FF7R has only grown on me more and more as the years tick by. Its combat is nothing short of phenomenal, and I believe it has some of the best art direction in gaming history. The fact that these characters and locales have been so gloriously realized from the much compromised presentation of the original game in a way that virtually everyone sees as "correct" is nothing short of a miracle. Sound design, especially the voice casting is impeccable. It maintains every bit of the original's goofy spirit by refusing to omit ludicrous monster designs like that of the Hell House and instead wearing them on its sleeve, rightfully proud of its own soul. The English localization is even more delicious than the original Japanese. The ending, while off-putting at first, like so many similar Nomura stunts, finds its way from "confusing mess" to "fascinating and memorable storytelling" as time rolls by, though I still have my qualms about its execution.

In the space of two years, I have slowly fallen into a sort of love with FF7R that rivals even my love of the original game, and considering the game we're talking about, that is an absolutely incredible feat.

Final Fantasy VII Remake has fresh things to say about the nature of remakes in a medium that is increasingly flooded with them but is unfortunately retrograde in more ways than one, resulting in a mixed experience.

The fact that Final Fantasy VII Remake (hereafter FF7R) exists and is as good as it is is a small miracle, given the notorious development hell of Final Fantasy XV and the mixed bag that was Kingdom Hearts III. Many fans desired but might have been afraid to expect a competent modernization of one of the most beloved games of all time. For many, FF7R did everything it had to do⁠—namely, put a fresh coat of paint on the opening hours of the 1997 classic. The new action RPG combat system is one of the best Square Enix has produced since Kingdom Hearts II and is a great iteration on the original game's Active Time Battle system (which, for the diehards, is included here, though I have not tried it out myself to see how it compares to the original). There are some expansions of certain areas, most notably Wall Market, that work really well and help to justify the extended runtime the game gives to Midgar.

The graphical updates are a bit uneven, unfortunately. Cloud's character model looks ready to be reused in FF7R's sequel on the PS5. Other named models are generally good, and the character design choices for these folks basically all hit. For the most part, however, NPCs are a bit uncanny when they aren't outright lazy. Lips flap across stationary teeth in one too many places for comfort, and body types and faces are reused like a game from much earlier than 2020. The most egregious offenders in the graphics department are the numerous textures that bafflingly just plain didn't load upon release, including ones you're guaranteed to see very early on such as Cloud's apartment door. I am not sure if they've fixed these bugs in the intervening months, but they dampened the experience somewhat.

Where the game suffers most, though, is in its vision of what expansion is. For every Wall Market⁠—where Cloud gets to participate in Yakuza-lite traversal and minigames and sidequests are at least entertaining for the characters and situations if not the gameplay⁠—there is a quest hub that just wants you to run through old MMO filler sidequests. For every Shinra Tower⁠—where you get to experience the lore of the Final Fantasy VII universe in an all-new way⁠—there is a Train Graveyard, where a somewhat charming traversal section in the original is padded out to be hours long. FF7R genuinely deepens the experience of the Final Fantasy VII mythos in more ways than one, but it does seem like the twin goals of having a proper-length AAA RPG and focusing exclusively on Midgar led to a great amount of redundancy and wheel-spinning. For the amount of sidequests there are, it's doubly troubling that the quality is so low. There's really only a handful in each of the few quest hubs, and if this is the best Square Enix can offer from what ostensibly would have been a larger crop that got cut down, it's worrisome what we'll be doing in future installments in the series.

The most controversial part of the game, of course, is the ending and what it reveals about an ongoing story element that players of the original will note is decidedly out-of-place⁠—cloaked figures called Whispers that seem to intervene in moments of potential digression from the plotline of the original. In the end, it is revealed that these creatures are guardians of the original timeline of Final Fantasy VII, in which Aerith dies, Sephiroth summons Meteor, and Holy saves the world, potentially at the expense of humanity depending on your view of the original game's ending. At the end of the game, Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, and Aerith march forward against Sephiroth, destroying the Whispers and apparently unshackling the world of FF7R from the original game's chronology. Sephiroth ominously shows Cloud a potential future that he wishes to work to avert. The most shocking scene for longstanding fans of the game (and most confusing for neophytes) is the reveal that in some timeline somewhere, Zack has survived the battle in which he died in the original chronology and is marching arm-in-arm with that universe's Cloud towards Midgar.

