A Fekete Duna

A week ago I was still in Hungary, enjoying the weather in my favourite city, Budapest, and feeling the high of a week spent serving God with the teenagers of the Tivadar English Bible Camp.  My mind was full of contrasts, however.

Hungary is a land with a rich and complex history and one which, even now, seems to struggle with the weight of it all.  There is a lot of prejudice and resentment from the events of the last century, mirrored, I'm sure, in many of the neighbouring countries, where borders were drawn up on a map in Versaille and people's lives were changed, ostensibly for their better.  Now, in the second decade of the 21st Century, it is clear that much of that has failed and only worsened tensions between ethnic groups, but I doubt that things would be any better at all if the borders had not been moved.  It seems to me that the problem with Eastern and Central Europe, and indeed the rest of the world, is not this group, or that group, to whom blame can be apportioned, but, in fact, the problem is everyone, ourselves included.  We're the sinners who want things all our own way and who distrust those with different lifestyles, cultures and agendas.  As long as we remain in our sin that will never change, however you draw the separation lines.

Last Sunday evening I had a unique opportunity to take a walk through the centre of Budapest on my own and got to do some writing on the steps of the Fisherman's Bastion on Várhegy, looking down on the Danube and the Parliament building over in Pest.  With this view and these thoughts (and others) in mind, and with a week's worth of editing and honing of both the words and the ideas behind them, this is what I came up with.

Do remember, as you read it, that I love Hungary, and Budapest especially, but just because I love something does not mean I cannot see its flaws.  Any errors in historical, or geographical accuracy are entirely my own.

A Fekete Duna (The Black Danube)

The river is black now.  By day she flows a murky, greenish brown, and Strauss is proven false.  Swimmers brave the beaches of Margit Sziget and there are parties by the banks, but though the breeze is fresh and the view a pearl of Europe, you cannot escape that filmy surface, that unclean sheen, that tepid, ancient lie.

But the river is black now; lacquered gold where street lamps cast their gaze.  Her bridges arc in filigree chords and all the monuments of greatness - squandered and taken - stand out like rich topaz on a field of starry black.  Tourists smile and point, immortalise themselves on her banks and spans.  They are backlit by splendour, eyes starry in the flash. Beneath, pleasure boats cruise past like they're sliding on glass, through the shade of their Grand Prince, beneath the chains and the roaring lions, towards freedom (hid) and the distant, stolen sea.  They slice through their own reflections and are gone.

But the river is black now - she frames her city like a mirror in a darkened room, defining light and shade and nothing more.  She cuts between classes, the high and low, between those elevated and those levelled; West and East.  Spots of colour on her banks tell of burger chains and clubs, vending machines and hotel bars.  Trams weave by like the ghosts of regimes past.

But the river is black now, so the old man on the hill does not watch her, nor remember how they threw him to her grasp; the red wake he left behind him in his spiked and sudden coffin.  The river stained, the bishop sainted, yet above a verdant lady stands, her gaze upon that long, dark ribbon: not just Gellért's blood at all.  How could she glance away from one she claims, twice now, to have freed?

But the river is black now - on her banks lie many shoes, cast-off and cast iron: forgotten reminders of a forgettable night, or a frozen memory of an unmentionable one.  Who wishes to recall such cold amidst the summer heat, or the black-clad ice that flowed through the city and turned the river white, then red.

But the river is black now - no one sees those shapes lurking in its shadows, picking scraps and making do midst the waste and grime, lost and forgotten in its flow like the souls in back alleys begging for change, or the woman selling flowers to tourists, back bent and humbled even as the roses stand tall and proud.

Because the river is black now, and every step forward seems a step further back.  All this progress, like the Danube, merely lies.

Nostalgia, or VII things I want from a Final Fantasy VII remake.

Ah, even the logo makes me feel nostalgic...

