“Cloud from Smash finally got his own video game!?” I remember the hype levels when the remake for Final Fantasy 7 was first announced back when I was still in college. Despite never playing the classic JRPG myself (although I did watch Advent Children), I still jumped on that hype train as Cloud and Sephiroth are probably two of video games’ most iconic characters, and funny enough they are two of my favorite fighters to play as in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Now the remake has been officially released for quite some time, but I have only gotten around to playing it recently thanks to borrowing the disc copy from a friend and Square Enix releasing a proper PS5 update to the game. Given my previous statement on never having played the original game that came out 20-some years ago at this point, this review is going to be focused on the remake as a standalone game, rather than a comparison to the old game. Frankly, outside of the combat system, which I think is done very well and is incredibly fun, FF7 Remake ended up being a pretty big disappointment, to the point I think it’s an even bigger letdown than Cyberpunk 2077, which straight up released as a borderline unfinished game.
Gameplay:
Now in my opinion FF7 Remake’s saving grace is definitely its combat system, and in its defense it is very robust, and I would not have bothered finishing the game if it was not. The combat is basically a “real-time with pause” system (though the pause is not a full pause, just super slow-mo); a hack-and-slash for normal combat but the player can slow the game down at will to issue commands to party members. The player also controls one character in the party at a time, but can freely switch between party members at any point. Every party member has what is known as an “ATB Gauge,” where ATB stands for “Active Time Battle,” and that gauge is what allows party members to perform actions outside of basic attacking/dodging (whether it be executing their own unique abilities, casting spells, or using items). The ATB mechanic is pretty cool because it forces the player to actively deal damage to enemies to get to use a party member’s abilities, instead of just spamming certain commands, and the fact that almost all commands require some amount of the ATB gauge is a test of resource management; do I use my ATB bar to perform a devastating blow to the enemy, or should I use it to cast a healing spell to heal one of my party members who is dangerously close to dying? The actual real-time combat itself is a lot of fun as well; the animations are smooth and the characters control well, and a lot of the tougher enemies in the game have their own move-sets to learn and react to. On Normal mode, most of the more difficult encounters are actually decently challenging, and required me to actively utilize all my party members’ abilities, so I think the developers struck a pretty nice balance as far as difficulty goes as well.
The character power progression in FF7 Remake is also quite interesting, and not very similar to a lot of previous games I have played. While characters do level up, instead of spending stat points on their own base stats, points are given to each of their weapons instead. Each weapon has its own skill trees (called sub-cores), and points are allocated to those instead. This way, collected weapons will always remain relevant, and each weapon has its own unique attributes so a character can play a certain role depending on what weapon is equipped and what stat points are allocated. Weapons also each come with their own unique ability, and by completing its corresponding proficiency challenge the player can permanently unlock that ability and use it without having to have that weapon equipped. Party members can also boost their capabilities by equipping “materia” spheres, which are slotted into weapons. Materia spheres give different abilities, from enabling the casting of different spells to passive upgrades like health boosts. The best part about these materia spheres is that they can be freely swapped among party members, even if they are not currently in the party at a specific moment in the story, so one does not need to worry about equipping powerful materia on a character in fear of that character soon leaving the party. I personally do not have much of an opinion on whether the system is good or bad; on one hand I do not feel like progression from level ups and spending weapon stat points is super significant and I do not really notice any “power spikes” for my party members, but a lot of the abilities gained from mastering weapon proficiencies are very strong so it is almost always worth completing proficiency challenges.
Overall the gameplay is really good, but there are some awful aspects to it that definitely took some of the joy out of playing through the game (at least when it comes to bad story moments I can always just skip the cutscene). The first part is the extremely unnecessary “platforming” segments. The puzzles are not difficult at all, but they are also not fun to solve and are just irritating. The worst part is that they also conflict with the story and what’s established about the characters. Through cutscenes and the combat, it is pretty clear that characters like Cloud and Tifa have somewhat superhuman athleticism, being able to jump extreme heights and perform insane feats of strength like cleaving through large objects with a single swing of the Buster Sword. With that established, why do I have to suffer through these unbearable platforming segments when in reality I could just, jump over them?
Finally I must give a shout-out to the few vehicle chase sequences in the game. Thankfully, there are not a lot of them (only two if I remember correctly), but those sequences are easily even worse than the platforming parts. They’re boring, extremely simplistic, and drag on for far too long that I am genuinely surprised that the world of Midgar has such lengthy roads.
