Final Fantasy VII Remake

 PlayStation 4
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 8148 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6,327 out of 8148
  2. Mixed: 727 out of 8148
  3. Negative: 1,094 out of 8148
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  1. Stormrider2210
    Apr 12, 2020
    5
    After 50 hours including most of the side quest:

    Pros+ 1) Great music. 2) Stunning visuals. 3) Good voice acting. Cons- 1) Childish-Anime dialogues. 2) Mediocre Battle action system. 3) Turn based is bad, even worst than the original. 4) Bald side quests. 5) Felt way too short compared to modern RPGs at same release price. 6) Poor or no replayability. Needs to be mentioned to avoid let    After 50 hours including most of the side quest:

    Pros+
    1) Great music.
    2) Stunning visuals. 3) Good voice acting.

    Cons-
    1) Childish-Anime dialogues.
    2) Mediocre Battle action system.
    3) Turn based is bad, even worst than the original.
    4) Bald side quests.
    5) Felt way too short compared to modern RPGs at same release price.
    6) Poor or no replayability.

    Needs to be mentioned to avoid let downs from classic fans: IS A REBOOT NOT A REMAKE.    … Expand
  2. Murador
    Apr 13, 2020
    5
    Great game, great combat and great characters.

    Overall it could have a little more hours with better sidequests, it has some grafics issues that I believe will be fixed soon and I'm not sure how I feel about some changes in the story, tho I have not seen the end so far. After finishing the game, I went back here to change the score of the game from 9 to 5. To be honest, the    Great game, great combat and great characters.

    Overall it could have a little more hours with better sidequests, it has some grafics issues that I believe will be fixed soon and I'm not sure how I feel about some changes in the story, tho I have not seen the end so far.

    After finishing the game, I went back here to change the score of the game from 9 to 5.

    To be honest, the remake is done, next game will not be a remake and the story probably will be all new. I dont get it... if SE and Nomura wanted to do a new story why they didnt made a new FF or even remade FF VII but telling everyone that this game would be a completely total new game with a new history.

    FF VII remake turn out to be very similar to the OG till the ending where it implies that the history will change.... man that **** of keepers of fate... producers always had the power to redo the story how they please... they dont need this stupid excuse of keepers of fate... just redo the dam game with a complete new history but tell the fans so.... What SE did was to announce a remake that would be faithfull to the original and in parts.... What I understood was that all parts would be similar to the OG, but in reality they made the first game very similar to the OG and inserted in a crappy excuse, that they didnt really needed, to chance to story in the next parts. Producers may change anything, they dont need this silly excuse that mades everything so confused... It would be much better if they announced a FF VII in parts that would be a complete new story... ppl wouldnt be so disapointed...

    I´ll probably buy the next games no matter what, the game is good, the combat is very fun... I just got very disapointed because I was hoping (implying to what SE said, that this ramake would be very similar to the OG) to see the same events...    … Expand
  3. Strumbore
    Apr 15, 2020
    6
    You will be kidnapped by thirsty NPC's and forced to do menial labor for the first 50 (FIFTY) hours if you try to do everything, but the last 3 hours almost make up for it.

    One thing you will notice not even a quarter into the game is that the characters beat you over the head *relentlessly* with unsubtle hints about what the big "twist" is. I like the concept of the new theme being    You will be kidnapped by thirsty NPC's and forced to do menial labor for the first 50 (FIFTY) hours if you try to do everything, but the last 3 hours almost make up for it.

    One thing you will notice not even a quarter into the game is that the characters beat you over the head *relentlessly* with unsubtle hints about what the big "twist" is. I like the concept of the new theme being introduced but it further waters down a surprisingly under-developed story. Whenever the game gets you on the edge of your seat, a left-field plot thread is introduced that interrupts the current story thread you are engaged with, completely undercutting the pacing. Characters contradict themselves frequently and we don't get satisfying story arcs for any of them. Cut-scenes are poorly directed and character dialog is atrocious, sometimes nonsensical.

