The Road and Legacy of Final Fantasy 7 Remake

[CriticalGaming]

So with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth just 8 short weeks away I wanted to make a sort of broader retrospective of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and the legacy of the original being affected by the new trilogy of games coming out. And frankly I like talking about FF7 and I didn't want this to get lost in the monster that the Final Fantasy retrospective has become for risk of it being lost.

Final Fantasy 7 was a one-in-a-million release, hitting the world at the perfect time in the perfect way to become the huge hit that it has. It left an incredible and ever-lasting impression on a huge generation of teenagers growing up worldwide. And because of that people have always asked Square to remake the game, to the degree that Square put out surveys asking fans what FF game they most wanted to see remade. In fact they did these survey's several times throughout the years, and every single time one game was always the winner by a huge margin. Final Fantasy 7.

In 2005 the Playstation 3 was coming on fast and Square released a presentation that was supposed to showcase what the Ps3 could do with a potential Final Fantasy 7 remake.


Of course this was just a cock tease, as Square had no plans to remake FF7 or any game anytime soon at the moment. However it didn't take long for that to start to change as the market for remasters and remakes started to grow strong. As newer generations of gamers came into the media, it started to become clear to a lot of companies that porting old games onto modern hardware would open up classic games to new audiences (because backwards compatability was hard and publishers are stupid). But not just ports, full on "next gen" remakes, like Capcom had done with the original Resident Evil game on Gamecube.

Despite all of this, there was no indication that Square was remaking FF7 nor any FF7 game beyond some 3DS remakes of never before released Final Fantasy's like 3.

Until 2014...when this happened.


A remaster to Playstation 4. Okay to say it was a disappointment would be an understatement, however this was in line with what Square had been doing this whole time. Remasters and ports, with the goal of trying to make as much playable on modern systems as possible. So while it wasn't what anyone wanted, it also wasn't exactly a bad thing either.

Little did anyone know what would happen the very next year.


This clip is arguably the most hype moment of any E3 (rip) ever bar none. This clip spawned several 7 hour reaction compilations. A dream come true for a huge number of people.

However things immediately started to become worrying with news that the FF7 Remake would be episodic, and that it was being developed by Cyberconnect 2 the developers behind the Naruto battle ninja games. Later press and marketing with early screenshots and footage of what CC2 had so far looked okay, but not quite what people expected to come from a late generation Ps4 game. then changes were announced, the battle system looked different and people were very nervous. Then without warning in early 2016 Square announced that CC2 had been pulled of the FF7 project and the game had moved to an inhouse team. This would be the last we would hear of the Remake's development for three and a half years. People wondered if things hadn't worked out or if the game had been scrapped. Or if this was another case of Square announcing a game and then no releasing it for a fucking decade like with Kingdom Hearts 3 and FF13-versus aka FF15.

State of Play 2019: A thin grey line runs across the screen like the light bar that crosses the top of the Ps4 system. Suddenly a musical sound effect and the bar changes color. The Final Fantasy 7 sound effect for picking "new game". Then 20 minutes of normal Sony fluff, nothing about FF7.....until the narrator says, "Before we go, we want to give you a new look at a long awaited game." And then.....


It looks incredible, amazing, so much more than people expected and yet everything they wanted. More to come at E3 2019, a future. Media hype and lead up to the launch of the FF7 Remake goes from zero to a hundred in a short few week span. Youtube channels pop up doing deep dives and break downs of every single frame of every trailer released. A launch date of March 3, 2020 is unveiled at the FF7 concert that year. Two more trailers would drop before the end of the year. Until....

In February 2020, disaster. There is a delay. From March 3rd to April 3rd. In a year that would see many many many game delays thanks to a brand new plague locking people in their homes. Not to bad, 4 weeks, yet agonizingly long at the same time.

On April 3rd the mystery was revealed. How would it play, how faithful would it be? All that was answered and more. Yes it was only the Midgar portion of the original game, but more expansive and elaborated. Combat completely updated for "modern audiences" a phrase that normally would spell doom for a game, but FF7 pulled it off melting a turn based system into a real time system to give turn-based combat a more action feel that gives players more agency in their play.

