review of Crisis Core

[fanbeatsman]

I actually only picked this up as a primary text for my research. I enjoyed FFVII an awful lot, but didn't develop much of a fannish attachment to it (missed out on the nostalgia factor, for one thing, by only playing it for the first time, er, last year ¬_¬) - not enough to pick up the spin-offs, at any rate. So I was kind of surprised by just how

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hi hi how's things?

[fanbeatsman]

SO MUCH WORD to everything you've said about Sephiroth. The way characters talk about him, the way the story-world constructs him as a hero, even the fact of his snapping itself just doesn't work unless you assume that he was a centred and honourable person to start with. And I thought the game did a really great job of showing that. I also thought it did a really interesting and sensitive job of communicating how difficult it would actually be to be someone like Sephiroth - not, IT'S A HARD LIFE BEING PRACTICALLY PERFECT IN EVERY WAY, but still acknowledging that the kind of superhuman strength and physiology he has could be very frustrating to deal with.

I do see what you mean with Genesis. The sheer amount of attention he gets in the game never sat well with me - no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't reconcile the centrality of him with the original game's focuses and storyline (it actually made it difficult for me to treat the game as a prequel, in some respects). Angeal's integration into the story was much smoother, and worked much better. Also, Genesis's design (although I don't know much about how they came up with the idea for him, beyond that it was based on Gackt? who I know nothing about) is very *facepalm*

THAT SAID I think this: What I -am- interested in, is Genesis and Angeal's relationship, as childhood friends because I am a sucker for that sort of thing and seriously want to know what went on between them. sort of hits on why it is that I did grow interested in him. It wasn't so much what they did do with the character (although there were a couple of bits that really made me feel like he had some depth, like finding that diary entry about Sephiroth D:), but what you could do with him. His LOVELESS thing is ridiculously over-played in-game, but the idea of a character that obsessed with a fictional text could be taken in really interesting directions. Or I'd love (because I am a horrible person who loves torturing characters :s) to poke at his relationship with Sephiroth, think about how a friendship (or even just working relationship) works when it's based on intense (almost certainly one-sided; Sephiroth seems like he would have been a good friend) admiration and intense jealousy. Or ITA with you, think about what he was like when he was younger and how he would have become friends with Angeal - and then what happens to that friendship when Sephiroth comes into the picture. So I sort of want to write him, because I think you could do so much more with him than the game does :D

genuinely nice guy who grows on people <- this this this is Zack in a nutshell, yes. So much ♥ The thing that really struck me about him is that him being the hero, and having such a profound effect on so many people, never once felt contrived or forced - he's just that genuinely likeable. I never once resented the fact that I was supposed to like him (which happens to me depressingly often in games&c.).

I ended up rattling through it at quite a pace (I was so underleveled that I probably only got through the final boss thanks to really lucky DMW rolls ¬_¬), so I've not done many of the sidequests. I am very much looking forward to a second playthrough, though :D