    Gameplay-wise, there is little depth to battles until about 3/4 of the way through the game. Equipment upgrades are few and inconsequential. When you do finally need to be careful about managing your stats and abilities, the game has under-prepared you. There are very few monster encounters even if you do all side-quests immediately when you get them. Money s not good for much but potions that refill your magic (ethers), and you will often find that you don't have enough. The game tends not register correct player input during its dozen or so minigames (some of them mandatory). The worst sin of all is the frequency with which you are forced to walk (as in : not run) behind characters for 10 minutes listening to them go on about errands, or shimmy between buildings.

    Of all the FFVII characters, I liked Barret best and I like him best in this version too. It is really a shame that he is put down RELENTLESSLY by the rest of the party. A lot of scenes with the female characters are gross too, and not in a humorous way. Part of this may have to do with a misunderstanding of how flirting in Japanese translates to English. A lot of dialog that may have been intended as jokes comes off as pandering or even creepy. At one point, Cloud, Barret and Tifa are searching a men's room for an air duct, and Tifa asks what she should do if somebody comes in and sees her. Barret replies, "Drop and show them the boys" (sic). Now, that was funny, but not in a good way; in a sloppy way.

    Despite being disappointed by the execution, I am still glad I played the game, especially the last few chapters. There is nothing in this game that Square-Enix nailed, but it is pretty enough to keep you wondering what happens next.    … Expand
  4. ClairePendragon
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    This is like comparing Star Wars ep.7, to ep.4. If you preferred ep.7 to ep.4, you'll probably be ok with the game.

    -GAEMPLAY -COMBAT Combat is easily the best feature of this game! A solid base for all future games to build upon. If there's any reason to play this game, this is it. Inspired between a mix of FF13s stagger system (but more simplistic) FF15s combat (technically more    This is like comparing Star Wars ep.7, to ep.4. If you preferred ep.7 to ep.4, you'll probably be ok with the game.

    -GAEMPLAY
    -COMBAT
    Combat is easily the best feature of this game! A solid base for all future games to build upon. If there's any reason to play this game, this is it. Inspired between a mix of FF13s stagger system (but more simplistic) FF15s combat (technically more simplistic, but flows better) and FF12's general "feel".
    Some minor flaws though, such as the camera is R3, but changing lock-on targets is also R3. So if your target is behind you, or out of sight, the act of moving the camera to see them, will lock-on to a different target, and make your attacks miss.
    Most bosses don't have real mechanics. (Roughly 20-25% do though)
    And enemy variety is sparce. (This one isnt fully SE fault.)

    Combat Score: 9

    -NONCOMBAT GAMEPLAY
    I can't possibly stress this enough. The game is mostly padded filler. It's clear the developers couldn't possibly make enough of the game within the modern age of gaming. The "new areas" are just road blocks/hallways, to slow your progress through the game. It's very disingenuous for the "new content" to be considered an "expansion" upon the original. And with so many long road blocks and tedious treks, the games pacing comes to a crawl. (IMO FF7's strongest feature is its pacing. As any singular factor of the original was never that great, but the pacing made it amazing.)

    This alone would easily be scored a 1 out of 10. But, to be fair, there's still more than just pacing. Such as customization. Which is great, and helps fill in the tedium of trekking through the games new hallway sections. Town exploration is mostly fine, sadly no real new areas to explore, since new areas are meant to be road blocks, and not actual hubs/fields. Additionally the old mini games have mostly been ruined, but some of the new mini games are pretty darn good.

    So combining it all together...
    GAMEPLAY SCORE: 5

    -STORY
    Almost every character introduction involves a lot of poses. (Think Genyu force from DBZ) Followed by some of the cheeziest lines ever written. (Worse than the originals cheeze)
    The new segments are poorly timed, or poorly built up. Such as hoping you would find certain moments scary/intimidating, despite not actually explaining WHY the event should be seen as terrifying. But despite most of the new segments being bad, there are at least a small handful of moments that improved upon the original a bit. (No spoilers here)
    Story segments from the original game had small parts cut out, in awkward ways, that don't make the scene flow properly.
    Lastly, characters aren't really interacting with the situation, location, or other characters reasonably.
    ex: Barret Knows the name of a character that he previously didn't know, despite no one telling him. Then suddenly knows what that character means to another character, despite not being told. Followed by trying to harm the character, despite the character not clearly being an enemy. And lastly, states the characters goals, despite not being told any of this. But YOU the player know this, so they don't bother having the conversations flow correctly.

