As many people have said about dating profiles (or moms on their wall art), I like a video game that makes me laugh, and I’m very happy with it Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has been damn good at it.
In my time with the game, it has asked me to do absurd things, like play a card game against a regular dog. It features Cloud Strife, the tough protagonist with a giant sword, who carries a small pad that he can use on benches. There are guys who play acoustic guitar at you, like the Kens Barbie, the franchise’s second homoerotic motorcycle duel, and a bunch of other things I want to talk about but would probably be spoilers. I mean, Chadley???
But if you’ll indulge me, I have to talk about one thing in particular.
Consider this a spoiler warning. I mean it. I’m going to embed a photo of Cloud Strife playing the piano (also funny) to save casual scrollers, but below that comes a YouTube video of one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in video games, one that I recommend you check out for yourself Check it out if you’re interested in continuing to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. (You can’t miss it, it’s part of the story.)
OK, ready?
Image: Square Enix
Here it is:
There are many incredible things about this scene, which takes place in Chapter 5 aboard the Shinra-8 cruise to the Costa del Sol. First, like many things in it Rebirthare a joke lifted straight from the original Final fantasy 7but it’s been given such a lavish reinterpretation that it becomes a very different kind of funny, a throwaway gag made into a comic centerpiece for no reason at all.
As previously established in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the characters are more than happy to break out into dance, but that still doesn’t prepare you for seeing Red tries to cross Cloud’s table. (Also the kid who cries when he sees him kills me every time.)
I don’t think you’ll get anything from this Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth without Square Enix’s crucial development decision to never shy away from or soften the oddity of the original game’s polygonal abstraction. Under the art limitations of the older game, the unrealities of, say, riding a dolphin or meeting a talking cat are much easier to deal with, and not particularly unusual.
Recreating these moments with such a high degree of realism is funny in itself, an endearing dedication to a piece that I can’t believe a huge studio signed on to. It’s also a necessary counterbalance to an otherwise awful and melodramatic story – yes, the heroes of Rebirth must Also fighting for a world that has room for fun and levity – and a bit of a eulogy for this kind of goofballery in modern big-budget games.
Sure, every now and then we get something like this Like a dragon: infinite wealththe latest in a long line of games that always give players a mighty crazy time – but Final fantasy 7‘s comedy is something else. It’s a holdover from a time when games were a little more mysterious, a little more challenging to interpret, with a little more room to surprise. Maybe publishers will see people eagerly sharing photos of Red XIII riding a chocobo and think, hey, this stuff would be good to have in video games again.