This review contains spoilers
music - incredible, elevates most of the original songs from the original soundtrack and maintains the same atmosphere which i find most remakes struggle at.
story - really interesting take on the story of final fantasy VII, at first i thought it was what the title suggested, a remake, but it is something new and it tells a story that diverges from the original around halfway through. the latter half of the story was almost all original with some story beats remaining the same. the new content was interesting to say the least, some of it was confusing but the same can be said for the original game. it did drag in SOME cases, but the issue isn't as prevalent as some would lead you to believe. chapters 3 and 4 were probably my least favorite in terms of the story; jessie, biggs, and wedge just do not really interest me as characters. the end leaves me very excited to see how events will play out in rebirth.
characters - all super fun, the lifelike graphics really help them come to life and help you feel more attached to them. the sense of comradery is way more present in this game, barret being my favorite probably.
combat - it's good, mostly. the core combat system is fine and is a great way of reinventing the classic system from the PS1 game while adding more modern elements to it, the only fault i can see with the combat is most fights taking far too long. and towards the end of the game (last 4 chapters or so), the bosses use a lot more stun moves which got really old really fast. sometimes boss fights would take me upwards of like 30 minutes. this is by far my largest gripe with the game.
overall, i am impressed by the game, and it's definitely worth playing even if you've played the original due to the new content it provides, but the combat system dragged the score down slightly for me as while it was fun, it dragged and got monotonous fairly fast. looking forward to rebirth and i hope there're some adjustments in it that enhance the experience.
story - really interesting take on the story of final fantasy VII, at first i thought it was what the title suggested, a remake, but it is something new and it tells a story that diverges from the original around halfway through. the latter half of the story was almost all original with some story beats remaining the same. the new content was interesting to say the least, some of it was confusing but the same can be said for the original game. it did drag in SOME cases, but the issue isn't as prevalent as some would lead you to believe. chapters 3 and 4 were probably my least favorite in terms of the story; jessie, biggs, and wedge just do not really interest me as characters. the end leaves me very excited to see how events will play out in rebirth.
characters - all super fun, the lifelike graphics really help them come to life and help you feel more attached to them. the sense of comradery is way more present in this game, barret being my favorite probably.
combat - it's good, mostly. the core combat system is fine and is a great way of reinventing the classic system from the PS1 game while adding more modern elements to it, the only fault i can see with the combat is most fights taking far too long. and towards the end of the game (last 4 chapters or so), the bosses use a lot more stun moves which got really old really fast. sometimes boss fights would take me upwards of like 30 minutes. this is by far my largest gripe with the game.
overall, i am impressed by the game, and it's definitely worth playing even if you've played the original due to the new content it provides, but the combat system dragged the score down slightly for me as while it was fun, it dragged and got monotonous fairly fast. looking forward to rebirth and i hope there're some adjustments in it that enhance the experience.