there is a version of this game that is my absolute favourite thing in the world! there are so many moments within this that show me the creators truly understand what made the original FF7's world so charming. it's not JUST cloud's backstory, and his beef with sephiroth, its all the weird and goofy shit. it's squatting in the gym, its crossdressing, its fighting a giant house. this game even introduces new bits, like darts! seeing i could play darts made me over the moon happy! combat is similar and dissimilar enough to feel fresh while also making sense; materia works in the same way, ATB is still there, i think the did a really good job at modernising the way it worked back in 1997. the characters are spot on, and with more thought to its localisation each character gets more flavour, aerith in particular, feels infinitely more alive than she ever has. when she says "I'm not some princess who needs to be coddled, y'know... shit!" I fell in love with her. graphically its stunning of course, and midgar is so amazingly realised too! each slum town feels rich and deep, wallmarket in particular as this home of debauchery and vice, i love it. i love what they did to midgar so much. the original music and revised music is all great; Underneath the Rotting Pizza is and incredible rearangement and yet Collapsed Expressway is an amazing original piece! there is so much here to love, SO much. fighting big bosses feels great most of the time, airbuster is awesome, the Turks are great, and each character's unique style makes them fun and exciting. the weapon system itself is cool, allowing for customisation thats more interesting and exciting that the original game. being able to play the whole game with the Buster Sword if you want, but also having the variety! wow!

but nothing is perfect, especially if tetsuya nomura has had his grubby little mitts on it. i'm not saying the man can't write a good story, and for as bizarre as some of his stuff comes across, he does have rules for his stories. but i don't think this story needed destiny, or arbiters of fate, and while i appreciate we delete destiny at teh end of the game, we certainly dont need to add in extra plot twists like Zack and Biggs surviving; it just isnt necessary. i think its all red herring material personall,y, i think by the end of the trilogy both Zack and Aerith will have died, regardless of how its looking. we'll see! i could be wrong! also barret shouldnt have sunglasses, they suck. another bad thing is the filler, or at least some of it. i get that they wanted midgar to be its own game, and i even agree with that decision if the result is a midgar this fleshed out, but there are filler chapters that are genuinely awful. every side quest chapter is worthless, boring, unoriginal drivle. there isnt a single good sidequest in this game. do better next time, please. also, leslie and the sewer sequence feels tacked on and bad. i think they couldve done SOMETHING better than that too. there could have been a bit more on the plate i feel like, like on the way to the shinra building maybe we have another chapter, like chapter 2, where we're going through the streets of the plate to get to the tower, and so on. Hojo's lab is absolutely awful. i love a secret lab for the lore implications, but the story is nonexistent at that point and the manouvering is frustrating and weird. do better!

looking forward to part 2 :)