Only Setzer Gabbiani can save us now

[rynling]

I played the opera scene in the FFVI pixel remaster last night. It was painful. I don’t know what they were trying to achieve by having an untrained singer do a voiceover in English, but I thought I was going to die of secondhand shame. On top of the horrible lyrics and poor performance, the vocals were autotuned and tinny. It’s the aural equivalent of a crusty low-res jpeg generated by AI. Poor Celes.

What makes this even more painful is that I have very fond memories of an amazing orchestral arrangement called Grand Finale: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI:_Grand_Finale

Anyway, I started playing Animal Well. I’m not sure it’s for everyone, and I’m not entirely sure it’s for me, but it’s quite interesting. It reminds me of Hyper Light Drifter in how stylish yet opaque it is. I also get the sense that it’s like Hollow Knight in that it’s going to be frustrating until it clicks. So far, the primary selling point is that the entire game is a sewer level, which I appreciate. There’s so much moss.

Comments

[lassarina]

I have the Grand Finale album and while some of it is over-arranged, the aria is not one of those things. I love it.

[rynling]

"Over-arranged" is the perfect way to put it. I'm afraid I might have a bit of trouble listening to the album now, but it meant a lot to me when I was twelve years old. That's one of the reasons the poor performance and sound quality on the pixel remaster bothers me. People think kids are stupid when it comes to entertainment media (and they're not always wrong), but even twelve-year-olds can appreciate when something is done well.

[lassarina]

I haven't had trouble with the sound quality and performance, or at least not that I noticed, but I also have been playing with low volume and in tiny bits, so maybe it showed up less. Fascinating.