In the lead up to the release of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth this Thursday, it has been tough to center myself on one video game. Over the past 2-3 weeks, I have been bouncing around several video games, some of which for only a few hours. Because of this, it seemed easier to just do a general round up post since I do not have more than a paragraph or two worth of thoughts for most of these. (Editors Note: Upon completion of this post, the last sentence was determined to be a lie).
Final Fantasy 7: Remake
When Final Fantasy 7 Remake was first announced, my extreme excitement quickly went to disappointment. Final Fantasy 7 is a top 10 RPG ever for me and one of the best Final Fantasy games of all time. Getting this game with modernized graphics and voice acting was a dream come true. Then, the kicker, that it would be separated into three games, with the first game only taking place in Midgar.
Turning a seven hour section of a game into a full standalone video game seemed like an insane task that would have to be stuffed with filler. There are issues that predictably pop up with the nature of the setting. It’s an extremely linear and crowded game. There isn’t much room to explore, and most of the “dungeons” in the game are very narrow areas with multiple levels that are easy to get lost in. There are also a few sections where the story drags out because of filler.
But somehow, despite those flaws, they pulled it off and made a game that I would set as my fourth favorite Final Fantasy ever. The biggest reason for this is a combat system that I consider the pinnacle of the series. Rather than sticking with the purely turn based combat of the original, the game goes to a more action setting. You can switch between all four of your party members, and they all control very differently, but they all feel great in their own ways. You can also pause the action at any time to select special attacks or to give orders to your allies. Basically, the game pushes the gameplay into the future but still pays homage to its turn based past. It is masterfully done.
While there are sections of filler, they still manage to make this forty hours while having good story pacing overall. FF7 Remake makes you really care about Jesse, Biggs, and Wedge, who were all throw away characters in the original. They also dive much deeper into the operations of Shinra, which is very important and enhances the main story a lot. The story is also greatly enhanced by an incredible voice cast, with John Eric Bentley as Barrett being the highlight. Having some of these big moments fully voiced made me feel like I was experiencing them for the first time again.
I have some other nitpicks, like the side quests, but nothing detracts from how powerful this game ends up being. Whether you played the original game or not, this is a must play. I generally do not love replaying games, but I still had a blast giving this one another go four years later. I would give it a 9.5/10.
Final Fantasy 7: INTERmission
I tried playing FF7 INTERmission when it first came out in 2021 and quickly abandoned it. When I picked it up again last week, I remembered why. You play as Yuffie, a new character, and I’d say she has a steeper learning curve than any other character in the original game. If she was introduced in the midst of a fifty hour game, this learning curve wouldn’t be a big deal, but in a small DLC, I was halfway through the game before I finally started to feel comfortable with her.
Unlike the main game, your other party member, Sonon, is not controllable. This is super frustrating and makes it impossible to plan anything around him, as you can never count on him having enough ATB charges to do anything useful. As a character, he is about as boring and generic as it gets, too.
The story is also super bland for the first 3/4 of the game and has pretty lackadaisical pacing for a four hour game.
And despite all that, I ended up enjoying my time with INTERmission. First off, Yuffie’s charm shines through the whole game. She is full of charisma and energy, and I’m excited to see how she meshes with the main cast in Rebirth. She carries the game when it is at its lowest. And then, when the pacing finally picks up, it really gets incredible. There are some top-tier plot moments that build perfectly towards Rebirth and help you learn more about Yuffie’s motivations. And after you get used to using her, the game throws some excellent boss fights your way that are super intense.
In the end, I am really glad I got to experience the last hour of FF7 INTERmission, even though the first three hours weren’t always the best. I’d give it an 8/10 because that last hour is that good.
Lil’ Guardsman
I haven’t played this one much in the past few weeks, but I am about halfway through it now. This is a narrative based game inspired by Papers, Please. You are a guardsman at the gate (who also happens to be a 12 year old girl), and you decide who enters the city, who gets denied, and who goes to jail. You make these decisions based on conversations and various tools you can use (like truth spray or a metal detector) to gather more info.
