The Final Fantasy VII logo; it reads FINAL FANTASY VII in a tall font superimposed on a blue monochrome image of a falling meteor.
I picked up Crisis Core again recently, and toward the end of the game, it catches up with some of the backstory sequences from Final Fantasy VII. I’ve only played FFVII once, a long time ago, so I decided to play it again to fill in the gaps of my hazy memory. I’ve only played the first hour or so so far, but what I wanted to remark upon was how great this opening hour is for setting up the world, plot, and a couple of the main characters of the game quickly, without sacrificing excitement.
In the opening scene of the game, our protagonist, Cloud, and a group of four people who call themselves AVALANCHE infiltrate and destroy a thing called a Mako Reactor. The group breaks codes on security doors, battles through the facility to the reactor where they face a giant scorpion robot, sets a bomb, escapes before the place explodes, and flees the area via train. Throughout all of this, we learn about:
- Cloud: The first lines of dialogue are about how Cloud used to be in a group called SOLDIER, but he quit. It’s not said why he quit, or why he has joined AVALANCHE now, but this is his first mission with them. Later on we learn that SOLDIER is a mercenary group that works for…
- Barret: The leader of AVALANCHE, and our second party member. All we learn up front is that he doesn’t trust Cloud and is trying to save the planet from…
- Shinra Power Company: We are told by Barret that Shinra owns all of the Mako Reactors that power the city of Midgar, and that the reactors pull from the very life force of the planet, slowly killing it. This is the reason AVALANCHE is attacking the reactors.
- Midgar: Jesse tells Cloud about the train system in Midgar, but more importantly, Barret explains how the structure of the city enables a deep class division–the upper class lives on a plate held up by a central spire, and the poor live in the slums below the plate, where they can’t even see the sky.
This is all communicated quickly and simply in the dialogue during the attack. The SOLDIER thing is remarked upon to an almost comical degree, but it’s a point of tension between Cloud and Barret, who doesn’t really trust him, and it’s really the only thing we find out about Cloud in this opening segment. In fact, for some time, it is Cloud’s defining feature.
In the second scene, AVALANCHE regroups at Seventh Heaven, a bar that serves as AVALANCHE’s headquarters. There, we meet…
- Marlene: Barret’s young daughter (it’s not clear how old she is, but she’s young enough to become frightened around people she doesn’t know, like Cloud). A few lines of dialogue give us insight into Barret’s motivation: he loves his daughter and wants to save the planet from Shinra so that she can have a long and safe life. Even with the goofy, blocky polygons, Barret picking up Marlene and putting her on his shoulder is a nice moment.
- Tifa, our third party character. We find out via flashback that Tifa is a childhood friend of Cloud’s. When he tells her he is going to Midgar to join SOLDIER, she makes him promise to come and rescue her if she’s ever in trouble. She uses this memory to try to convince Cloud to join AVALANCHE, but it backfires a bit: Cloud goes on a rant about how he doesn’t care about Shinra, the planet, or AVALANCHE. It was a jarring moment for me because in Crisis Core, Cloud is still an enthusiastic and naive kid, more or less, so it’s sad to see how the Nibelheim incident and the events that followed made him so jaded and apathetic.
After the brief scene at Seventh Heaven, Cloud, Barret, and Tifa head out for the next mission. FFVII has a reputation for being huge and confusing (and I certainly remember being confused a lot the first time I played it), but I found the introduction to be pretty well-done in that it conveys important information about the characters without being boring.
Over the next month or two (or possibly longer), I’m going to be replaying Final Fantasy VII and writing about it; if you’re in the mood for a replay, or if you’ve never played FFVII before, you’re very welcome to play along and join me in discussing this classic game.
I meant to add this to the post, but Denis’s post about the drag scene also inspired this replay!
A few thoughts of my own, as my viewpoint on it isn’t as positive. I don’t think it’s a bad game, but it’s definitely a PSX era jRPG.
“This is all communicated quickly and simply in the dialogue during the attack.”
The lines of dialogue that introduce Cloud were very poorly written, I thought. To better illustrate my point:
Biggs
“Wow! You used to be in SOLDIER all right! …Not
everyday ya find one in a group like AVALANCHE.”
Jessie
“SOLDIER? Aren’t they the enemy?”
“What’s he doing with us in AVALANCHE?”
Biggs
“Hold it, Jessie. He WAS in SOLDIER.”
