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I think it's worth noting that this is a crime story where everyone can be truly happy at the end because they didn't have to live through a timeline where violent crime took place. Maggie Byrd's life is never the same after one crime in which she was innocent, but here there's not ghosts in the ending photograph. Violent crime does damage that can never be undone. Of course after he wrote so much ace attorney we get a game where violence can be undone, and in the end the cycle of pain is erased. Also the "like sisters" meeting for the first time in this new timeline and not knowing what happened reads to me as very counter to the "truth is always good" you saw.

Thank you for your review! I hate how people (and by that I mean right wingers) say that things are now overly political, but never care to go deeper on games like this, media like capitan planet, or movies like fight club. They are alll political and almost always lean left 😅

Also good work, more final fantasy please

1:30:02 it was easy, this story is so compelling and always has been - it inspires you to ponder on its universe in relation to our own and facilitates that at every turn

56:50 this also has some connections to project Blue book, the government program dealing with the crashed spacecraft in Roswell in 1951. The premise wasn't that it was aliens flying spacecraft, it ends up being the case that biological life are essentially just vessels for the spirit and that once the body dies, the spirit goes back into the universe and does its thing or inhabits a new body if it chooses. Look into it if you please

38:35 speaking my language, dude

2:11 I make this point about final fantasy VII all the time - it's a straight up allegory for the modern world, in MANY ways and it IS inherently incredibly political, agree

34:24 so do humans

I'm quite late to the conversation, but another way in which Bioshock criticizes objectivism is through its worldbuilding: Ryan's spurning of the working class who built Rapture created a resentment that proved fatal when they fought against him in the civil war. Yes, Atlas/Fontaine was using them and gloats about how easy they were to manipulate, but he wouldn't have been able to rally them against Ryan had not followed his objectivist beliefs that made desperate and destitute. The argument here is that a society built on Objectivism is self-destructive: its callous disregard of the poor and vulnerable creates a block of people for a demagogue, revolutionary, or grifter to leverage in toppling that society.

0:35 I see a Trails game, I squeel. Glad to see someone with a love for that severly overlooked series. I know this is an old video, but DAYBREAK HYPE!!

I stopped heading out every Friday night because when movie cgi becomes video games because of v chips it’s just terrible. Monique

Just finished the game and now I want to replay just so I can pick up on all the foreshadowing.

Never got into Halo's story, but then I'd already read Ringworld by Larry Niven at that point which examined that idea in a much more interesting way (IMO)

For me it'd probably be The Secret of Monkey Island.

I like your thorough look at this game. Your theory makes me appreciate this game more.

This is the best FFVII analysis to exist. The fact you managed to go in depth on all of the characters in the party and still cohesively cover Cloud's full story is amazing. This is so thourough and detailed, and puts into words everything that is so beloved about FF7's themes and story elements. Thank you for this video, thank you for caring to take so much time in writing this video.

21:00 I think it’s supposed to be about YOU the player… chief succeeds because he has something nobody else does… you controlling him keep in mind that bungie’s halo always had the player’s role in the background. Always present to some extent

i like the TWA fan art in the background. James being in the “wrong” spot is a detail that i just needed to point out

His character gets even better, as when Lightning disappears he takes on her role and more, he shoulders the fate of the world, all the while searching for her, he is the one who figured out time travel was possible and even had a back up plan incase the worst happened it's thanks to his efforts most of mankind survived. When lightning returns comes around is where he breaks down. The novel does a lot to expound on his journey, Light was watching him from Valhalla and during his childhood he along with his father gave rise to the academy through his numerous success and achievements he was dubbed the leader of Humanity and in the prequel novel to LR we learn that 500 years have passed since those even at keast what I remember it may not be accurate but during that Time Bhunivelze used the image of Lightning to basically fool the populace and it gave rise to an urban myth thus the "false saviour" during that time Hope had been searching for a way to deal with the Chaos and it was at this time Bhunivelze specifically targeted him and played with his feeling for Claire he would haunt him with past dreams of her and sometimes nsfw dreams, all in the hopes of breaking him down and turning him into a perfect vessel which he did. bhuni then used his child form cause it retained most of his innocence and also because it was the form he would use to fool Claire; also his adult form is very dangerous especially around Claire and people should already know the reason you gotta admit the guy is committed after more than century passed, anyways he was effectively a 500 year old man trapped in a childs body duing that whole fiasco a puppet with no will of his own till the final day, and he was tortured by Bhunivelze for 169 years out of everyone it's both Hope and Lightning who were the most damaged psychologically. In the final novel he was reborn into the world as 22 year old man with both his parents alive this time and was still working in the academy, there were still people who remembered him and Lightning as the leader of Humanity and as the saviour respectively so yeah the interviewer got those details and most them were still respected; anyways Lightning had already visited everyone else except Hope.

