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ArticleLoading... The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association31 Aug 2022

Kingdom(s) Come: Character Remediations and Polyperspectivity of the Final Fantasy Franchise

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
Fan communities function as 'court-like' environments where participants act as barristers to police, defend, and advocate for specific interpretations of character narratives within the Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts franchises.See it on page 10
02
The 'LTD' (Love Triangle Debate) regarding Cloud Strife’s romantic interests persists over 20 years after the original 1997 release of Final Fantasy VII, fueled by ongoing character remediations across various media.See it on page 3
03
Game producers, such as Tetsuya Nomura, actively leverage fan ambiguity and debate to promote new titles, using the Kingdom Hearts franchise as a conduit to sustain interest in the Final Fantasy VII grand narrative.See it on page 11
04
Fans utilize 'author-function'—attributing definitive intent to specific creators—to resolve narrative contradictions and establish hierarchical value among various media iterations, including novellas like 'Case of Tifa' (2005) and films like 'Advent Children' (2005).See it on page 16
05
The Japanese 'anime media mix' strategy, as defined by Marc Steinberg, utilizes multiple media platforms to sustain franchise growth rather than focusing on a single marketing goal, resulting in a fragmented but interconnected grand narrative.See it on page 6
06
Fan discourse is highly tactical, with participants shifting between informal, aggressive behavior in private, password-locked forums and articulate, rule-abiding conduct in public spaces to maintain credibility and influence.See it on page 14
07
The polyperspective nature of RPGs, characterized by optional subquests and multiple-choice narrative paths, encourages fans to seek a 'closed reading' of the text to establish a singular, authoritative truth.See it on page 6

Summary

58 Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association Kingdom(s) Come: Character Remediations and Polyperspectivity of the Final Fantasy franchise in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II Over twenty years since its original release, fans of Final Fantasy VII (Square 1987) continue to debate the videogame's world and characters as they are mixed and remixed into new licensed products.

Kingdom(s) Come: Character Remediations and Polyperspectivity of the Final Fantasy Franchise

Kingdom(s) Come: Character Remediations and Polyperspectivity of the Final Fantasy Franchise

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