Today in Comic Mischief:

Not going to talk about politics today. The President is starting another war and making funny funny jokes about how he might just stay in office forever and for blood pressure reasons we're going to talk about Final Fantasy.

So like, buckle up them nerd belts. Seriously, that's like, super
dangerous. I know you've got like phoenix down or whatever, but still.

Action RPG? Never! You line up and
take turns waggling your sword from
across the screen as God intended.

Yeah, you remember a while back it was announced that there would be a remake of FFVII. That was good news. And then they said it was going to be episodic, meaning it would be released in multiple segments rather than as, you know, a game. That was bad news. Then last week we got a glimpse of how the new battle system works and it looks more action-oriented rather than turn-based like the original game. And that's either good news or bad news depending on how attached you are to classic JRPG combat mechanics.

Tifa was evidently designed by men
who've never seen a human female.

But the latest news is that director Tetsuya Nomura has announced some tweaks and changes from the 1997 version. According to Nomura there's going to be some new enemies, new dialogue and events designed to flesh out the game, and new looks for some of the characters. Especially Tifa whose original character model was maybe a little too 1997. And by that I mean she's sort of what would happen if the abstract concept of straight male puberty designed a polygonal, vaguely person-shaped video game character.

Pictured: people playing micro
transactions wrapped in ads.

But the problematic elements don't end with Lara Croft-era ickiness. Let's talk about the story. For those of you who are grown-ass adults or for whom video games are things you do on your phone while you're waiting in line at the bank, some games, particularly role-playing games, have storylines. They're usually complex and often make little sense, but there's definitely some attempt at a narrative. And sometimes these narratives contain elements that don't age well as is the case with FFVII.

"That's the gay men for you, constantly
forcing straight men to bathe with them."

-SquareEnix

The specific issue here is the Honey Bee Inn. It's a part of the main quest in which the spiky-haired protagonist Cloud has to rescue his childhood friend from sex-slavery in a bath house/brothel by disguising himself as a woman, only to be sexually assaulted by a mob of gay stereotypes. So in addition to making a wacky adventure out of sex trafficking, it's also transphobic and homophobic. Holy shit, right? It's not explicit, the screen just pans up as half a dozen lycra-clad men strip Cloud and force him to bathe with them, but still. Oh, and possibly they give him a hand job. Hard to tell.

Anyway, Nomura admits that this scene wouldn't fly today and so it's getting 'modernized,' whatever that means. Given how many installments they're stretching this out into, it seems like they could probably just cut the Honey Bee Inn as the relic of a less enlightened time, but they didn't ask me. Weirdly when Final Fantasy VII was first released, it was rated T for teen because of comic mischief, mild language and mild animated violence. Which, I'm confused, are non-consensual hand jobs considered comic mischief?

Yeah, Barrett's right. &^#$# that pizza...
and all the &#$^#ing suffering it's caused.