Final Fantasy VII Remake

X is my favorite Final Fantasy but I do have enough fond memories of VII that I wanted to give the remake a look, and while it probably met my expectations for a remake of a nearly 25 year old game, it doesn't quite hold up to modern efforts. Not for lack of trying, though. The spectacle, the budget, the eye candy, the atmosphere are all through the roof and crazy levels of good, and the combat is one of the best mixtures of pure action and tactics seen in an RPG yet. Aside from some of the usual bugbears like status effects and certain materia being underutilized, it's a cracking system with just enough ways to exploit it without either side feeling cheap, and almost every boss fight was a delight; I always relished the chance to engage in combat.

But the combat carries the game, as everything else of substance is extremely shaky. The pacing can go from white hot to slow as molasses in the blink of an eye, but tends to lean towards lethargic with its underdeveloped side characters (this is only part of the original game's campaign, after all), meandering side quests and annoying anime melodrama with all the characters gasping every second line. The original story features some smart updates to its environmentalist core but, as in the original, can lose its focus and fail to keep the tension up when it needs to, as core objectives of the story are side-stepped in favour of what's right in Cloud's face in the moment. And while a good half of the side missions and minigames are good callbacks to the original, there are too many annoying moments for it to have been worth it. Any time I wasn't engaged in combat, I was probably annoyed or bored.

And then there's the actual narrative additions. The purpose of the Whispers starts as hard to define and doesn't appear any clearer by the end, even as the climax of the game becomes very different as a result, and while the possibility of a different Final Fantasy VII is tempting, fighting a literal incarnation of destiny is the worst possible way to have done it, to say nothing of the idea that they might have changed the past as well as the future in the ending. It all adds up to a jumbled and juvenile mess, the kind of which gives Kingdom Hearts its well-deserved reputation as an ass-pulling mess of a story, and criminally robs the story's villain of his motive and endgame, at least currently.

I'm harsher on FF7R just because I've seen most everything the game has to offer before; it's not much worse paced than most JRPGs, as I understand, but it's salt in the wound when twenty five years of innovation do nothing to save stereotypical side-characters, fetch quests, and underdeveloped lore, only hampered by the fact that this game is literally not finished yet. Both in the minutiae and the bigger moments, this game is both bloated and unfulfilling at the same time. But then you get to a really fun callback to the original, or an awesome setpiece or boss fight and it's all worth it. We'll just have to hope the game is a bit leaner from here on out if they're gonna be this revisionist about the rest of it.

The combat is good (though not great), the graphics and the characters are also pretty likable (they look good as well), it is a charming game overall. However, the scripted sequences and the underwhelming, bland-looking sections at sewers, constructions and abandoned places leave a lot to be desired, even the last shinra location (though it is a different location, it is also very lacking). The game is torn between the great reconstruction of Midgar in the background with the aesthetics to back up how good the graphics are and between the repetitive-looking, dull levels where most of the fighting occurs

The sidequests are completely lacking, but i wont judge the game by them because i dont think they are integral to the experience at all, like the side content is for other games.

It is interesting how well implemented the turn-based fashion of the OG was integrated with the half hack´n´slash half jrpg combat, which made it pretty enjoyable, though sometimes held back by how easy it is to take damage by the waves of enemies on-screen, you have to be an absolute god to not take any damage at all. The enemies are also boring, most of them are insect/insect-like, robots and armed security, even the exceptions to that get stale as they are battled with more and more. But the combat is not enough to make the walking sections and the scripted sequences less grating to be played. As mentioned before, the levels themselves make the combat even more tiring.

I liked the sits and vending machines where you rest to replenish hp-pm and buy consumables-items, i am fine with the rpg system not being more complex because it already works well the way it does. Some of the bosses are good while most of them are a chore to deal with.

I enjoyed FF7 remake, i played the original when the remake had the teaser trailer released and did not liked it, so my opinion isnt held back by any appreciation of the original, as i find the remake way better. FF7R is a good game to play and the combat is fun for a while and it lacking replay value is not an issue (though i value that a lot personally), but a lot of things held it back from being a great experience. Still, worth a playthrough, as it is a likable game, regardless of the very present flaws and pacing.

I must confess, I liked more or less the begining, not too much cut scenes, manageable gameplay, but by the end I just was skipping the cut scenes, because in the will to finish it as soon as possible. It aged quite badly, and I guess I would have more appreciated the game back in the 90's, but I didn't play anymore when 3D came around at homes. Of course the music is stellar, and some mechanics are good (the special attacks and the magic) but I really hated that materias and caracters change all the time, especially by the end. And really too much cutscnenes on the second half, by my tastes of course. But I guess I didn't like this style of manga/fantasy at first, so it didn't help to immerse in the story.
Loved Barret though, thankfully he is there and saved my playthrough.