I've been feeling particularly nostalgic for various media this summer.  From the trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens a couple of months ago, making me dig out my Gamecube to play Rogue Leader and read old (and now non-canonical) novels by Timothy Zahn, through Jurassic World making me feel like a nine year old again, to the gameplay footage of Rise of the Tomb Raider that has me working my way through my first complete replay of Tomb Raider: Anniversary since it was released eight years ago.  (I'd have been playing the original Tomb Raider instead, actually, but it was further away at the time I felt I needed it most).

All of these franchises are much-beloved and have a particularly special place in my heart - taking up hours of my childhood, adolescence and student years - but perhaps the biggest nostalgia-inducing news of the summer was that Square Enix are actually going ahead and remaking Final Fantasy VII, something fans have been clamouring for since the JRPG giant used the opening of their most iconic game as a tech demo for the PS3, over a decade ago.  Final Fantasy VII remains my favourite video game of all time, and perhaps through sheer force of nostalgia alone, is one of my favourite stories of all time.

Would you entrust the fate of the planet to these weirdos?

I love the characters.  The main hero, Cloud Strife, is a callous mercenary type who doesn't appear to care about anything, but who SPOILERS turns out to be a seriously insecure man-child with an identity crisis.  There are two female leads, one a carefree flower girl with a tragic past, the other a hardened fighter who just might have the key to unlocking Cloud's true self.  And then there are also the real oddballs, like Red XIII, a wolf-lion thing whose grandfather is inexplicably an old man who floats through the air, and Cait Sith, a robotic cat/moogle doll controlled by a mysterious third party with their own mysterious agenda END SPOILERS.  It's one of the most eclectic and colourful casts in any role playing game and it's an odd mixture that somehow just works.

Aeris takes urban gardening to new levels.

I also love the world, which, like the characters, is a slightly bizarre amalgamation of anime tropes, both serious and surreal, ranging from cyberpunk (Midgar) and steampunk (Nibelheim), through the colourfully weird (the Gold Saucer or Costa del Sol) to the ancient and mysterious (Temple of the Ancients).  It has a glorious mix of completely incompatible technologies, revelling in the mechanical details of cars, trains, ships and airships whilst gods and demons materialise out of the air.  Its aesthetic is as comfortable amidst complex networks of piping and CG schematics as it is in the quiet of a forest, or a lonely mountainside.  Perhaps Aeris' garden, holding on to life amidst the ruins of an old church, is as good a summation of Final Fantasy VII's unique setting as any.

And I love the music.  VII's soundtrack is probably not Nobuo Uematsu's greatest work.  That honour might well go to the soundtrack to IX, which manages to blend it's themes and allusions seamlessly amidst a deliberately archaic style.  VII's soundtrack is, however, my favourite and it's all part of the same peculiar and heady mix that pervades every other part of the game.  Never has a synthesised game soundtrack made me feel so much, nor so perfectly conjured up the world it accompanies.

But all that is likely to change - not literally, the FFVII I know and love is, in fact, going nowhere at all - with the advent of the remake.  Modern graphics and gameplay styles will, of necessity, be implemented into a current-gen re-imagining of any 32 bit classic.  Current aesthetic trends will most likely win over the older ones that VII is in tune with.  Square Enix's recent history with the Final Fantasy series will doubtlessly be evident in some, or all of the way the game looks, feels and plays.  Change is a-coming, but it won't all necessarily be for the worse.  With that in mind, here, at last, are the seven things I'd really like to see in a remake of Final Fantasy VII

1) A soundtrack which isn't fully orchestrated.

Let's start with this one.  It's asking a lot, I know, but I'd really like to see at least some synthesised music, or at the very least some experimental instrumentation used in the soundtrack for the new VII.  I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy concerts that have been played over the years and like an orchestrated arrangement as much as the next guy, but I don't really want them in the game itself.

These guys do a brilliant job, but they might not be needed all the time.

