29 Jun Final Fantasy VII Remake Review

The original Final Fantasy VII passed me by at one time, but even so I could not escape the huge flow of rave reviews for this game, which in many ways defined not only the jRPG genre, but also the video game industry as a whole. Therefore, I really wanted to get acquainted with the remake, or rather the first part of it, released in 2020, but, unfortunately, I only got to it in January 2025. However, even years after its release, it made enough of an impression on me that I wanted to share it. At the same time, I looked at the game not only from the perspective of a person who had not played the original, but also from a person who has a very cold attitude towards the jRPG genre as a whole. Fortunately, there was very little from this genre in Final Fantasy VII Remake. And in addition, in some places I will compare the game with the latest part of the series, Final Fantasy XVI. But first things first.

The graphics in Final Fantasy VII Remake for a game that was released on PlayStation 4 and only slightly retouched for PS5 are magnificent. Yes, in places there are soapy textures or angular models of environmental objects, but they are much less common than the most beautiful views, excellent animation of literally all the characters and beautiful effects of abilities and magic. The picture is also complemented by Japanese-style pretentious, but that makes it even more powerful cutscenes, of which there are plenty in the game.

I can’t say anything special about the sound; the soundtrack in the game is quite familiar for the Japanese gaming industry. But I was very pleased with the voice acting of all the characters without exception, even in its English version.

It would be strange to talk a lot about the plot of a game based on an original almost 30 years ago, but to complete the picture of my impressions, I will at least describe the plot.

So, the setting of the https://premiersportskakladionicacasino.co.uk/ game is the metropolis of Midgar, built around the headquarters of the Shinra corporation, which manages the city, makes plans for its renovation, and determines technical progress. For this, as well as to provide the city with energy, Shinra built reactors running on mako – a local analogue of mana, which is extracted directly from the bowels of the planet. Such a wasteful attitude towards Mother Earth, of course, does not go unnoticed by environmental activists, who sometimes use very radical methods to fight the corporation and its energy industry in particular, for which at a certain point they hire our protagonist Cloud. Well, then, as they say, everything started to spin. The game pleasantly surprises you in its first hours with complex topics, such as whether the ends justify the means and how easily public opinion can be manipulated. Then, of course, the plot gradually takes the usual path of an epic story about the heritage of ancient civilizations, the confrontation between former comrades in arms and parallel dimensions with various kinds of evil spirits, but even then the plot is perceived as integral and fascinating.

I can note exactly two disadvantages regarding the story. The first, specific to FF7 Remake, is its fragmentary nature. The division of the remake into three parts did not pass without a trace, so here we are given only general exposition and a not too large first story arc, artificially lengthening the passage due to gameplay moments. The second disadvantage here is exactly the same as in the newest part of the series; Final Fantasy XVI is the most primitive side quests that almost never provide interesting mini-stories or original game situations. The sidequests in the game are so weak that, contrary to my habits of “cleaning out” games, at a certain point I simply left a solid block of tasks and moved on with the plot. However, these disadvantages do not significantly affect the overall impression of the game’s plot, so during the final credits, mostly only good things are remembered. And in general, the techno-fantasy setting is rare in the gaming industry, but here it is presented quite well. It would be worth mentioning in the minuses the complete lack of Russian localization, but the English in the game is so simple that you can even understand it by ear without problems, not to mention subtitles.

I’ll say something about the characters. At first they seem too simple, and their characters seem too exaggerated, but later their personalities begin to reveal themselves, and in the sometimes too pretentious behavior of the characters you find your own original, pleasant aesthetics. By the final third of the game, I already caught myself thinking that I treated the main party almost like a group of friends, which, in fact, not all games are capable of giving such a feeling.

To better structure this part of the review, I will break it into parts.

The game as a whole is almost completely linear and consists of relatively small open locations and rail levels, where you can only go forward or backward, sometimes being distracted by small branches for the sake of extra loot in chests standing alone in the next dead end. Here, FF7 Remake has exactly the same problem as Final Fantasy XVI – they give us an interesting setting, but shove it into a game world that is primitive in level design without a drop of interactivity. What can we say, if outside of fights we can’t even swing a sword, the character can make exactly one blow needed to break boxes or destroy walls. Towards the end of the plot, all this is further aggravated by the outright prolongation of the passage, when we are forced to run through some parts of the locations over and over again and repeat the same actions. Fortunately, at least you don’t get tired of looking at the world of the game until the very end – the visual design here is beautiful.