I think it is fair to say that FF7 Remake is a wild ride. At times this feels like one of the best Square-Enix games since the merger, and at other times it feels like an absolute chore. What is exceptionally weird, is that what I thought I wouldn't like ended up being pretty good, and vice versa.

As for the good, I feel like they managed to portray Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, and Aeris extremely well in the migration to fully voiced characters from the original. Sure at times, they have some truly cringe lines, like Barrett singing the victory theme from time to time. But there are some very good attempts at keeping the sometimes serious, sometimes comical nature of the original (not always, but enough to keep the story somewhat lighthearted).
The combat system still seems like it is a work in progress at times, but overall, it is absolutely a blast to play. I think the ATB system here fits perfectly with the combat, and helps keep you from just blasting everything away with insane spells and skills from the get go. And overall, it just feels good, with each character having entirely different and unique movesets fitting to their weapon type. I truly think they have finally struck gold with a battle system they can continue to develop and improve on. While enemies might be lacking a little bit in visual variety at times, the difference in movesets and AI from each type of monster stay fresh pretty much throughout the whole game. The original game has some of the most creative enemy designs of all time, and I will happily say that the remake also did a great job in making them just as you remember.
As for the world of Midgar, visually this game has moments where it looks fantastic. I think the slums were pretty cool, with all sorts of relics from the prerendered backgrounds remaining. And while some of the magic is lost from the art of the original, I think they did a pretty solid job creating a believable transition to 3d. I am still irked a little about how light Midgar is relative to the original, but still pretty happy with what I got nonetheless.

Where the game gets a bit rough, is the pacing and story. I'm not the first to say it and won't be the last, but the pacing is truly awful in this game. Stretching out a 4 hour segment of the original into 40 was a horrible idea, especially considering no one had any idea how to fill it up. Tedious and horrible side quests? Check. Unnecessary backstories of characters with little to no personality? Check. Pointless backtracking with very little payoff other than completion? Check. Beyond that, there is just so much filler content that adds literally nothing exciting to the story of Final Fantasy 7. The plate collapsing in Sector 7 is one of the best parts of the Midgar stretch in the original, why don't we add a stupid ghost story to kill the urgency of making it back to the crisis at hand? Or why don't we add a section where we have to go all the way to the plate to grab an ID card so we can get into another reactor, when we seem to have never had an issue with that in the past. A whole chapter basically spoon-feeding you why Midgar is brighter in the remake? Yep let's go with that. None of it adds value to the overall story. There is no character growth here, it is just filler to add more content to a game that doesn't need it. I would truly have been happier with a shorter game in this instance.

Some story parts rubbed me the wrong way here and there too. Though this isn't the largest gripe. I feel like dangling Sephiroth around at every turn was pretty uninteresting, especially when he just teases Cloud with "I'm the bad guy and going to kill everyone you love" schtick over and over again. I feel like the slow build up to his reveal in the original allowed Sephiroth to have his spotlight in post-Midgar phase of the game, and instead become the "mysterious war-hero of old" like he was in the original. It's also just overexposure, like they are expecting you to start clapping like a fanboy every time he shows up.
I will let this pass though, since it looks like the story is going a new direction with the Remakes. This is something which I think could be potentially cool (especially with some characters surviving that died in the original), but definitely a bit worrisome considering most of the new story content we have seen in Remake is average at best. I am pretty concerned about the Sephiroth ghosts stuff, as they seem to be a cop-out to why some of the story changes take place, but I will wait until the other games come out to judge that fairly.

Quick note on the Soundtrack, it is going to be impossible to recapture the classic OST from Uematsu, but I think they did a pretty good job overall. There are some remade songs that are fantastic, and there are some that are a little overdone. There are some new tracks that are really good, and some that are ultimately forgettable. Hamauzu is one for the more ambient music to build atmosphere, while Uematsu captured your attention with unforgettable melodies. So it is understandable that Remake would be pretty different from the original compositionally. Of course I like the original better, but I do like both composers quite a lot, and thought this direction change is pretty good overall.

I think that is all I will write about this. FF7 Remake has some of the highest highs in the last 20 of Square-Enix, but also has some moments that just make you scratch your head. 10 hours of it is generally great content, and the rest is, while not atrocious, definitely disappointing. All-in-all though, I think this game turned out better than I expected at least which is nice, and definitely worth a play. This is one of the better FF games in recent years in hindsight and an overall decent experience.

A fitting 7 on a day I feel nice, but usually a 6 when I think about the time I spent with Cloud finding cats or chocobos or solving ghost stories, or whatever

Fantastic gameplay, dragged down by a very weak script, forced on-rails sections, extremely repetitive sections and overall inconsistent performances.

They simultaneously designed one of the best RPG systems ever, and filled the game with the absolute worst and most repetitive aspects of RPG games.

Probably the worst story ever told in gaming.

Great gameplay, but its hard to overstate how much the story and pacing is butchered.