Welcome back to the Final Fantasy Love/Hate series! We’re diving back into the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII once more with Final Fantasy VII Remake! I can recall that a Final Fantasy VII remake had been rumoured as far back as the early 2000s, and the idea was even teased in the marketing for the PS3. However, it wouldn’t be until the mid-2010s when work on a remake finally began in earnest. Final Fantasy VII Remake was announced as the first part of a trilogy, with the first entry adapting the original’s opening hours in the city of Midgar. Suffice to say, this would be a pretty big departure from the original, but could “Final Fantasy Remake” manage to live up to the legendary reputation of its predecessor? Read on to find out…
Just a quick note before we get into this: I played the Intergrade version of Remake, which basically is just a next-gen port of the base game, plus its bundled Yuffie DLC. I actually played the game on my Steam Deck. It ran shockingly well, albeit with relatively low graphical settings. As a result, my screenshots don’t exactly show the game at its absolute best, but being able to play the game on the go was more than worth the trade-off to me.
Also, if you haven’t played FFVII before, there will be spoilers in this article! Proceed with caution!
Got all that? Alright then, let’s dive in.
Love
- Graphics and Art Style – The original Final Fantasy VII was a graphical marvel on release, but it was overtaken by its contemporaries and left in the dust within a year of its release. FF7 would end up looking quite poor compared to most other PS1 games by the end of the generation. This was always the big dream with a Final Fantasy VII remake, to experience this story and see these characters in higher-fidelity graphics that could actually achieve the cinematic ambitions that it had always aspired to. In this regard, Remake is an undeniable triumph and really shows how far video games have come in a quarter century. Even with the low graphics settings I had to resort to in order to get this to run on the Steam Deck, the game looks absolutely gorgeous to behold. The improved graphics and free camera convey the squalor and majesty of Midgar far better than the original ever could hope to, and they do a great job getting across the sheer scale of this city you’re living in.
- That said, I do have one issue with the graphics worth addressing: the NPC character models, which are significantly lower fidelity than any “important” character. They look very out of place and under-designed in comparison and it just becomes distracting every time you have to interact with one. There’s clearly been no effort put into differentiating them, and they just make our main characters look totally out of place in this world as a result. They look like something out of a Bethesda game, and I mean that in the worst way possible.
- Expanded Characterization and World Building – While I’m not convinced that Remake has so much story that it necessitated that FF7 be split into three parts, I can’t deny that the way it has been handled has some interesting knock-on effects.
- Let’s start with the characters. Since we now have full vocal performances and more hours to fill, the main and supporting cast get significantly more time to flesh out their characterization. I already liked the cast of FFVII, but I like nearly everybody so much more here thanks to all the extra effort to bring them to life. I’ll get into the main cast shortly, but this is especially true for the supporting cast, particularly Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. They didn’t leave much of an impression in the original game, but here they get a lot more material to work with, including a new chapter which is basically just here to make sure that you like these characters. The Avalanche supporting cast have been upgraded to fully-fledged, capital-C Characters with their own defined personalities and motivations… which makes their eventual fates all the more impactful.
- Moving onto the main cast… Tifa is just perfect. She’s the “fighter with the personality of a healer” that I’ve always viewed her as. She’s incredibly sweet, level-headed and supportive, and extremely conflicted about her role in Avalanche. She knows that they need to protect the planet, but she doesn’t want to hurt anybody. You can see the pain on her face when their actions cause collateral damage or when Shinra start retaliating indiscriminately against Sector 7. Of course, she’s also a fucking badass, so when it comes time to throw punches, she does so with true gusto and she’s always going to have your back. I’m team Tifa for life, Remake just cemented that fact.
- Then there’s Aerith, who really surprised me. This is where the vocal performances and expanded characterization really altered how I view this character. In OG FFVII, I always read her as being very headstrong and daring, despite her demure appearance and party role. However, in Remake, she comes across to me as straight-up fae-like and otherworldly. This makes a lot of sense, since she is a Cetra and therefore would see the world differently than others. This leads to her having an almost child-like demeanour with how she interacts with the world. This take on the character really made me understand how she’s able to make the usually-tacturn Cloud open up. I may be team Tifa for life, but Remake finally made me understand why Aerith appeals so much to some fans of the series.
