Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Original Release: Playstation 4, 2020. Version Reviewed: Playstation 5 "Intergrade" Version, 2021.


THE PLOT:

The Shinra Electric Power Company has revolutionized the modern world by mining Mako, an extremely efficient energy source. It allows them to provide power and comfort for the masses, making themselves extraordinarily rich and powerful in the process.

Environmental group AVALANCHE believes that Shinra's reliance on Mako is destroying the planet. Former Shinra military SOLDIER-turned-mercenary Cloud Strife accepts a job from them: an act of eco-terrorism, blowing up one of the reactors fueling the city of Midgar.

The detonation does untold damage within the city, but this isn't the work of AVALANCHE: Shinra's leaders magnified the explosion, attempting to use the attack to justify a new war with old enemy Wutai. Cloud, his childhood friend Tifa, and AVALANCHE leader Barret find unexpected aid in the form of flower girl Aerith, whose seemingly mundane life covers a mysterious past.

But Shinra isn't done. Cloud and his friends learn that the company plans to stage an even more devastating attack in the slums they call home. They race to try to prevent disaster - but another force seems determined to keep them from changing anything...

Cloud, Tifa, and Barret are ready for action.

CHARACTERS:

Cloud: I was dubious when I first read that the remake had recast all roles. It took all of ten minutes for the game to convert me. The new cast is excellent all around, with actor Cody Christian helping to make Cloud actually likable for the first time ever. Between Christian, the excellent character animations, and the script, we get a sense of the human being beneath Cloud's reserve. I particularly enjoyed Cloud's reactions to flirting, teasing, or displays of affection - He's outright baffled by both Aerith and Jessie, and yet it's clear that he becomes quickly attached to both of them.

Tifa: Cloud's childhood friend. When Cloud left to join Shinra with the goal of becoming a SOLDIER, she made him promise to rescue her if she ever needed it. Years later, Tifa (Britt Baron) feels trapped by AVALANCHE's escalating tactics, and yet it's no longer in her nature to ask for help. She's become a caregiver, watching over Barret, his daughter Marlene, and the Seventh Heaven bar - essentially acting as a mother figure to all despite still being quite young herself. She even helps Cloud build his reputation as a mercenary by finding jobs for him in the slums early on - a way of padding the game, but one that works in terms of building the characters and their world.

Aerith: The flower girl with the mysterious past. Actress Briana White's vocal deliveries provide just the right mix of chirpy innocence with flirtatious teasing for the character, making it easy to believe how quickly she both enchants and confounds Cloud. A refreshing carryover from the original game is that, while both she and Tifa are presented as potential love interests, there's no sense of rivalry between them; when Aerith and Tifa finally meet, they seem to instantly connect as friends even as they take turns vying for Cloud's attention.

Barret: The single most improved character. I (eventually) liked Barret in the original, but he was never high on my list of favorites. Remake transforms him into the cast standout, with voice actor John Eric Bentley alternating between very funny comedy lines to moments of shockingly raw emotion. There's a scene that sees Barret literally beating his one good hand against rubble, as if trying to move it by force of will, that is more memorable than many scenes from very good movies.

AVALANCHE: The trio of Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are elevated from little more than extras to full supporting characters. Jessie (Erica Lindbeck) has a playful surface, but a visit to her family shows some of the layers beneath that; cautious and professional Biggs (Gideon Emery) left a job teaching children in order to join AVALANCHE; Wedge (Matt Jones) is cheerful, but his constant smile covers insecurities that he doesn't do as much as his colleagues, with him at one point deriding himself as useless. All three register strongly, which helps to make certain events in the story a lot more effective.

Sephiroth: The portion of the original Final Fantasy VII that this game covers did not even feature Sephiroth: He was named, and eventually we saw the aftermath of his presence, but we didn't actually meet him in person until much later. But he's the "fan favorite," so this was not an option for the remake... unfortunately. By holding him back, the original turned him into a larger-than-life figure long before we met him. Here, Cloud sees flashes and visions of him starting very early in the game - which has the effect of diminishing him, so that when he's finally encountered in person at the end, there's no sense of anything special about the encounter. I will say that the boss battle against him here is much more satisfying than the one in the original Final Fantasy VII (OG Sephiroth is not a hard boss fight) - but as a character, overuse has made him a lot less interesting. In fairness, this was already true from earlier spinoffs, but his treatment here doesn't reverse the trend.

