Final Fantasy 7 Remake Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos, Speedrunning Tips

Tackling a remake in today's video game environment is no easy task. 

Remaking one of the most beloved games of all time is far more daunting.

Yet that's the path Square Enix forged with Final Fantasy VII Remake, a remake of the PlayStation classic. A standalone hit and a beacon for one of gaming's most iconic franchises, FF7 is the measuring stick by which many RPGs find themselves judged. 

The remake elects for an episodic nature that takes the first five to 10 hours of the original game—released in 1997—and stretches it out to a full-length experience. That implies an incredible expansion of ideas from a technically-limited era for RPGs, including the world, characters and extending to the plot itself. 

Much is at stake in the remake and questions abound, with at least one or two more episodes potentially coming to finish the remade tale. 

Graphics and Gameplay

FF7 is a visual delight whether a player has experience with the classic or not. 

Midgar is one of the best steampunk-infused environments in gaming—ever. It's a muddy, sloppy and varied visual treat littered with details that capture the essence of what the original game was going for so long ago. 

It's no exaggeration to say Midgar itself is the main character now. Whereas in the original much was left to the imagination as players navigated fixed backgrounds, now players are down in the dirt with the citizenry. They're seeing the detailed people, shops and ramshackle living arrangements, as well as the children running around playing and the wild animals intermingling. 

Visually speaking, FF7 could have easily gone the depressing route. The metal blocking view of the sky in a city that sucks life from the planet itself is an impressive, albeit dire setting. But the game does a great job of varying up the environments, taking players from towns to sewers, flower fields and beyond. The distinctive feel of the different areas between well-off suburbs and the slums is unsettling. 

It helps that the characters are done so well. They're emotive and expressive, even when a random passerby engages in conversation. And things get really vibrant in battle when weapons and magic start flying. It can be hard to keep track of things at times, but it's more a fault of the decision to go with real-time combat than the visuals themselves. 

Fueling the immersiveness and enjoyability is a world-class effort in audio design. The familiar trappings of the soundtrack are here—attacks and battle sounds pack a punch and the voice acting is best-in-class material. And as a (funny) aside, it's distracting that Wedge is voiced by one of the sidekicks from Breaking Bad. The more you know.

We did run into some texture loading problems but nothing game-breaking. The presentation, besides the story, was the biggest thing the remake needed to get right to make it all worth it—and it passes with flying colors. 

The gameplay is a little more split. In combat, real-time gameplay, as opposed to a classical turn-based format, is fluid, if not great. Characters divvied up into close and long-range styles build an ATB gauge via attacks. That gauge then permits the usage of spells or items, to keep things basic. Separate items like Limit Breaks and Summons build in their own unique ways. 

Enemies are aggressive (and varied throughout the experience, which shouldn't go overlooked), and even though their moves are telegraphed via words above their heads, nothing about it is easy. Each one has a specific requirement to stagger—which leaves them helpless and susceptible to bonus damage and each has a different weakness. 

On paper, it's a fun marriage of some classic details like ATB while trying to give the player more control instead of restricting them with a turn-based format. But design decisions or limitations within make it feel unfair at times. The presence of ATB blocking usage of most things still presents a restriction, and when the consistent stream of bosses with multiple phases keeps adding up, some of the limitations or tests of patience increase at the same clip. 

When things get really tough is when the problematic A.I., or lack thereof, for teammates sticks out. It's easy to get lost in the action and wonder what in the world party members are doing, only to switch over to them with full ATB bars to find out they're doing nothing at all. An ability to automatically set party member behavior, which has been done extensively in other RPGs, would have been nice. 

Bosses can get tedious for new and old players alike. That's an important distinction. Players who worked through the original game know certain bosses were easily swatted aside. Now they are potentially multi-phase encounters designed to barely let the player out alive while draining the acquired resources. 

Different isn't always better, and it wouldn't be a shock to see an even split among players who suggest the turn-based ways of the original should have returned. This new formula is fun in its own right, but there's a sense of "if it's not broke don't fix it" around a more timeless, turn-based strategic approach. 

Other combat details feature the usage of items, the presence of summons and the return of Materia. The latter are again the earnable orbs players can slot into weapons and armor to provide buffs, permit usage of magic and more. It's a really important point to stress—Materia once again gives players a massive way to tackle the game as they see fit. This depth of customization across an entire party isn't easy to pull off in RPGs, yet few playthroughs could be alike thanks to it. 

It's the downtime between fights where things get clunky. Sometimes, positioning your character to hit the triangle button to interact with another character or part of the environment is a chore because it's not as responsive as a player would expect. 

And as great as everything looks, general exploration isn't a big boon, which is a little disappointing. Midgar feels lived-in, alive and hits all the right vibes. But this is 20-plus years in the making, and the gameplay seems to settle for a rather linear experience. 

Linear isn't bad by any means, but it's important to go in with certain expectations. One of the most-hyped remakes ever lends itself toward feeling like exploration in the gorgeous world won't be worthwhile and that there is consistently an invisible guiding hand pushing the player along. 

Thankfully, the presentation-gameplay combo is still charming and a good time. The odd, if not unexpected drawbacks don't notably harm the experience, which is a testament to an engaging gameplay loop featuring heavy customization that will leave players itching to get into the next fight and advancing the story. 

Story and More

For those who don't know, Midgar was just the introductory phase of the original game. Here's how to play, here are the baddies, here's the cast of heroes, now go out in an expansive world and finish what is now generally considered one of the greatest games of all time. 