- Then we get to Barrett. He doesn’t get quite as much time to shine as some of the other characters, but he still leaves a great impression. This game makes it clear that his brash bravado is largely an act that he puts on to intimidate people and avoid having to be vulnerable. He has a humorously antagonistic relationship with Cloud throughout the game as they playfully insult one another, although it’s clear that they really come to depend on each other as the game goes on. He’s also such a sweet, caring father to Marlene; I wish that they had more screentime together to bring out this side of him in the game. I also really appreciated how good a job the game does of demonstrating why he’s the leader of this Avalanche cell; his conviction in the cause is unshakeable. When others are doubting their actions, Barrett is quick to put them back on the right track with some truth: Shinra are the true villains here. One of the most impactful moments in the entire game for me was after the destruction of Sector 7 where Barrett looks over the devastation and has a brief moment of self-doubt. However, this passes almost instantly, as he rightfully reminds himself that this was entirely Shinra’s doing and it ultimately steels his resolve even further. Barrett rocks, I’m always happy to have him in my party.
- Then there’s Cloud, who has a bit more personality here than he did in the original game. He spent most of the Midgar section of FF7 as a selfish mercenary with little care for anyone else. However, since he’s now out doing side-quests and having to communicate with people, Cloud gets a lot more characterization to flesh him out. He comes across more as an incredibly skilled and consummate (albeit disillusioned) professional, rather than the uncaring mercenary at the beginning of the original FF7. He seems closer to his portrayal in Advent Children in some respects as well. His gravity-defying antics show up here, making him a bit more of an overt “anime protagonist” than he was in the original.
- Beyond the characters though, the world of FFVII gets a lot more fleshing out. We see a whole lot more of Midgar and its inhabitants, the delineation between the slums and the people living on the upper-plates, and the various atrocities being committed by Shrina. The game also greatly expands upon the past war between Shinra and Wutai, which was very lightly hinted at in the original, with paranoia about further conflict becoming a major plot point throughout the story. In a lot of ways, Remake feels more like an extended cut of the original story; a companion piece rather than a replacement.
- The Honeybee Inn – I’m never going to beat the allegations am I? Cloud’s quest to disguise himself as a woman now takes him to the Honeybee Inn, an area which was supposed to be featured in the OG FF7, but which was cut due to time constraints. This is another one of the benefits of making an “expanded” remake rather than a 1:1 recreation: you get to realize ambitions that got missed the first time around. However, the developers have made some pretty significant changes from the original concept, which is all for the better in my opinion. In OG FF7, the Honeybee Inn is a “love hotel” catering to bee girl fetishists. In Remake it has been worked into the cross-dressing mission and been reimagined as a nightclub owned by the flamboyant Andrea Rhodea, who you need to impress in order to complete your disguise. What follows is a sequence so bold, campy, queer, and ridiculous that I could not help but adore it. See, I think what happened is that Square Enix felt that a 1:1 recreation of the cross-dressing sequence in the original FF7 could potentially offend people who thought that it was turning cross-dressers into a joke. So instead of removing it, they decided to deflect this criticism entirely by making the game suddenly become queer as fuck. What ensues is an incredible sequence where Cloud and Andrea engage in an extended and very suggestive QTE dance-off. In addition to the incredible dance acumen displayed by Cloud, Aerith looks like she’s having a sexual awakening when twink Cloud appears in his (her?) full glory. It’s so fucking funny, but it feels like the sort of silliness that would have been right at home in the original FF7!
- Soundtrack – Remake‘s soundtrack features remixed and rearranged renditions of the original FF7‘s score, as you’d expect. However, the new tracks are no slouches either, making for a soundtrack that’s enjoyable and notable throughout.
