A lot of folks have a misunderstanding about the stakes of tomorrow’s Final Fantasy VII 25th anniversary stream. You are caring about the wrong thing. Remake 2? Do you really think a crumb of a teaser for a game by Square, kings of the useless and incoherent trailer, is worth getting hyped for? Ever Crisis? Sure, because what we needed was a mobile-only game to summarize the plot of Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus. Get your heads right- you need to be rooting for a PC and console port of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier.
“The mobile-only battle royale? The asset flip?” Yes, the mobile-only battle royale. Yes, the asset flip. The hate for asset flips is driven by bad actors! Sure, it can be a sign that a project is low effort, or low investment. But if you’re building off of the base of another game, why redo the work if you don’t have to! Go shout at Ford to reinvent the wheel for every car! That’s stupid! Those idiots who shouted at the Pokemon Company for reusing basic animations in Legends Arceus were aptly named- they’re idiots! Reusing assets can be a virtue!
And mobile-only? Why do you think I’m freakin’ yelling?! The game is a mille crepe cake of seven lucky layers of mechanics! You’ve got the gunplay essentials of many a royale, class abilities and leveling, classic Final Fantasy magic from Bio to Bahamut, third person melee that handles differently per class, rides like a motorcycle or your own hand-raised chocobo, monster encounters that put to shame the paltry efforts of rivals like Apex Legends and Fortnite, and even nailbiter boss fights that inspire temporary alliances between combatants! I shot the lead singer of J-rock band MAN ON A MISSION in the face with a shotgun! Then his bandmates annihilated me. Tough boss fight. Bring friends.
The point is, First Soldier is fun as hell and has a ton of mechanics that no other battle royale can boast. And yet! If I want to play it, I’m straining my neck staring at my tiny phone screen! I’m trying to get a DualShock 3 to play nice with my iPhone! But most importantly of all, I’m struggling to convince friends who’ve been burned by trash mobile games for years that no, seriously, this one is good!
For more than six months I’ve watched a dope game flounder. Sick events. Great additions. A new map I can’t wait to try. And why? Because they won’t let it off of phones! Join hands with me. Let’s angrily hope that Square does the right thing tomorrow. First Soldier deserves a PC and console port.
and then when square doesn’t do the right thing, because they’re square, let’s grouse about it on twitter together. after all, what else is twitter for.