    STORY SCORE: 6

    -MUSIC/ART DIRECTION
    This isnt about graphics, but how they chose to use artistic visuals to present the story, along with the music. Both were improperly used. Such as happy music during sad moments. Colorful scenery, when its an oppressive tone in the story.

    MUSIC/ART SCORE: 4

    FINAL SCORE 5.
    This game was clearly the limit of what they could make, and tries to pretend its about "expanding" the story of midgar, when only 10% of it is expanded, and barely at all. Most new content is designed to slow you down, and not have any actual substance.
    What does Aertith think, when she finds out about Cloud being in Avalanche? What does Cloud think about the bombings? These are questions we'd have loved to see explored, but instead we get only a few lines regarding the implications of the bombings from a small portion of the cast, with most dialogue being about fetch quests, roadblocks, and the trailers new "ghost" looking beings.
    With no spoilers, I can only say the ending is also rather dull, and rushed. The final opponents have even less "mechanics" than prior bosses. (They have none, zero, zilch) And contribute nothing to the plot, while also being a complete change in tone of the rest of the game and story.
    The ending brings worries of all the things they can do wrong with the next games, and unfortunately, I can't warn what they are, w/o spoilers.    … Expand
  5. BSTCloud
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    Not ashamed to admit I created an account to rate this game. Honestly I want to rate this with a zero just to reflect my disappointment but I'll be fair, unlike Square Enix's marketing department, and especially the director and producer Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase, who are a bunch of liars that didn't say the truth in interviews and various press material.

    I am a huge fan of    Not ashamed to admit I created an account to rate this game. Honestly I want to rate this with a zero just to reflect my disappointment but I'll be fair, unlike Square Enix's marketing department, and especially the director and producer Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase, who are a bunch of liars that didn't say the truth in interviews and various press material.

    I am a huge fan of the original and bought the Deluxe edition because I was extremely happy with the way the remake had been lining up, just showing material that was faithful to the remake, and nothing that even remotely suggested there would be this much difference between the games, until a final trailer a few days before release, when they spilled the beans and people are happy to swallow them up:
    This is NOT a proper remake, this is a retelling that seriously diverts from the original plot at the later parts of the game, and completely tramples over everything that made the orignal great. Playing this will NOT guarantee a similar experience as playing the original because the tone and main themes are completely different from the original.

    Pros:
    -What's actually faithfully recreated from the original game, in a vacuum, is pretty good. Any FF7 fan will get a goofy smile from the small detals like Barret engaging a shinra worker on the train back home, or the cutscene with Cloud's mom.
    -When they decide to play the arranges of the original themes, they are amazing. The soundtrack feels incredible when it hits the spot.
    -The character designs mostly (with the exception of Rufus, Heidegger, and few else) translate well to modern 3D, these characters look the same.
    -The battle system, while flawed and unbalanced, is fun and engaging.
    -The visual fidelity of the character models and particle effects is really good.
    -Some of the actual content they expanded with, is great, and I could see it as a part of the original title, albeit with a little bit of rework on the dialogue and tone (Jessie's sidequest to meet her parents, the renewed Wall Market, the section to nerf the Airbuster...)

