Final Fantasy VII Remake
First published in GRIND II, pages 48–53.
THE FANTASY OF FANTASIES, THE PLAYERS' MADNESS!
Plug in any kind of controller, pull up a huge glass of cola alongside, and set off on the adventure waiting for you in the remake of the most famous game in the Final Fantasy series!
Final Fantasy VII Remake came out in 2020 and is the work of Square Enix. The game tries to bring back to life, through modern graphics and new gameplay mechanics, the story told in the 1997 original.
And since my whole gaming life I'd dreamt of this fata morgana, a universe full of strapping heroes twirling huge, sharp blades from the wrist, all born of Japanese creators' imaginations, I took my 36-year-old courage in both hands and decided to step into Cloud Strife's shoes to heat up some steel on enemies of every size, shape and colour.
The FINAL FANTASY VII Remake: Story
The story is one of the few elements of this remake that has been kept largely intact… but I have to confess that I never played the original, so my claims are based only on what I've been able to read and watch online.
I do know one thing, though: the opening is identical, because, well… that's about as much as I had the patience to watch on YouTube of the original's events.
And it all kicks off with a train carrying destruction and chaos for the Shinra Corporation on board (or, rather, on top of it)! In a dystopian future, a major energy company has managed to deliver planetary-scale industrialisation by exploiting the planet's very lifeblood – Mako energy.
The eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, led by the muscular Barret with a machine gun instead of an arm, is trying to stop Shinra by destroying its generators. In his view, and in that of his acolytes Jessie, Biggs, Wedge and Tifa, the planet's survival depends on reducing the exploitation of Mako energy. Which means no measure is too radical for a moral compass that points north towards ecology.
Into this equation walks the mercenary Cloud Strife, a former elite soldier with a short memory, vague recollections and a long sword to compensate for all of it. He's the main hero you'll be controlling, and one you won't learn much about in the first half of the game. But at the most inopportune moments, little episodes of schizophrenia will pop up and make you question the nature of reality.
Cloud is a sort of super-soldier created with the help of genes belonging to a supernatural being called Jenova, who on top of everything else was also bathed in the lifeblood, Mako. The Buster Sword rounds off the description perfectly: a sharp blade that constantly reminds you that size matters and would make even Donald Trump exclaim 'yuuuuuge!'
Over the course of the eco-terrorist missions, you'll also get the chance to control other characters from the AVALANCHE crew. A few brave soldiers will fall on the battlefield, others will always fight alongside you, and some damsels will break your heart. All the girls will make a play for handsome Cloud, but take it from me: don't fall into their trap, they're just illusions!!!
Tifa is very HOT: dressed sexy, and the little bows on her stockings will hit you with an ooooh-aaah! Aerith, on the other hand, is a bit of a prude – well turned out, delicate, with that good-girl style that makes you want to roll around with her among the church flowers. These two are perfect for a calendar for the year alongside other heroines good for p…articipating in a photo shoot su…itable for gamers. Of course, the same album should also feature our favourite 'witches' from The Witcher – Ciri, Triss and Yennefer – as well as the 'fresh meat from the brain-dances' of Cyberpunk 2077 players, Claire and Panam. Honestly, I'm curious: which one do you think deserves to be on the cover for 2023?
Let's leave the century's hentai fantasies aside for a moment and get back to our everyday battles. Those will be fought against all sorts of bosses and mini-bosses within the mighty Shinra corporation. And the worst of the lot is Sephiroth: an anti-hero who was among the first participants in a genetic experiment that turned him into a super-soldier with paranormal powers. Alien cells received from Jenova played their part in his transformation: sweet, slightly sour and somehow charming. They say that, as a baby, Sephiroth had a bottle full of Mako lifeblood into which someone had poured a demijohn of hatred for humanity.
Midgar is the name of the city where most of the action in this first part of the Remake takes place. The power plant that supplies the area with energy, exploiting Mako, carries the same name. And this use of natural resources will stir feelings of revulsion in leader Barret and his eco-terrorist followers.