- Ford Condor – An evolution of the Fort Condor mini-game from the original FF7 returns in the Intergrade DLC, reimagined as an in-universe board game. It plays like a MOBA/tower defence game where you have to destroy the enemy base before they destroy yours. There’s a rock-paper-scissors system which incentivizes you to counter your enemies’ troops with the correct the opposing types. It’s simple, but I genuinely had a lot of fun with it and was more than happy to hunt down all the challengers for a match.
- The Staircase Sequence – The infamous staircase makes its return in Remake, and it’s even funnier the second time around. It’s even more agonizing now because, about halfway through, Cloud starts to get tired, which causes him to slow down. Meanwhile, Barrett’s fucking dying of exhaustion and complaining the entire time, but has to try to keep up in order to keep up his tough guy facade. Perhaps funniest of all though, Tifa’s not even breaking a sweat… because of course she isn’t, she’s by far the most fit and athletic of the group, so it makes sense that she’d consider this to be just a bit of brisk exercise. It’s also an interesting reminder that Cloud may be able to do superhuman feats, but he still very much has his limits.
Mixed
- Combat System – Remake‘s combat system resembles that of a simplified, Ninja Gaiden-style character action game at first blush. There’s one button to attack and another to unleash your character’s special technique. However, you can also press another button to put the game into super slow motion and open up a menu to queue up action commands for your characters (kind of like Final Fantasy XII). These are your usual RPG actions: use a skill, cast a spell, or use an item (you can also hotkey four of these actions to use on the fly). You can only use these actions by filling your ATB gauge. Dealing damage with basic attacks will increase this bar quickly, so you’re incentivized to stay on the offense as much as possible. However, the ATB gauge fills incredibly slowly for whatever characters you’re not controlling, which just feels counter-intuitive to me. You’d think that you’d want to have them there to provide you with support, but instead the game incentivizes you to swap characters throughout combat. Personally, I just wanted to play the best character for the situation and was annoyed that the game punishes you for that.
- That’s not the end of my issues with the combat system though. I wouldn’t say that I hated the game’s combat, but I felt like it was designed to prioritize spectacle rather than strategy. Combat fills the screen with sparks and spell effects, making it very incoherent at times. You also don’t really get a sense of how a battle is progressing when there are multiple enemies, as most of them will be off-screen fighting some other party member. You just feel like you’re way less “in control” of the battle compared to a traditional turn-based combat system.
- Many of the game’s enemies are extremely tanky, which makes combat an utter grind at times. Battles get so long and grindy that you kind of have to default towards a combat style which leans towards endurance and resource management.
- Remake also features a Dissidia-style aerial combat system, where your characters can leap into the air, defy gravity, and just wail on an enemy for a few attacks. While it’s a neat system in concept (and makes Advent Children feel a bit less dissonant), in execution, aerial combat controls terribly. You can’t manually enter it, so Cloud and/or Tifa will just launch themselves into the air and then back to the ground again whenever the hell they want to, sometimes multiple times in the course of a second. That looks really goofy on its own, but you can also find yourself unable to follow enemies that won’t sit still, which is annoying. I always dreaded flying enemies, preferring to just use magic any time I encountered one so I wouldn’t have to deal with this dumb version of the combat system.
- Difficulty Spikes – In spite (or perhaps because) of Remake‘s fairly shallow combat system, most enemies you encounter are little more than a mindless cakewalk. However, every once in a while, Remake decides to kick you in the balls and test you with a truly brutal boss. The Hell House is the first notable example, coming out of absolutely nowhere and beating most players’ teeth in. The gauntlet of bosses towards the end of the game in Shinra HQ are also very difficult, really pushing the limits of this combat system… and I’m not sure if that was for the better or not.
Hate
- Narrative Changes – While this is probably my biggest problem with Remake, it’s so close to being something that I actually loved. Tweaking elements of the original game and giving existing fans of Final Fantasy VII genuine surprises is an admirable approach and I respect the effort. However, while I do really appreciate the idea, too many of the changes made to the narrative just don’t work for me.