    Cons:
    -The tone, pacing, and content of this game are all over the place, and it's not like story changes are unwelcomed, but they're not appreciated when they're so out of place like these. The whispers of whatever and this much Sephiroth jerking do not belong in this game. Sephiroth has lost all his menace and threatening presence since he appears stalking Cloud every half and hour and this poorly executed "fate" theme completely undermines the emphasis the original title did on the gritty setting and the inmediacy, inevitability and impact of somoene close to you dying. Every time the whispers appear on screen, I swear I get brain damage. The last chapter really cranks things up to eleven and then some to an uncomfortable and unbelonging degree. A mess.
    -This game is padded beyond belief, every small plot nuance takes an hour to progress because every mindless and meaningless story beat has been made into 1h corridors or 2h dungeons. Most of the new content is meaningless fetchquests about killing rats, rescuing kids and cats. These do not belong in FF7. You can not fully explore midgar, and the side content is not meaningfull. Literally lied to the players.
    -Unfortunately the original soundtrack makes for less than half the screen time, and the new pieces are all but memorable. If some of these tunes were supposed to be arrangements of the original ones, I'm sorry but they're so strangely recreated I couldn't even recognize them. This lack of cohesiveness truly hurts Nobuo's signature motif style of soundtrack design, and by not playing the songs over and over the beats fly over your head. I honestly cannot believe they did such a good rendition of the boss battle theme from the original game to NOT use it except for one fight.
    -These characters look the same, but they sure do not feel the same. When the scenes are reenacted, sure, but the dialogue is inconsistent because they don't feel like themselves in most of the new dialogue. It's like watching a hollywood adaptation of a movie you like, you know what's from the book and what's not.
    -The battle system after Don Corneo's mansion takes a nose dive, 80% of the regular encounters have super armor and makes every encounter incredibly tedious, while suddenly bosses are easy in comparison because you're starting to get too jacked up. It doesn't feel like casting an spell and getting interrupted should deplete your MP and ATB bar either, makes the combat drag even longer since you rely more heavily on using spells on the second half of the game and getting interrupted and losing your initiative and having to spend more ethers just to kill the sewer turtles is a pain in the ass.
    -There are texture streaming glitches and the texture quality is REALLY low. Dialogues and cutscenes take entire seconds to trigger, and the game softlocked to me twice during my playthrough. Rough, technically speaking    … Expand
  6. viroodiem
    Apr 10, 2020
    6
    OK, Ive played it all day on advanced copy. FF7 remake is not horrible but it is not great either. It is slightly better than average once you get past peoples fanboy squee-ing and the nostalgia wears off. Worst of all it is in no way faithful to the source material.

    I get that FF7 did not age well but for all the high tech visual rebooting everything looks incredibly generic and    OK, Ive played it all day on advanced copy. FF7 remake is not horrible but it is not great either. It is slightly better than average once you get past peoples fanboy squee-ing and the nostalgia wears off. Worst of all it is in no way faithful to the source material.

    I get that FF7 did not age well but for all the high tech visual rebooting everything looks incredibly generic and bland . The char models look modern equivalent but the world models are ps2/early ps3 level simple. In some places more detail, many are on a MUCH lower level. This is something that they can add more poly objects to make each area look more lively but for this is WAY behind where it should be.

    It is much like XV and other AI party member games like KOTOR you will have other party members locked into "roles" and you will only use/command them very sparingly for one or two specific techniques you need. You will rarely need to trigger another party members ability or spell and in most cases you can do that remotely.

    The combat is completely redone into FFXV interface. It does somewhat improve on that making things like spells/skills/items more usable but its still just spamming the attack button than any thing else. The specific fights involved are effectively nothing like their original counterparts. They are completely re imagined and are " X In Name Only."

    The old fights are completely different. It takes out strategic thinking and replaces it with twitch gameplay like taking say Civilization and dumbing it down to be Starcraft. I do not inherently dislike such a system, but in a RPG and namely a JRPG where the game is about developing specific and unique characters it makes your secondary party members little more than an after thought once you have them programmed to behave like you want them to. It was the same in FFXII and every incarnation of having AI passive controlled party members in a real time battle system since.

    While the voice acting ruins the characters, The music is redone but for them being redone they are vastly inferior to the many covers that have come out with. They really messed the prelude up in this as well. Yet already " hip hop de chocobo" has been an infectious, meme worthy surprise.

    They have taken the original script and treat it like it was just cliff notes for this. Adding all sorts of extra dialog and depth to characters like Jessie that otherwise did not have it. That sounds good but it does not play out very well with such an over the top anime presentation.

