I really wish that this was a better game, I'm in love with the new story and the way Square Enix expanded the intro of FF7 and all the remixes of old tracks, but the combat somewhat stains the whole experience, but FF7R is still an awesome game despite my misgivings with the battles! Half of all fights were a total slog and ruined my mood, it feels like the action style is held back by enemies having too much capability to ruin your momentum. Maybe I'm just not skilled enough in this game, but it really sucked the joy out of an otherwise perfect package. I know that it could be better too, I love Kingdom Hearts and Nier, so why is this game so tough to swallow? Besides that, every other part of this game is amazing! The characters were incredibly likable and the voice actors did a great job, I played the game in English dub and it was spectacular. The graphics were beautiful and the familiar locations were highly faithful to the original, the direct translation of prerendered backgrounds to explorable 3D made Midgar feel massive and lived in, especially with the NPC chatter as you walk by. The controls work well enough, sometimes the arrow prompts felt a little clunky and overly slow for a soldier like Cloud though. And even if the combat was frequently annoying, it still has it's good parts, when you're moving you're really going and it's very fun, and the character switching and usage of triggers to open up the command menu are ingenious. I will say though that compared to Cloud and Tifa, I didn't find Barret and Aerith to be super fun with their exclusively ranged normal attacks. I don't want to say much about the story because it really is a wonderful thing blind. Most of the added content in between the story beats veterans already know are fun sidetracks, but a few of them feel like they drag for a bit too long. I'm glad I finally finished the game, and I hope part 2 will be better. By the end of this series of remakes, I want to be able to say that Square Enix has surpassed the original, but it just isn't there yet. Still, go play this if you loved Final Fantasy VII, and if you haven't finished the original then don't play this first, it's not going to be worth it in my opinion. With all of the deviations to the story and some underlying plot details, I consider it more of a sequel than a remake.