something has started today

I'm in the minority when I say that Season 3 did not have an impressive start. I understand what they were going for, but I had found the direction to be oversaturated with filters and atrocious color blends to enjoy it. The pacing and direction has felt off as well, which had me dubious about where this was going.

I've already read the manga, so I'm aware that things are going to be a stepdown from the quality of the earlier arcs. Because of this, I can't expect too much. What I can say for the anime is that by the introduction of Hikari and Kirara, things did start to improve, thankfully.

However, I was the most concerned about a particular character. That being none other than our attorney at law jujutsu sorcerer Hiromi Higuruma.

Arguably one of the best, if not the best, characters that came after the likes of Kento Nanami, it was extremely important to me that MAPPA get his story right.

But as I said, the beginning was making me worried they were going to mess it up, but to my greatest joy, they managed to deliver in all the right ways!

I will have to admit that his introduction and backstory shown in episode 8 isn't as well-done as it is in the manga, but it does a serviceable enough job to explain where our broken-spirited man bearing the burden of being a defense attorney in Japan is coming from.

Episode 9 clears all doubt for me. The direction was everything I could have wanted, with the direction, lighting, shadow, art, music, and phenomenal voice acting.

Higuruma got a great deal in both the Japanese and English dubs, scoring the talented Tomokazu Sugita and Ben Balmaceda respectively. Now, personally, I prefer Balmaceda's performance, as he conveys a crumbled spirit so well, and when he called upon his domain expansion, it carried far more impact in my opinion. But do not get me wrong; I have all the respect towards Sugita-san, who also does a great job in his own way. In this case, it only comes down to my personal preference.

Higuruma is one of my favorite characters, and I'm glad to see him get so much love, care, and respect when it was time to get to his memorable part in the story. He's the best parts of Gojo, Nanami, and Geto all rolled into one. A man with great talents who is a prodigy, who loses his way, but rediscovers himself through his encounter with Yuji. It's a wonderful moment that helps to further Yuji's character as he suffers through terrible guilt over Shibuya, while also making Higuruma realize what he did was wrong no matter how much he tells himself he enjoyed it. I don't want to say too much more because of spoilers, but I can't wait to see how that comes along in the story in the future adapted to the anime.

By the way, @philian-arkhiv pointed something out to me. When Higuruma invites Yuji to sit with him and asks if it felt awful killing someone, it goes to the outro, then returns to them after, continuing where they left off with Higuruma relinquishing his points. He opines that it was done on purpose, that the outro may be Yuji conveying to Higuruma all of what he went through until now, leading to the latter reaching a sympathetic understanding to him and deciding to help him out. After he told me that, that really made the episode go up even higher. I don't know if that was the intent, but it's still so fascinating to me.

All that said, I am greatly pleased that, in spite of my doubts, MAPPA delivered on Hiromi Higuruma for this episode. That's all I could have asked for, if nothing else.

My only criticism is that they omitted the shot of him standing over the bodies of the judge and the prosecutor like in the manga. I do hope that gets included in the blu-ray release. If not, well, it's disappointing, but not a total dealbreaker.

For the first game, there's much jank and clunkiness to its early gameplay that makes it a chore navigating its menu system. It also does have a slight high encounter rate that I hadn't realized until recently. Thankfully, because the dungeons and fields don't run long, they're not as noticeable as say IV, V, or Tierkreis, so that's good. Once you get used to it, and can overcome a lot of its jank, it's still a solid game.

In a lot of ways, I actually prefer GS1's story to GS2's. It's not as polished, and perhaps doesn't look as pretty as the second game, nor has its gameplay improvements, but there's a level of maturity about the writing that's missing in certain aspects in its successor that I greatly appreciate here.

Now, don't get me wrong. GS2 is no slouch in its writing, nor its execution. It's a solid, great game worthy of its praise. But I had to be honest while replaying. Its core story hinges on the player wanting to reunite the three friends. When I was growing up playing this game, I loved Jowy Atreides, and I was wholly onboard with getting him back. But now that I'm older, my thoughts on him are very different.

Because of this, I simply don't care about him anymore, and find the true ending of GS2...rather childish, and think it undermines all of what the leads had gone through. I understand the idea they deserve happiness after everything, but thinking about it...it simply would not work that way for any involved to just go back to being friends like nothing happened.

To my understanding, Murayama-san also agreed with this and disliked the true ending, admitting that it was only done as a bonus for getting the 108 stars.

For that reason, I like GS1 a little more now for it keeping to its themes and the tragedy that Tir McDohl had to endure even into winning the war.

Not only that, with a somewhat better translation (although, there's some controversy over that), I took a shine to characters I hadn't paid much attention to until now. Namely, Mathiu Silverberg, as well as others.

The quality of life improvements were nice, and helps speed things along. Though, the harder difficulty was kind of disappointing. I barely noticed much difference from its standard difficulty. Having the option to not be timed on the Clive/Elza quest was also nice (I only could ever get it using a Gameshark code to freeze the timer, so much obliged there).

