Final Fantasy VII Remake — A Weird, Wonderful Case of Confused Identity
When it was first announced that Final Fantasy VII — quite possibly the darling child of the JRPG genre — was getting a glossy modern remake, I couldn’t help but have mixed feelings. After all, to say that this was a highly influential game would be a gross understatement; it had shaped not just the tastes and expectations of millions of young gamers, but also set the tone for every JRPG that was unfortunate enough to have to come after it.
I wondered why a game so perfectly designed needed to be redone (well, for money, but still). Surely, to remake Final Fantasy 7 in a way that honoured the original could only mean replicating it moment for moment. Any deviation, no matter how small, how seemingly insignificant, would be heresy for die-hard fans.
Yet, it was painfully obvious that FF7 Remake would be anything but that. Gaia would have to be a fully realised, breathtakingly beautiful universe that kept pace with the sophisticated expectations of modern gamers — otherwise known as an obscenely expensive project. Asking for a faithful remake that kept everything I loved about the original while packaged in a shiny, triple A package was asking too much.
So, it was clear that some things would have to be changed. But how?
It turned out that many people had the same questions. Eventually, Square Enix revealed that the game would be broken up into different titles, each covering a segment of the original 50-hour game. It wasn’t long before concern arose about how 10-hour portions of the game would be artificially inflated into full-length games.
This was worrying. But I convinced myself that the original would always exist, no matter what happened with FF7R. It’s okay, I told myself. This new thing, whatever it was, would change nothing about the original game.
Looking back, that was a funny thought to have had.
Warning: Spoilers ahead
Learning to love (and hate) Remake
Everything about Remake was, quite frankly, a pleasant surprise for me. I loved almost everything Remake did. Almost.
The reimagining of the story is excellently executed. I didn’t mind the changes in most sections of the game. Getting a chance to run around Midgar and explore the various slums at my own pace was a great way to get a sense of the wider world of the city — it truly feels alive in ways it never quite did before.
Granted, most of the sidequests don’t offer too much in the way of story, but they serve as a nice way to extend the length of the game without being too cumbersome. Having these quests factor into the various branching outcomes of several chapters (note: Wall Market and Chapter 14’s prologue) is a really nice touch; getting to choose whether to lean more towards Tifa or Aerith in the story is a neat way to allow fans to get invested in those respective relationships without altering the main story too heavily.
Everything with Jessie, Biggs and Wedge is also a joy. Dedicating an entire chapter to Jessie’s backstory serves not only to endear us to the character but also to give us a glimpse into life on the upper plates, far above the decrepit habitations below. Learning more about Biggs and the orphanage, hearing Wedge’s impassioned pleas during the evacuation of Sector Seven… all these additions make a certain climactic chapter’s events all the more impactful and tragic.
But let’s talk about the real standout of this game: Wall Market. This section of the game is, at least for me, the best in the game. Remake has a great way of toying with seasoned players’ expectations, leading them to think that their favourite moments are about to happen before subverting their expectations. When the moment we’re all waiting for finally does happen, it’s glorious. Case in point, Cloud’s dress. You expect him to get it at several points, and he never does. In the end, the payoff is well worth the wait. The entire thing is tastefully redone and, to top it all off, the ridiculously over-the-top dance sequence is an absolute blast and is perfectly silly.
The game, in spite of its hyper-realistic graphics, knows when to take itself seriously and when to have fun. This section really sums up everything great about Remake. It takes liberties with the original story without being bogged down by the nitty gritty of it and creates a new game that stands firmly on its own two feet while simultaneously giving old fans what they want. It does the impossible.
It also does a wonderful job of paying homage to every other piece of the Compilation of FFVII that came before it. Dire of Cerberus? Referenced with the underground Shinra laboratory section. Before Crisis? We get a glimpse of AVALANCHE’s internal politics and divisions. Crisis Core? We see Zack’s final showdown in an almost scene-for-scene recreation of the original cutscene. The barely known spin-off novel (which, oddly enough, I’d actually read before) that follows Shinra’s half brother in the aftermath of Advent Children? We see many of these side characters in Chapter 14’s sidequests. Remake is, in so many ways, a true tribute to longtime fans.
That also makes its greatest shortcoming that much worse. For a game that spends so much time honouring its past and trying to please old fans, it then pulls the craziest stunt of the decade by writing in its fans as antagonistic, obstinate spectres that swoop in to prevent the game from finding its own path by insisting that it never strays from the original events.
An expectation is created for the fans as the game goes along: we’ll see the same main events unfold in the narrative, but how we get there might change and meander from the original. The changes that are made never break the original structure of the narrative — if anything, they help to flesh out minor characters and add depth to the world and the lore, as well as fill in some old plot holes (the mayor is a great example of this in Shinra HQ).
But then the game completely deviates from this at the end in a plot twist that’s equal parts contrived and equal parts brilliant.
It makes complete sense for Nomura to have done this in order to justify moving further away from the original, in order to up the stakes so that we really don’t know what’ll happen to our characters (in particular, a certain death). It’s also, understandably, his way of shrugging off the undeniably massive weight of the entire fanbase’s expectations and hopes for Remake. He can’t please everyone, so the game might as well go a whole other direction and do something entirely new.