But some things are different. The story had been changed from the original and theories once again explode over the internet. People are even mixed on the game, some people are absolutely in love, others are mad and feel cheesy plot ghost bullshit will ruin the overall story. Many interviews with Nomura and Kitase repeat the same questions over and over again. "Does this character live?", "Will things change moving forward?", "Who, what, when, why, how?" And throughout those interviews Kitase specifically insisted that FF7 would still have all the same story beats you know and love, changes were introduced to make the games feel fresh and excited even for those who already knew the original inside and out. Personally I agree, the new content and stories helped keep me guessing as I played and that made the first playthrough ever more special.

Another thing the developers said in several interviews but this month's Game Informer also has the same statements from Kitase and Nomura, "Square was starting to make many remake projects. Final Fantasy 7 is very important to us and we felt that if we didn't make it now, we might not ever get to make it, and we had to be a part of it. We couldn't let it go to somebody else." While this is a translation, I think Square made the decision to remake the game well before getting the original people behind FF7 involved, which was why the game was given first to Cyber Connect 2. Then when Kitase especially learned about it, he and Nomura used their influence within Square to get the project into their hands. Of course I'm speculating but I believe thats a big part of what happened.

Personally I don't think Remake could have gone any better and specifically I like that a lot of the developers working on the FF7 trilogy where either part of the original developer team, or became fans of Final Fantasy because of FF7 and they fought to get onto the Remake project. We've all seen video games where it was obvious the developers didn't really care, some of the biggest pieces of shit from this year showcase that pretty clearly. But as a fan of FF7, playing through the Remake several times, I can tell that this team LOVES this world, these characters, the lore, they LOVE FF7. The small details, down to even having the same items appear in the same exact spots as the original game, the attention to detail is staggering when compared to those same details in the original game. While at the same time the things they do change only add mystery and reference to what happens later.

At the end of FF7 Remake the player is given a message. "The Unknown Journey Continues". Which is a bit misleading. I mentioned already that Kitase assured people that the same events would still happen in this project. However as we sit on the eve of Part 2's release, a few things have become clear. We now know that this project is a three-game series, a nod to the original game being on three discs. And now we know that Rebirth will further change things in FF7's world. Mainly in regards to moving things around.

The biggest example of this is that Yuffie's hometown Wutai will not be a part of Rebirth. Despite the Wutai storyline happening well within the context of Rebirth's scope. Additionally Fort Condor the tower minigame location has been moved off shore and is another place we will not be able to visit in Rebirth. Additionally, while details aren't clear yet, certain events supposedly happen out of order. Which means the surprises are still coming along and let's not even begin to guess what Zack being alive actually means.

Normally timeline fuckery is not something I would want to see in a game because most movies, shows, books, and games all start to lose the plot when time travel shit gets involved. However this team seems dedicated to making Final Fantasy 7 the best it possibly can, and I have faith in it.

70 days remain.

 

[Chimpzy]

In case you haven't seen this yet

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Preview - Exclusive Impressions From Exploring Junon - Game Informer

We were able to see an extended gameplay demo for the highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

www.gameinformer.com

 

[meiam]

I don't think I agree that it feel like the team is made of people who love the original, if anything it feel like they dislike being forced to stick to the original and are introducing an element that function as nothing more than a storydevice to be able to retcon anything they feel like.

The first part of the original (the Midgard section) is all about building up Sephiroth as an antagonist. Avalanche struggle against Shinra, scoring small scale victory but being ultimately defeated by them dropping the plate. The party is forced in a last ditch effort to storm the tower, but ultimately fail at this too and are all captured. Shinra is clearly established as superior to the party. And yet Sephiroth effortlessly storm Shinra tower, free your group (seemingly as a unintended side effect) and kill the president, something you're not even good enough to witness, let alone do. This, further backed by the subsequent flashback, clearly establish Sephiroth as the ultimate badass (and its why he's consistently regarded as one of the greatest villain in video game despite having an almost negligible presence in game).

In the remake, Shinra is seemingly bent on self sabotage, for some reason, destroying their own reactors. In one stroke demininshing their own and Avalanche effectiveness, not only are we not able to defeat Shinra, its not able to not kill itself. They are no threat to anyone but themselves. Sephiorth act like a jealous ex boyfriend who is obsessed with, and stalk, Cloud. He constantly show up for no reason, and end the game beggin Cloud for help. The game end with you defeating him. He doesn't come of as much of a threat as far as antagonist goes. The only force that seems like much of a threat is whsiper ghost thingy, who are bent on forcing the event happening the same way that the og (ie the dev going "the people who want the event of the remake to be the same as the original are the true bad guys"). In the remake, in quick succession, they revive Barret and save the party from being crushed to death, yet the party immediatly act like they're antagonist because...? How is this a sign of the dev loving the original? If they really wanted to just shake up the formula, they could have simply retold the event but with Zack still being alive, no need for rando pointless ghost.