- First of all, there’s the handling of Sephiroth. He shows up right at the start of the game and makes some cameos throughout until his actual introduction towards the game’s finale. This just annoys me: it feels like he’s here to get FFVII fans to point at the screen and cheer rather than being something that serves the narrative. It also bothers me because it lets the cat out of the bag immediately that there’s something seriously wrong with Cloud’s mind. It doesn’t even do a particularly great job of introducing Sephiroth or why he’s a threat either; it’s entirely there for people who already know who he is. Hell, we don’t get a whole lot of reason to even care about him in this game anyway, other than that he opposes us and Cloud clearly doesn’t like him. That’s an unfortunate consequence of splitting the game’s narrative into three parts, we don’t find out about Sephiroth, Cloud, and Tifa’s shared history by the time the credits roll.
- Another change that really bugs me is that this game reveals that Avalanche are being allowed to blow up the Mako reactors by Shinra. In fact, Shinra actively make the reactor explosions more devastating in order to manufacture a more serious crisis in order to throw the population into a panic. I just don’t like this narrative decision at all. It diminishes the gravity and severity of our party’s actions, while simultaneously turning Shinra into absolute cartoon villains.
- This game also reveals Zack Fair at a point which I think is waaaaay too early. Zack has gotten way more popular since the original FF7 came out, where he kind of felt like an afterthought, so I guess they wanted to work him in earlier in Remake. While he still doesn’t have a lot of screentime here, revealing him at all this early into the story just seems like a bad move which gives away one of FFVII‘s biggest twists way too early (especially considering that, as I said, we don’t even know who Sephiroth is by this point in the narrative).
- Then there’s one of the biggest and most controversial changes: the Whispers. They are basically embodiments of Fate, ensuring that the story plays out as it is intended, including directly intervening to prevent deviation. This is ironic, considering that their entire existence is a deviation, but I digress… honestly, I think that they’re fucking dumb. Their entire role in the plot diminishes the actions of the characters; they’re just doing what they are forced to and aren’t to deviate from that. Their very existence turn this from a story about saving the world to instead being a story about “defying fate”. They’re just fucking dumb and I gritted my teeth every time their stupid ghostly shrouds appeared on screen.
- At the end of the day, what do these points all add to? That Remake kind of a misnomer: this game probably shouldn’t be experienced as a stand-alone story at all. It’s more of a semi-sequel to OG FFVII that assumes you already know who these characters are and how this story is supposed to play out. In the process, it steamrolls a lot of the subtly which the original game built up over the course of its narrative. The fact that the narrative has been split over three games doesn’t really help either: while the story here is still good overall, it’s just the introductory sequence to a much larger narrative, so it doesn’t really make for a particularly satisfying conclusion by the time the credits roll.
- Dorky New Characters – Unfortunately, the changes aren’t just relegated to the narrative, as there are a few new characters who are just fucking annoying.
- First of all, there’s Johnny, this big-haired, sleazeball dumbass who keeps getting into trouble and who simps for Tifa. He reminds me of Wakka, minus the pleasant demeanour and competence. He just annoyed the shit out of me every time I had to see his stupid hair. I don’t even care that I forgot to bring him some medicine in my playthrough, he’s probably still puking his guts out in Wall Market to this day.
- Then there’s Roche. Conceptually, he’s kind of interesting: he’s a high-ranking SOLDIER like Cloud, so he gets to do similar sorts of over-the-top acrobatics and maneuvers, and he gets to act as a sort of rival figure. We didn’t really get to see a character like that before, so it’s a neat little addition. However, I just can’t stand Roche’s smarmy, over-the-top attitude, I just want him to shut the fuck up every time he opens his mouth.
- Then there’s Chadley. Fucking Chadley. Johnny and Roche are dorks, but Chadley is a fucking dork. He is this Shinra scientist who talks in monotone and just blathers on and on if you talk to him about anything. Luckily, most of his encounters are optional, but you have to interact with him if you want some of the game’s higher-level, bonus content… still, that’s a small price to pay to not have to interact with motherfucking Chadley.