Well, here's a quick summary: a bit of personal drama, some amnesia, flirting galore, ecological disasters, the apocalypse drawing near, and plenty of brawling for first prize in the toughest category
SOLDIER.
The FINAL FANTASY VII Remake: GAMEPLAY & MECHANICS
A controller is a must! The gameplay is awful, and I don't know how it felt back in '97… but the current one seems designed for the games of the previous decade rather than for modern titles. Maybe my impression is coloured by games like the Assassin's Creed or Spider-Man series, which have accustomed us to freedom of movement and to the natural way their heroes handle.
I understand that those are open-world games and Final Fantasy VII Remake is linear and story-focused, but even in The Last of Us you feel like you could walk with Ellie to the end of the world without getting too tired.
Final Fantasy VII Remake has a system that tells you where you need to go up or down… and the glitchiest mechanic, to me, is the way you have to position yourself around the objects or elements you're meant to interact with. Sometimes you end up circling them for a good while until they activate.
The game doesn't offer overly long or complicated combos for attacks and dodging. But having to keep stopping mid-fight to pick an item from the inventory or a spell does rather break the flow of an otherwise fun battle.
Of course, the heroes have their own preferred weapons. And for each one you'll have to portion out upgrade points and orbs called 'materia' (the equivalent of gems in other RPGs) to improve their abilities. And here I found something whose logic I again don't quite grasp: the skill tree is made up of orbiting planetary systems, each standing for the type of improvement you want (mana, health points or attack). But sometimes it feels like more trouble than it's worth, wasting time spinning through the planetarium when a simpler system could have given you a far more useful overview.
Broadly speaking, the battles are great fun and spectacular when you break out the special moves. Switching between heroes is simple and easy for anyone to pick up – but when things get complicated, swapping characters breaks your rhythm. A fight with an overpowered boss can turn into an endless, exhausting slog. Speaking of enemies, the ordinary ones drop like flies… but the special ones take extra effort. I recommend dropping the difficulty level to easy for bosses; it isn't worth the effort of fighting one for a good half hour. There's always the risk of losing the fight and starting all over again from your most recent save point. Because bosses usually come with a huge healthbar and multiple stages of offence. Don't pin your hopes on side missions either, because they won't help you bulk up significantly.
The FINAL FANTASY VII Remake: GRAPHICS
The graphics won't set the world alight; don't expect ray tracing-style lighting and shadows, nor landscapes, nor paintings by Grigorescu. You won't get any of those. What is a delight, though, is playing this Remake just to see Tifa and Aerith in all their splendour… I could eat up their lovely little faces, wonderful as they are. Fine, I've taken leave of my senses, but I'm right: the quality design and graphics are in the game's characters, drawn very carefully with the aim of pulling you in visually whatever your sex.
I'm glad to see that this game's remake really does deliver significantly improved graphics over the ones from more than 25 years ago. And that's because game developers have spent recent years abusing the labels 'remake' and 'remaster', without making any visible changes that would justify the purchase.
A good example is the first part of The Last of Us, which recently got a graphical update built on the engine used in the second title in the series. Nothing to say against the creators' good intentions, except that they've already given us a third release of the same game, only a few years after another so-called remaster. Never mind games from the Mafia, Heroes of Might and Magic and Warcraft series, which got an unjustifiably huge amount of hype and unrealistic expectations… just for the re-release of some titles where the only notable graphical differences were a few extra lights and shadows.
Final Fantasy VII Remake is completely different in that regard.
The game is available on the PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles. More recently the PC version was released too, extending its availability to platforms such as Steam and Epic. The price gravitates around 150-200 lei for the disc-and-case versions, with a fairly good chance of it selling for 350 lei on the digital distribution platforms.
I enjoyed it and I recommend it without a doubt, despite all the flaws I kept moaning about. After all, it's a fun game that combines a good few hours of engaging battles. What's more, the characters are caught up in a story that makes you want to find out more with every single scene. The dialogue is amusing too, and the narrative thread will never bore you as the action unfolds. Bogdan Menci
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