This review contains spoilers
The tagline for this game is “the unknown journey continues”, but nothing about this journey is unknown. They didn't commit to what the ending of Remake promised and instead focussed on just retelling the story of OG... But with all the different timelines already being introduced it feels wrong for this to just try and be a remake, as these things often go completely against the point of FFVII.
Especially because, in its adaption of the original story, it keeps missing the point of pivotal moments, arcs & characters. It doesn't understand what made FFVII so special to me and because of that just creates a worse version of it. It's not necessarily bad but it is consistently worse. Very rarely it does try to be its own thing but it doesn’t go far enough for it to actually have an impact on the narrative. Even during the ending, they go insane, only for it to mostly end up like the OG anyway, taking away from the impact of both the new and original story elements, while setting up part 3 to be more of the same. It’s like they’re scared to deviate too much so it just sits awkwardly in the middle while they stretch out these 15 hours of story content into a massive & bloated 70 hour experience that feels at a loss of what it wants to be.
Still tho... the combat is extremely satisfying, some areas are fun to explore (even if it's just a basic checklist open world), the locations are recreated in a beautiful way, the OST is incredible and the voice performances are flawless. The story even has some moments where it does work for me, where it's genuinely just really good & where it manages to adapt & reimagine events in interesting ways. I can't understate how much I adore those moments. Some characters and relationships are also expanded upon in great ways but for everything that it does right there are a million things that it does wrong.
As someone who really loves OG this game felt pointless to me. It tries to be different but doesn't commit, but when it tries to be faithful it misses the point. And while doing so it goes against everything that FFVII stands for. While it does improve on some aspects of OG, it also misses so much of what made that game so special. So what's the point...?
I did enjoy some moments of this game but at other points, and especially looking back on it, I hate that it even exists
Especially because, in its adaption of the original story, it keeps missing the point of pivotal moments, arcs & characters. It doesn't understand what made FFVII so special to me and because of that just creates a worse version of it. It's not necessarily bad but it is consistently worse. Very rarely it does try to be its own thing but it doesn’t go far enough for it to actually have an impact on the narrative. Even during the ending, they go insane, only for it to mostly end up like the OG anyway, taking away from the impact of both the new and original story elements, while setting up part 3 to be more of the same. It’s like they’re scared to deviate too much so it just sits awkwardly in the middle while they stretch out these 15 hours of story content into a massive & bloated 70 hour experience that feels at a loss of what it wants to be.
Still tho... the combat is extremely satisfying, some areas are fun to explore (even if it's just a basic checklist open world), the locations are recreated in a beautiful way, the OST is incredible and the voice performances are flawless. The story even has some moments where it does work for me, where it's genuinely just really good & where it manages to adapt & reimagine events in interesting ways. I can't understate how much I adore those moments. Some characters and relationships are also expanded upon in great ways but for everything that it does right there are a million things that it does wrong.
As someone who really loves OG this game felt pointless to me. It tries to be different but doesn't commit, but when it tries to be faithful it misses the point. And while doing so it goes against everything that FFVII stands for. While it does improve on some aspects of OG, it also misses so much of what made that game so special. So what's the point...?
I did enjoy some moments of this game but at other points, and especially looking back on it, I hate that it even exists