On Final Fantasy VII (Remake)

For those of you who don’t know, Final Fantasy VII is a Playstation game that was released in the nineties and was well liked by gamers around the world for its exceptional story. It was so well liked that years later it was remade with more depth, graphical improvements, and gameplay innovations that make it an even more enjoyable experience.

The aspect about the game that I like the most is that it is placed in the viewpoint of the terrorist who seeks to reclaim the world from the grip of tyranny. The game opens with a terrorist group planting a bomb in a power reactor within a city that derives its energy from the planet’s ‘lifeblood’ as the terrorist cell calls the energy source.

This theme of violence used to resolve problems does not ever sit well with me, and generally extremes have to be made clear within the story before violence can be justified, which I think skillfully remains a gray area in Final Fantasy VII (remake). That is to say that the line between good and evil centers less on the struggle between the little man and big business, and more so on the extremes of ideological pursuits, leaving a lot of moral ambiguity which reflects reality more than starkly defined good and evil.

The inhuman degrees of violence that ideologies will go to resonates with the horror of the 20th century, in which the Nazis take center stage for most directly and intentionally using violence to further what they believed was a rational and reasonable idea. The nuclear bomb itself shows how dangerous the reach of science can be, and after its destructive capacity was released on Japan, allowed for the dangers of ideology to manifest in a different way, as the threat of total planetary collapse became a reality in the face of nuclear war.

The theme of taking an ideology beyond the reasonable limits of moral ethics is recurrent throughout Final Fantasy VII in a number of different ways and rewards the player with poignant drama as the boundaries of reason are reached.

Not only is the storytelling superb, but the action packed gameplay is challenging, fun, and enjoyable and this game is well worth the time. Most excellent is the character development that reveals the human face of the struggle between opposing ideologies as it presents itself throughout the game.

An undercurrent in the game is also the theme of faith, and how it too takes up the struggle of conflict between ideas. Faith is an important theme to discuss because faith involves a transcendent perception to reason. It goes beyond ideology and rationalization and embodies a higher truth that is inexplicably good, and although it exceeds boundaries by its very nature, is present in daily life in a practical way that can be said to serve as an energy source of its own.

Faith is not passive, it is active. It inserts itself into the world and makes a difference. That effort is marked by the suffering of conflict, but it is efficacious and generates real results that are undeniably good. Faith, and its real power, are not without dangers, as the scientist Hojo represents in his abuse of faith in order to further his own goals. What constitutes the difference between the faith that is good (Aerith) and the faith that is evil (Hojo), you ask? The answer would be the truth. The faith that is true faith, selfless and loving, is what opposes the false faith, which is selfish.

As you can see, Final Fantasy VII is rich with meaning and evocative storytelling that the player can gain much from. I highly recommend this game, and would like to see a greater percentage of the world take up an interest in video games.

There are other themes present in the game that I have not discussed, and it seems realistic to me that a person could make an entire study of it considering how much human effort goes into making a game, but I will leave the reader at the juncture where true faith meets false faith at the ideological battleground and wish them well.

Remember, the beauty and power of reason and rationality is that it can lead to truth, and when coupled with an ideology that promotes moral and ethical goods, this can be invaluable to humanity and civilization, but when reason has a marriage with false faith, it can degenerate an ideology into what ultimately destroys humanity and civilization. In light of the terror that disordered ideologies can produce when supported by massive populations, it is hopeful to know that such ideologies eventually turn in on themselves, making them weak to the forces of good, which will ultimately triumph over evil in the end.

We can bring about the future in two ways: with the conflict of good, or with the conflict of evil, and how humanity chooses to progress is dependent on the ways that individuals choose to progress with their own lives. Playing games like Final Fantasy VII (Remake) can help one discern their own path in life by offering an image of reality that reflects our own in ways that we cannot experience without the aid of the imagination. I am not only glad to have played it, but being able to see the work of masters within it, am thankful.

May the blessing of Christ be with you all, and may you enjoy happy and fruitful gaming.