How do you reinvent a classic? Well thanks to this being the first of a few games in the FFV7 Remake series, we do not currently know. However, if FF7R is any indication of where this project is going, I have high hopes.

Though Tetsuya Nomura has a catalog riddled with some of the worst games to come out of Square Enix within recent memory, he is a legendary game designer and artist and came through with a masterpiece with help from FF7 veterans. Seeing iconic scenes from the Midgar route like Shinra Tower, Wall Market, and the Bombing Mission come to life in glorious 3D with a fully orchestrated soundtrack made my jaw-drop. Upon hearing the FF7 main theme play in the demo I simply set my controller down and was nearly brought to tears.

This game features great music, most of which are redone and updated versions of songs that existed in the first game, yet new music is also added. Most of this new music is not very good, except for the Nobuo Uematsu composed "Hollow" which plays at the end credits and again, nearly got me to tear up.

Combat is the best Final Fantasy has seen since... ever? FF12, FF13, and FF15 were all experiments as to how Square-Enix could evolve from its beloved ATB turn based combat and none of these three hit the mark perfectly (though 12 did have a fun combat system.) FF7R did succeed though with a perfect blend of standard action combat with skillfully timing magic and heavy based attacks. The Materia system was rewarding, and players feel good experimenting with playing different characters through the story.

I can't even get started on characters, everyone in this game looks so dang GOOD. Series icons like Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, and Sephiroth all return in the most extravagant brain melting fashion. You could spend hours looking at how much they've improved from the few polygon days they saw in 1997. The job the 7Remake team did to make this happen is nothing short of a miracle and a true love letter to fans of Final Fantasy and the 7 story in general.

I'm excited to see where the franchise takes one of the most famous stories in gaming.

I don't know how you begin to say about Chrono Trigger what hasn't already been said, it is without a doubt one of the best JRPG's and video games of all time.

Memorable scenes, iconic character design, and a musical score to rival all games released before and after, CT is a masterclass in gaming and in media as a whole. Coming from the minds of Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Xenoblade, and Dragon Ball it was a Square superteam that made this timeless (pun intended) classic come to fruitition.

Play the game, hear Lavos' scream, run around the Milennial Fair, and save the world from the end of time.

This game is the pits, nothing about this was a gratifying experience. The ham-fisted, awfully indecisive and confusing deckbuilding the game is centered around is horribly explained and was an awful gameplay mechanic. It's a shocker that this was included in a game in the last 20 years, like I'm still a few weeks after playing it flabbergasted in how horribly put together this game was. Not only are you playing through zones that you went through in Kingdom Hearts 1, the game features little to zero voice acting and adds a massive amount of lore that in Kingdom Hearts fashion makes zero sense.

I don't understand why this game was made, was it as a test to see what humanity could take before we fall apart? Was this game created because someone at the company was angry or had to settle a vendetta? Who likes this game?

This game is the lowpoint in the Kingdom Hearts franchise catalog, which for a series that contains no good games, is truly telling.

2/10 because the other game I have tagged as a 1/10 doesn't deserve company this poor.

Nostalgia Disclaimer: I bought this game, knowing it might not be for me, with the other pretense that I did not play the original Seiken Densetsu 3 for the SNES. From what I understand, after watching several videos and reading other forums about these two games, the 2020 Trials of Mana remake is an extremely faithful rendition of the original game. I believed I might as well grab a piece of history and dive into the seemingly unending vault of famous and well received Square games of the 90's and purchased this release.

The problem with playing games from our youth is that it begs a few questions. Firstly, was the game that good when I was younger? And, would it hold up in the current year without substantial changes? The answer (most likely) to the first question with Trials of Mana is; probably. Granted I did not play the game (I may purchase the Switch collection,) so I cannot say for certain, but I think the style of game play, music, and art for the time were pretty good. To answer the second, definitely no. The problem with early JRPG's and their storytelling is the novelty of "chosen one saves the world with the help of their friends to destroy the forces of evil." That's... pretty much this game in a nutshell. Trials of Mana's story, of which I picked the Duran main character arc, was basically non existent and cookie cutter for games of the time. You play resident Good Hero-Man who takes revenge against the Vincent Evil-Guy by retrieving a legendary Sword and picking up the support of the eight Beings of the Land. After previously playing Square games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, coming to something like this just feels a bit disingenuous. If there was a legitimate story at all, my involvement and care for the game would have increased tenfold.

My next issue is the absolutely horrible voice acting and character writing throughout the entire game. I picked both Kevin (for his physical DPS) and Charlotte (for her support skils) as my backup party members, and I spent every waking minute of the game regretting that decision. Both of their voice acting was the absolute most poor I've played in a video game, sans maybe Goldman from the House of the Dead series. Kevin's voice acting was boiled down to Kevin from hit tv show The Office in which his mantra was "why say more words when few word do trick," and the novelty of that died almost immediately. Charlotte's voice acting was so hilariously bad, I almost ending up liking it towards the end. You would have to look it up to get the full deal. Also, Matelo's infamous "I'm a GhoOooSt" scene on the Ghost Ship had me audibly yelling "NoOOOOOOO" at my screen for a solid few minutes.

Furthermore, the game was way too dang easy, this is not normally an issue for me as I play some tougher JRPG's on easier difficulties or with game-assists, but for a game that is exclusively built on an action-RPG combat system, I play the recommended normal difficulties. I don't believe this game was easy because of my experience in fast action games (Bayonetta, DMC, MGS:R, NieR, etc...) but moreso because it was so mindnumbingly simple to mash buttons and roll to succeed. Every enemy, every boss was defeated in exactly the same manner.

Map Design and music were also some of the worst that I've experienced. The map zones and cities were some of the least inspired I've ever witnessed. Nothing felt unique and dungeons/boss zones were basically just hallways with enemies every few feet in groups of three. The loop of this game was boiled down to "Walk for ten seconds, fight group of three enemies (who sometimes fly,) collect exp, walk another fifteen feet, door or simple puzzle, repeat. Bosses were frustrating because they repeated the same exact mechanics each fight, with little to no variation, and were plentiful for a game that did not feel gratifying at all to complete said fights. The terrain was befitting of a free to play or mobile game, and enemy design was recycled ad nauseam.

TLDR; Nothing about this game felt good, however this comes from someone who did not experience the beloved SNES original.

Do you want to know what it feels like to feel? Everhood is an absolutely fantastic meld of two genres that have been mimicked yet not perfected in their recreations: Undertale's (to an extent, Earthbound's) zany world filled with peculiarly lovable NPC's and sharp humour, and Guitar Hero's side to side music based note playing. That sound weird to you? It should. This game nails it! I picked up the game because I thought the trailer music seemed pretty great, and the visuals looked nice, but lo and behold I was in for an emotional, tear jerking story through a 10-11 hour experience. You play D&D, run through a 2.5 hour hallway (if you want,) and dance with some trippy gnomes. No real explanation can do this game justice, it's something I wish I could experience blind again. Just like in Undertale, the characters you meet will all leave an impact on you, and the bittersweet finale will take you for a sad spin. You'll meet frogs who play guitar, angry ATM's, and listen to some funky music. So far Everhood is easily my GOTY 2021.

Rock on Everhood.