If anything, the remake team seems laser focus on one thing only, Cloud being the most desirable person in the universe and getting an Harem without even trying. Almost all of the new content in the game is about going on long pointless date with girls (which end up taking more than half of the total game time if one does all the content). That itself is a missread of the original, Tifa stick with Cloud not because she's instantly charmed by his stoicism, but because they're childhood friend and she realized something wrong with him, and Aerith because he remind her of Zack.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I don't think I agree that it feel like the team is made of people who love the original, if anything it feel like they dislike being forced to stick to the original and are introducing an element that function as nothing more than a storydevice to be able to retcon anything they feel like.

Unless these developers are lying in interviews, and are lying to people like Maximillion_dood to his face at E3, I don't think it's as malicious as you think.

In the remake, Shinra is seemingly bent on self sabotage, for some reason, destroying their own reactors. In one stroke demininshing their own and Avalanche effectiveness, not only are we not able to defeat Shinra, its not able to not kill itself.

In the original game we don't have any proof of Shinra's evil besides Barret's stories, and the obvious poverty in the slums. We only see the top plate for a minute, we have nothing that really showcases Shinra as a threat or even really a presence in the Midgar section until you go to HQ to save Aerith. Shinra's evil isn't really drawn out until much later in the game as well as through compilations games like Crisis Core. However the Remake has to expand on what Barret tells us and show us the seedy deeds Shinra will go do to more their plots forward. In the original game there is side dialog with Jesse where she insists that her bomb should not have blown up the first reactor the way it did, the Remake simple expands on this by showing Shinra taking extra steps to further enchance the anti-public face of Avalanche and thus further public support for Shinra to resume the war with Wutai, whom they see as a potential location for the "promise land".

Sephiorth act like a jealous ex boyfriend who is obsessed with, and stalk, Cloud.

Again there is lore for this and Remake took elements from all over the FF7 story as a whole. But also one thing about Sephiroth that people don't understand, and it's simply that he's too famous. The guy to too recognizable and too well known of a figure to leave out of the Remake, so they play with people's emotions in that regard. A newcomer to the game is never gonna pick up on these things, and Sephiroth is still a mystery to them. But people like me with intimate knowledge of the world within FF7 pick up references and little nods to this thing and that thing and all this stuff beyond surface level FF7 knowledge.

Which to me speaks volumes to the dev's knowledge and care about the world. They know how to tease and use future things to sneak into places to sort of spark familiarity but also keeping the mystery. It's really brilliantly done.

If anything, the remake team seems laser focus on one thing only, Cloud being the most desirable person in the universe and getting an Harem without even trying

That was in the original too.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

In case you haven't seen this yet

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Preview - Exclusive Impressions From Exploring Junon - Game Informer

We were able to see an extended gameplay demo for the highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

www.gameinformer.com

The piano mechanics sound pretty neat. Like what TLoU2 did for guitar but perhaps even more intricate.

 

[Silvanus]

In the original game we don't have any proof of Shinra's evil besides Barret's stories, and the obvious poverty in the slums.

U wot m8? They drop the plate onto Sector 7, killing an immense number of people; they drastically pollute every body of water in their vicinity; they intend to suck the lifestream of the planet dry, causing apocalyptic damage; they capture intelligent creatures and force them to interbreed; they operate a secret police and military to eradicate anyone who challenges their rule; they starve the population; they attempt to gas the player, obliterate the player with a giant mech, etc etc...

 

[CriticalGaming]

U wot m8? They drop the plate onto Sector 7, killing an immense number of people; they drastically pollute every body of water in their vicinity; they intend to suck the lifestream of the planet dry, causing apocalyptic damage; they capture intelligent creatures and force them to interbreed; they operate a secret police and military to eradicate anyone who challenges their rule; they starve the population; they attempt to gas the player, obliterate the player with a giant mech, etc etc...