It's all very vague, and fan theories are numerous about which characters are clued into this metaphysical catastrophe, potentially because of insight from the original game's timeline or others. Without getting too far into that territory—I'm sure with Nomura at the helm, none of us will be able to deduce precisely how batshit this series is going to end up being—one thing I can say for certain is that these new additions to the plot are pretty cool to me. The Whispers are obviously a very thinly-veiled stand-in for vocal fanbases that actively resist change to beloved franchises, and while FF7R will need to stick the landing to justify this kind of glibness, it's refreshing in a space where media companies seem to be constantly hedging back and forth trying to figure out the most delicate way to give fans whatever they demand.

That said, the particular plot choices made are not without risk. The early reveal of Sephiroth has been explained as metatextually necessary given his ubiquity among video game fans, and I can buy that. But the survival of Zack is much more troublesome to the elegance with which the original weaved Cloud's character development, potentially one of the peaks of storytelling in video games up to that point and still a masterstroke to modern eyes. The potential for party members such as Aerith to have insights into the changes that are occurring in real time might complicate the ways in which this game was able to tease and poke series veterans without fundamentally damaging character arcs. But overall, there's quite a bit of new ground to chart and it could be done wonderfully.

If you want the original Final Fantasy VII, play the original Final Fantasy VII. It's a better game anyway. But I for one am excited to see where we go from here. Let's just hope that we don't have to kill too many more random rats along the way.

Now while I haven't have grown up with the original Final Fantasy 7, I do know the impact it had with people with it being one of the most memorable RPGs in history. So I was interested in getting the remake because it would help me get into this franchise or at least the one that's well known by most.

And after three days of completing the story all the way through, I honestly had a fun time and it made a fan out of me. Now I can't really say how accurate it is to the original since I never played it especially with how this is only part 1 but it seems people still like it whether it be old fans or new fans of this new generation that this remake has pulled in.

Now the graphics are beautiful. Very atmospheric and the attention to detail makes this game pleasing to look at. From the characters to the environment.

The gameplay is very fun to play. The combat in the original was turn-based but now it has a different style with you dodging, wailing on the enemies, and you can switch between the four characters you get to play as. You can equip materia and upgrade your weapons to improve your strength and tactics.

You can play as Cloud Strife where you can swing your Buster Sword and slash up enemies, Barret Wallace who is good for ranged attacks with his gun arm, Tifa Lockhart who is great at close combat, and Aerith Gainsborough who serves as your mage and can help heal you in battle.

You also have items that can temporarily give you a power boost or heal and revive your team. It really gives you a sense of strategy.

There are also summons which have you call in these titan and mythical creatures that can help you out by giving massive damage to enemies. My favorite being Ifrit who sets the battlefield ablaze.

Now I expected this game to be long because these games are known for doing so and I had a good time all throughout and didn't feel disinterested at the least. I even played the side missions because of how fun it is. I've gotten lost a few times in certain areas which made it drag a bit but it happened so rarely that I was able to have a good experience overall.

The story was also interesting. There's still some questions that new fans may have but there are more parts coming so we'll have to wait and see for how the story continues. You really appreciate the characters as well as their motives in taking down Shinra. And of course, the one-winged angel himself, Sephiroth is as badass as ever with that badass theme song.

Now I found myself having a difficult time and I've died many times due to certain enemies like the ghosts and the lizard people but I was playing on "Normal Mode" which turned out to be... harder than normal. So I set it down to easy around the third act.

Overall, after three days of playing through, it was worth the money. I enjoyed the gameplay, it looked beautiful, and it has made me a fan of FF7 and I can't wait for Part 2. If only Cloud could get more representation in Smash Ultimate. Get on it Square Enix.

So I give the Final Fantasy VII Remake a 9/10.

I have never played the original Final Fantasy VII. I've actually never played a Final Fantasy game before this one, or really a JRPG before this one.

The combat was an interesting combination of what I presume to be the original JRPG style combat and a more modern combat system which was engaging. The story felt outdated, an attempt to balance an older black and white story with the more popular morally gray systems of today. It was interesting but ultimately a failure (for me) but I can see why so many people are so drawn to this game and this story even if it doesn't do it for me personally.

Un remake hecho con mucho talento y cariño hacia el juego orignal que ha conseguido conquistarme incluso sin la carta de la nostalgia.

Es una actualización muy inteligente y llena de cariño no sólo del original en sí, sino de su leyenda y su legado. Incluso no habiendo tenido esa conexión emocional con el juego original, el juego te hace sentir lo importante que es esto para mucha gente y lo increíble que es que se haya llegado a hacer algo así.

