With the arrival of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I wanted to take this opportunity to refresh myself on the remake's storyline and be more prepped for what's to come for the second game in the Remake trilogy.
Four years ago I played
Final Fantasy VII Remake for the first time as a newcomer to this part of the mainline series. My first interaction with Final Fantasy VII was in fact the CG anime film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which I watched like 30-40 times when I was younger but the DVD did include a retrospective of the original Final Fantasy VII which was cool to see. So while I was aware of the surprises throughout I mostly didn't know what to expect when it came to going into the games.
Final Fantasy VII Remake adapts the first disc of the original PlayStation story which covers the introduction and Midgar portion of the game. Remake takes those four to six hours of content and expands it drastically with new ideas, more context and interesting elements that make for a well done package. Yes it's just the start of the long journey ahead but it felt complete for Part 1 of the story.
I have already written up my thoughts on the PS4 version for Final Fantasy VII Remake in general in the past so you can
view my initial experiences here if you want to take a look. But I do think it's worth revisiting parts that I enjoyed and disliked, because as much as I have loved replaying this game it is not perfect by any means.
Let's start with the good things that I have enjoyed. I still think the story itself is really solid and well in-depth. It's pretty much like playing a visual novel in a way with more dialogue, more interactions and side characters expanded into having more to do than just appear for a bit here and there. The side quests are decent too. I also really enjoyed the combat which is a mix between classic turn-based with the game's ATB system but also action oriented. It did take a while to get used to it, but once I figured it out it became way more enjoyable. I actually think Barret's gameplay is underrated because he can be pretty useful in a lot of fights for his chaingun skills.
The gameplay was updated to 60 frames per second for the PS5 version which is well done and had no major issues on that part, and the presentation of the characters and buildings are well-detailed too. Music is strong and the theme that appears when Sephiroth appears is chilling and epic.
In terms of mixed thoughts, the remake introduced shadowy beings that show up here and there. This is a great concept but I have found myself torn over how the game progresses with these ideas because in reality - this remake shares the same problem that God of War 2018 had in terms of accessibility. Yes, you can jump into this without playing the previous game, but the way it unravels itself will make you feel like you have missed out on the best way to experience a lot of what's to offer. Long story short, this is a sequel to the original PlayStation game in disguise. Now this perspective can definitely change when I start playing Rebirth but because of how I felt about my time playing the Remake, I actually went straight into the original PlayStation version (via the PlayStation 4 release) straight after.
Other negatives that I have is that the middle portion of the game does have pacing issues, especially when you are going through the town where the Don is, and the journey back to Sector 7. I feel they could have made this portion shorter, now for clarity I have nothing against the town storyline because that was a lot of fun to watch - my issue is everything before and after that. Another negative is the skybox is badly designed and easily noticeable which is a shame as it feels like a demo at times. This issue is mainly during the part where the group climb up a sector. The final boss is epic but it does feel thrown in and out of place.
Overall I really enjoyed revisiting Final Fantasy VII Remake for this PS5 remaster. I spent a total of 32 hours 28 minutes playing through the main story on Normal difficulty from scratch and getting the side content sorted. I also managed to get some mini games and VR combat content sorted this time around as I didn't get the trophies for those in my original playthrough. It is interesting that despite doing more content in this playthrough I finished the game faster than before.
Next let's talk about
Final Fantasy VII INTERmission, the new content that I haven't played before because it's exclusive to the PlayStation 5 version which stars everyone's favourite ninja girl Yuffie. I really enjoyed Yuffie as a character, I found her attitude and charisma really fresh and would work well to both Tifa and Aerith in Rebirth. Yuffie's combat is also pretty interesting because it's like a mix between Cloud, Aerith and Barret's combat with close-combat weapons and long-combat elemental skills.
This expansion also introduced Fort Condor mini-game which was a lot of fun and I got the trophy for getting all of the challenges sorted. I was also able to secure the summon Rafah which was very handy for the boss fights later in the game. And there's also the poster side quest which was short and simple.
In terms of the story, I would say it doesn't stand out much but it may bring back these elements in Rebirth because it does introduce some surprising ideas especially with characters from a different part of Final Fantasy VII making their appearances in the remake. I also enjoyed the chemistry between Yuffie and her partner who I felt had enough background to be likeable, though the Avalanche characters introduced here are mostly throwaway. What this expansion does well is also fill some gaps for the middle portion of the Remake's story which you only saw from Cloud's perspective for a while so it was nice to see how things played out.
Overall I also enjoyed the INTERmission expansion and got about 6 hours of playtime for the story and side content. I also played the box mini-game but I didn't manage to finish the SOLDIER difficulty one because it would take too long.
So with this now done. What do I think of this remaster package? I actually think it's the best way to be introduced to the Remake storyline as there's better framerate and resolution and we have extra content that adds value to the experience. Now I am ready to check out Rebirth.