Writing:
Considering I have not played the original game, I do not have any template to compare FF7 Remake to, so I cannot really judge it as a comparison to the original (as in, is the writing a good reboot and faithful to the original game). That said, looking at it as an original story, perhaps I have grown out of JRPG storytelling, but I think FF7 Remake’s writing is pretty terrible, and it is probably the first game I have played in a long time where I actually had to skip some of the cutscenes because of how insufferable the plot was at times. Now I do not have any issue with the premise; in fact I think the premise of the game is great. Playing as a group of characters who are basically eco-terrorists, trying to defeat the evil Shinra mega-corporation is cool, and is rather topical considering how much influence and power certain corporations in real-life society wield today. There is a lot of interesting storytelling to work with that premise, like going into the morality of the protagonists actions. Sure, Shinra is the big bad, but is going around blowing up energy reactors which power the homes of thousands of civilians really the right answer? Even if Shinra is headed by a bunch of assholes, what about the common people who simply work there, just trying to make a better living for their family?
The main problem with FF7 Remake’s writing is in the actual execution of its story. By far the biggest issue is the dialogue, which is extremely corny to the point I just think it is awful. The lines sound like they were written by a middle-schooler who watches too many action movies, and are extremely cringeworthy when they are actually said aloud. That in turn makes the voice acting sound really bad, even if the actual voice acting work might not be so, but it is basically a case of the Star Wars prequels where the dialogue is so bad that not even good voice acting can salvage it. I had to switch the game audio to Japanese within five minutes of playing the game, and honestly I did not feel like that was a significant improvement, just slightly more tolerable (unfortunately I still had to read the terrible subtitles). Dialogue aside, I do not have too much of an issue with the actual progression of the narrative, outside of some pacing issues here and there, but I am going to say I thought the last chapter of the game was whack and I finished the game wondering what the hell just happened.
A central part to a lot of narratives is in the characters, and good character writing is often integral to the writing. Unfortunately, the character writing in FF7 Remake is about as bad as the dialogue. Most of the characters in the game feel very one-dimensional, and are either not interesting or straight-up irritating. Barret and Aerith are annoying for 90% of the game, while Tifa is generally uninteresting. Funnily enough I think Cloud has the best moments in the game, which is ironic given his stoic and awkward personality (Cloud has no chill sometimes which is really funny). That is not to say those characters do not have their moments, which they do, but for the vast majority of the story I just could not find it in me to really care about them. The other supporting characters in Avalanche are even worse; Jessie exists only to thirst for Cloud, Wedge is useless comic relief, and Biggs does not have any particularly stand-out traits albeit he is the most tolerable of the bunch. Fortunately, a lot of the villains tend to be more interesting; Heidegger is probably my favorite of the Shinra baddies for being absolutely ruthless and cunning, and an individual I would absolutely not want to be my boss. Sephiroth is Sephiroth, and steals the scene whenever he shows up, although I do have a problem with how frequently he randomly cameos, as if he has nothing better to do than to mess with Cloud’s head.
The worst part about the protagonists in the game is that none of them have any sort of killer instinct. To elaborate, it is like they have an allergic reaction to killing any of the significant villains in the story, and the sad part is that a lot of times they are often punished for letting them live, and they never seem to learn their lesson. Am I expecting them to be merciless, cold-hearted killers? Absolutely not, but it is funny that in gameplay I could cut down countless random goons, yet when it comes to the big bad for some reason I suddenly lose that ability to kill and now I must let the villain live. Very minor spoilers, but the biggest offender is how Barret is constantly preaching about his hate for Shinra and that he’ll give them hell any chance he gets, and when he actually has an opportunity to actually follow through on his words, (predictably) he does not, and the hilarious thing is that the bad guy reverses the situation on him right after. So much for being dangerous eco-terrorists.
Ending Thoughts:
Outside of the combat system, I will say FF7 Remake does have a few other things going for it, specifically the visuals and the music, which are both superb. The game looks really good, and a big part of why the combat feels so satisfying is due to how awesome it looks; finishing off enemies with Cloud’s Limit Break Cross Slash is great not only because the move itself is powerful, but it is very flashy. The soundtrack is also on point, though I feel like that is to be expected of most Final Fantasy games at this point, but credit should be given nonetheless. I was a particular fan of how they remixed the main battle theme, “Let the Battles Begin,” and it sounds amazing with the orchestral rendition.
Overall, I honestly do not know whether to say FF7 Remake is a good or a bad game, as my feelings are very polarized. I thoroughly enjoyed the core gameplay loop and I think the combat system is innovative and addicting, but the story’s awful writing really puts a hamper on the experience for something that is supposed to be a story-driven adventure. I would only really recommend it to people who enjoyed the original game (thus will get the benefits of nostalgia), or recommend it to people who enjoy good combat systems with the caveat of turning their brains off when it comes to the story.
Rating: Gameplay’s good, story sucks. It is definitely not worth it at AAA retail prices, but probably is if there is a sufficiently good discount.