“He quit them and now is one of us.”
“Didn’t catch your name…”
The idea that they’re doing this important mission, and one of the characters doesn’t even know that he used to be in SOLDIER, and another doesn’t know his name, strikes me as rather odd. From a gameplay perspective, it sort of makes sense. Introduce Cloud and give the player the opportunity to name him. From a storytelling perspective, not so much. This is one of those instances where I think the game is hindered by letting the player name the characters.
As for conveying that he was in SOLDIER, there are probably better ways of communicating this than were used. It comes off as very “As you know, Bob…” but in this instance, where Bob is Jessie, it doesn’t really make sense for our Bob to not know. Cloud didn’t just walk in off the street, see them attacking an energy plant, and say “Hey! Mind if I tag along!” They should know who he is. That Cloud is on this mission despite Barret not trusting him also seems off to me, but I’m willing to believe that Tifa got Barret to let him join despite his distrust.
Moving on to my next problem, it bugs me that their actions are portrayed in such a “We’re the good guys!” way. Think about it. They’re a terrorist group, and they’re blowing up a Mako reactor, which provides energy for a lot of Midgar. Their motives, wanting to protect the planet and also striking a blow against the rich, are good, but them doing this seems to happen wholly within a vacuum in FFVII. There aren’t any consequences for their actions, nor any moral gray area to something that really should have a moral gray area. It would have been nice to see at least one character questioning if they were doing the right thing, or a news report that shows the collateral damage of what they did.
Last, and this is more major game spoilers so heads up people, Cloud’s behavior bothers me after the added context that Crisis Core gives. FFVII came out first, which means in terms of canon it has the high ground, but what I really, really loved about Crisis Core was what an upbeat, happy, likable character Zack came off as. He’s essentially the Zidane of the FFVII universe. (At least, I remember Zidane being especially cheerful in IX) Cloud… isn’t. Cloud’s dark, moody, and broody. Now, it’s been a long while since I’ve played FFVII, so take this last bit with a grain of salt, but from what I recall Cloud’s backstory in VII is that he either convinced himself he was basically Zack or he was pretending to be. I think the former, but like I said it’s been a while. Cloud doesn’t act anything like Zack, and it doesn’t really make sense for Cloud to act the way he does if he’s trying to be Zack. I know VII is more canon than Crisis Core, like I said, but it’s just something that has bugged me since I played Crisis Core.
Some of these complaints can be attributed to the PSX jRPG thing I brought up earlier. It was a transitional stage for jRPGs, and I recognize that, and I hope I’m not coming off as rude or anything. I just wanted to contribute another viewpoint to this FFVII discussion. I still like the post, and look forward to seeing the others as you write them.
Thanks for the great comment, NonCon. Lots of great points. (Though I should clarify that I don’t think the dialogue is actually well-written, just that it conveys the background information quickly and in an understandable way. My fault for not being clear!)
I was thinking about the terrorism thing a bit, too, but I wasn’t sure if this was something they addressed in the next mission or something. From the chase sequence after the explosion, it looks like Reactor 1 was above the plate? Cloud runs by the fountain in front of the Shinra building (which looks EXACTLY THE SAME as in Crisis Core). But still. Also, the other thing I am wondering about this is… the game came out in 1998, I was in middle school so I wasn’t exactly politically aware. Was the world as obsessed with terrorism back then as it is now, after September 11, 2001?
Your comments about Crisis Core are basically exactly what I’ve been wondering about it since I finished the game yesterday. The very end of Crisis Core (the train scene) kind of implies Cloud goes straight to Midgar and joins up with AVALANCHE. But that can’t possibly be the case, otherwise he would have known about Zack all this time, and his personality hasn’t yet changed drastically… in that last cinematic, he’s very determined, which is NOT the Cloud from the beginning of FFVII AT ALL– at the beginning of FFVII, he’s apathetic and cynical, basically in it for the money. (“I don’t care about Shinra and I don’t care about the planet or AVALANCHE!” If he remembered Zack he would, at the very least, be pretty pissed at Shinra!) I read on the Crisis Core GameFAQs forums that between the end of CC and beginning of FFVII, Cloud has a mental breakdown because of the Jenova cells injected into him, and this causes him to take on Zack’s backstory as his own. One of the things I hope to get out of this playthrough is a clarification on what happened there. Hopefully this isn’t just a case of a bad retcon… but it probably is =/
My guess; having not played Crisis Core, is they wanted to end Cloud’s story in it on a positive note, so they retconned it a bit, and now it doesn’t quite make sense. Especially because I recall in flashbacks later in the game cloud was practically catatonic after he and Zack left Nibilheim, and still was when Tifa found him at the train station.