The plate thing yes, but if you compare that to the Remake that plate destruction is like 20+ hours into the story.

In the original game, you have no proof of Barret's claims on them killing the planet at all. You don't even really learn about the lifestream until Cosmo Canyon. It isn't until the Shinra building that you see the experiments and the board being truly evil. But again, I'm trying to compare timelines to what you see in the Remake and the OG moves at a much faster pace, which means you can take Barret's word on it because by the time you would otherwise question his motives, you are already watching the plate fall, the evil in the headquarters, etc.

So you have to factor the different pacing between the games.

 

[meiam]

Unless these developers are lying in interviews, and are lying to people like Maximillion_dood to his face at E3, I don't think it's as malicious as you think.
In the original game we don't have any proof of Shinra's evil besides Barret's stories, and the obvious poverty in the slums. We only see the top plate for a minute, we have nothing that really showcases Shinra as a threat or even really a presence in the Midgar section until you go to HQ to save Aerith. Shinra's evil isn't really drawn out until much later in the game as well as through compilations games like Crisis Core. However the Remake has to expand on what Barret tells us and show us the seedy deeds Shinra will go do to more their plots forward. In the original game there is side dialog with Jesse where she insists that her bomb should not have blown up the first reactor the way it did, the Remake simple expands on this by showing Shinra taking extra steps to further enchance the anti-public face of Avalanche and thus further public support for Shinra to resume the war with Wutai, whom they see as a potential location for the "promise land".



Again there is lore for this and Remake took elements from all over the FF7 story as a whole. But also one thing about Sephiroth that people don't understand, and it's simply that he's too famous. The guy to too recognizable and too well known of a figure to leave out of the Remake, so they play with people's emotions in that regard. A newcomer to the game is never gonna pick up on these things, and Sephiroth is still a mystery to them. But people like me with intimate knowledge of the world within FF7 pick up references and little nods to this thing and that thing and all this stuff beyond surface level FF7 knowledge.

Which to me speaks volumes to the dev's knowledge and care about the world. They know how to tease and use future things to sneak into places to sort of spark familiarity but also keeping the mystery. It's really brilliantly done.


That was in the original too.

The dev are obviously going to say they love the game in interview so that means pretty much nothing. But I don't think they dislike the original, they just dislike being force to adhere to its story and would probably rather do their own things, that's why they literally make otherworldy entity (ie the original fan) who would rather they faithfully retell the story an evil force that has to be defeated.

I don't know why you dismiss the slum out of hand, its works pretty well at antagonizing Shinra and is just a few hours into the game. Beside its a giant corporation, how many story have feature giant corporation that weren't the bad guy? But here again you can bring it back to the original, did anyone play trough the Midgard segment and think "Yeah those Shinra guy are really the good guy"? Beside, them blowing up their own reactor doesn't make Barret claim of them harming the planet any truer, if anything it just diminish the threat, Shinra is hellbent on self destruction, why do we need to do anything?

A newcomer to the story is only going to get the impression tha Sephiroth is pansy weakling who has to beg Cloud for some reason, he's so far less intimidating in the remake than the original, so that doesn't do anything, and beside, they're new to the series, why do they care about him being so present early? And why does Sephiorth have to make his constant stalking scene with Cloud to make the cameo work? You can make all kinds of cameo/easter egg differently, maybe find some old article that describe his action and rise to fame, maybe some old project file or talk to some war veteran. But no, instead he just show, beg Cloud for help and disapear, he's pathetic in the remake.

There were dates moment in the original, but they weren't most of the game. The remake has way too much of them and it just waste time. The world is barely explored more and depsite spending so much time with the girl you don't really learn anything new about them except Jessie (who get the shortest segment anyway).

 

[Gergar12]

Question to OP, am I allowed to spoil???

 

[Silvanus]

The plate thing yes, but if you compare that to the Remake that plate destruction is like 20+ hours into the story.

In the original game, you have no proof of Barret's claims on them killing the planet at all. You don't even really learn about the lifestream until Cosmo Canyon. It isn't until the Shinra building that you see the experiments and the board being truly evil. But again, I'm trying to compare timelines to what you see in the Remake and the OG moves at a much faster pace, which means you can take Barret's word on it because by the time you would otherwise question his motives, you are already watching the plate fall, the evil in the headquarters, etc.

So you have to factor the different pacing between the games.

