Why FF Versus XIII is Destined for Greatness!!!(As far as we know)

[forevercloud3000]

A203D said:

I think the dialogue, the voice acting, the writing in this scene is amazing, its one of the scenes where you are truthly in awe over the story. To me this is equal to the scenes you also mentioned. The only problem was as I mentioned the developers were prevented from creating the game they wanted to create.

The thing with FF Versus is Advent Children. I think that film epitomises the poor storytelling associated with FF these days. And Tetsuya Nomura directed that film. With reference to a specific scene. That scene where Barett is shooting enemies, and Cloud saves him. Barett says 'Hey, how you been'. To me its one of the worst peices of dialogue, both written and spoken I've heard in a film. Worst that Batman and Robin dialogue. They changed Barett's characterisation; in FF7 Barett was a father and a believable character, in Advent Children they changed him to be the comic relief black guy.

Final Fantasy XII has the most concise and well written script in the series. Some complained about it due to the "Ol English" accents but I loved it and thought it was perfectly executed. I knew about the issues they had during development, and some of those changes I feel hurt the over all story, such as putting Vaan and Penelo in the forfront. Bashe, but more specifically Ashe, were very dynamic characterizations. I love the fact that Ashe refuses to be the prototypical damsel in distress and takes charge over the team. And who doesn't love the sexual tension between Balthier and his amazon body guard Fran? I think they are two of my favorite Non-Nomura character designs in the series. Whoever did their designs was awesome, me not being a fan of Amano's girlish hyper effiminant designs and all about Nomura's anime japanese grunge punk rock designs.

As far as Nomura's ability to write a deep and gripping story. I have full faith in his ability to do just that. I love the Kingdom Hearts series and although the writing is no where near as good as FFXII's, he gets something across that few writers can. The last time I cried like a baby over a video game was Aerith's death, but that was followed by this.....

Like....A....Baby! You see while there is a slight translation issue from Japanese to English that end up detracting a bit from the over all writing, Nomura still creates great moments via impressive imagery, flashy spectacle, and pure emotion. Sora and Kairi on the cusp of budding love and then being torn apart just as they started to realize it...heartbreaking, at least for me lol. 

Advent Children was the same, I don't really think it was badly written, just wasn't translated all that well. Yet a lot of the story can be extracted from visual cues. The final scenes where Kadaj and Cloud are just about to face off. Cloud calls him out for being just another blind puppet of Jenova/Sephiroth. Kadaj knows it to be true, and while feeling utterly inferior to the one that came before him he still has the same deep unrequited need for approval from mother(Jenova). Kadaj says something to the affect of, "So what if I'm a puppet.....once upon a time...." I love this line, even if it comes off sounding just a tad weird. It just speaks leagues in itself about where his mental state is.

As far as the over all plot of AC, it fits rather perfectly in the FFVII universe, unfortunately the movie doesn't explain what is goin on too well(until the rereleased with BluRay and added tons of scenes to do so). Many just don't understand it because they barely understood FFVII's plot. You see Sephiroth, like many FF names has a hidden meaning. Sephiroth is a derivation of the word Sephirot in Hebrew. The Sephirot (from my limited understanding) means enumeration or never ending. It represents God's Divine Will or something to that effect. There are several teirs that create a Sephirot which are basically what makes God a God.

Throughout FFVII Sephiroth refers to himself and Jenova as something higher than feeble Cloud can understand. We know all thru FFVII Cloud fights many Sephiroth clones. This is because Sephiroth is so at one with Jenova(Mother, or God to him) that his will resonates and dominates all that were ever subjected to Jenova cells. His personality takes over and they apparently start to believe they are him. The thing about Cloud is, even though he thinks very little of himself, he was the first and only Jenova infused human to resist Sephiroth's will and more than once kills him. This only comes to light when Cloud is pushed too far by Sephiroth. This is y he is Seph's only rival, but he is also seen as defective because he doesn't register with Jenova's cause. I think this is meant to hint at regardless of raw strength, the human aspect is more powerful. Anyway, in AC we see Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz who are all young Sephiroth clones. Kadaj feels the deepest connection with Jenova and wishes to be one with Jenova's Will just like Sephiroth but Jenova only sees Sephiroth as her perfect vessel. This frustrates Kadaj and is why he battles with the idea of giving into Seph's control.

The coolest thing about AC is is shows just how great Sephiroth's Will is. He is referred to in the movie as "The Nightmare that keeps coming back". Sephiroth is basically imortal and will constantly keep finding a way to come back as long as Jenova Cells still exist out there(which at this point they have infected the earth and every living thing). Which is a very scary thought knowing what a Sociopath he is. Seph says at the end "I will never be a memory...." hinting at he will return again and again to haunt the only person with comparable will to his. I personally just love the suttle storytelling of the movie and how involved it is with the original game's lore. Hence the reason I find it to be great story telling and commend Nomura for staying true to FFVII.