Just FYI: He does indeed go straight to Midgar and “joins up with AVALANCHE.” How that happens, you’ll see later. He doesn’t know about Zack. Again, keep playing.
I think you do the game a disservice comparing it to Crisis Core. CC was made 10 years after the fact with a Japanese pop star added to the mix. Aeris and Cloud’s characters were changed. Hell, you know Zack only for a single scene and they changed THAT in CC, too.
Please, please, please, I beg you: Put CC out of your mind while you play through the game. It will be explained in good time, and you’ll be able to see the changes they made in CC later.
Mm, I’m not sure I really agree with your points entirely. This seems like sort of a classic set-up to a ragtag group kind of idea. The mercenary that joins the group, is only there for the money, and who you don’t trust but because that person is so powerful you think it’d be great to have them and perhaps you just desperately need them because of how strong they are. Despite your distrust you’re thinking they’ll be kept loyal with money, and one of your members can even vouch for the guy and knows him. But you’re never really going to completely trust a hired gun, but he was pretty crucial to the plan as shown in that part of the game. I thought it worked fine, really. Not knowing his name seemed really out of place I’ll agree with that, but other than that I don’t imagine he’d be ready to give his entire back story to everyone in the group otherwise. It’s a shady group who likes to blow up reactors to begin with.
On the SOLDIER thing.. yeah they probably could have done that a lot better. Making someone randomly clueless was weird when you could’ve just had that scene later and perhaps just had it be something someone let slip out by accident or something. I can’t see why anyone would voluntarily give that kind of information over ‘Hey, I used be a part of this group that works for the people you’re fighting. Isn’t that neat?’.
I agree and disagree on the terrorist thing. I don’t really think everyone saw them as heroes, only they did and I don’t think that’s really weird, protagonists in earlier games are literally running through strongholds murdering countless minions and no one seems to really be upset by it. And wasn’t there a news report that said they were terrorists and talked about the damage they caused? I’m pretty sure there was a scene like that where they were watching TV in the basement but I may not be remembering it right. With the consequences issue I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that. [SPOILERS] Most of the group dies later on in the game, killed by Shinra in retaliation to what they’ve done and their sector gets utterly destroyed. If those are not consequences I don’t really know what is. Though, again, I may be misunderstanding you and perhaps you mean consequences for other people and you think they should’ve been touched on more? If that’s the case then I apologize for misinterpreting you. [SPOILERS]
I may be looking at this through a filter, admittedly. Final Fantasy 7 was the first RPG I ever played and I may be a bit too fond of it and miss it’s bigger flaws. It’s been a long while since I’ve played it too so that could also be an issue.
Well, the only consequences shown seem to still be that it makes the evil corporation hate them. The fact that they blew up the power generation for an eighth of the city maybe gets mentioned briefly in the bar later to establish their success, but I wouldn’t say their actions have consequences beyond what any typical heroic action would have. And like, taking out the plate over their slums is more portrayed as an evil company going overboard to kill a couple terrorists (which it kind of is) then a natural consequence of destroying a large portion of the city’s infrastructure.
Oh, so NonCon did mean consequences for their actions that are inflicted the city itself and the people who live there (including innocent people). I agree with that then, definitely. That definitely should’ve been expanded on more by the game, it would’ve made for interesting scenes to see how they coped with these decisions and their effects. I can see how actually showing that more firmly asserts the whole moral grey area stuff about it.
If I remember right, the NPCs in the town between the bombing missions tended to talk about the damage caused by AVALANCHE, mostly in a negative way (I specifically remember one mentioning how many gil worth of damage they must have done). There was a bit of a sub-plot about Barret realizing that he was really out for revenge and not just trying to save the world by attacking Shinra, too.
I suspect that, if they remade the game, they’d focus on the moral ambiguity of AVALANCHE a lot more than they did in the original, though. Even if they could still expect people to accept terrorists as the Good Guys, they’ve made far too many people within Shinra sympathetic for it to be so cut and dry anymore.