Wait, I thought you were saying that we don't have proof of Shinra's evil in FF7. As in, the whole original game.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Question to OP, am I allowed to spoil???

Not OP but speaking as someone who has never played the original but has played Remake and will likely be playing Rebirth upon release or shortly thereafter, you have my blessing to spoil, fwiw. the game's like 20 years old or something.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Wait, I thought you were saying that we don't have proof of Shinra's evil in FF7. As in, the whole original game.

No I was just comparing the contrast between what we see in the Original game up to what is present in the Remake. So Midgar portions only. Because the complaint was that they essentially show too much in the Remake and make too many changes to characters which simply isn't true.

That being said there has been a sort of evolution that many of FF7's characters have gone through since the OG's release that somewhat alters how the characters act in relation to the OG game. So Sephiroth is a bit different in the Remake because he has become an evolution of a character with Advent Children and the Crisis Core prequel. The Remake takes into account ALL of the character's arcs and sort of puts them together to form a more complete version of the character in Remake which doesn't always align with the way that character was in the original.

So some characters are different, in a way, but also not really different. I think of the differences as a result of the character having a more fleshed out existence than any actual changes.

Jesse flirts with Cloud in the original. But in the remake it's not just optional dialog it's more up front which is designed to give you more attachment to her for later.
Tifa never flirts with Cloud, until she confesses herself to him way late in the game. What they have instead is chemistry and connection with each other which make the romance feel more enevitable.
Aerith is playful, but she never outright flirts with Cloud. She sees a lot of Zack in him because he has sort of taken on a lot of Zack's life and she sees that. But she also sees that Cloud is not Zack and is using her lightheartedness to bring the "real" Cloud out of him.

Cannonically there is no romance triangle, though player choice in the original game AND in Rebirth allows you to "date" whomever. Regardless of any roleplaying options you do throughout the original game, Cloud always ends up with Tifa.

 

[Gergar12]

Not OP but speaking as someone who has never played the original but has played Remake and will likely be playing Rebirth upon release or shortly thereafter, you have my blessing to spoil, fwiw. the game's like 20 years old or something.

Screw it I am still not going to do it. Not everyone played FF7 OG.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I wanted to touch briefly on the Remake's combat system, because when you look at everything the Remake changed versus what fans were hoping it would be I can see how people are of two minds about it.

There were a lot of people online and in discord servers talking about the Remake when it was originally announced in 2015, and a lot of the discussion was about how were they going to recreate that feeling of customization that combat had specifically around the Materia system. FF7 was a turn based RPG like all the Final Fantasy games that came before it, however it's materia system allowed for character "builds" to a level that no other game in the series had done before had. Typically in previous games you just took whatever the character got when it leveled, or took whatever the job got as it leveled and your customization options were limited to the actually characters in the party. But FF7 changed that to allow people to use materia to sort of make their own character classes with any character in the game. Some characters were stated to lean certain directions, but with stat boosting items available there was nothing stopping any character from doing anything.

The problem with FF7's materia system originally is that none of that mattered. Equip your party with your favorite materia and you could get through anything in the game without a problem. So it looked cool on paper and it mattered in the first disc of the game, but by disc 2 you were free to do whatever and nothing mattered outside of defeating the super bosses. Nevertheless the materia system is one of the most loved battle systems in Final Fantasy history outside of maybe the Sphere Grid from 10.

So when Cyber Connect 2 shared the first screenshots of combat and shared a few very short clips of gameplay, it looked good in the sense that everything was in place with a modern stylized menu. Attack, Magic, Items, etc, the same command menu you would expect to find from a typical turn based game. So everything was fine.

Of course then development was halted and things went radio silent. News came that Square was taking the game in house and people started to worry about action game bullshit. For a long time, Square had been trying to ditch the turn-based Jrpg trope at all costs and people had a feeling that the game would become an action game and lose that feel of being FF7.

To a certain degree people weren't wrong about that.

Combat wouldn't be showcased until E3 2019 where they explained that the action system and turn-based system had been merged. Your action combat would build ATB meter which could be spend on tactical turn-based (kinda) abilities that served as the real meat and potatos attacks for the game. While you could run around and action hack n slash enemies, the damage those attacks and their effectiveness was rather minimal. Where your actual abilities and magic would be where the damage would come from.

