There are those who said this day would never come. What have they to say now?
That’s right, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, one of the last few holdouts of the Sony timed exclusive era, is finally out and playable on the Xbox Series consoles. Though yes, it did take 6 years rather than 6 months.
So, of course, the question is, for those of us who stayed strong and held out for this release, or for those of us who aren’t really that invested in the game, is Final Fantasy VII Remake worth buying and playing after all this time? The answer largely depends on what you want from the purchase, but overall, I’d say yes, it very much is.
Keep reading to find out why I think so in the XboxEra Review of Final Fantasy VII Remake!
Break in Case of Hit Needed
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few decades, you know what Final Fantasy VII is. Originally released waaaay back in 1997 on the PSX platform by developer Square, this JRPG became a smash hit instantly, and fans have been clamouring for some kind of remake for a very long time.
Square Enix answered those prayers back in 2015, during the so called “E3 of Dreams” where they did the (at the time,) super praiseworthy thing of announcing a game 5 years before it actually released. Putting aside the “aged like milk” aspect of that E3, I do have to mention that I went into this review with little to no reverence for Final Fantasy VII. While I’m a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise itself, I grew up with IX and X mostly, so I wasn’t going in with any amount of nostalgia. This worked both in favour of the game and the opposite at times, where I wouldn’t let my previous expectations or hype lead to disappointment, but also where I wouldn’t ignore some clear issues.
Now, if you have been living under a rock, then here’s a quick setup of the story in the game. In Final Fantasy VII Remake, you primarily play as Ex-SOLDIER turned Mercenary, Cloud Strife. SOLDIER being a special fighting force in the Shinra military, and Shinra being the corporation that controls the entire city of Midgar, where this game takes place. You join up with a group of eco-terrorists called AVALANCHE as they try to stop Shinra from “destroying the planet” with their resource extraction. This inevitably leads to a whole bunch of fighting, but also some quiet moments as you take the time to help the less fortunate residents living in the slums of the city.
Real Time, but Turn Based, but also Real Time!
I have more to say about the story, spoiler-free, of course, but let’s talk about the gameplay first. The original Final Fantasy VII is a fully turn-based game, and the remake tries to honour that while also adding in real-time combat. It… works, for the most part. You have a party of up to three people (with four playable characters overall), and in combat you can freely switch between them with a tap of the d-pad. Every character has two attack inputs and a dodge, and as combat commences an “ATB” bar slowly fills up. When the bar is full, a character can then do a “turn”, pausing time and choosing between an ability, a magical spell, or an item. The game also lets you “quick-slot” some commands to hotkeys you can cast without having to pause, and it’s this mechanic that really lets the combat flow.
In practice, I would start a fight with Cloud and mostly quick-cast his abilities and then switch over to teammates once their bars were full in order to cast the right kind of magic (most enemies in the game have a weakness). I’d also swap and control, say Barret, when I was up against mostly ranged enemies, or to other party members when Cloud would get CCed of some type. Using the spells and abilities of your teammates was an essential skill to learn, as not only does it shorten potentially long encounters, it’s also often the only way to beat bosses that require more than just hitting them with a sword.
It Really Isn’t As Complicated As it Looks
I mentioned magic spells and Final Fantasy VII Remake uses something called “Materia” to handle it. As a kid I always thought this system was really complicated looking whenever I’d see a glimpse of the original game, but thankfully, with some proper explanation, it’s pretty simple. Essentially, each character has a certain number of Materia slots, in which you equip whatever Materia you want. These slots are on your weapons and armour, initially starting off as just a couple of openings but expanding to more and more as the game progresses.
But aha, what exactly is Materia you ask? Well, pretty much anything. Materia can range from the iconic elemental spells, to the steal skill, to increasing your max HP, to changing the element of your weapon, to casting buffs or debuffs and a whole lot more. There’s no limit on what you can equip, other than having enough of the Materia and an open slot, but certain Materia does benefit by being linked to specific others. The most useful one I found here was the “Synergy” Materia, which would have an ally cast the linked elemental spell at no cost anytime I’d use an attack command with a different character. Assuming I had a little bit of preptime, this let me figure out a boss’ weakness, switch the linked spell to that element, and watch the HP crumble every time I’d use “Triple Slash”.
Metal Sword > Buster Sword
Finally, I’ll touch on the weapon and weapon upgrade system. You can freely change between your weapons in Final Fantasy VII Remake, meaning that no, you don’t need to stick with the iconic Buster Sword the entire time. Each weapon you pick up has a skill that you can permanently learn and then equip, even when using a different one. The weapons themselves can also be upgraded as you play, through a skill tree system. Thankfully, the game has the option to auto upgrade your weapons based on whether you want to focus on offensive, defensive, or balanced options. This let me swap between weapons on the fly without issue.
So putting it all together, the combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake ranged from serviceable to good. I would rarely feel bored fighting, but I’d also rarely feel great either. Yes, the combat flows smoothly once you get the hang of it, but the dodge was pretty lackluster and it was often hard to see how and where an enemy would attack. The highlights were certainly the many bosses throughout the game, especially when things would get tense, and I’d really be forced to use my ATB charges wisely. The combat felt better and better to play as the game progressed, as I’d learn more moves/Materia, but I do think it took a little too long to do so.
