Final Fantasy VII Remake

This game is absolutely stunning in every way. I'm so deeply impressed by it. Incredibly immersive, to the point where I forget I'm actually playing a game. I love all the new content and side quests. It really just adds to and enriches the game and story. Playability is also flawless. The materia, limit, weapon upgrades, etc are all very easy to understand. I feel like replayability is going to be very high with this game; at least for me!

I mean to be honest when I first heard that a remake of this masterpiece was in the works I thought it would be a little tricky to live up to our expectations. But man I was in for a surprise! The game is flawless, I almost cried when I first heard the remade battle theme & the mako reactor themes. The combat system is way better than I expected, the characters are as fantastic as ever. As for the graphics, it's easily one of the best looking games ever made. So even if you haven't played the original, or any final fantasy games, get this played, you're in for one hell of a ride!!

I've loved FFVII since I first played it in 2014. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait as long as most for what was advertised as a remake. It seemed like it was in development forever, the first trailer was 5 long years before the game actually hit the shelves. How is it? It's good! Flawed, but good.

I mentioned that it's advertised as a remake. It's a bit disingenuous of their marketing to say that's the case. While the game is an authentic expansion/remake of about 90% of the Midgar section in the original, it does do some things quite differently (especially at the end). This will be a better experience if you have played the original. The game is designed with this in mind. Going through Crisis Core and watching Advent Children is probably recommended too.

I don't want to gate-keep though; this can be a good entry point into the universe. It's just my recommendation that playing the OG first is best if you can handle older graphics (mods help!).

The creators didn't want to remake everything 1:1, because that's boring to them. I can respect that.

Half the parts it expands upon are pretty fantastic. Many fans did not expect them to include some of the goofier stuff. Turns out, they didn't just include them. They went 500% in. Highlighted them in bright yellow ink. It's glorious.

Characters maintain their core while feeling more grounded and fleshed out. It certainly helps that they don't look like cursed Legos anymore. Not just the main characters are better though; side characters like Jessie, Biggs and Wedge come alive here in a way they never were before. The game also introduces new characters, most of which feel at home in FFVII, though only a few are memorable.

Where the game falters is its incessant padding. Sections that were a screen or two in the original are stretched to literal hours. If you enjoy the gameplay and characters (as I did), it helps these sections a fair bit, but not enough to make them good. A lot of the changes come at the cost of momentum. Midgar in the original is a roaring romp with quick ups and downs before you get out and finally breathe as the world is revealed. Here, the pacing can be rather jarring.

As for the story decisions in particular, I think I'm mostly ok with them. People are afraid that it'll become Kingdom Hearts level of convolution, but I think they need 20 games to even get to that level. I've played Kingdom Hearts, unfortunately. I know how bad it can get... I think what they're doing with the villain is actually quite interesting, but the introduction of him is worse in this entry (another reason to play the original!). It's hard to fully judge these changes. This is only part one of a giant story, and I can't really evaluate it until all three games are out. For now, I'm along for the ride.

Thankfully the rest of the game is fantastic. The music takes motifs and experiments with them more, mixing in more original and memorable tracks. A certain underground section that's really not that compelling overall is joyous to go back to just for the soundtrack. The hubs filled with people are incredibly lively; Midgar still feels huge and varied. The gameplay is a smart hybrid of old Final Fantasy battles and new.

They really just went all out with certain parts. I just wish I could experience it all in less time.

I initially played it during Covid on my PS4. It was a very strange time, driving through empty traffic lights midday to get to a workplace that was deathly quiet. I just wanted to get home and play this. It helped.

This time round, I played the DLC as well with Yuffie's introduction (it wasn't released on PS4). I liked it overall; the gameplay was slick, the narrative was great in the first half but a bit repetitive in the second. And the music was crazy. They did 6 songs for a turtle club side quest - again, that's 6 songs for a turtle club side quest - that you'll only hear about 30 seconds of each if you even decide to do the quest in the first place. All different genres. All turtley.

The DLC is a must play for anyone who likes the series, and clearly a core part of the story.

So the game is great. It does succumb to more anime tropes than the original, whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. It does make plenty of changes. But its core, its foundation, its heart, is the same. This is the original 5 hours expanded upon and fleshed out. It mostly works. Give it a go.

Tbh the ending of the game is so bad and exhausting that i truly wanted to rate it 1/10 after beating the story (it is just a constant tiresome streak of bosses one after the other - terrible game design decision, imo. I was like "just end it already, its getting worst and more stupid with every next boss fight in a row").

But with all rage aside it is worth a 5/10, and 4/10 if it would be a fresh new title, not world famous game remake with tons of nostalgia involved.

Plot - it is ok while it sticks to the original, but all this new whispers nonsence is total garbage and shouldnt exist

Combat - it feels incomplete. It is better than in ff15, but still needs improvement. Sometimes camera doing stupid things, mobile enemies are pain cause AI is bad when it comes to measuring distance to land a hit with skills, so u can often miss unless you manually get to right distance.

Overall teammates AI is very poor, they are way too passive and u cant really change it unless you controll them manually. And u cant do this with 3 units at the same time when the combat is real time. So your main unit always gets his action gauge filled 3-4 times faster than 2 other units and it is annoying. Sometimes AI controlled teammates just stand and block or standing afk instead of doing something and it is strange that i could't find any settings to change their behavior. FF12 used to have 10 or 12 setting for each character (for example, use offensive magic if u face flying enemy for the characters with melee weapon, use healing item of magic if ally health drop below 40% etc). And in FF7 remake sometimes allies feels more like a burden than like useful help (example, boss use aoe attack and all your charactes got heavy damage, but only main character have enough action gauge to use heal cause other 2 are too passive, so you waste your turns to heal the other two and not doing damage while they are slowly accumutating their gauge). And the action gauge system itself have 1 problem - spamming enemies, like one guy at the end of the game that constatly throws powerfull attacks at you and you cant accumulate enough gauge to keep the pace.

But still the combat system have improved much since ff15 with no chance to abuse items finally (which is major problem to a most modern rpg's) and i hope square will polish it for FF16.

Graphics - main characters looking really good, Clouds greatsword on his back with materia is looking great, but overall indoors and outdoors are pretty mediocre, and i'm playing PS5 version.

Game design - game is just a gut and absolutelly linear, it has next to none exploration and many "you cant go there right now cause Hey cloud, my home is this way" moments are annoying and feels like just poor game design

Main problem is lenght. They literally stretched a good fast paced opening to a big adventure from original (it took about 7 hours to get through) to a boring and awfully slow 30 hours of cuscenes, filler content + commonplace sidequests and very slow mediocre gameplay. Everything in this game except for combat is painfully slow.

If this "game" would be twice shorter it would be only for the best. Same plot with more details and depth for 15 hours and it wouldn't fail the pace so much (but then it would be harder to sell it for AAA price ofc).

P. S. Funny to see all those 10/10 guys that obviously dont spend even 3 hours playing before making a reviev)

I am a die hard fan of the original FF7 game, so I was both thrilled as well as nervous about this remake. I mean, how can you top one of the best games ever made? Also, how do you manage to satisfy the lovers of old school 'turn based' action, as well as the next generation? Well, they actually managed to pull it off! Not just in terms of gameplay or graphics, but also the effort to go much more in depth with each character and side character. I am truly impressed by the creativity of the developers, who managed to stay true to the original plot, as well as surprise those who know the story so well.

Although the story only covers the Midgar part, FF7 Remake has all the characteristics of a full game and much, much more!