But it’s also so immensely frustrating to be primed for an experience of everything we loved about the original, to be allowed to experience that for an entire beginning section of the story, only to have that expectation harshly corrected at the end.
I really want to see certain portions of the original play out again. I didn’t before the game came out, but seeing the Midgar section so lovingly recreated really stoked my appetite for the rest of the game to be redone in the same way. That’s why the final section of the game gutted me. It didn’t help that it felt extremely sudden and contrived, shoe-horned into the game in a way that felt so jarring and dissonant. Sure, the Whispers are hinted at throughout the game, and players can probably piece the plot twist together by the midway point, but still.
The transition from the absolutely amazing highway chase sequence to the sudden final confrontation is bizarre. One minute you’re having the ride of your life, blasting Shinra goons and revving down a highway to arguably the best track in the game. Your biggest worry is escaping from an evil megacorporation bent on bleeding nature dry. That might seem consequential, until suddenly the stakes are inexplicably on the scale of the multiverse as you beat up the literal personification of Destiny.
With all of that being said, I’ll hold my judgement until the next instalments come out. For all we know, things will play out the exact same way. Maybe they won’t, and they’ll somehow end up being even better than the original. Perhaps Square Enix will find a way to help Remake carve out its own path, one so distinct from the original that comparing the two will become a futile exercise.
If Remake succeeds in anything at all, it’s creating a sense of excitement and anticipation for the future of Final Fantasy VII in a way nobody would have thought possible before.
How does it play?
To be honest, if the story, art direction or music make up for bad gameplay, I’m the kind of gamer that can easily forgive a game for being… well, not fun.
Thankfully, Remake isn’t one of those games. The reimagined battle system strikes a great balance between Final Fantasy XV’s action-based gameplay and the older, more strategic elements of the turned-based original. Unlike XV, combat is more than just holding down a button. Fans of FFXIII (which I would say, rather controversially, had the best modern FF battle system) will find the battle system slightly familiar, with its stagger gauge playing a huge role in combat.
The goal for each battle is simple: get the stagger gauge filled up so you can do massive damage for a limited time. Abilities can pressure an enemy so that they’re stunned and their stagger gauges fill up faster. Some abilities are geared specifically towards increasing this stagger gauge. Finally, we have the big-damage attacks that you’re meant to bust out when an enemy is staggered.
The materia system works well enough and can even be satisfying to mess with at times. I won’t go into detail about this, but suffice to say, junctioning different materia together added a cool layer of complexity to the magic system.
Speaking of which, magic serves the same purpose it usually does in a Final Fantasy game — exploit elemental weaknesses and you’ll have a slightly easier time. Cool stuff, but nothing ground-breaking here. Likewise with the weapon system. It’s satisfying how old weapons to stay relevant even to the end of the game rather than there being a linear stream of upgrades. The sphere grid system is fun, but you also quickly realise that you have less choice in upgrades than you think, since the end goal is to just obtain every upgrade possible.
Every single boss in this game stands out in the best possible way. The fights from the original have been re-imagined into cinematic set piece fights with a unique score for almost every single boss. They look gorgeous, feel fantastic and are extremely interesting and unique takes on the originals (Hell House, looking at you here).
It would be a mistake not to comment on just how wonderful the soundtrack to Remake is as well. Almost every track from the original is done justice, in part because the game has multiple renditions of every piece. If you’re looking for a more adventurous take on a song, it probably exists, but if you’re a purist, you’ll also find a version that’s true to the original.
Some standouts include the amazing new take on One-winged Angel, which is probably the best version of that song we’ve gotten in a long, long time, as well as the amazing 30-minute long remix of Crazy Motorcycle. I could list every song, but I won’t. Just know that the soundtrack will probably be on replay for months when I finally get my hands on it.
The game also looks fantastic. Sure, some of the backgrounds look a little off, but they never bothered me personally. Plus, comparing the old E3 reveal footage to the final product, you can tell the team put in a lot of effort to polish this game and make it look as good as they possibly could. I like the art direction they went with as well, with its cool balance between detailed, realistic and stylised proportions. Barrett, with his tree trunk arms, never looks ridiculous beside Cloud or Aerith. All in all, I really loved the final product in terms of how it looked and felt.
The verdict
If I had to choose between loving or hating this game, I definitely love this game.
Sure, the little stunt it pulls at the end rubbed me the wrong way, but it’s hard to deny that a lot of love, care and attention went into this game. It really shows. I also enjoyed it tremendously, going as far as to replay the game just because I didn’t want it to end so quickly (and I never replay games when I’m done with them). Remake felt like what I remember Final Fantasy VII was like — exciting, boundary-pushing, immersive.
I can’t necessarily hate on the ending this prematurely either, at least not for what it’s trying to do.
I dislike how jarring the ending sequence is and how out-of-place it feels within this game. I honestly want a faithful series of remakes in the vein of the first three quarters of this game.
But it just wouldn’t be fair to draw any conclusions about this new direction until we’ve seen how it all plays out, down to the final instalment.
And, I’ll admit, it’s… exciting not knowing what’s coming next.