“protagonists in earlier games are literally running through strongholds murdering countless minions and no one seems to really be upset by it.”
Final Fantasy IV’s main plot is actually kicked off by the fact that the main character’s guilt over the countless people he’s murdered to serve the king, and the fact that he knows he’s in the wrong.
Really, NonCon? Wow, that’s pretty interesting then. I never got to play IV after I tried going back and playing some of the earlier ones. I didn’t realize they had done something like that, many games don’t address it /at all/ XD My mistake then, sorry about that!
Just started reading this blog, and I want to say that FF IV is out for the DS with better graphics, so you do have the chance to play it now. ^_^ It’s a great story, and I highly reccomend it.
Well I won’t be objective on this as FFVII is one of my favorite video games ever but I disagree, oh boy I disagree.
1. Picking dialogue lines out of context isn’t entirely fair, sure they aren’t masterpiece of writing or translation, but in this way by picking lines let’s say form SW:New Hope we can made it as a terrible opening for a movie. Personally I find beginning of the FFVII done very well, it’s atmospheric and keep players intrigued. In many present crpg start of the game makes me literally tired and afraid of what’s to come: authors want to give players as much information as possible about fictional world to deepen their playing experience and actually it did but it result with wall of text and hundreds dialogue lines explaining world history, politics, culture religion etc. It makes often kind of chore for me. So I prefer jrpg way of narrative, perfectly executed in FFVII.
2. Consequences of AVALANCHE attacks. Well whole AVALANCHE is only pretty minor fragment of FFVII story so it’s again pretty unfair to present it this way. Of course one can want it to play it bigger part in plot but it isn’t. Yet even in this part, consequences are presented to player, and game makes it clear that Barret is the leader of AVALANCHE, and there IS this scene where Barret’s actions are challenged and I find this whole scene delightfully executed, especially it weights even more when we later discovers Barret’s past and realize that he is the person that know damn well about consequences.
What I’m saying is that the dialogue, the specific lines that I quote, are poorly written in and of themselves, and in terms of conveying the information quickly, there’s probably a better way of doing that. Cloud doesn’t need to be named by the player. Not *really*, so having him have to give his name is something that could be cut out entirely and replaced with people just calling him Cloud. If you want to show that Cloud was with a group called SOLDIER, there are better ways of doing that in just as few words. My problem isn’t with the amount of words used, but that the game is basically telling the player these things instead of showing them. Show vs Tell is a pretty big thing in storytelling.
“Yet even in this part, consequences are presented to player” What consequences? The only consequences shown that I can recall are that Shinra are all mad about it. What I’m saying is that, regardless of motives, blowing up a power plant isn’t some black and white good guys thing. The loss of a power plant should affect both good and bad people. Hospitals in the area could be without power for instance. Anyone who was working at the plant would have died, even if they were just a technician. Etc. I’m not saying that it has to play a bigger role in the story beyond what it already does, but FFVII presents the actions in a vacuum where the only consequences are the bad guys doing bad things in retaliation. Innocent people are somehow magically unaffected by the actions of AVALANCHE beyond this. This is a missed opportunity, and would have given this intro segment of the game more impact. There’s no moral gray area, and there should be.
With regards to naming Cloud, they could also do what they do in, say, Chrono Trigger and ask for the name right when the game starts. Possibly after he jumps out of the train so it’s clear that this is the guy we’re naming. Or not, it’s not particularly necessary.
I will say the In Medias Res opening does work pretty well, barring some clunky dialog, as far as I remember (I have not played this game at all recently). The other question is, how much of this clunky dialog is translation? The original dialogue may have been less awkward.
“My problem isn’t with the amount of words used, but that the game is basically telling the player these things instead of showing them.”
I see this differently and actually what you propose doesn’t make to much sense imo since we are not suppose to know all about Cloud’s past at this point. And it’s actually isn’t dialogue itself but whole scene narrative, to me looks exactly as it supposes to, as in realty when someone doesn’t want to give some information about oneself, people do start talking exactly like Biggs and Jessie to see reaction or grab some loose word. For me this is well crafted.
“The only consequences shown that I can recall are that Shinra are all mad about it.”
So what about this Barrett’s scene I mentioned where his/AVALANCHE actions are challenged? And as I recall there several more situations where “blowing up a power plant isn’t some black and white good guys thing” are directly articulated, but of course it’s not main thing of the plot, maybe even minor but it’s there.