    More over they have clearly pandered to SJW logic in this. For example the deflating of Tifa. Now its hard to say how "large" she was in the original FF7 but you can clearly see a pattern of shrinking her from other media including Advent children. Not that such things actually matter, its the principal of it. The point is more that the ideology behind such a choice is also going to be adversely effecting certain plot elements that are seen by today's logic as dated and try to fix that. Problem there is that is like pulling a thread out of a sweater.

    Over the course of an 80 hour game(and how long they pad it out ) there are going to be hundreds if not thousands of little instances that each individual player will have interpreted differently from the source material and each other. Its going to face a lot of criticism because it is impossible for any developer to make a game true to what fans want because every fan can interpret the same instance in a multitude of different ways and we know that fans are HYPER critical when it comes to something they love not matching up with their perception of the source material

    . It might be OK if the game were all done as one package but between multiple episodes you are looking at a game that is going to cost 150-200$ MSRP and its DEFINITELY not worth it. It might get treated as GOTY but it will be received like Outer Worlds or RE2 remake.Good, not that big of a deal after the initial novelty wears off.

    Its a decent product with some serious, glaring flaws that some will gloss over immediately because its FF7. Yet there is nothing here that warrants a day one purchase. Unless you never played the original, you are better off waiting till the whole game has been remade and get the "definitive" edition of it. You wont be missing out on any thing crucial. I would actually prefer to give it a 6.25 but 6 seems too low but 7 is WAY too high.    … Expand
  7. Mercinarie
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    5 For the Nostalgia, honestly looking at this objectively, it's an "OK" RPG I'd have given it an 8 no worries but that ending was so offensive to OG fans. This dude feel sick.
  8. RIELTURO7
    Apr 16, 2020
    7
    Square sold a lie they said they would be faithful to the original but isn't. This isn't a remake but a reboot. The game is beautiful however once in the big city you will notice some background don't have any textures some parts looks like a ps3 game.

    However the game is really fun.
  9. UnionJack0714
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    I'm confused on why this game has taken so long to come out... yet it isn't the full FF7 experience. What is here is good, but this isn't what I was expecting from a remake that's been in the works for more than 5 years. And now we're gonna be forced to pay another £50 to play the other half of the game... why SquareEnix??
  10. Goo4you
    Apr 29, 2020
    7
    FF7 Remake and Square Enix summed up:

    -Wonderful music -Fantastic voice acting -Beautiful graphics -The artistic direction is top-notch -Incredible package and presentation -The worst game mechanics ever put to a game. Square Enix doesn't want to make video games anymore, they want to make interactive movies, and It shows in FF7 Remake. Instead of crafting a whole new system to fit what    FF7 Remake and Square Enix summed up:

    -Wonderful music
    -Fantastic voice acting
    -Beautiful graphics
    -The artistic direction is top-notch
    -Incredible package and presentation
    -The worst game mechanics ever put to a game.

    Square Enix doesn't want to make video games anymore, they want to make interactive movies, and It shows in FF7 Remake. Instead of crafting a whole new system to fit what they were working on, something that highlights the way battles take place that accentuates the frenetic pace they've set here; they instead shoved a 20+ years combat philosophy and style where it doesn't belong. Not only that, but the damage balance is broken at every level.

    Normal mode damage is way over-tooled, forcing you further into the janky combat system. Let's not kid ourselves; you're going to tunnel one character for an entire fight until the game forces you to switch, and when it does, you'll tunnel combat over items or even spells (unless they force you into it). That is the horrible design, and they could have avoided all of it had they, just, made, something new. Instead, the caved to fanboy fear and shoveled this convoluted mess out.

    Easy, is UNDER-Tooled and saps any and all fun out of combat. It's not like there's a lesser risk from combat--there's NO risk in combat. The most straightforward answer here would have been to come to market with a wholly new system for combat and not one tugging at nostalgia.

    Classic, shouldn't exist. At that point, Square Enix should have gone full out and made this a movie and not pretend it was a game.