I want a Remastered of this game and a series of it.

Aguirre the wrath of god is part of the inspiration for apocalypse now and has a lot of the same themes. I would highly recommend as it is a good middle ground between heart of darkness and apocalypse now and Werner Herzog is fantastic

I think the vagueness of The Country actually does a lot to set up the themes by encouraging you to think about the finale allegorically, despite its dramatic framing. The waters are muddied on what death means in this universe, but whether it's retirement or evacuation or death or even imprisonment in the Transistor, the throughline is a giving up, willingly or not, of worldly power and agency. Cloudbank is a place where everything happens, where everything changes. Whatever the Country is, it's a place where things don't change, a literal or metaphorical peaceful eternity. Red's choice at the end could be understood as a suicide, but it's much more important that it's understood as giving up of worldly power and apparent agency in favor of things she actually wants. (It might be a bit of a reach, but you could see "being Processed" as a kind of inverse death - rather than going somewhere that nothing changes and nothing happens, you are turned into raw potential, unformed data, all power and possibility without any self. )

halo infinite is garbag

I myself can 100% relate to both hope & vanille because their stories combined with mine. Vanille deals with guilt Whilst hope deals with trauma & anger. Disagree if you want too, but nonetheless. It's just me showing off inside two characters. Excuse me for getting personal, however it's all true.

Goodness Merasmus from tf2 did some bad things in Dubai. He deserves to have the Chinese mafia on him now that I know what he did.

hey everyone that's here in 2024: at the start of the video it is stated that is game is available on pc, however it is not, licensing issues has caused the game to be removed from online stores, however through physical copies on ps3 and xbox 360, you can play the game

Yeah couldnt have cared less when aerith died. I always thought cloud and tifa were a better fit as a couple, i also never used her in my party. Obvious shes a major part of the story but as far as i was concerned it was the death of an NPC.

Remake shitted all over a legendary game and legacy. Absolute trash

Brother how are you doing

Please please please talk about ace attorney

41:05 how do you get that cutscene?

I don't understand why people criticize a story for a character like Cid when abusive assholes exist in the real world.

Mako is not modeled after nuclear power...

There isn't anything about racism in the game. Winglies and humans are two different species, not races. Winglies think they're superior because technically they are. They don't see humans as a lesser race, they see them as a lesser species. You can say its an allegory for racism, but I don't agree with that at all. It's like saying elves are racist against dwarves. Also, Giganto is a species, not a race, like you mentioned. Nothing to do with racism.

I’m sure I’m not the first to say this, but I hope you’re considering a comparative review of the remake/rebirth project with the original. Even though Remake has turned out to not really be a per se “remake” of the game, I think it’d be great to go over how some of the changes either strengthen or weaken the themes of the original.

Hope you doing good

28:25 though Moonbloods defınıtely fucked wıth hıs mınd he was correct here cassius wouldnt do this without some fuckery 28:29 he is correct dust is manipulated by the sword and moonbloods considering what moonbloods are capable of look at Dust they forced two souls to be together disregarding them and LOOK at FUSE they are clearly capable of Commiting far more atrocities than Gaius Dust never had free will he was never his own person he was manipulated by his sword and moonbloods like a Puppet to make their enemies disappear

I just finished this game for the first time and I still can't understand the love for this game from a gameplay perspective with it's excessive backtracking, lack of innovation, and other baffling choices. However, I can appreciate what feels like the best character dynamic and chemistry of any in the franchise. (I just wish I didn't have to halt gameplay and hit the "talk" button to get half of it) Having played through all of the 3D games recently, surprisingly, I feel like the movie tie-in game is the most fun to play, but this one definitely has the most enjoyable character dynamic to me.

FF7 was never just a game. It was an experience...

