As many individuals have stated on relationship profiles (or moms on their wall art), I like a online game that makes me snort, and I’m delighted Closing Fantasy 7 Rebirth has been so goddamn good at it.
In my time with the sport, it has requested me to do absurd issues like play a card recreation towards a regular-ass canine. It has featured Cloud Strife, the badass protagonist with an enormous sword, carrying a bit cushion round for him to make use of on benches. It’s obtained dudes who play acoustic guitar at you just like the Kens in Barbie, the franchise’s second homoerotic biker duel, and lots of different issues I wish to discuss however would in all probability be spoilers. I imply, Chadley???
However if you happen to’ll enable me the indulgence, I would like to speak about one particularly.
Take into account this a spoiler warning. I’m severe. I’m going to embed a photograph of Cloud Strife taking part in the piano (additionally humorous) to attempt to spare informal scrollers, however proper beneath it, there might be a YouTube video of one of many funniest issues I’ve ever seen in video video games, one which I like to recommend seeing for your self if you happen to’re concerned about taking part in by means of Closing Fantasy 7 Rebirth. (You may’t miss it, it’s a part of the story.)
Okay, prepared?
![Cloud plays piano in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XCpX7MoiReVAT569yDNMe8NuKv0=/0x0:1920x1080/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1920x1080):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25310994/EN_03_FF7REBIRTH_Demo.jpg)
Picture: Sq. Enix
Right here it’s:
There are lots of unimaginable issues about this scene, which takes place in Chapter 5 aboard the Shinra-8 cruise to Costa del Sol. First, like lots of issues in Rebirth, it’s a gag lifted directly from the original Final Fantasy 7, but it surely’s been given such a lavish reinterpretation that it turns into a wholly totally different sort of humorous, a throwaway gag made right into a comedic centerpiece for no purpose in any respect.
As beforehand established in Closing Fantasy 7 Remake, the characters are more than pleased to interrupt out into dance, however that also doesn’t put together you for seeing Pink XIII do a Michael Jackson impression, or the (smaller however funnier) sight gag of the canine warrior making an attempt to cross his legs throughout the desk from Cloud. (Additionally the child crying on the sight of him kills me each time.)
I don’t suppose you get any of this in Closing Fantasy 7 Rebirth with out Sq. Enix’s essential improvement determination to by no means shrink back from or soften the oddity of the unique recreation’s polygonal abstraction. Beneath the older recreation’s artwork constraints, the unrealities of, say, driving a dolphin or assembly a speaking cat are a lot simpler to roll with, and never significantly uncommon.
Recreating these moments with such a excessive diploma of realism is in itself humorous, an endearing dedication to a bit I can’t imagine a large studio signed up for. It’s additionally each a obligatory counterbalance to an in any other case dire and melodramatic story — sure, the heroes of Rebirth should additionally battle for a world that has room for enjoyable and levity — and a little bit of a eulogy for this sort of goofballery in trendy big-budget video games.
Certain, each from time to time we get one thing like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the newest in an extended line of video games that at all times present gamers a tremendously goofy time — however Closing Fantasy 7’s comedy is one thing totally different. It’s a relic from a time when video games have been a bit extra mysterious, a bit more difficult to interpret, with a bit extra room to shock. Perhaps publishers will see individuals eagerly sharing photographs of Pink XIII driving a chocobo and suppose, hey, these things could be good to have in video video games once more.