    FF7 Remake sums up Square Enix perfectly. Grandious design, meticulous attention to detail in presentation and style, but Dear Lord, Do I have to make a Video Game? I really don't want to make a video game anymore! I want to make movies!! Please let us make a movie?!? The ironic thing is when they are allowed to make a movie; they're horrible.

    I really hope after this release they take stock of their priorities and hunker down and focus back on Game mechanics and gameplay because right now, Square Enix is lost.

    Grade per points as mentioned earlier:

    Music: A+
    Voice Acting: A+
    Graphics: A+
    Art direction: A+
    Presentation of Total Package: A+
    Game Mechanics: F-

    Side note: The awful camera is awful, just awful. So, very, very bad. There's no fixing it, it's just bad.

    Update:4/27/2020:

    After spending a lot more time with the game, I took a point off for the awful linear corridor design. The damn hand-holding this game does it has all the frustration of FF13. You can't explore those side paths, you can't go check this building, YOU HAVE TO GO HERE NOW WHERE WE TELL YOU!

    I can take a bit of this in a game, but it's the entire thing folks. There's no grinding, there's no exploring. You go where they tell you to do and screw you for thinking otherwise! (until Chapter 14, basically the end of the game). It's another point against Square Enix for really, really, REALLY wanting to make interactive movies and not games.

    Combat is still awful. I don't think I've ever played a game where the game part is the part I want to get through as fast as possible. I've hated every single fight I've had in the game, without fail. And I mean, trash fights, awful. Boss fights, awful. All of it is just so, god damn bad.

    If you're shouting about great the battle system is, you're a masochist that hates good things. There is no middle ground here. No shades of grey. Normally I'd wouldn't be the type to be so black and white about something. With this game, it's all bad. If all the other elements weren't top-notch, I would have shelved this and never looked back. But, the rest of the package is just stellar.    … Expand
  11. davygravy93
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    Not bad but not very good either. While I do appreciate seeing midgar in modern graphics theres a bit of a hollow feeling to it since most of the experience happens in linear hallways similar to the 13 series. Theres also some weird retcons to the story, Square in their infinite wisdom decided that what the story of FFVII needed was alternate realities and spooky ghosts which might soundNot bad but not very good either. While I do appreciate seeing midgar in modern graphics theres a bit of a hollow feeling to it since most of the experience happens in linear hallways similar to the 13 series. Theres also some weird retcons to the story, Square in their infinite wisdom decided that what the story of FFVII needed was alternate realities and spooky ghosts which might sound interesting but really only serves as an excuse as to why the remake is split into parts. The combat was the saving grace for me, feels like the combat of 15 but more fluid, summons looked cool. I was hoping with this remake that midgar would be a much bigger place to explore but I guess i was expecting too much.… Expand
  12. Sooby90
    Apr 12, 2020
    5
    Missed opportunity. The combat is sometimes buggy, the camera is hanky and most of the game is linear time padding or back tracking through where you've already been. It looks beautiful and the characters are great (the new ones not so much), but it plays more like a movie than a fun RPG to discover.
  13. MUG3NHC
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    The original FFVII is my all time favourite, that's why i need to score this version (not a remake) so low.
    There's already quite a few low scoring reviews that explained in detail what the flaws are, so I'll just skip that.
    It is very disappointing that they couldn't just stick to the original story and remake the game faithfully.
  14. Veiled
    Apr 10, 2020
    6
    Deberia llamarse FF VII Downgrade. Es lo mas bestial que he visto en engaño al jugador en toda mi vida, 900p en ps4, 1200p en la Pro, apenas mantiene los 30 fps, framepacing irregular... Un desastre técnico. Sobre el juego en si... Ni es FF, es un Kingdom Hearts con skins de FF, diseños horteras de Jpop y toneladas de relleno. Le doy un 2, mas no merece.
  15. Netsah
    Apr 11, 2020
    5
    What made FFVII a success? What made it a legendary game (and saved Squaresoft from the bankrupt back then)?
    Midgar? The 6 first hours of the game, the intro, the tutorial, of a 80-100h game? Clearly not.
    I don't know one player from that time who said "Yeah FFVII was nice but I wish we could play 30 more hours in Midgar". The game starts after! FFVII was the first 3D JRPG that was    What made FFVII a success? What made it a legendary game (and saved Squaresoft from the bankrupt back then)?
    Midgar? The 6 first hours of the game, the intro, the tutorial, of a 80-100h game? Clearly not.
    I don't know one player from that time who said "Yeah FFVII was nice but I wish we could play 30 more hours in Midgar". The game starts after!