“I see this differently and actually what you propose doesn’t make to much sense imo since we are not suppose to know all about Cloud’s past at this point.” I’m not saying we have to. I’m not complaining about the amount of words or the amount of information conveyed. I am complaining specifically about the dialogue used to convey this information in this scene. With regards to the dialogue complaints I made, my only complaint was that the way it informs the player is awkward.
“So what about this Barrett’s scene I mentioned where his/AVALANCHE actions are challenged? And as I recall there several more situations where “blowing up a power plant isn’t some black and white good guys thing” are directly articulated, but of course it’s not main thing of the plot, maybe even minor but it’s there.” Do you want to give examples more specific than that? As in, can you provide the actual scenes where these things happen. I’m more than willing to concede that this may have happened and I just don’t recall it, but I need to actually see the moments you’re talking about for that to happen.
Actually, as you find out as you continue playing, they believe Cloud was a SOLDIER because he has a very visible physical marker of having been one – something which is unique to this particular group of people, and doesn’t show up elsewhere in the population. It’s not something which is easy to hide, either, so it’s obvious he’s been through the SOLDIER enhancement process. So the question isn’t so much “is he a SOLDIER?” as “why isn’t he working for the mob who create SOLDIERs?”
And that’s about as much as I can say without dropping spoilers everywhere.
The other issue you raise, that of the glossing over of the implications of the actions of the AVALANCHE team in effectively destroying one-eighth (or, if you go by DoC canon, one-ninth) of the city’s power generation capacity is a major one, and one which probably would be treated differently if the same sort of plot were written today. There are nods toward the moral ambiguity of their actions – while they’re “saving the planet”, they’ve also killed a lot of people as part of their infiltration of the reactor as well as through the explosion, and caused a lot of damage. Given the context, I think the analogy being made was with certain eco-terrorist groups which were extant in the late eighties and early nineties, whose actions included such things as releasing animals being raised for furs (into ecosystems where those particular predators weren’t native, and caused all kinds of havoc) and spiking trees in plantations and logging allotments (causing chainsaws to kick back and possibly injure loggers).
On the other hand, the company which owns and runs the reactors (along with everything else in Midgar, and just about everywhere else in the world of Gaia) is effectively the One Corporate World Government. They’re about seven or eight years out of a war with the one country which was foolish enough to stand against them, and there’s been a series of extremely bad PR events over the past few years (as you discover once you leave Midgar). Which might explain why they’re willing to let a rag-tag bunch of rebels (with only three low-level fighters in the core group) attempt a few acts of random terrorism, in order to justify effectively running the city as a military police state. Getting tough on terrorists, showing a commitment to “public safety” and using “terrorism prevention” as a way of increasing control over civilian movement is a neat way of increasing the domination of this one particular company over the population (and it justifies any price increases as well… so more profit, too!).
A) That AVALANCHE are terrorists and morally dubious is one of the first things pointed out – by civilians in the slums and later by Tifa after Sector 7 is destroyed. It is not too “they’re the good guys, lol” at all. Compare/Contrast with Crisis Core, which decides the last battle of the imperialist attack on Wutai is a great time for a cute Yuffie cameo. When Biggs dies, he even says this is his comeuppance for the plans he’s carried out with AVALANCHE. There was also a news report about the damage they did – it’s rolling in 7th Heaven’s basement when you get back.
B) Zack’s an idiot. And Cloud isn’t acting like Zack. He’s taken Zack’s “memories,” as in he imagines himself in Zack’s place, but he’s affecting the personality he feels represents SOLDIER. It’s a lot more like Sephiroth if you look closely at it.
Also, Cloud isn’t really moody and broody. He gets over it quickly.
I’m not sure that Crisis Core is really all that different in terms of tone — sure, the random Yuffie cameo kind of undercuts the idea that what you’re doing is wrong, but I’m not convinced it’s any worse for that than FFVII’s own absurdity and humor.
The scene that immediately precedes that cameo, in fact, is probably more direct about calling the player out than anything in the original game — the optional (?) mini-bosses ask Zack whether he enjoys torturing innocent people, tell him that taking their land is tantamount to killing them, and make his idealistic excuses look pretty pathetic before he fights them. And if you kill everyone in the Wutai compound, the Shinra director will call you a hero, then go on to say that you don’t even seem human and you’re frankly kind of terrifying.
