By Ian Cory
Last Friday, Metallica, the world’s most ludicrously popular
metal band, released a 3D IMAX concert film directed by Nimrod Antal. The idea
of a rock band, let alone a metal band, having both the money and hubris to do
something this grandiose in 2013 is preposterous, but Metallica are one of the
last holdovers from an era when rock bands could rise to the level of gods and
get away with just about anything. I spent most of middle school and the early
years of high school doing two things with my spare time: listening to
Metallica’s first four albums and playing every game in the Final Fantasy series that I could get my
hands on. When reflecting upon the patent absurdity of Metallica’s career decisions
in the recent years, I realized that my two childhood past times had a great
deal more in common than I would have thought. Both Metallica and Squaresoft
had a decade of work where they could do no wrong, and became innovators and
subsequently the face of their entire medium. Since then both have taken every step possible to tarnish their legacy, but have grown too big to fail, leading
their fans to hold on regardless, in a twisted form of artistic Stockholm
syndrome. In honor of James Hetfield and co.’s most recent exploration in
abject silliness I’m going to take this comparison as far as I possibly can and
break down Metallica’s discography by way of each release’s closest analog in
the Final Fantasy catalog.
Various early demos – Final Fantasy I - III
Neither Metallica nor Final Fantasy invented the genres that
they’d come to represent. The JRPG had already been going strong in the form of
the Dragon Quest series, and the
first Final Fantasy was designed to
emulate that success. Likewise, heavy metal was over a decade old by the time
James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich started writing songs together, and they weren’t
alone in their desire to take the genre into higher levels of speed and
intensity. Metallica and Squaresoft took recognizable forms and found a way to
put their own stamp on them. Metallica played faster and harder then their
contemporaries and Squaresfot aimed bigger. In both cases, these early works
are the foundation on which their later superstardom lies, but both are also
filled with some weird quirks (Dave Mustaine and Final Fantasy II’s bizarre stat system) that would quickly be
jettisoned for more reliable parts.
Kill ‘Em All – Final Fantasy IV
This is where it all comes together. On Metallica’s debut
full length they took every dialect of heavy metal that was being spoken at the
time and synthesized them into a brand new language. Kill ‘Em All has the ferocity of Venom, the unstoppable momentum of
Motorhead, the technical precision of Diamond Head, and the refined melodic
guitar work of Iron Maiden and Thin Lizzy. For Squaresoft, FFIV was their first step into the big leagues, bringing the
characters to the forefront of the gaming experience and pumping the plot with
as much sweeping drama as the 16-bit art design could bear. This is where both
Metallica and the Final Fantasy series start to become what they’re most
celebrated for now, but both are also very much products of their time. James
Hetfield’s voice is more of a squeak than a roar, and lyrically the band is
more concerned with establishing their metal credibility than exploring
anything of weight or consequence. Likewise, the characters in FFIV are pretty laughably underdeveloped
by today’s standards, and when you really break the plot down, it’s not that far
from the extended fetch quests of the first three games. Still, both have a
great deal more charm and hold up to this day as a buttload of fun.
Ride The Lightning – Final Fantasy VI
Only a year after their debut, Metallica stepped up their
game in nearly every way. Ride The
Lightning is heavier, darker, more complex on a compositional level,
features more advanced playing, and finds the band tackling much more serious
subject matter. The same could be said about FFVI, which expanded the cast of characters while also deepening
the explorations into those characters' motivations and interactions. It
broadened the scope of the world and was the most ambitious game thus
far in terms of narrative and world building. While both still had some of the
early silliness here and there (“Escape” and the lovably absurd Ultros) both of
these represent the first fully mature works from their creators. Hetfield’s
lyrics grapple with death in all of its forms, while FFVI’s Kefka is the most terrifying villain in the entire series, a
truly sadistic nihilist that gains the powers of a god and uses them to destroy
the entire world just for the fuck it. Both Ride
The Lightning and FFVI end in
incredibly inventive ways as well. “Call Of Ktulu” was the first in a long
tradition of epic and moody instrumentals from the band, and the open-ended non-linear final act of Final Fantasy VI
remains the most forward thinking moment in the entire series.
