Final Fantasy VII Remake Review: Solid Story, Archaic Design
Final Fantasy VII Remake Review: Thundaga can't strike twice
"… although the entire Final Fantasy VII story is a fascinating, emotional globetrotter adventure, this first 40-hour romp is anything but."
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A well-written extension of one of the most popular game stories
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Visually striking when history demands it
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Generously expressed and magnificent with solid performances all round
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Fight tries to be too much at once
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Level design consists of corridors, platforms and stairs
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Extremely linear gameplay with little exploration
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Too much fluff between the good things
Final Fantasy VII Remake is here to take things in a new direction more than two decades after the original gave us a hero and villain almost as recognizable as Mario. While this eagerly awaited update is brave and sometimes beautiful, it is the latest victim of a company that places too much trust in its experienced designers.
Square Enix changed the game landscape with the seventh iteration of the Final Fantasy franchise 23 years ago. Final Fantasy VII has had a profound impact on the lives of millions of children and adults. His warm welcome influenced a CGI feature film that expanded his story, as well as some interesting spin-offs.
I only played this cultural milestone a decade after its release at the request of a close friend who was caught up in Clouds and Sephiroth's dreamy polygonal appearance.
Getting off the train as Cloud, a young mercenary with a grudge against Shinra, overlord of the world, is still a fantastic opening all these years later. Aside from the money on the table, it will be a long time before we fully understand why he is helping a militia detonate a bomb in a nuclear reactor. Nojima, the writer of the original story, lets Cloud's enigmatic personality emerge during the 40-hour campaign at the behest of his gripping cast of characters, but we as gamers have been responsible for the bleak teenage heartbreaker for so long that he's stale far too soon.
The early introduction of repetitive gameplay elements will not help. Every time the story decides to take a breather, you're exposed to some really outrageous sections. Between the captivating cutscenes that shame the 2005 film, it's a slow, highly scripted adventure through dark tunnels and corridors with lots of glacier crossings and incredibly uninspired switch and platform sections.
Midgar, the industrial city in the sky that this whole story is about, is huge. But apart from a pizza trip and light identity theft, you can hardly see it. Of course there is a reason for this. They spend most of their time in the slums below, but even the shadow of this steel state is little more than long, narrow paths with impressively written but graphically overwhelming shantytowns.
Fast, fluid, faulty
Unless you choose a more relaxed difficulty level, the battle in Final Fantasy VII Remake is almost entirely in real time. It's a big difference from the turn-based system of the original and one that doesn't always give the best results. Stylistically it's absolutely great. Attacks have real weight and flair. And while summoners with little fanfare feel thrown in, it is almost enough to tear them out of their assigned material and let them wreak havoc to interfere with some of the harsher realities of this otherwise tortuous combat system.
If you have the chance to put everything into a fight, there is no better feeling. Boss fights, like the Airbuster Mech, are as magical as they are stressful. There are numerous cases of these well-fought battles, but they're almost always hidden behind multi-monster brawls that seem to play by their own rules. If you are not being fought over by off-screen opponents, the target system stabs you in the back. It is almost impossible to know the outcome of a strike. Tifa will happily throw herself in the air to box a bird with her bare knuckles, but will try to use a stronger skill and she will land on the ground again so as not to swing.
In such a real-time action title, we're used to the idea that everything can be perfected. But that's not how it feels here. Try toppling the scales in favor of a more exciting attack strategy, and you could end up switching off from your main target, botching a powerful spell, and getting hit by something you either couldn't see or could adapt to for half a second. This is a series of small battlefields and narrow camera angles, but it could be improved with a simple target list of wands.
If everything goes well, the fight feels incredibly rewarding. Tifa and Barret are doing shockingly well to the point where I actively try not to control Cloud whenever I can. You can choose which character you want to control from the start of a fight. If the scenario does not require this, you as Mr. Moody Mercenary will cross the overworld for a long time.
It is cold under the steel sky
What is waiting behind all the fluff is pretty convincing. Most non-player characters (NPCs) aren't nearly as graphically great as the main characters, but that doesn't mean they're not worth a look. Far from it. The area around the seventh heaven is full. It lives. Everyone has something to say about their day, a personality that is immediately noticeable.