The new art for GS1 was both hit or miss. Some characters benefitted greatly, while others...not so much. *cough*Kwanda*cough*. Same can be said for GS2's. The upscale looked...bizarre to me. I really wish they had just hired Ishikawa-sensei to redraw the art. Well, it is what it is.

Not fond of the censorship that had to happen to Richmond, however, but what can you do?

Overall, it's nice having access to these games on modern console. And even though I don't love GS2 as much as I did, I wouldn't say I was unhappy going through it again.

Hoping the other games get remasters (or even a remake!) in the future!

For the record, Gremio is still my husbando. Heheh!

Well, what can I say about FFVII that hasn't already been said? Even after all this time, it still holds up amazingly well and is still one of the best games I have ever played. The characters, for the most part, are great (especially Cloud, Aerith, and Barret), the story explores many themes relatively well such as corruption, identity, self-doubt, environment, etc. The atmosphere and tone of a dystopian world that has become used to convenience at the expense of the planet and themselves is done really well and leaves a good impact. The dreary, industrial music accompanying it serves to enhances it, thanks to the natural talents of Uematsu.

It's just a really wonderful game.

Of course, it does have its flaws. There's some dialogue here and there that leaves unfortunate implications (most which can be blamed on some poor translation choices, but not all), certain characters perhaps get off a little too easy for my liking (Cid in particular's treatment of Shera is...well, not great, and he's only saved by the short story I read in one of Ultimanias that I wish was in the game. And Tifa I think should have been called out for how she more or less helped break Cloud's psyche. I get why she did it, but still, she could have done with some reprimanding.)

There's also that the game does decline a little after the events at the Northern Crater, and it feels like we're rushing to quickly wrap everything up at once.

The PS4 emulation also suffer from audio glitches, and I think some weird stuff happens with the combat, too.

Nonetheless, it doesn't hamper my enjoyment of this fantastic title in the least. I could play this game again and again.

I honestly can't believe I used to like and defend this game. I recall a lot of people criticizing it back in the day, and me dismissing all of it out of ignorance. Now? I can see why there was so much criticism.

The game is a mess, both in gameplay and story. Is it unplayable? No. But being at the whims of a slots system is not fun. I wouldn't say its the worst thing ever. If you play straight through the story, you certainly won't notice too many glaring issues with it. But if you're attempting to 100% it? Oh, you're gonna have a painful time!

As for the story? It's trash. What could have been an interesting exploration of a man working in Shin-Ra with his head initially being full of dreams and ambitions until he realizes how crooked the company is could have been amazing, and gone right in line with the themes of FFVII.

Unfortunately, we went the generic anime route, complete with a mantra repeated ad nauseam "embrace your dreams and protect your honor as SOLDIER". Which is ludicrous, and asinine. There is nothing "honorable" about working for a company that conquered a country to force them to give up their lands to create more Mako, as well as regularly captures people and experiments on them against their will, among other atrocities.

Zack himself is a massive hypocrite in this game. It seems no matter what Shin-Ra does, he continues to serve the company without so much as considering that maybe he really fucking shouldn't. He especially looks worse when you actually read the mission logs and see just how much he enables their bullcrap, but still fancies himself becoming a hero, remaining blissfully unaware and willfully ignorant. Unless it effects him directly, of course. He also doesn't seem to mind them watching his at-the-time girlfriend for no doubt nefarious purposes.

That's not even getting into how much they love to play up how dumb he is. He's a Second Class SOLDIER by the time the game takes place, but somehow doesn't know how to register for missions, FIND THE CITY RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BUILDING, never saw the slums (even though that's impossible because you'd likely need to pass through the slums to even get to the train station), use his phone, or, hell, even tie his shoes, probably.

He's just a damn idiot in this game. Seriously, how the hell was he getting by without Kunsel until now???

But that can be said for almost any character here. Everyone is egregiously flanderized and misrepresented. Aerith in particular was brutally butchered. A strong-willed, capable girl reduced to a dull, bland love interest for Zack.

Angeal is a boring, poorly written mentor character, and Genesis was a massive mistake to ever include. It's fine if Nomura is a fan of Gackt, but inserting him into FFVII and making him his pet character should have never happened.

Cissnei is fine at least. A shame more couldn't be done with her.

This game is just a big pile of missed opportunities, and what it decides to focus on is childish writing, anime-tier storytelling and dialogue, and cringey poems and mantras.

This game's one saving grace is the English voice acting. Rick Gomez as Zack is a godsend, and is the one thing keeping me from despising Zack completely. (Me and @philian-arkhiv call it "Rick Gomez Vaccine" for a reason.) He's phenomenal in his delivery, as is most everyone. George Newbern, Steve Burton, even Genesis' voice actor is great, despite the crud he has to say. Carrie Savage as Cissnei, too.

Otherwise, this game is toss. After going through it again and 100%-ing it, I can safely say I will never touch it again.

It's truly amazing how much I've soured on a game I once loved… But what can you do? You really just get the impression that there was no story to tell for Zack. I mean, he was just a plot device in the OG to explain how Cloud got from point A to point B (and whom he based his SOLDIER persona on). Trying to force one for him just caused all kinds of issues, and it shows with this game. It likely could have been done, but not in Tabata's or Nomura's hands.

