WEBVTT

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- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
has a ton of minigames,

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perhaps too many, one of
which is a piano game,

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which normally, I, a professional
musician such as myself,

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might like, except that I
can't play this (beep) thing.

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The simpler melodies, such as Tifa's theme

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or even Aerith's theme, are doable.

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It's just once you start getting
to the more complex ones,

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like Barrett's theme or the Chocobo theme,

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it's not so much that
those melodies are hard,

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but that this piano minigame

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sort of abstracts a whole bunch of notes.

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Now, I'm not the best
keyboardist in the world,

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and as a guitar player,

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I really suck at reading sheet music,

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but the fact that this
minigame pulls a bunch of notes

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away from you and expects
you to hit 80% of them

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screws up the musician in my head.

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The UI is actually kind of clever.

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You've got these radial thumbstick circles

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that you move around to select the notes.

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The overall effect is
that it's a bit harder

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than it should be.

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I would have preferred to
have seen, for example,

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the four shoulder
buttons, directional pad,

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and face buttons, accounting
for 12 different buttons,

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match up with the 12 notes
of the chromatic scale.

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Now, I never played The
Last of Us guitar game,

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aside from getting through
the mandatory part,

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because I'm a real guitar player

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and can actually do that sort of thing,

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but it did seem like that
game put a bit more thought

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into trying to emulate the
actual performative nature

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of the guitar.

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What I would prefer in a future
iteration of this minigame

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would be something a
little bit more similar

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to the original Final Fantasy VII,

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which didn't have you play along

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with a preset musical score.

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Let me play the notes, 'cause I know how.

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As it stands. Final Fantasy
VII Rebirth's piano minigame

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is neat in concept,
and I think that the UI

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is a clever attempt, but if
you're an actual musician

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who likes playing note by note,

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don't be surprised if you
get confused like I did.