This was a way to put action into a turn-based system and give players agency in building their ATB meter actively. So instead of standing around waiting for ATB to fill in order to do anything, you were free to run around and hit shit to build ATB actively. Not to mention the potential to avoid and dodge enemy attacks to keep damage taken to a minimum as well.

Later that year at the Tokyo Game Show, Kitase came onstage with a demo to be played and explained live with the host of the show. There they really showed and explained all the basics of combat, which showcased how important being active in battle was to charge ATB rather than let it build naturally. And it also showcased a mode called Classic where the character would do the action stuff automatically and the player only had to worry about the turn-based commands. People were upset that it wasn't sticking to the old battle system, but in reality this was a fair and reasonable compromise between keeping the game old school and modern at the same time.

Of course to truly understand the combat is to play it yourself. And I think the system has more positives than negatives to be honest. It works very well at making a turn-based system more exciting for modern players because it eliminates waiting for your turn while also still waiting for your turn. Furthermore with the materia system still intact it allows for all those crazy combinations and set ups from the original game to still happen here, but unlike the OG game, Remake promoted skill based play as well. It wouldn't be enough to have an OP materia set up, you the player would also have to execute it.

So while the system might be different, I still think it stayed true to FF7 and simply fits better for a modern game.

 

[Hades]

I think among the worst things of the Remake was the handling of Sephiroth. In contrast to Sephiroth Shinra was a consistently engaging and thematically appropriate antagonist. Therefore the bigger focus inevitably going to be placed on Sepiroth at the expense of Shinra is something I expect to be problematic. Its replacing a great antagonist with a really bad one that's just coasting on old glories.

Everything about Sephiroth in the remake was just so boring, so lifeless and so corporately driven. Remake went above and beyond to stop the decline and simplification of Cloud's character and give us a very well crafted and endearing character. But with sephiroth the writers seemed to revel in the simplification of his character. Whatever Sephiroth was in the original game, he's now just a one note bad guy who's sole motivation in life is messing with Cloud. And while I expect we were always intended to revel in Sephiroth's inclusion the game ironically makes Sepiroth seems less impressive then in the original game. Sephiroth's one man slaughter of Shinra is very impressive but Remake strangely skips that part and have him kill just the president and leave without harming anyone else. Sephiroth being the final boss and not immediately flooring the party also seems very unimpressive for the guy who's supposedly so much stronger than the main party.

Sephiroth seems to be the final boss because that's what the marketing department wanted. And he seems to be a parody of himself because apparently that's what the writers think was so iconic about him.

 

[CriticalGaming]

snip

I think the problem with Sephiroth and with FF7 in general is that it's characters have become too known in the zeitgeist of gaming. And to have basically an entire 35 hour FF7 game where he is only ever referenced vaguely and have some random robot as a final boss, I just don't think that would have been satisfying to people and especially newcomers to the universe. So I understand the rewrites in Remake used to make sure Sephiroth is shown and is scary, but also doesn't leave him with zero screen time. The new mystery and the whole shebang works for the most part. And if Remake was the entire FF7 game in one go, I would have agreed with people on disliking the changes. As it stands as just being a midgar game, I think the changes are fine and make enough sense.

 

[meiam]

I wanted to touch briefly on the Remake's combat system, because when you look at everything the Remake changed versus what fans were hoping it would be I can see how people are of two minds about it.

There were a lot of people online and in discord servers talking about the Remake when it was originally announced in 2015, and a lot of the discussion was about how were they going to recreate that feeling of customization that combat had specifically around the Materia system. FF7 was a turn based RPG like all the Final Fantasy games that came before it, however it's materia system allowed for character "builds" to a level that no other game in the series had done before had. Typically in previous games you just took whatever the character got when it leveled, or took whatever the job got as it leveled and your customization options were limited to the actually characters in the party. But FF7 changed that to allow people to use materia to sort of make their own character classes with any character in the game. Some characters were stated to lean certain directions, but with stat boosting items available there was nothing stopping any character from doing anything.

The problem with FF7's materia system originally is that none of that mattered. Equip your party with your favorite materia and you could get through anything in the game without a problem. So it looked cool on paper and it mattered in the first disc of the game, but by disc 2 you were free to do whatever and nothing mattered outside of defeating the super bosses. Nevertheless the materia system is one of the most loved battle systems in Final Fantasy history outside of maybe the Sphere Grid from 10.

