This game is nostalgia bait, but lacks substance.
I cannot review this game in isolation. It has to be understood in the context of FFVII: it is meant for people who have played the original and are nostalgic for it. Every character is introduced in a way that's meant for you to clap and point at the screen and say "hey that's that character from the previous game!". It is 100% fan service. Which, by itself, is not a bad thing! It's actually pretty delightful to get a chance to see more of the world and more of the characters: it's fan service, but i'm a fan.
However, in my opinion, the game falls a bit short. My main issue with it is that it is a prequel, and that it commits the cardinal sin of a prequel: by meddling with the original story, it lessens its impact. Some scenes of the original story, depicted again in this game, are made less impactful by the presence of new story elements this game introduces! The new plot points and characters it adds are serviceable at best, and cheapen the original at worst. Additionally, they make the mistake of over-explaining, of trying to come up with a rationale for so many elements of the original game that it feels artificial. This is where the name of the bar came from! This is why this character wore clothes of that colour! This is where that character got that hair accessory! It feels almost masturbatory in the way it winks at the audience every time.
A smaller point, but that i think is worth noticing, is also that this game lacks the soul of the original. FFVII was a game that, as far back in 1997, said: ecoterrorism is a valid response to a dying planet, corporations will wage war to extract capital and will militarize to protect themselves to escape the consequences of the destruction they have wrought, it is your moral duty to oppose them. This game, by virtue of being a prequel... has you work for the bad guys, has you rescue or work with the villains of the original over and over again. This is not necessarily a bad decision in itself: we follow a character, Zack, whose story in inseparable from the story of the Shinra Company. But the game feels a bit too uncritical of this at times, and a bit soulless as a result.
This could be all saved by a good gameplay. And, honestly, the core gameplay is fun, if a bit repetitive. There is enough variety in the materia system to allow for fun combos, they tried some inventive new things such as the DMW system, it works, it's fun. However, the side missions are, simply put, bad. All 300(!) of them take place in the same 3 or 4 copy-pasted generic levels, and almost all of them follow the same formula: navigate the level, avoid encounters at intersections, find chests, kill boss. Their additional value as side-quests, supposedly to expand the universe of the game, comes from the lackluster flavour text on the mission selection screen alone: the vast majority of them have no story or text or voice line or anything. With a few noteworthy exceptions (the few rare missions that deviate from the formula or offer a real challenge are actually fun!), they are all completely interchangeable, and feel like busy work.
So, yes, I am not sure i can recommend playing this game if you liked the original FFVII. On one hand it's great to see some of the places we know, and seeing more of the characters we love. But the new story feels a bit empty, the gameplay is a bit repetitive, and i think your time would be better spent watching the cutscenes on YouTube.
I cannot review this game in isolation. It has to be understood in the context of FFVII: it is meant for people who have played the original and are nostalgic for it. Every character is introduced in a way that's meant for you to clap and point at the screen and say "hey that's that character from the previous game!". It is 100% fan service. Which, by itself, is not a bad thing! It's actually pretty delightful to get a chance to see more of the world and more of the characters: it's fan service, but i'm a fan.
However, in my opinion, the game falls a bit short. My main issue with it is that it is a prequel, and that it commits the cardinal sin of a prequel: by meddling with the original story, it lessens its impact. Some scenes of the original story, depicted again in this game, are made less impactful by the presence of new story elements this game introduces! The new plot points and characters it adds are serviceable at best, and cheapen the original at worst. Additionally, they make the mistake of over-explaining, of trying to come up with a rationale for so many elements of the original game that it feels artificial. This is where the name of the bar came from! This is why this character wore clothes of that colour! This is where that character got that hair accessory! It feels almost masturbatory in the way it winks at the audience every time.
A smaller point, but that i think is worth noticing, is also that this game lacks the soul of the original. FFVII was a game that, as far back in 1997, said: ecoterrorism is a valid response to a dying planet, corporations will wage war to extract capital and will militarize to protect themselves to escape the consequences of the destruction they have wrought, it is your moral duty to oppose them. This game, by virtue of being a prequel... has you work for the bad guys, has you rescue or work with the villains of the original over and over again. This is not necessarily a bad decision in itself: we follow a character, Zack, whose story in inseparable from the story of the Shinra Company. But the game feels a bit too uncritical of this at times, and a bit soulless as a result.
This could be all saved by a good gameplay. And, honestly, the core gameplay is fun, if a bit repetitive. There is enough variety in the materia system to allow for fun combos, they tried some inventive new things such as the DMW system, it works, it's fun. However, the side missions are, simply put, bad. All 300(!) of them take place in the same 3 or 4 copy-pasted generic levels, and almost all of them follow the same formula: navigate the level, avoid encounters at intersections, find chests, kill boss. Their additional value as side-quests, supposedly to expand the universe of the game, comes from the lackluster flavour text on the mission selection screen alone: the vast majority of them have no story or text or voice line or anything. With a few noteworthy exceptions (the few rare missions that deviate from the formula or offer a real challenge are actually fun!), they are all completely interchangeable, and feel like busy work.
So, yes, I am not sure i can recommend playing this game if you liked the original FFVII. On one hand it's great to see some of the places we know, and seeing more of the characters we love. But the new story feels a bit empty, the gameplay is a bit repetitive, and i think your time would be better spent watching the cutscenes on YouTube.
Haypil
4 months ago