Master of Puppets – Final Fantasy VII
When faced with the challenge of following up a masterpiece,
Metallica and Squaresoft chose not to reinvent the wheel but to refine it. Master Of Puppets follows the structure
of its predecessor nearly track for track. FFVII’s
plot bears a lot of similarities to FFVI’s,
and its game play is equally familiar, but far more simplified. What Final Fantasy VII and Master Of Puppets do to distinguish
themselves is up the production value tenfold. Final Fantasy VII’s bleak and technologically advanced hellscapes
were stunning and fresh at the time, and Master
Of Puppets was packed end to end with some of the best riffs of Metallica’s
entire career. Both have entered a rare spectrum of being so beloved and
popular that they’ve looped from being overrated to being underrated. They’re
both indisputable classics of their genre, like their predecessors, and which
one you enjoy more really comes down to which you experienced first. Their
worth is so self-evident and their influence wide reaching that it’s pretty much
pointless to try and say something new about them. This is as good as it gets.
...And Justice For All – Final Fantasy V or Final Fantasy
VIII
At the height of their powers Metallica suffered the loss of
bassist and occasional songwriter Cliff Burton. Determined to soldier on
regardless, they recruited Jason Newstead as their replacement bassist and
eternal butt of all pranks and released this... thing. ...And Justice For All is still a good album, but it’s also a
pretty weird one. The aggression that makes early Metallica such a rush to
listen to is still present, but it’s forced to run through bizarre and
staggeringly complex song structures. Final
Fantasy VIII also suffered from this kind of convolution. It made a brave
attempt of reinventing the Final Fantasy stat and battle leveling system, but
in an incredibly unintuitive way. That, along with its nearly nonsensical story
make it a hard sell to anyone but die hard fans. However, there are a LOT of
die hard Metallica and Final Fantasy fans out there, and those who put in the
time to get used to AJFA will quickly
realize that underneath the odd production, Metallica’s songwriting skills
remain mostly intact. And like fans of the often forgotten Final Fantasy V, if you find detailed oriented tinkering to be more
engaging than direct story telling, you’ll definitely learn a lot from the way
Metallica gradually develop cycles of riffs and shifting rhythms through out
the songs on AJFA.
Metallica (a.k.a. The Black Album) – Final Fantasy X
Both The Black Album
and Final Fantasy X are immensely
popular and have devoted fandoms that rival those of Master Of Puppets and Final
Fantasy VII. However both are lightning rods for arguments about their
actual worth. Their popularity and critical divisiveness both stem from the
same source. Both are slickly produced and highly streamlined takes on the
classic elements of their franchises. The concise and radio friendly songs on The Black Album are miles away from the labyrinthine
epics of ...And Justice For All, and
this shift towards simplicity helped Metallica break through into mainstream
superstardom, which they’ve been able to ride for the rest of their career. FFX was the first of the series on the
Playstation 2, and used every technical advance to its advantage, crafting a
lush and beautiful world, but constricting the player to a linear progression
through the game instead of the exploratory world map of the past. It was also
the first game of the series to include full voice acting for all of the cut
scenes and most of the dialogue, which was a noble attempt to raise the
emotional stakes of the game, but almost always plunged the game straight into
melodrama. The Black Album and FFX aren’t all bad -- there are some great
moments in both -- but they’re inarguably the beginning of the end for both
Metallica and Final Fantasy.
Load – Final Fantasy XI
And just like that, the fun times are over. Metallica took
the final step and removed all traces of their heavy metal past and replaced
them with dumbed down blues-rock and even stupider sounds drawn from 90’s
alternative. If The Black Album was a
slap in the face to fans craving the challenging and innovative music from
their first four albums, Load was an
outright dismissal of them. Many fans are quick to claim that the source of
Metallica’s problems was their haircuts and growing affinity for eyeliner, but
the real problem is that the songs on Load
are absolute trash. Even worse, the album never seems to end, piling on song
after song for 80 minutes. While I’ve never played it, Final Fantasy XI is an equally bizarre change of pace as it
abandoned the JRPG format for the cash grab of MMO’s. While both Load and FFXI have their defenders, they are far and few between.
Reload – Final Fantasy XIV
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ANOTHER ONE?
S&M – Final Fantasy Dissidia
On paper this should be a great idea. It’s all of your
favorites in one place, enhanced with the power of modern technology! But in
execution everything just feels off. By placing the entire history of the
franchise in a single game it highlights just how far the series has gotten
from its roots, and the attempts to modernize those older characters fall flat.
Also the idea of adding an orchestra to a Metallica show or turning Final Fantasy into a fighting game may
seem cool, but in reality it goes against everything that Metallica and Final Fantasy stood for. Also, the
voices are grating beyond all reason.
St. Anger – Final Fantasy XIII
Both marketed as a removal of the clutter that had built up
and a return to the roots of the franchise, St.
Anger and FFXIII ended up
representing everything that had gone wrong and are indisputably the nadir of
their respective bodies of work. St.
