Review: Final Fantasy VII Remake
Final Fantasy VII Remake is a lot of things, a remake of Final Fantasy VII isn’t necessarily one of them. Fans of the original Final Fantasy VII have been dying for a remake for years now, so Tetsuya Nomura finally announced it at E3 – which feels like a decade ago – and the gaming community went into a gleeful frenzy. The wait has been long, but it’s here now, and within an hour of booting up the game, you quickly realize that Nomura and his team have pulled a fast one on us. It’s a game that somehow feels familiar in ways that will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, yet it also feels bizarrely foreign, especially when compared to the PlayStation classic.
The biggest difference between the classic Final Fantasy VII and the remake is obviously the gameplay. Gone are turn-based attacks and in their place are modern action mechanics. For the most part, it works great. You have your standard attacks, a stronger attack, and once you use those enough you will be able to bust out a Braver or Focused Shot in no time. I am by no means a veteran when it comes to Japanese RPGs, but I found the systems, inventory management, and leveling to be very user friendly. In the earlier parts of the game, you’re going to be able to get away with smashing the square button constantly, but as the enemies get stronger and the situations become direr, you’re going to want to know how to properly strategize your attacks and balance your characters abilities. (Just a little heads up: You’re going to want to do this with everyone in your party in the latter parts of the game. You’ll jump around from character-to-character a lot, and you don’t want to be fighting a Shinra tank boss with an Aerith who is only spec’d out with healing Materia. Hi. I did this. That wasn’t fun.) As enjoyable and fluid as the gameplay is, there are some hiccups here and there when navigating around the world. When it comes to entering a certain room, climbing a ladder, or pulling a lever, blue command prompts pop up to let you know where you need to be. It’s not very forgiving and can, at times, make traversing smaller corridors a bit of a pain. This by no means takes away from the overall experience, though.
If you have played Final Fantasy VII before and have a fondness in your heart for it, you will find yourself getting emotional with this “remake” fairly quickly. All the things that you remember about Final Fantasy VII and loved about Final Fantasy VII are here. The soundtrack, the characters, Midgar, Chocobo’s, it is all there, and it looks better and sounds better than you could have hoped for. The score is epic. Whether it’s Aerith’s theme, Tifa’s theme, or “One-Winged Angel”, they are all remastered and goosebump-inducing. The characters models are gorgeous, and all look like modern versions of their old blocky selves. Their voices are flawless as well; they sound just as you imagined them sounding. Well, I never imagined Badger from ‘Breaking Bad’ as Wedge, but it works. But the thing that impressed me the most about this game was the scale of Midgar itself. As a child, I was fascinated by the world of Final Fantasy VII. Because of limitations back in the late-90’s, you didn’t really get the chance to explore much of it. In this remake, that’s not the case. Whether it’s the slums of Sector 7, Wall Market, or Shinra headquarters, the world is vast, living, and fleshed out – perhaps too much. As you might expect, Final Fantasy VII Remake doesn’t cover the full story of Final Fantasy VII. This installment of the game is composed of just the Midgar portion. What was only a handful of hours on the original game is about 25-30 hours in the remake. While most of that content is fun and engaging, this is a game that could have easily been 15-20 hours long had it cut down on a lot of the filler. I’m not even talking about the optional side quests either. Whether it’s the sewers of Midgar or Professor Hojo’s lab, you will likely find yourself frustrated with the length of these sections as they become repetitious and tedious.
Now let’s circle back around to what I said at the beginning of this review about this remake not being an actual remake. The story of the remake starts to deviate from the original fairly early on into the game, and it only increases more from there. By the end of it, it goes full Kingdom Hearts on us. Think that the story of the original was confusing when it came to Ancients, mako, lifestream, SOLDIER, and Jenova? Oh, just wait until you meet the Whispers. (Side note: Apparently we have all been pronouncing “mako” the wrong way for decades) Storywise, I would compare this a bit to J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” reboot. We think that we know the story of these characters and we think we know where their adventure leads, but how different would things be if one element of that story was altered? In this case, it ultimately changes everything completely. By the end of it, Final Fantasy VII Remake becomes less of a remake and more like the start of a new franchise.
In one of the final scenes of the game, Aerith notes that – with these changes – they are free of their destiny and that what comes next is unknown. It’s perhaps a little too obvious that this is Nomura preparing us for even more changes in the next installment. And you know what? I’m here for it. I mean, as long as the follow up still has Cait Sith and the Golden Saucer, I’m down with Nomura turning Final Fantasy VII into Kingdom Hearts. For years, I thought that what I wanted from this game was a 1:1 remake – something in the mold of last year’s Resident Evil 2. But now that I’ve experienced this remake, I realize that what I really wanted all along was to submerge myself in this universe with Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII and revisit these epic battles while the greatest soundtrack in gaming history blares from my speakers. At the end of the day, this game offers all of that and a whole lot more.
TL;DR – Final Fantasy VII Remake delivers on what fans of the series have been waiting decades for while at the same time venturing into something new and original. It’s a fantastic game and was well worth the wait.