Your analysis of the video definitely allowed me to open my eyes in a different way to the story points. While not intending to debate it I took the Cait Sith death in the temple of the ancient differently. The death of the OG Cait was mostly symbolic, from that point forward Reeve works more with the party (being the last surviving board member likely made the plate evacuation easier as meteor fell as well) and less and less in line with Shinra up to the point of guiding the party during the tower raid on the return to the Midgar section at the end of disk 2. Now while Dirge and Advent make it clear that Cait is more of a intelligent drone in service to Reeve that still means Reeve gave the commands to change priority in the Temple. Keeping it in perspective to the OG game though it serves a second basis of being the fodder for a trope break. The return of Cait Sith 2 lets the player honestly believe that when Aerith is killed in the City of the Ancients that she could come back; maybe not immediately but that it might be possible. The drone's death becomes a double edged sword; one edge cutting away the former Reeve and allowing a new to come about, the other end pointed at the player as if to say 'You ain't seen nothing yet.' Moving from that, in Final Fantasy 9 the sudden tonal shift to nihilism on the third disk was rather jarring. Up til Bran Ball the theme seemed to be to be about finding a place to call home; a home that Kuja destroys just after Zidane found it to be a pensioned fruit. combine this with Necron not Kuja or Garland being the final boss and Disk four becaomes my least favorite part of the game because of the 'Pointlessness and futility of life.' It is possible I might be interpting it wrong; after all, my idea of that story not working was recently slapped down by Honkai Star Rail with a line from Jing Yuan ~"It may all be pointless in the end regardless if the only path that destiny leaves for us is the same end, but every path is different and every journey is worth taking despite this; it is the journey that defines us not the destination.'~ I again, might be reading to much into this. Either way I have rambled on to much and look forward to more of your videos. Hope you have a pleasant day.

This review turned me on to the soundtrack. I listen to Spine of the World and Paper Boats several times a year and i always think about the ending. Was it waking up in the real world? Was it waking up in the afterlife? The ideas this review helped inspire havent really gone away.

Thank you for doing this great video. This is impressive in its depth, and watching this now that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is out is a really good way to remember the OG game.

Where are you? Are you okay? 7 months without a video I hope all is well.

I actually think Hope was one of my favourite characters in the entire game. He feels very realistic because of the way he deals with his situation, if you watched your mother die before your eyes while also being caught in a battlefield yourself don’t actually tell me you’d handle it any differently to Hope. ESPECIALLY If you are just a lonely child who has just been forced to go along with some strangers to survive.

Thank you for your care and attention to this game. Beautifully summarized

This literary analysis is making me feel like Final Fantasy VII played a major part in forming my own belief system and i never realized it before 😳 its a little weird lmao

The Nibelheim Flsshback is a brilliant example of using game mechanics to both tell a story and foreshadow the plot. Cloud, a SOLDIER 1st Class, is level 1 while Sephiroth is at least level 50. Am extreme difference between 2 SOLDIERs of equal rank, even allowing for Sephiroth's non-human origins. Cloud attacks Sephiroth by stabbing him in the back with the Buster Sword. How did he manage to sneak up on a SOLDIER 1st Class while carrying a gigantic sword? If you look at the Buster Sword's materia index, it's slotted with a First Strike materia. First Strike allows the player to enter combat from behind the enemy and attack first. Outside of Nibelheim, Red XIII/Nanaki is equiped with Sense and Poison materia when you recruit him. A nod to his animal senses and possibly the noxious conditions of Hojo's lab? Cid's limit breaks consist of basic spear thrusts, dynamite/fuse bombs, and misslefire from the Highwind. This reflects his gritty, no-nonsense personality, lack of spirituality, and his unenhanced baseline human body. Aerith's limit breaks are all supportive and mostly heal or shield the party... except for Fury Brand, where she uses her limit bar to max out the other 2 characters limits. Limit breaks are triggered by rage, so you can imagine her teammates probably just got a huge adrenalin high. Despite her aesthetic and healing powers, Aerith is not some immaculate vessel of purity. She has bite and here uses that bite to supercharge others. In Aerith's garden, Cloud finds the Cover materia. A ref to his assigned role as Aerith's bodyguard. Cait Sith is equipped with Manipulate materia. Manipulate allows the player to control enemies on the battlefield, implying Manipulate is how Reeve controls the Cait Sith robot, or its how Cait Sith controls the Mog doll. Its also a hint to Cait Sith's decietful motives

This made me cry multiple times

Wendigoon's older brother? I'm intrigued.