Children practice dance routines, jocks discuss hitting girls, and rumors spread left and right. It's like Square Enix hired every voice actor on the planet to breathe life into these tiny hamlets. But as soon as you leave Wall Market behind and try to return to Aerith's house, you'll be reminded of how little scenery there is to explore. You'll get a glimpse of something bigger when you stray from a beaten path for a side quest, but after another four, you'll realize that the full Final Fantasy VII story, while a fascinating, emotional adventure around the world, is this first 40 hours romp is anything but.
Final Fantasy VII Remake is a fraction of the whole story. More will come, but we don't know when. After 20 years of hardware development, Midgar still doesn't feel as big as we have always felt. I can only hope that the time spent cutting off so many corners here has been spent on designing a far more ambitious follow-up. The world of Gaia will feel terribly small if you rely on the practices presented here.
Kazushige Nojima, who wrote the original of Final Fantasy VII and the subsequent side stories, returns to the baby he created over two decades ago. Between writing FFVIII and the tearful Kingdom Hearts series, the man spent years working out his world in spin-off titles, books and the popular film. With Remake, he worked it out further and expanded a fairly tame and tiny part of the original game into a section that is almost as heartbreaking as the entire chronicle.
New in this retelling are characters that come from subsequent side stories. Leslie from the Advent children's prequel book The Kids Are Alright makes direct contact with Cloud this time, which means that one can assume that the original FFVII is no longer completely canonical. There is more to this evolution once you delve into the details, but Remake is more than a simple extension of what was before – it's a completely revised narrative that will undoubtedly sink its claws into subsequent releases and that still has a lot of possibilities should captivate those who have already invested in FFVII traditions. Nojima's big story was a catch for a younger self. His efforts have shaped the series ever since. Anyone who is able to make some archaic game design decisions can look forward not only to storytelling, but also to eyes and ears. Mostly.
While Nojima does what he does best, composers Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki join colleague Nobuo Uematsu to resume the game's classic soundtrack. New additions like the hip-hop sound of the grubby Collapsed Expressway and the completely revamped Wall Market theme are two bops that I can't wait to add to my playlist.
Visually, Final Fantasy VII remake looks incredible. No stranger will be blown away if they catch a glimpse of it on a YouTube ad, but considering that its real-time cutscenes outperform the pre-rendered footage of the mid-2000s Advent Children film, it's incredibly exciting to see how far we have come. It's just a shame that no amount of stories or catchy melodies can offset this boring attempt to wrap a playable game around his script. World building is not the drawback of this game – it is still one of the greatest game stories ever told. The questionable, outdated game design that is widespread everywhere makes Final Fantasy VII Remake fall flat.
Our opinion
After years of waiting, it hurts to say that Final Fantasy VII remake doesn't really impress. The classic plot – or at least what is offered here – benefits greatly from generous and outstanding speech, but how you extract the story of a generation is nothing short of a shame. Running up and down corridors and stairs for dozens of hours is a burden, and while the combat system can sometimes offer fights that embarrass MMO raids, mountains of fluff, and a combat system that can't be committed to a single style leaves this like feel a little step back from the already problematic Final Fantasy XV. There is very little freedom of movement here. Just a linear campaign that doesn't have much else to offer.
If we take into account the polarizing reception of Final Fantasy XIII, it is clear that Square Enix's weirdly long development times have resulted in a track record of games that just don't count the number of hours of work going into them.
Is there a better alternative out there?
If you're looking for an emotional roller coaster, two names come to mind. If you prefer a more in-depth experience, Persona 5 is really worth a look. It's almost three times as long as Final Fantasy VII, but it knows what it does with that extra time. However, a closer comparison is Nier Automata with its action-oriented combat system.
How long it will take?
Right now? Give or take forty hours. This also applies to all side quests, of which there are not many at all. Apart from an option for hard mode and some additional additions for Colosseum quests, there is little to prevent the repeat value.
Should you buy it
If you have had problems with Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XV, you will find the same errors here. Perhaps you support a creator by watching the playthrough instead. If you played Final Fantasy VII as a kid, you will get a kick out of this lengthy story experience, but you will feel challenged.
Editor's recommendations
