One of the best, but thirstiest games I’ve ever played.
Started At The Bottom, Now We’re Here
As I have previously, I’ll start this off with a little context surrounding my expectations for the long-awaited remake of Final Fantasy VII. As someone who had previously never played a game from the Final Fantasy franchise, aside from about 5 hours of FFXV, I wasn’t hyped up by the announcement of this game. I was happy that fans of the series were getting the game that they had been craving, but it was of little interest to me. The only connection to Final Fantasy VII from my childhood was watching Advent Children and thinking that Cloud and Sephiroth were badasses.
Around 86 hours, and one platinum trophy, later suffice to say that Final Fantasy VII Remake is easily one of my favorite games to release on the current platforms. If I spent the time to do some soul-searching, I might even find that this game ranks highly in my top games of all time. This game has me intrigued to go back and play through the original FFVII to experience the differences between these two titles. More importantly, it’s sold me on seeing how Square Enix handles the next installments in this remake series.
Post-Game Woes
I have so many positive things to say about this game that I’d rather start off with my minor gripe about the game. There is very little endgame content for players to complete after finishing their initial playthrough of the story. The only satiating endgame option is playing through the story that was just completed on Hard Mode where enemies are obviously beefed up and players are required to find benches to regain HP and crates for MP, items are unusable. Aside from a Hard Mode playthrough, the only other content is for players to complete the Battle Intel reports, Shinra Simulator, and Colloseum battles in order to unlock the secret boss fight. Oh, and of course there are the collectible music discs but these have no real effect on content experienced by the player.
“Most Frames, A Painting”
From the jump, the love and care put into this remake is a sight to behold. Whether it’s the various sections of Midgar that the player navigates through during their journey, or the characters themselves, Square Enix made sure to create breathtaking visuals utilizing the PS4. This factor alone had me interested in seeing the rumored PC port come to fruition, as well as playing on a next gen console through backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, there are some visual hiccups that standout amongst the beauty of the game. It was hard for me not to be taken out of the moment when I would encounter textures on environments that looked like they belonged in last-gen games, but the game would urge me along to take in the sights of everything else.
Nailing the RPG of JRPG
One of the gameplay aspects that I was most impressed by was the diversity of party builds across the people I talked to while experiencing the game. This seems like a foregone conclusion given the game’s RPG elements, but I hadn’t expected my equipment and materia builds to have a major impact on the game. For the most part it didn’t, but the more complex builds are awaiting those players who are more experienced with the franchise than I was. I was playing the majority of the game as more of an action game without paying much mind to managing my equipment “properly”.
Even though this was my approach, I was able to make it to the final boss battle on Hard Mode before encountering a seemingly insurmountable challenge (oh boy, did I spend upwards of four hours trying to beat them regardless). After about 10 minutes of speaking with my cousin, a much more experienced Final Fantasy player than myself, he helped me cobble together a build that managed to beat the same boss in two tries. Could I have beaten the boss without using the exact build that he helped me create? Absolutely, and that’s my point: Final Fantasy VII Remake gives the player incredible freedom to build a party that represents their play-style.
Fun for the Whole Party
Another gameplay aspect that was pulled off magnificently is the managing of party members in combat. Here’s another way that I was playing the game differently than many: I *never* used the battle setting shortcut commands to use my abilities, items, or spells. Instead, I would spend the time to pull up the ATB Command menu and carefully plot out my next step in combat. While this was blasphemous to players in my circle that learned about this method, I really enjoyed the strategic nature in trying to figure out which attacks should be utilized together to be most effective.
Wow, that was a defensive tangent I just went on. Additionally, Final Fantasy VII did a great job of making each party member feel unique from the others without having a standout character, at least in my party, that you didn’t want to take control of when it was most advantageous to do so.
Conclusion: 9/10
I’m grateful that I took up the opportunity to dive into this game head first and fall in love with the cast, combat, and world, even if the circumstances surrounding the decision to do so were less than ideal. I’d go as far as saying this game is better than Advent Children, and that’s saying a lot. Okay, so Advent Children wasn’t that great and I was just kidding but we can all agree that it was cool at the time.
In all seriousness, Final Fantasy VII Remake has kicked open the door for me to both explore the franchise’s catalog as well as anticipate the new entries in the series that have yet to come. Who knows, maybe I’ll even beat the original Final Fantasy VII by the time the next installment in the remake series releases. P.S. Aerith is best girl, don’t @ me.
LongLivePlay 