Anger’s resemblance to Metallica’s first four albums is superficial at
best. Sure it was the heaviest thing the band had released since the 80’s, but
it was also the most monotonous, tuneless and sloppily constructed. FFXIII also attempted to use iconography
from the series’ most celebrated title (the opening train heist, the moody
blonde protagonist named after a part of the weather) but at its core only
amplified the rot that had been spreading through the franchise by being more
linear and cutscene oriented than ever. I’d like to believe that this is as bad
as it gets, but I will undoubtedly be proven wrong soon enough.
Some Kind Of Monster – Final Fantasy: Spirits Within
If anyone still believed that Metallica where infallible
rock gods, Some Kind Of Monster did
everything it could to shatter those illusions. By documenting the creation of St. Anger, the film revealed the members
of Metallica to be petulant whiny children trapped in the bodies of hilariously
rich adults. Nothing crushes dreams faster than watching your childhood heroes
quibble over the placement of guitar solos or the need to hire a band
therapist. The Spirits Within wasn’t
as embarrassing to watch, but it did serve as just as much of a lesson to the
fans and creators of Final Fantasy.
The massive commercial failure of The
Spirits Within proved that Squaresoft was not invincible, and that making
hugely successful videogames does not mean that you can make successful films.
The immense cost of FF:SW forced
Squaresoft to merge with the creators of Dragon
Quest and their one time rivals, Enix. Their rebirth as Square Enix is the
line in the sand between the golden age of Final
Fantasy and the never-ending parade of sadness that has followed.
Death Magnetic – Final Fantasy IX
This comparison is a bit unfair to FFIX, which I’d put in the same league as FFVII or FFIV as one of
my favorite games of all time, but it serves a similar purpose as Metillica’s
first true “comeback” record. After the St.
Anger debacle, the band took some time off and then regrouped with producer
Rick Rubin in order to rediscover what made their first four albums so great.
While the resulting album doesn’t reach those heights, it does as fair an
approximation as is possible by a bunch of dudes pushing 50. Sure its overlong,
mastered way too load and has a few clunkers, but it’s a worthwhile listen for
anyone with nostalgia for the glory days. FFIX
has the benefit of coming directly after the golden age, and subsequently isn’t
so much about recapturing as it is about summing up. Attempting to marry the
simple good vs. evil narratives of the first few games with the emotional
expressiveness of the later ones didn’t always feel natural, but combining
classic Final Fantasy motifs with a huge budget is a fucking rush to watch. Final Fantasy IX is the last hurrah of a
series that was quickly on its way to being left behind in the game industry
and serves as an excellent culmination of everything the series was trying to,
and often did, achieve.
Lulu – The Kingdom Hearts Series
By any rational estimation, this should not exist, but
somehow, it does. No one asked to hear Lou Reed moan over subpar thrash riffs.
No one needed Mickey Mouse to be remade into a Tetsuya Nomura style badass. Why
is James Hetfield screaming about being a table? Why is a former member of
N’Sync voicing Sephiroth? What does the phrase “Junior Dad” even fucking mean?
HOW FUCKING LONG CAN THIS FINAL BOSS BATTLE EVEN BE? That all being said, the
first Kingdom Hearts is actually a
lot of fun, while Lulu is a
fascinating and wholly unique experience, although no where close to being what
normally qualifies as “good” music.
Through The Never – Advent Children
I haven’t seen Through
The Never and I don’t plan on doing so anytime soon. 3-D Imax tickets are
outrageously expensive, and Metallica have plenty of my money already. I’ve
seen Metallica live before and really enjoyed myself, but I don’t need to
relive the experience via a movie anytime soon. I’m sure I’d have fun, but the
problem is that I know exactly what kind of fun I’d have because I’ve seen Advent Children, the feature length film
sequel to Final Fantasy VII. As a
story, Advent Children is fucking
pathetic and only serves to undercut the power of FFVII’s shocking and ambiguous ending. It took every ounce of
character development spent on Cloud and reversed it, turning him into a glum
unlikeable jackass. That said, the fight scenes are a fucking blast if you take
them out of context, and even though I know better I still get tons of
nostalgia induced Goosebumps when Sephiroth shows up again at the end. It’ll be
the same with Through The Never.
There’s no way the narrative sequences, featuring Dane Dahaan, will be anything
but immensely stupid eye candy. And while I’m sure I’ll be grinning ear to ear
during the performances of my favorite Metallica numbers, it won’t be because
of what I’m watching, but instead because of what those songs have meant to me
for over 10 years. And honestly, at this point, I’d rather find something new.
Enough with mining the past for everything it’s worth. It’s time to move on.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to check if there’s any news about Final Fantasy XV.
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