Combat is energetic and intuitive most of the time,
but it can become hectic and frustrating...

COMBAT:

Unlike its namesake, Final Fantasy VII remake uses real-time combat. The ATB bar is still critical - but now it doesn't control your ability to do normal attacks, but rather your ability to use magic and special attacks.

Most of the time, the combat is energetic and intuitive. Against tough bosses or mobs of enemies with resistances to normal attacks, however, this ATB/real time hybrid becomes too frenetic for my personal tastes. Too often in the final stages of the story, combat becomes endless dodging while waiting for the ATB bar to fill - which then usually has to be used up with healing, because the AI teammates are (as usual) morons with no sense of self preservation.

Then there are the "gimmick" battles that are basically impossible until you figure out the right approach - at which point they instantly become a cakewalk. Yes, Rufus Shinra, I'm looking at you.


QUESTS AND EXPLORATION:

The combat may be a mix of fun and frustrating, but the exploration of environments is a consistent joy. Final Fantasy VII Remake recreates many of the environments of the PS1 original faithfully, but with new detail and scale.

This is a beautiful-looking game, from the organic beauty of Aerith's garden to the cold sterility of the Shinra building. The residential slums are vibrant and alive, with extras (many of them with recycled character models) everywhere. You pick up snatches of conversations as you run past, and these bits of chatter help to create the impression of a fully realized world. At many points, I found myself just stopping what I was doing to listen to side conversations, take in the soundtrack, and rotate the camera and gasp at the game world.

There are three main areas in which you pick up side quests. Tifa helps Cloud get mercenary jobs in the Sector 7 slums; later, Aerith does the same in the slums that are her home. Finally, Cloud (and later Tifa) will engage in fetch quests in the overcrowded, overlit Wall Market. Most of these quests are standard fare - though some of the Wall Market ones get suitably wacky - but it's fun to see people's evolving reactions to Cloud as he completes them, and they provide a good opportunity for practicing combat mechanics, learning how the maps work, and just building the sense of the overall world.

Aerith's garden: detailed and beautiful.

A PARTIAL TRIUMPH...:

Final Fantasy VII Remake gets so much exactly right. It feels modern and immersive, while at the same time showing respect to the 1997 original. The characters have depth, and the voice acting ranges from very good to outstanding.

Then there's the music score. Final Fantasy VII's score was already outstanding back in 1997. Hearing those same tracks brought to life with a full orchestra is a tremendous experience, and the handful of new tracks blend well with the remixes of old ones.

The story covers only the first 5 - 6 hours of the original game, so a lot of material is extrapolated. This isn't inherently a problem. The place chosen as the break point makes sense, and the city and its areas are varied enough to be worth exploring. Cloud taking on mercenary jobs is fun as a diversion, while at the same time allowing the game to chisel some much-needed cracks early on into his moody surface. A trip to the more affluent topside area, with Cloud tagging along for a visit to Jessie's family, is an entirely new sequence that opens up the world while adding further depth both to Cloud and to the supporting cast.

Finally, the Wall Market sequence is beautifully executed. This break in the action comes at the exact right point in the story. The first Act has ended, and the stakes have temporarily lowered - meaning that there's nothing interfering with enjoying Cloud engaging in squat battles and running increasingly bizarre errands for the market's outlandish denizens.

In the original game, this sequence was fairly short and culminated in a somewhat strained cross-dressing gag that seemed unlikely to translate well to 2020. I think a lot of people expected the remake to cut that out entirely. Instead, the game creators lean into it. Cloud's cross-dressing still happens... but now it comes at the end of a dynamic cabaret sequence, complete with a rhythm mini game, as the ultra-fabulous Andrea remakes Cloud while urging him to embrace the moment. It's not only more positive and meaningful than the same bit in the original game... it's a lot funnier!

