beyond the steel sky
people hate the steel sky, the slums...but i don't.
final fantasy vii remake is the first game in a while that i have played to just play. not trying to formulate pitches for freelance work, not for review under embargo, not for a fucking book. i finally bought it, after years of thinking about it, as a sort of reward to myself for finishing said book.
it was also on sale. that didn't hurt.
despite this simple intention, i cannot turn my brain off. so here we are. i have things to say and you have to suffer for it.
final fantasy vii remake is a strange game to me. held simultaneously within a 95gb install are safe, tiring tropes of modern blockbuster game design - if i have to watch cloud's perfect body sidle slowly through a tight space one more time i will personally visit nomura's office - contrasting a unique new narrative that almost immediately does away with the notion of a remake and presents meta questions on fan expectations, the nature of remakes and fate itself.
ever since that first E3 2015 trailer flashed up the word REMAKE, a single word enough to make the crowd explode into unexaggerated screaming and crying, the burning question in the minds of square enix, the audience and the internet alike was simple. how do you remake a game as important to the industry and childhoods as final fantasy vii, not to mention its utterly massive scope, while also adapting a 23 year old turn based rpg to modern consoles, trends and tastes?
the answer, as it turns out, is that you don't. you challenge what fate expects of you and choose your own destiny.
sure, the party's all here, they go on the bombing mission and sephiroth is the main villain. the skeleton of the original appears present, but its soul differs so much to be a sequel, not a remake. as the first trailer states, an early hint at what remake is: "the reunion at hand may bring joy. it may bring fear. but let us embrace whatever it brings."
i wasn't sure how i felt about the whispers and sephiroth's early appearances at first. they seemed to occupy an odd middle ground in the narrative where they would make no sense to someone who didn't know the plot points of the original while also confusing fans of the original just hoping for a true remake. for what would be one of the ps4's flagship titles, a game that's existence had previously been considered a pipe dream, it seemed unsure of what it was trying to do.
on first sight of sephiroth torturing cloud with tangible illusions of nibelheim, shattering reality to appear much earlier than he should in the narrative, i think my response was something along the lines of 'okay, so what exactly are we doing with this'.
i'm not sure when my feelings started to come together, but what has been stuck in my head as something of an answer to that question is a small, inconsequential line from aerith atop the tin roofs of the sector 5 slums.
people hate the steel sky, the slums...but i don't. how could i?
all that passion, all those dreams...flowing and blending together into something greater...
it's not particularly related to the overarching plot, but it got me thinking, like thousands of other minor lines hadn't, about the point of it all. choosing to go on living despite the struggle of existing in the undercity slums, beneath the crushing shadow of the steel sky. literally cutting down the arbiters of fate to choose your own, divergent path. grasping fate with your own two hands to make it your own, as part of the collective will of the people to create the future. neither sephiroth nor the whispers can set destiny in stone.
just as square was not predestined to remake final fantasy vii in its truest form, despite that being the expectation placed upon it by millions, the fates of the people under the steel sky are not predetermined.
it's why aerith continues to tend to her flower garden, keeping natural beauty alive amidst, not in spite of, the slums. it's why tifa runs seventh heaven, providing a place of warm refuge to those struggling to find comfort in sector 7. it's why barrett is the best father he can be to marlene. it's why cloud frees the timeline from the events of the original to create a new future for himself and his loved ones. all that passion, all those dreams. it's why the people of the undercity haven't just given up, despite shinra's power, despite the plates falling, despite the planet crying out.
no, not despite it. because of it.
there's a future beyond the steel sky. there's something greater.