There's something about the arranged versions I've heard that make them sound too much like they come from our world and not enough like they're from VII's.  The synth in particular is a really big part of why VII's world sounds so grungy and  industrial. Any new soundtrack has to take that into account.  The music to the CG film sequel, Advent Children, went part of the way, including modern instrumentation and a nice use of electric guitar in its version of the iconic One Winged Angel, but I'd like to see the remake take things further, regressing a little if it has to to keep the game sounding right.

2) A world map.

This goes without saying really.  Final Fantasy games haven't had a proper world map since IX and they have been, for the most part, much poorer for it.  Yes, world maps can feel archaic and dated, but there are ways to implement them which aren't so incongruous.  Dragon Quest VIII had a world map that felt like a scaled down level in its own right, with plenty to explore, without being an 'Open World'.  VII could easily go down a similar route.  Any complete removal of VII's map would cause outcry amongst fans and would remove some of the game's sense of glorious freedom after the intense cyberpunk confines of Midgar.

3) But not an Open World.

There are enough Open World games out there these days.  VII really doesn't need to be one of them.

Yes, it's beautiful, Geralt, really it is, but we just don't need it this time.

4) More side quests (but not too many).

The remake has a real opportunity to expand on VIIs world considerably.  We already know more about it thanks to games like Crisis Core and even Advent Children managed to show us some new things in its running time.  It would be great to acknowledge these additions to the world somehow in the remake.  One way to make this work would be to include more side quests.  Meaningful ones, of course, not just fetch quests or 'requisition orders' (the single most annoying feature in the most recent Dragon Age: Inquisition), but little stories encapsulated in gameplay.  They would also be great opportunities to expand our understanding of the main characters and even open up some real surprises (see point 7).  Just don't give us too many.  I don't want another game turning into a gigantic to-do list.

5) Mini-games.

The original had them and we want them back, but perhaps they could be a little more polished this time?  Just not if its at the expense of the rest of the game.

Imagine Mog's House in HD!  Actually, maybe don't...

6) Materia.

There has been a fair amount of talk about the remake having new elements and modernised gameplay and this is all to be expected, but there's one thing in VII's battle system that I really hope they don't remove or tweak too much: the materia system.  It was just such a neat way of managing spells and abilities, providing lots of options, but also had reasonable limitations which lessened over time.  It was also a lot simpler to navigate and manage than most of today's complex roleplaying game skill and equipment systems and, honestly, there's really nothing wrong with simplicity, especially when it is the veneer covering genuine depth.  The materia system had both in spades.

7) Surprises.

My favourite remakes of the last two decades were Resident Evil (2002), on the Gamecube (and recently remastered for current-gen consoles) and Tomb Raider: Anniversary (2007), which, as I mentioned before, I'm replaying at the moment.  These are both remakes of games from 1996, only a year before Final Fantasy VII came onto the scene, and they are also both seminal entries in some of my favourite game franchises, but there is one other thing I hope they'll have in common with the FFVII remake.

It's not what you're expecting... unless you didn't play the original...

One feature which stands out in both of these games is their use of returning player expectations and their tendency to subvert them.  Take Resident Evil for example.  It frequently sets up a scenario identical to one in the original game and at just the moment when a jump scare might be anticipated - or known to be a red herring - the game will flip it around and scare the hell out of you in so doing.  Tomb Raider: Anniversary does something similar, making its puzzles and environments more challenging by showing a similar set up to the one we experienced in '96 and then doing something completely different with it.  VII needs something similar to happen to it to keep it fresh.  You can add all the new gameplay and graphics enhancements you like, but if it doesn't walk the fine line between faithful recreation and subversive reflection, then it's just not worth doing.

And that's it really.  I'm sure I'll come up with a million others in the (most likely many) years before this game is released, but I'm not going to demand that they keep it the same as it was eighteen years ago, nor am I going to complain that they've ruined my favourite game if the remake doesn't live up to my hopes and dreams.  The truth is that, despite our clamour for a remake, Final Fantasy VII is as playable today as it was when I first got my hands on it and it really isn't going anywhere any time soon.

I might go play some now, in fact...