Oh, and the Yuffie DLC included in the Intergrade edition is delightful from start to finish, turning comedy relief character Yuffie into a likable but fully realized individual, while still keeping her exasperating original personality intact. If I were to rate it separately, I'd probably give the DLC a higher individual score than the main game. It's long enough to be a substantial expansion, but not so long that it overstays its welcome - which unfortunately isn't something I can say for much of the main game...

Aerith communicates with a spirit, in one
of many sections that goes on way too long.

...IT'S JUST TOO OVERSTRETCHED:

The biggest problem with Final Fantasy VII Remake is that, in trying to pad 5 - 6 hours of material to fill a complete AAA title, the story is left feeling more than a little stretched out.

This becomes apparent early on. After the destruction of the first Mako reactor, Cloud flees through the streets of Midgar. In the original game, this takes up just a few minutes. This has been opened up, so that players now control Cloud as he flees through streets, up rooftops, down fire escapes, and into alleyways. At first, this is a good change, letting players experience Cloud's escape while exploring these incredibly detailed environments. The problem? The whole sequence goes on for what feels like an hour. The action becomes repetitive, and the story is mostly put on hold.

The pacing improves again after that... Until the second reactor mission. Instead of going straight to the mission, players now have to go through a network of tunnels, battling Shinra robots and giant monsters. Just as this starts to get old, Cloud, Tifa, and Barret reach "Sector G" for an entirely new chapter, in which they must divert energy from giant lamps to traverse the sector.

Meaning that after one overlong section of going through tunnels, players are instantly given another long section of going across bridges and up and down staircases. There are a few fun moments (if you divert to collect some shiny materia, Barret will sing-song that the group is "going on an adventure to find some treasure!"), but the entire segment feels like it was pasted in just to extend the runtime.

The worst offender comes in the final third, when the team infiltrates the Shinra building. Like most of the game, this is initially engaging. The corporate setting is enjoyably different from the slum, city, and warehouse environments of the rest of the game, while at the same time feeling like what it is: the center of the society we've observed up to now. Everything up to and including Aerith's rescue is fun to play, with a nice mixture of story beats, character bits, and varied gameplay.

But after Aerith's rescue, instead of going straight to the final confrontations with the Shinra President and Sephiroth, the game has to stretch itself out one more time. Gamers get to suffer through an extended sidetrip through the laboratory of the mad Professor Hojo. This section offers nothing new in gameplay terms - switch puzzles, enemy encounters, a boss fight - and in story terms it's an irrelevance.

As with other diversions and attenuations, once gamers get past it, the very last section is back to being enjoyable, with the Shinra President faceoff even managing a few surprises. But it's an ongoing issue that the game keeps stalling its own momentum, forcing the story to effectively jumpstart itself multiple times throughout, all in order to be that little bit longer.

Aerith has a secret. A few secrets, actually.

OVERALL:

Final Fantasy VII Remake is a good game by any reasonable standard. It's gorgeous to look at, with cutscenes and gameplay blending often indistinguishably. The story cutscenes are well-written, boasting dialogue that reveals character and builds the game world while entertaining at the same time. Voice acting is top-notch, and the music is magnificent.

It's just a shame that it's so badly padded. I think about games like I think about movies: They should be as long as they need to be and no longer. Unfortunately, modern AAA games are now expected to be lengthy, too often to their detriment, and that is very much the case here.

Had Final Fantasy VII Remake been 20 - 25 hours in length (maybe 30 for completionists), I'm pretty sure I would be raving over it. But add in an additional 10 hours, and it's left feeling sluggish. Too many of the major story beats are held too long, and the pacing regularly stops and starts for the sake of lengthy patches in which the characters do nothing but travel from Point A to Point B.

In the end, I'd say the good outweighs the bad, and I am looking forward to the next installment, Rebirth. Since it will pick up at the point the game world opens up, I'm hoping (against hope?) that it can provide a full experience without the stop-and-start pacing that marred this title.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Prequel: Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII
Sequel: Final Fantasy VII - Rebirth (not yet reviewed)

Previous Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VI
Next Main Series Game: Final Fantasy VIII

Previous Release: Dissidia Final Fantasy NT (not yet reviewed)
Next Release: Stranger of Paradise - Final Fantasy Origins (not yet reviewed)

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