Now Midgar is the whole game. Cloud remains the central hero, and he's flanked at various times by Barret and Tifa in Avalanche's battle against Shinra, with the baddies behind the sky-blocking cityscape draining the life from the planet. Where the remake really shines is in its expansion of former side characters like Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. 

The storytelling was always a little too on the nose. The rich live literally on top of the poor, who inhabit the lowest of the low spots in the city slums. The powerful utilise things like the media apparatus and systems in place to keep hold of the narrative and that power. What's nice here is the ability to be on the ground with the everyday citizens, giving the player a better idea of why many view Avalanche as terrorists who are disrupting their way of life—shades of gray normally left to the imagination because of the technological limitations of the original game. 

Notably, one of the big story limitations in the episodic route is that Cloud just feels like Generic Brooding Hero No. 1, who is propped up by colorful people around him. Call it a setback of the format, as that's just how Cloud was in Midgar for the opening hours of the original game.  

Cloud doesn't spend the whole time in this odd state, but by the time he starts coming out of his shell a bit, there is so much other noise going on in a plot that doesn't go where longtime players might expect that it's easy to overlook.  

Still, the plot takes many liberties when it comes to characters. Midgar itself, as mentioned, gets a notable expansion. So do former side players. New characters show up and get a spotlight, too. It's a bit of weird balancing act—the arrival of mini-sagas featuring brand-new characters isn't necessary because players have already experienced this story in the past without them. But it's also not an unwelcome revelation to have more context into the world and its inhabitants. 

Looking past the narrative, it's a little unfortunate there isn't a little more meat on the bone. Side quests can feel like filler at times (go kill some rats or find some cats, for example). That isn't to say there isn't narrative world-building attached to them, but they're fundamentally forgettable. 

What makes some of the side activities a little more disappointing is the general pace of the game. It feels intentionally measured to slow the player down in spots. Sometimes players are restricted to walking slowly even if there isn't dialogue happening. Other times players have to slowly shuffle behind boxes for no clear reason. 

While some of the above is potentially better than loading screens, it can make the experience feel tedious in spots. And without the extensive cutscenes, the game boils down to mozying around from fight to fight. 

Is that really any different than any RPG? Maybe not. But the quest to make a multi-episode series out of a singular RPG from the past places some interesting pressure on FF7 here in the pacing department.  

There's a notable push and pull when it comes to weapons, too. The upgrade system isn't a generic one. As a player uses a weapon, more orbits of potential upgrades open up, and players can pick and choose which buffs a weapon gets. But the drawback is, well, it's a little tedious to hop into the menus and actually get this upgrade work done. Better than a generic RPG level-up upgrade? Indeed, but tedious. 

Like the original, players will spend a ton of time in menu systems with that weapon upgrade system, as well as assigning Materia and doing other such busywork. It's all mostly smooth, and in the early game, plenty of helpful tips and explanations accelerate the learning curve at a good pace.

As a bonus in the plus column, this is entirely accessible to those who haven't played the original or who are unfamiliar with the series as a whole. On the tech side, in this sense, the game is forgiving with its checkpoint system, permitting players to start over from different areas and segments of a fight. 

Speedrunning Tips

FF7 has long been a heavyweight in the speedrunning department. 

Thanks to its status as a fully fleshed out game, the remake will fall into the same company. Original world-class speedruns as recent as eight months ago check in around the seven-hour mark, and this one shouldn't be any different. 

The highly variable gameplay and the complexity behind the scenes when it comes to individual weaknesses for each enemy mean not only varied sorts of runs, but seemingly endless viewing material on streaming platforms. 

That note about enemy types is a good place to start when it comes to tips. The best runs will end up memorizing and exploring each and every enemy type's weakness, which leads to staggers. That's no easy feat given the amazing number of different enemies in the game. 

While the test of time will ultimately sort out which Materia and items are best for speedruns, early returns suggest a heavy look into things like the first-strike ability, which provides a boost from the onset of a fight. And shelving healing Materia for more offensive-minded ones and leaving the healing to purchasable items seems like a must. 

Otherwise, general tips apply. Dialogue is skippable, and so are cutscenes. There isn't a need to dive deep into the exploration side of things. While some sidequests and items out there for discovery classify as rare, they also don't classify as must-need material for runs. Grabbing a chest here or there off the beaten path won't ruin runs by any means, but most of what a run needs is buyable from vendors. 

In time, skips, farming strategies and more will form from a dedicated community to carve up what we think is possible for speedruns with this remake. Perhaps the most encouraging part of it all is the systems in place permit the creative and skilled to get after it in a way that will probably give it a similar speedrunning shelf life as the original.

Conclusion

FF7 is a weird one—in a good way. 

Standing on its own, it's an excellent RPG with engaging characters, a fittingly strange plot, an unforgettable setting and great presentation values. 

But it's not standing on its own. Twenty-plus years of expectation weighs on it. The continued evolution of gaming does, too. Over the past year or so we've seen the release of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 remakes, which cemented remakes done expertly well in today's modern gaming environment. 

FF7 chooses to go a different route. It expands in great ways but also alters fundamentals like the plot. Instead of working toward a familiar ending, the episodic nature creates more questions than answers. 

As a modern RPG, FF7 is a feat in many ways and flexes why the original had so much staying power. It's a great point of entry and a must-see for long-time players, though we might not know its full impact until many years down the line when the entire story over multiple games concludes.