Y a pesar de todo esto nunca se pierde en su propia leyenda. Por ejemplo, deja a cada personaje ser una persona real, y eso permite que les pilles un cariño inmenso.

Quiero seguir por ver más a Cloud, Aerith, Barret, Tifa... No tenía este cariño al entrar, pero lo tengo ahora. A ver si la secuela no tarda más que un par de años.

Completely acceptable remake of FF7.

The story is the exact same as the original so if you liked that story you'll like this story.

The gameplay is broken down into several modes I played the game on normal which entails a gamplay system that is closest to Final Fantasy 13 with a little Kingdom Hearts mixed in. Battles play out in real time but throughout battles characters fill up their action gauges and spending those gauges allows you to perform abilities and cast spells. Most combat boils down to finding a enemies weakness and then exploiting it which can get kind of monotonous but overall the gameplay is perfectly serviceable. I'm aware there is also a classic mode for a more turn based style of combat.

My main gripe with the game is it's somewhat shallow mechanics. Almost all character progression is done though weapons, their assigned skills trees and the materia you equip to them. But what becomes very clear is that each weapon is designed to fulfill a certain role by the options you are given in the skill tree. IE the basebal bat weapon is obviously ment for a crit build because all it's upgrades are about increasing crit chance and crit dmg. This leads to some what narrow gameplay.

This game is also pretty linear which I welcome. I've grown way past the need for large expansive RPGs with 3 million npcs and 2 thousand side quests. It's nice to play a game that just lets you play it without sending you on a bunch of busy work in order to make itself feel expansive. Long sense have gone the days of me making fun of Final Fantasy 13 by calling it "Final Hallway 13" after years of being battered with Skyrim derivatives.

The dialogue is also downright terrible but I give the game a bit of leeway in this department and chalk it up to a poor translation more than anything.

The new graphical coat of paint also kind of sucks a bit of the character from the world and the characters. Everything looks dusty and/or rusty. The textures on the main cast look great but there are some NPC and environment textures that look beyond terrible. It's a graphical game of highs and lows.

Audio wise the game is amazing. The soundtrack is all remakes of ff7 music and they are all done really well.

But all in all this game is pretty solid. It feels a bit shallow at times but it never feels downright bad. It's systems are serviceable just don't go in expecting to have your world set on fire.

No surprises FFVII means a lot to a gamer who came of age at exactly the right time to be caught up in the hype, but what I'm especially thankful for is how Remake has brought me back to something I enjoyed wholeheartedly for years. Between this and the extra time on my hands - thanks Covid! - I've racked up more hours gaming this year than the last ten years combined. And I love it.

It's a miracle FFVIIR works as well as it does. When something is similar but not exact, it can feel repellant. Locations are updated, but faithful. Musical motifs are remastered and modern, but retain their emotional heft for people familiar with them from 20+ years ago.

What's especially impressive is how it doesn't rely on that nostalgia. This thing stands on its own two legs, plus the gameplay is emphatically 2020. That comes with its own problems too: some chapters are obvious padding, getting caught up in criticisms lobbied at FFXIII, feeling all too linear for linear's sake. Maybe they're there to add some realism as you navigate the massive Midgar, but turning on light switches in an uninspiring factory isn't a welcome addition.

Still, it's easy to soldier on because it's these characters, now with added depth, and the battle system is so much fun that extra time spent slashing baddies to bits is no bad thing.

What's really stayed with me is how it's in conversation with its own legend, and the pressure to tell *a story or tell the* story. Is there value in retreading old familiar beats when the original still exists and is easily accessible? Does it become a different game entirely if, say, certain characters survive who should have died (not that one, the other one)? With remake culture particularly prevalent in cinema at the moment, I appreciated this as a piece of art wondering about its own legacy, taking that responsibility far more seriously than just a cynical cashgrab like the Disney remakes. I feel FFVIIR wants to get it right, and that might mean deviating from what we know and love. That's pretty scary, but based on this first instalment, I'm quietly optimistic now we're ahead on our way.

loved it. can't really say if it surpasses the original or not but it's great regardless. characters are fleshed to the level they deserve. loved the story. i went in knowing the ending was controversial and i didn't really have a problem with it at all. like, i kept waiting for the story to shit the bed and it didn't.

only thing stopping me from rating it higher is the pacing and some technical issues but either way, a great game that i'm looking forward to seeing expanded upon in the next episode(s)