Final rating: 3.5/10

OMAKE

I first watched @philian-arkhiv play this after I bought it for him on Christmas. I wasn't expecting too much, but I was immediately hooked with the unique and unexpected methods this game employs.

After watching my good buddy finish it, I had decided I had to get it and play it for myself. It's amazing just how much I've come to love this game. It has been so long since a game has managed to hook me as much as this did.

The stories of each character is short, and admittedly varies in quality, but offers interesting and engaging storytelling. By far, my favorite ones were The Distant Future/Mechanical Heart and Middle Ages/The Lord of Dark chapters. The former because I love its edge of sci-fi horror, its subtle details, and character exploration. The latter...without going too much into spoilers, that ending packed a painful punch and I just felt so terrible for Oersted when all came to a head...

The others offer something of good value as well, all in their own ways. However, the worst chapters for me were Prehistoric, Near Future, and Twilight of Edo Japan. (Though that last one is more because of how tedious it gets when you're trying to do something specific in it.)

Also it goes without saying the music is wonderful. I mean, it has Yoko Shimomura on it!

One other thing I was pleasantly surprised at is how good the English voice acting is. Voice acting in these kinds of games can really be a huge hit or miss, but they pulled it off wonderfully! Some of the highlights being Reagan Murdock as Sundown, David Cui Cui as Akira, Mike Romo as Mad Dog, James Bradwell as Kato, Qiang Wu as the Shifu, and especially Dario Coates as Oersted (he in particular really knocked it out of the park).

There's so many more to mention, as the English version is that good. Admittedly, there are a couple of duds here and there, but none that really ruin the spectacular quality, so A++++ there! (Though, as an aside, I love hearing Tomokazu Sugita make adorable caveman noises. Haha! And though Bradwell's Kato is amazing and endearing, Akira Ishida does a wonderful job as well.)

As for the gameplay itself, it's definitely an interesting take on ATB/turn-based/strategy, though it is on the jank side a little. Especially the weakness/resistance feature seems to not matter that much at all, so much as the damage output. There's also some weird balancing issues, and it doesn't offer that much challenge when it comes down to it. Nonetheless, it's interesting and I did enjoy it (especially getting to have O'Bright, Odeo, and Odo dance around while I was controlling them... Hahah!) Having said that, I can see this putting off people who come for a challenging RPG.

As for the characters themselves, I love most of them to bits, with my favorite being Oersted; Cube as a close second. My least favorites are Akira and Pogo. (Though, Akira is marginally saved by Cui Cui's marvelous voice acting. Sheer "Rick Gomez Vaccine" there. Can't say the same for the Japanese voice, I'm sorry.)

Honorable mentions go to Kato, the Corporal, and Mad Dog.

I will say that I kind of prefer the original's ending to the new extended true ending. The extension can come off as preachy and kind of downplays what happened to Oersted a little too much to my liking, almost tilting towards victim-blaming, kind of ruining the overall message of the game. It's not terrible, but it does rub me the wrong way a little.

Otherwise, what can I say? I know this game doesn't have a whole lot to offer, but something about it really drew me in. So much, that I want more. Especially of Oersted and Cube, or Sundown and Mad Dog, or anything... ('cept Akira and Pogo, hehe!)

Such a shame that this is as good as it gets, but for what it does, I'm more than pleased. Even with a few bumps in the road.

I went in willing to give it a chance, but the beginning was already giving me red flags. I then thought to myself that if it can't be a faithful adaptation, then at least it could be a decent movie, and it somehow couldn't even accomplish that much either.

I'm floored how terrible it was. Bad narrative, bad pacing, just…bad, and sometimes, even hilarious. I can't tell you how many times the audience, as well as my buddy @philian-arkhiv and I, cracked up at so many scenes that were trying to be serious. The name reveal was especially memorable in how hard the few people that came to see this howled. (We both joked her full name is actually Mary Maria Angela Laura Heather Cheryl Alessa Claudia Dahlia Lisa Cynthia Eileen Crane. But some of her friends call her "Eddie!")

Then there's the overuse of CG, and that awful world transition. The way it's shot, I had the DOOM theme playing in my head. Just needed the interface at the bottom with James' face looking every which way he's turning. Speaking of which, I still don't know why the hell James looks more like Henry in this movie. I started calling him Henry-James Sundershend because of it.

And the monsters… Christ, way to downgrade them into generic-looking creatures. Seems all of them needed clear faces and appendages, otherwise we wouldn't get it.

That's another issue. Like so much other modern crap, everything needs to be spelled out. Constantly. Oh, this mannequin wearing Mary's dress? The audience won't get it, so here's a flashback of her wearing it. Oh, these stairs resemble the apartment they lived in? Let's show them that so they can get it!

Yeah, subtlety is dead for sure.

My mistake was thinking Gans might have possibly improved over time, against my better judgement. Sigh…should have known.

Please, never let this man near the franchise again. Ever.