Midgar Retold
While I was never nostalgic for it, I did complete the original game just a few weeks ago for the first time. This, coupled with the knowledge that the sequel is already finished and likely to release on this platform later this year, affected how I felt about the story and scope of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The city this entire game takes place in, Midgar, encompasses maybe the first half a dozen hours in the original game. So their decision to expand that to more than four times the length was somewhat controversial, and for good reason.
There are times in Final Fantasy VII Remake where I felt my time was being wasted. And I don’t just mean the moments the game slows down story-wise. I don’t even mean the regular backtracking, usually when doing optional content, but also sometimes during the main story. No, what I really disliked were the constant moments where the game forces you to walk at a snail’s pace. I’m not sure if this was due to technical reasons or the whole “walk and talk” nature some narrative-heavy games have, but goddamnit people, stop taking control away from my character if it isn’t a cutscene! A few times to bring the pacing of the game down is okay, I understand, but VII Remake took it way too far, way too often. And at times for often no discernible reason either! Is the kids’ club in Sector 5 full of molasses or something? Why can’t I move?!
I mentioned optional content above, so let me quickly touch on that. While Final Fantasy VII Remake has a main story, the game also regularly gives time to do little side quests or missions for others. Interestingly, I often had the most fun completing these at my own pace, rather than the more linear path story missions. None of these quests were particularly complicated, but they’d often lead to worthwhile rewards and fun combat encounters. They were also paced in a way that I never felt overburdened.
Fun Allowed
One thing I particularly enjoyed about Final Fantasy VII Remake was how often the game was okay with being over the top or just straight-up comedic. From the various mini-games (which were usually a nice change of pace from the usual gameplay) to the moments on stage, to Cloud just being one of the funniest protagonists out there, I really appreciated the lighter moments to help balance the heavier ones.
The last thing I’ll touch on is that I actually didn’t mind the hyperfocus on Midgar for the first remake game. Having played through the original game recently, Midgar was always sort of its own thing. No overworld, a party that’s constantly shuffling around, and a narrow-scoped story before the world expanded. As much as some others might disagree, I believe they made the right decision to stick with just Midgar for the initial outing, even if it did lead to some pretty clear bloat/padding. On the flipside of that, you get an expanded foundation for the story, something that I hope they’re able to capitalize on in the sequels, and a deeper connection to the various characters and motivations. Though, yes, not all the expanded characters worked out. Looking at you Wedge.
Dystopian Slums Never Looked So Pretty
So, this is technically a review of Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrade, which included some additions to the base version of the game released on the PS4 back in 2020. The meat of which is the new DLC, which I’ll touch on soon, but it also came with a deluge of graphical enhancements, such as improved environments and backgrounds. And oh boy, they worked.
The game has two graphic modes, performance and quality. Usually, I switch between modes to see if the visual upgrade is worth the fps hit (it very rarely is), but with VII Remake, the game looked so great at 60 that I didn’t even bother. While there are moments where the resolution clearly takes a hit, I found myself constantly in awe at the visuals. Especially the ones in cutscenes with some of the best character models I’ve seen. The anime stylization does some heavy lifting here, of course, but I was taking screenshot after screenshot, something I rarely do. Heck, the game actually looked worse in prerendered cutscenes!
If it Aint Broke…
I’ll briefly touch on the DLC, INTERmission here, as it’s meant to be played after completing the base game. It has you play as a new character, the ninja Yuffie, as she makes her way to Midgar for her own nefarious reasons. It adds two chapters to the 18 total in the base game and also includes a little tabletop style minigame, which I messed with a little but largely ignored. It’s worth playing after beating the game, but it doesn’t change the experience much.
Yes, yes, I know the game essentially just used rearrangement after rearrangement of “Those Who Fight”, the battle theme of the original game. But goddamnit, the theme is good. Like really damn good, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get hyped up every single time an arrangement played in the Remake.
Speaking of audio, I did have a few moments where the sound mixing felt pretty off, especially in some cutscenes. With dialogue being tuned down waaay too low, though, a quick change in the settings resolved it. Other than that, I had no bugs or glitches in my playthrough.
Bringing It All Home
And so we reach the end of this road and the start of a much, much longer one. As I mentioned before, I went into Final Fantasy VII Remake with little to no nostalgia at all, and I’m glad to say I came away happy with my experience. Yes, I have my complaints, mainly that the game often wasted my time unnecessarily or that the combat took too long to really get going. But I also appreciated the narrow scope of the game and the various story elements (which I won’t spoil or talk about here) had me excited to see what happened next, and of course, what happens next. Would I have been as lenient with the Midgar-centric scope if this was the only Final Fantasy VII Remake game I had for four years? That’s not my reality, so who cares!
As it is right now, Xbox is the only platform where you can play every single mainline Final Fantasy game, barring, of course, the sequel to this one: Rebirth. But that’ll come in due time, so the point still stands. What is that point, you ask? Pretty simple, really. Xbox is the premier place to play Final Fantasy on consoles, and Final Fantasy VII Remake is a JRPG worth purchasing for fans and non-fans of the genre alike.
Welcome home Cloud, welcome home.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrade
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Good to great combat at a certain point
- Good visuals with solid performance
- Isn't afraid to have fun. Also Cloud is hilarious
- The expanded Midgar scope works. Mostly.
- Side quests add a nice change of pace and world building
CONS
- Combat takes too long to get flowing
- Too many slow moments in the pacing
- Not every expanded character or moment works