So when Cyber Connect 2 shared the first screenshots of combat and shared a few very short clips of gameplay, it looked good in the sense that everything was in place with a modern stylized menu. Attack, Magic, Items, etc, the same command menu you would expect to find from a typical turn based game. So everything was fine.

Of course then development was halted and things went radio silent. News came that Square was taking the game in house and people started to worry about action game bullshit. For a long time, Square had been trying to ditch the turn-based Jrpg trope at all costs and people had a feeling that the game would become an action game and lose that feel of being FF7.

To a certain degree people weren't wrong about that.

Combat wouldn't be showcased until E3 2019 where they explained that the action system and turn-based system had been merged. Your action combat would build ATB meter which could be spend on tactical turn-based (kinda) abilities that served as the real meat and potatos attacks for the game. While you could run around and action hack n slash enemies, the damage those attacks and their effectiveness was rather minimal. Where your actual abilities and magic would be where the damage would come from.

This was a way to put action into a turn-based system and give players agency in building their ATB meter actively. So instead of standing around waiting for ATB to fill in order to do anything, you were free to run around and hit shit to build ATB actively. Not to mention the potential to avoid and dodge enemy attacks to keep damage taken to a minimum as well.

Later that year at the Tokyo Game Show, Kitase came onstage with a demo to be played and explained live with the host of the show. There they really showed and explained all the basics of combat, which showcased how important being active in battle was to charge ATB rather than let it build naturally. And it also showcased a mode called Classic where the character would do the action stuff automatically and the player only had to worry about the turn-based commands. People were upset that it wasn't sticking to the old battle system, but in reality this was a fair and reasonable compromise between keeping the game old school and modern at the same time.

Of course to truly understand the combat is to play it yourself. And I think the system has more positives than negatives to be honest. It works very well at making a turn-based system more exciting for modern players because it eliminates waiting for your turn while also still waiting for your turn. Furthermore with the materia system still intact it allows for all those crazy combinations and set ups from the original game to still happen here, but unlike the OG game, Remake promoted skill based play as well. It wouldn't be enough to have an OP materia set up, you the player would also have to execute it.

So while the system might be different, I still think it stayed true to FF7 and simply fits better for a modern game.

I'd say the combat system in the remake is excellent, the best things about the game (even though I think they should have stayed turn based). It's shockingly good, and really make me scratch my head at FF16 and how much they stumbled with it and how non RPG it is compare to 7R.

But there's one major massive issue, the encounter designs are incredibly bad and it waste pretty much all the potential. Almost all random encounter (usual mob you find in dungeon) are so weak you can generally have them all dead before filling any ATB to use magic/ability, this means they never rise above button smash. Boss are a bit better... except they're full of cutscenes mid fight, killing any momentum. For those who haven't played, when you damage enemy you fill a stagger bar, once filled, the enemy become stunned and take extra damage and this is the ideal time to use certain strong attack that might not be accurate enough to use while the boss more or might have extra damage when used on staggered enemy. The problem with boss is that by the time you fill a stagger bar you usually hit the boss HP cutoff point where a cutscene happen (say the boss does some cool attack and your character dodge it in cutscene, wouldn't want the player to be the one doing the action sequence), once the cutscene end, the boss stagger bar is reset to 0, so you have to build it up again (just to be interrupted by another cutscene, most boss have 3-5 of these). This means the only encounter that are interesting are the occasional mini boss and the optional arena fight, these are free from annoying cutscenes and have enough HP to give you time to use some ability or magic.

Otherwise, I always though they should have done more with materia linking (both OG and remake) and also giving special effect to certain slot, so I'm a bit disapointed they didn't try to push this aspect more in the remake.

 

[BrawlMan]

Otherwise, I always though they should have done more with materia linking (both OG and remake) and also giving special effect to certain slot, so I'm a bit disapointed they didn't try to push this aspect more in the remake.

Funny thing, if you give Tifa the right materia combination, she fights like a Platinum games character, instead of an VIIR character. So there is that unique gameplay mechanic.

 

[BrawlMan]

@CriticalGaming demo is available today.

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[Hades]

Shit I might need to get a PS5.

So how does the demo work? Is the Niffleheim incident just the opening prologue of Rebirth, or is it content purely for the demo?