environments cluttered with junk in the Slums. You could have several locations where you could have little shacks like this randomly positioned that occasionally have items inside them – but getting to them involves breaking down the door. Some of the time, doing this would result in you being able to enter and get an item, other times the house would fill the area with smoke to obscure the surroundings. Shortly after, it would launch itself up, landing with an explosion and shattering the outside, revealing the psychotic robotic abomination that aggressively attacks you.

The Hell House does a lot early on in Final Fantasy VII to present things being both scary and absurd. These sorts of odd moments help provide the feeling that wandering below Midgar is frequently like exploring some sort of crazy junkyard of weird old stuff. It sets up a tonal contrast to moments later when the slums resume their more oppressive and forlorn atmosphere.

Touch Me, Toxic Frogs, & the Frog Status

The Frog enemies and the Frog status they impart in battle in Final Fantasy VII aren’t just normal frogs. Oh no. They turn you into the same ridiculously entertaining anthropomorphic frogs that they are, and that is just spectacular. Not only that, but the characters in frog-form still have the ability to attack & have their own victory animation. (Plus, if you stick around on this video, you get to see a damage overflow exploit where a single frog defeats Emerald Weapon in one hit, which seems exceptionally perfect for the topic at hand).

While the same exploit to allow Frog-Barret to one-hit-KO the Emerald Weapon in the Remake is highly unlikely, it would be really neat to have frog be a form that sticks until cured or until the end of combat, and not one that works like Final Fantasy XV’s full frog status, which is completely debilitating, but only temporary. The differences between XV & VII are really interesting to consider when thinking about status effects in general. Instant Death is terrifying, but less of a sudden-game-over worry with the way active combat works – which I feel is a good thing. Petrify is an inherently terrifying status effect in the Final Fantasy VII world setting, but in gameplay in Final Fantasy XV it’s just a momentary inconvenience in combat like Frog. It’ll be interesting to see if this is changed at all for the Remake, because the Frog status has so much more potential in that setting.

The question is whether or not the Remake is going to keep frogs the same way. As usual, the art in Mobius does an excellent job of conveying the goofy and amusing aesthetics that the frogs had in the original game. Going the extra mile to implement something like this in the Remake would be the perfect little bit of flavor to make something silly extra memorable.

On the topic of status effects, confusion deserves a mention because of these three:

Jemnezmy, Pollensalta, & Snow – The Seduction Squad

There are a few siren-like enemies in Final Fantasy VII that we never learn much about but that were always rather interesting. They’re essentially human in their appearance (even moreso than the Chocobo Sage-like Cetra spirits that appear in the Temple of the Ancients) but they don’t actually seem to be human themselves. What’s especially interesting is when you dig into more details the game has to offer on them, it seems as though each of them has a particular bit of character in their design.

Jemnezmy is hiding away in the Temple of the Ancients along with two Toxic Frogs. Her AI Script shows that her confusion attacks specifically only target male party members, and she uses Cold Breath against female (or Frog’d) party members instead. This would be really interesting to see in the Remake, especially if the characters have any contextual status effect banter between one another during combat. Additionally, if she has adequate MP, she’ll cure party members of both the Frog & Poison status as a counterattack. This seems to suggest that there’s some expression of genuine compassion in her design, or perhaps a subtle reference that she’s kissing the frogs to turn them back into princes.

Snow is the one most players would be familiar with, since if you want the Alexander Summon, you have to battle her to get it. Her confuse-inflicting seduction isn’t only specific to male party members. She’s also one of the only enemies in the game who won’t give you a Game Over if you’re defeated by her, instead just laughing when you’re KO’d and telling you to remember your place (after which you wake up at Holzoff’s place). She’s the one who makes it clear that these types of enemies are capable of speech and communication, so they’re not just sexy-looking monsters beguiling the party with their good looks. She’s also wearing a circlet as a fashion accessory that you can steal from her, and it’d be interesting if weapons or accessories like this (and Eligor’s Striking Staff) would be visibly removed from their model when stolen.

Pollensalta is randomly encountered in the North Crater, and like Snow, she’s happy to seduce and confuse any member of your party. She also possesses the Enemy Skill Angel Whisper which is used to heal and remove status ailments. Enemy Skills were the best way for players to get a little bit of insight into enemies while playing, so this seems like another detail that would be likely to be carried on into the Remake.

Jemnezmy and Pollensalta were also depicted in Mobius card artwork, with Jemnezny’s hands hinting that they might be ever-so-slightly monstrous after all. It’ll be interesting to see if the Remake treats these three like mini-bosses, and if it provides any context to their presence. It’s entirely possible that we’ll be left baffled as to why scantily-clad, sexy women are hell-bent on sending us to our doom, but they seem to appear in specific enough locations that it would be worth exploring.

But they’re not the weirdest things we encounter at the end of the world.

The David Bowie Cover Band in the North Crater

At the very bottom of the world, on the path to defeating the ultimate evil of Sephiroth who is literally about to destroy the world, you have a chance of running into this odd little duo:

While the original game (known well for its fantastic translations) missed this wonderful reference, the name of the whimsical-looking horse with a guitar for a tail isn’t meant to be “Gighee” but rather “Ziggy.” Ziggy always appears with its humanoid companion Christopher, who has the classic Bowie character’s lightning bolt on its masked face. They have a number of different musical attacks, and when they’re together they can jam a melody in an attack called, “Stardust March” that should make the intent of the reference abundantly clear.

Much like Choco/Mog, these two enemies are inherently absolutely ridiculous and bordering on downright cartoonish. We get to see this at the very end of the game, but that’s what makes their presence so important. Even when the stakes are at their highest, Final Fantasy VII doesn’t shy away from the fun and ridiculous, and neither should the Remake. You can have the wacky & whimsical right alongside the epic & dark, without compromising on either of them. The moments of fun and levity make the game better, and make you appreciate when the game steps away from them to get serious, but the fact that it doesn’t cast the wacky aside is what makes it truly shine. That dynamic is something that needs to be embraced to really deliver the full experience.

Hopefully this made for a fun look into some details of the original game and presents some ideas for what the Remake might come to offer in a format that isn’t always focused solely on the realism that the current generation of games is capable of delivering. Embracing ALL of Final Fantasy VII’s quirks are important, and there’s just as much in them as there is elsewhere, especially with the design team thinking everything through, it needs to be clear that they should be allowed to have a bit of fun and embrace the weird rather than erase it. Hopefully you’re still enjoying the series, and at the moment there’s one more thing I’m looking to cover before E3, which is ways we might see the main party differing from one another in combat. Final Fantasy XV’s DLC has provided a lot to look at, and after covering Vincents Limits & the Frog status, it seems right to address it. Hopefully E3 gives us something new to speculate on after that. Thanks again to Radigar for all the Mobius images, and to Shademp for proofreading these for me. As always, feel free to comment here, or drop on to the forums and toss in any suggestions or comments you may have!