Leveling up in the game is simple, but functional enough for you to want to periodically manage the development points that are given here for increasing the level. In the game she is completely tied to weapons. Each sword/gloves/machine gun (depending on the character) has its own development tree and, importantly, a separate pool of points, so you can safely improve them and then try them without fear of investing a valuable resource in an unnecessary piece of scrap metal. The original skill mechanics also force you to change weapons. The fact is that each “gun” in the game has its own active ability, but if you use it a certain number of times, the character will remember it and add it to his personal list of abilities. Otherwise, the item system here is almost as simple as in FFXVI, but equipment still has a greater impact on gameplay than in the last part of the series. This is achieved, among other things, thanks to matter – crystals, which are inserted into equipment slots and do not give percentages to characteristics, but whole new abilities and spells, and even pump up independently as they are used, opening up new skills.

Now I’ll tell you about the main mechanics of Final Fantasy VII Remake, which mainly determined my attitude towards the game – the combat system. Here the developers have chosen their own unique path and crossed classic jRPG elements with a high-speed slasher in the spirit of Devil May Cry. So, in our party, in addition to the main character, there are from one to two allies. In battle, you can freely switch between them and control them to the same extent as the hero. The rest of the time, through an analogue of a tactical pause (which here, in fact, is more like super-slowing down of time), party members can give instructions on the use of abilities and items, indicating the target. This system allows you, among other things, not to be distracted once again by taking a sip of a healing potion, but to ask a friend to pour it into you remotely, so as not to interrupt the combo or once again expose a wounded hero to attack during the healing animation. For any action, be it using an item or ability, a special scale is spent. And here the authors masterfully avoided the main problem of Final Fantasy XVI, in which combat was reduced to the methodical use of powerful skills as they recharged. If you do this in FF7 Remake and spend all the energy received on attacks, you can easily end up in a situation where there are still a lot of enemies, but there is no more health, and you just spent the mana or ability scale needed to restore it on yet another stick to the enemy. The idea of ​​tying all actions to one resource is not new, but in this combat system it elegantly forces the player to think, and not just roll through everything that is available. The tactical depth of the combat system is also added by a variety of vulnerabilities and characteristics of enemies, which can be analyzed using a special ability. And here the developers went beyond the standard “don’t attack the fire elemental with fire” scheme, but also gave the enemies unique features, such as temporary vulnerability after their certain attacks or breaking the structure of large opponents into parts that can be attacked separately and thereby gain an advantage or cause great damage.

By the middle of the game, fights sometimes turn into tense confrontations with whole packs of different enemies, each of which may have their own weaknesses, and these must be taken into account, otherwise you may find that you have just poured potentially huge damage into the void. However, even with all these tactical elements, the game does not turn into a tactical pause simulator, but remains primarily an action game. The impact of literally every weapon in the game is simply beautiful, you can feel every hit and every ability. And when you fully get used to it and start switching to other characters right during the animation of special moves, filling up their action bar and attacking opponents in a chain from different sides, the combat system of Final Fantasy VII Remake gives an incomparable feeling of flow. The developers took into account even such minor nuances as seamless animations. For example, if, playing as Tifa, you uppercut an opponent and fly up after him, and then activate a jumping downward kick, the animation of the second ability will not start from the very beginning, but immediately from the air. It would seem like a small thing, but it’s these little things that shape the experience of the gameplay in many ways.

FF7 Remake is trying to diversify the passage with additional activities, such as combat racing on a motorcycle, fights in the arena of the local Colosseum and mini-games like darts or breaking boxes against the clock with rewards corresponding to the results. There is no particular depth in these mechanics, but they at least partially offset the lack of a research element in the game world.

In general, my attitude towards Final Fantasy VII Remake changed as the game progressed. The initially simple combat gradually developed into one of the best in the genre (or even two). At first, a cool and interesting world, then I was quickly disappointed by the primitive level design, although later I got used to it. Well, at first, the strange characters during the game really hooked me, so I want to continue the adventure with them in the second part of the remake, which I plan to go through further. And FF7 Remake, with all its sometimes significant problems, I give it an 8.5 points out of 10 or “Amazing” on the Stopgame scale.