Papers, Please was a very dark game, while this one is much more cheery. The tone shift is a nice change of pace and takes away a little bit of the gnawing tension that came with Papers, Please. It’s also quite funny. The writing is sharp, and there are a lot of quirky and entertaining characters that you encounter. It also has some good voice acting, which really helps top off the humor.
My main problem with the game to this point is the actual gameplay loop. Going into each day, you have to choose which tools you are going to power up and bring to use. You obviously have no clue what is coming each day, so there can be an annoying amount of luck with this. There are some days where you won’t need a skill at all, and then other days it becomes very important.
The game does let you rewind and re-do levels with the knowledge you’ve gained, but I don’t find that particularly fun. Going through all the same dialogue to get a better score isn’t really how I want to play a game like this, but because of the amount of luck required, it is really the only way to play.
The game also asks you to make a lot of decisions that seem like they might be important, but I’ve had several times where my decision didn’t seem to matter at all. I can’t say for sure without playing it again and doing different things, but the instances where my decisions obviously didn’t matter make me question if any of my decisions are really shaping the plot in any significant way.
The writing and characters still make me want to see this through, so I will likely slowly get through this in the coming weeks. As of right now, I’m leaning around a 7/10.
Helldivers II
My thoughts haven’t changed significantly on this one (you can see my previous post here), but a few things are different since I posted about this game last.
First off, the server issues seem to be fixed. I have had zero problems getting on the last few days, which is great news indeed. I have still had the occasional issue connecting to friends, but I’d say overall, the performance is fixed.
I also got my first game in with people with mics, and it really does change everything. Playing with people who talk leads to a lot of laughs with some of the absurd deaths and moments that tend to pop up in Helldivers II. Perhaps even more importantly, getting into a good party lets you start to crank that difficulty up. When I last posted about Helldivers, I had recently played my first game on “normal” difficulty, which blew me away with how much it ramped up the action.
Since then, I have played games on “challenging” and “hard.” Hard difficulty is absolutely insane. I felt like I had to remind myself to breathe at times because the action was so non-stop and furious. This game truly gets better the harder you can make it, as it adds to the general atmosphere of the game, forces you to cooperate at the highest level you can, and the relentless onslaught leads to one epic or hilarious moment after another. I’m not someone who is big on multiplayer games in general, but Helldivers II has earned the right to be an exception to that for me.
Unicorn Overlord
This one was not on my radar at all until I saw clips of the seven hour demo on my timeline (yes, seven hours). After playing two hours of it, I am beyond hyped for this game, which releases March 8th.
If you ever played Ogre Battle 64 back in the day, you will understand the general battle structure here. Instead of being turn based like a Fire Emblem game, this is more of a “real time strategy” game. If you aren’t big on RTS games like me, this can feel intimidating, but you don’t have to also manage a bunch of buildings like a standard RTS game. It is more of a “RTS light,” as you really just have to worry about moving your units around the map. This eliminates the awkward dance that ensues in most turn based strategy games, where you creep to the edge of where the enemy can reach, and hope that they will be dumb enough to advance and let you attack first.
Rather than just individual units fighting, you have formations instead. So not only do you have to think about which units will complement each other best, but how you will align them within the formation to get the most out of them. Units also level up in a Fire Emblem sort of style, where they get experience for any fight they are in and win, which encourages you to mix up who you use in battles so that you have a well rounded team.
Unicorn Overlord also has a big overworld map you can explore on foot, allowing you to find resources in the wild and side quests. Recent Fire Emblem games have you returning to a base after each mission, which has gotten repetitive for me.
I’m taking a lot of little shots at Fire Emblem here, which is because it is a series I loved a lot, but the systems in place have grown tiresome for me, and I’ve gotten burnt out with the last two games well before completion. Unicorn Overlord seems to take a lot of the things I love about Fire Emblem, combines them with things I loved from Ogre Battle 64, adds some beautiful graphics and modern sensibilities, and sends you on your way. While this is being released on all consoles, this seems like the absolute perfect Switch game to me, and I can’t way to dive in (in between sessions of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth)
Big Nerd Gaming 
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