Then again, the “nobody is a villain in their own mind” type of thinking common to the Compilation does get pretty problematic when applied to a situation like the destruction of Wutai.
That’s definitely not true. The rebels ask him this, and Zack responds “I need to become a hero!
” to which the ultimate response is “Very well then – let’s fight.” The SOLDIER = hero thing reoccurs throughout the entire game, and reappears again in ACC when Zack shows up to tell Cloud to be a SOLDIER and a hero (while he’s fighting Sephiroth, ironically).
The original game has Tifa doubting what they’re doing and NPCs telling you that you killed a lot of innocent people within a couple hours of the game. That kind of doubt gets embedded in the plot later on when it progresses to this idea that maybe the planet doesn’t want humans on it at all.
Anyway, CC, to me, is really simplistic. It’s from the Kingdom Hearts school of game making, where themes and plots come from repeating keywords often enough (“monster” and “hero” in CC’s case) and there isn’t really room for moral grey. Do you remember the sole scene we got with Zack in the original game? He says to Cloud that they should go to Midgar and become mercenaries. It’s kind of a key point because it explains why Cloud does what he does. They cut it because it was too morally dubious. Also, compare the death scene in FFVII to the death scene in CC and you’ll see what I mean about a change in tone.
Just to make sure we’re referring to the same conversation, it’s the one at 6:30 here, right? There’s nothing about being a hero there, and it ends up with Zack saying essentially “Is what I’m doing that bad? I don’t know, but I already committed to working for Shinra and I can’t back out now” which I wouldn’t exactly call moral certainty.
Zack himself tends to be presented as ignorant (and a privileged upper-plate dweller) rather than morally questionable, I’ll admit. But that just seems to be the preferred type of ambiguity for Square-Enix nowadays — nice people doing bad things because they just don’t know any better, instead of questionable people doing questionable things for reasons that aren’t quite as noble as they’d like to think.
Though I think Crisis Core is meant to make FFVII itself seem more ambiguous, by showing that the rank-and-file SOLDIERs aren’t really bad people. (I’m pretty sure the idea that a lot of kids wanted to grow up to be SOLDIERs came from FFVII, so it’s not unreasonable that a bunch of the people who ended up there would be idealistic kids) And it’s probably better that they changed Zack’s personality, honestly — a bit more acknowledgment that he’s not morally spotless might have been nice, but it probably wouldn’t be worth having to play as a womanizer.
I liked the beginning of FF7, but I liked it a lot less after the part where party leaves Midgar. I’m still waiting for a new version of the game, so I can play it with a new translation that doesn’t have such gems as “This guy are sick.” (I hear the PC version was a little bit better, though?)
Yeah I never saw anything that when I played it (on PC)
…of course if your computer is at all new it can be a pain to make the game actually run properly. And I believe there were other bugs introduced and the port wasn’t particularly well done.
LOL @ “This guy are sick.” That saying pops into my head every now and again, but the people I’m with never know what I’m referencing. (Same as when I call my friends spoony bards. *sigh*)
A remake wouldn’t be nearly the same – compare the tone of the compilation to the original and you’ll see what I mean.
The translation isn’t terrible and it gets better out of Midgar. You should give it another try.
I’m excited about this series of posts! FFVII is still my favorite game even though I haven’t played it since I was a teen (I’m 26 so it’s been a while). I’ve been meaning to replay it, too, now that I have a PSP. Crisis Core, which I played for the first time this summer while I was in Guatemala, was amazing and made me want to go back to re-experience FFVII.
I played FFVII many years before I was politically radical, but I want to go back and see if the anti-corporation, pro-environmentalism themes are as awesome as I remember.
I’ve also been afraid to replay FFVII, though, because I don’t know if it will be as good as I remember.
I’m hosting an FFVII replay over at http://ff7_oldschool.livejournal.com – you’re welcome to join in.
Ah, neat! I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up, but I will definitely read along. Thanks for letting me know =)
Any chance you could link it in your next post maybe?
Sure!
I recently finished playing through this game again and was once again impressed- after you get past the fact that it was 1997 and the graphics are crap, you find an exciting storyline that has depth, twists, turns, and even at some point, will make you cry (I cried exactly twice). It’s a really wonderful game and is on the top of my list of games I wish they’d both remake (same storyline, today’s graphics) and make into a movie!