- Dull Level Design – While Remake may look gorgeous, the actual design of its levels is really lacking. We get some good hub areas which offer opportunities for exploration, but the game’s main levels are all just dull, functional, linear corridors. You just go from place to place beating up enemies, there’s zero environmental storytelling or anything of interest to see on the way. Simply put: these are levels that you pass through, not levels that you get immersed in (which makes it sting more that you end up having to travel through most of these levels twice over the course of your playthrough).
- Interrupts – One of my biggest issues with this game’s combat system deserves its own section, because I HATED this shit. Most of your spells and abilities have some sort of “charge” time before they’ll actually execute. The stronger the ability is, the longer it will take to charge. However, if you get hit while you’re charging, the action gets interrupted, fails to go off, and you lose any MP and/or ATB charge that you had invested into the attack. This makes high-level abilities and spells extremely risky to pull off. More importantly, it is just fucking infuriating. Some maneuvers take so long to charge that you can be in the clear when you start using it, but end up getting hit by an enemy attack right before it goes off. It’s so fucking stupid. I could tolerate this if you were refunded the MP/ATB or if this just delayed your attack instead of cancelling it entirely, but we do not live in a just timeline. The interrupt system is extremely punishing and incentivizes you to not use abilities with a lengthy charge time (which is a problem, because high-level healing spells in the endgame are crucial for survival).
- Ally AI – Unfortunately, we’re not at the end of issues with this game’s combat system which deserve their own special entries. You typically have one or two allies with you at any given time, but your AI companions are borderline worthless in battle. Their damage is nerfed, they attack infrequently, and they won’t use any of their abilities. This is on top of their aforementioned slow ATB generation, so it takes a long time before you can even give them commands. This forces you to take direct control of a character if you want them to do anything. It often turns the combat system into an exercise in babysitting your party… which, honestly, just makes me want to go back to a proper ATB system, since at least I will have full control and situational awareness. I genuinely don’t understand why they made the ally AI so useless. And, trust me, they made them this way intentionally, because you can get mods for this game which make allies act more frequently combat.
- Really, Remake would have really benefitted from a FFXII-style gambit system. If I could order my allies to automatically use their ATB charges to attack or heal depending on the situation, this game would feel so much better to play.
- Not Really Much of an RPG – Despite its pedigree, Remake is missing a lot of the systems you’d expect from an RPG. You aren’t making a whole lot of choices (be they narrative or mechanical). You have no control over which characters you control at any time, they just weave in and out of your party as the story demands. Most of the loot you find in the game world is unexciting. About the only buildcrafting you can do is in regards to your weapon (which allow you to equip specific perks and specialize your character towards melee or magic) and materia (which are as cool as ever at least). Unfortunately, even in this regard, Remake is kind of limited, since it’s literally just the opening hours of the story: you only have a handful of weapons, and it’s not like any of them are particularly crazy since this is only covering the opening hours of the original game, after all. Combine this with the spectacle-over-strategy combat system and this has got to be the most shallow RPG I’ve ever played.
- PS4 Game Design – While I love the PS4 generation, it has been rightly criticized for several of the “cinematic” game design tropes which proliferated in the wake of Uncharted and The Last of Us. Remake has to be the most PS4-ass game I’ve ever played. We’ve got innumerable, lengthy slow walking sequences, masked loading screens where you have to slooooooowly squeeze through a gap, the infamous “yellow paint” everywhere, and blunt helper dialogue which tells you what you need to do anytime the game might possibly force you to use your brain. I never particularly cared about these tropes in other games, but in Remake they are just so blatant and egregious at times.
Despite having several thoughts in the “Mixed” and “Hate” categories, I ultimately really enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s like reacquainting with old friends that you haven’t seen in a long time. This story and these characters are just as compelling as ever, and it’s a real testament that OG FF7‘s opening hours can be mined to sustain an entire forty-hour game without feeling padded to hell. I’m very excited to check out Rebirth next to see how they handle the story’s next chapters!
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