    FFVII was the first 3D JRPG that was keeping all the good things of the most popular 2D RPGs:
    - a real RPG (not an action RPG) where we were taking the time to explore and to fight
    - a big World Map
    - lots of places, cities, environments
    - a team of varied characters
    - hidden treasures
    - tons of sidequests
    - powerful and great summonings
    - great end-game bosses

    What is left in FFVII remake?
    Nothing. Just one city, nothing is hidden, useless side quests, no end-game, limited team, summonings are... what a shame.
    Even half of the musics disappeard.

    FFVII remake is a not great action game, with a lot of corridors, camera problems.
    They made Cloud a seducer (???) Sephiroth is just a light version of the real one. And the end... err...
    And of course the fact that they make us buy the high price 10% of the full game...
    When I see that guy of Square Enix saying "We did exactly what gamers expected" They didn't understand anything...

    Good point? it looks nice.    … Expand
  16. Mkk2010
    Apr 10, 2020
    7
    I have played 4 hours so far and it's good. I will come back to change my review once I have finished the game. One thing that's bugging me is that after each fight the messages disappear too quickly and I keep missing what items and experience I receive. 8

    Now I have played 12 hours, I am starting to like it even more. I am finding it hard to put it down. Though it's been 12 hours I am    I have played 4 hours so far and it's good. I will come back to change my review once I have finished the game. One thing that's bugging me is that after each fight the messages disappear too quickly and I keep missing what items and experience I receive. 8

    Now I have played 12 hours, I am starting to like it even more. I am finding it hard to put it down. Though it's been 12 hours I am the type to look for every corner for items. It has the elements of ff15 and ff13 put together, but for a long time, this has the ff feel of old. All credit to the team to take on such a brave project, that is dear to alot of people, so everything they do will be very critically analysed. For me I have no complaints. Great idea for the battle system, seems a mess at first but once you wrap your head around it, it's becomes clear and great fun. The story to me they can take to any direction, they have stayed true to the main story line but with added depth, I am just excited to find out more about these characters, after all no one knows the story more than they do. Graphics was a big thing for me in the old ff games, it's one reason why I use to play these games. This game apart from the opening bomb mission, the graphics slope slightly downhill. The main characters are brilliantly detailed but the extra characters and some background seem rushed. 8

    Wrote one for 50-60 hours game play. But stupid metacritic made me refresh page. So cant be asses now. Maybe be back at the end of the game. 7    … Expand
  17. Melfes
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Warning: Spoilers for the future of this series
    The game itself is decent. If you list the events in the Midgar section from the original, the scenes you remember, they're all there, the gameplay is fun but it gets tedious because the enemies tend to be damage sponges, the design is barely a bit less linear than FFXIII, there's quite a bit of padding (walking sections and hunting quests) and way less exploration you would assume from what the developers promised. Graphically the party models look great, as some of the cutscenes, but the npc and some of the environment take a massive dive in quality to PS2 levels. Could be a bug.

    The real problem comes with the plot itself: the events are there, but a certain bad guy is everywhere, and not only he's aware of the events of FFVII 97, so are certain creatures that make sure nobody messes with the events of the original game.
    These creatures will inject themselves in a lot of story events and ruin them, you will understand as you play.
    Also, it's heavily implied this is a Sequel that's taking place in a reality where the original game already happened.
    The final arc is probably the biggest mistake Square ever made: while it's not confirmed, the battle and the events at the end are very, very different from the original and make it obvious the rest of the remake is never going to happen as FFVII 1997 is now the scrapped past, and they're going to do their own thing moving forward.

    As a game it's a 8.5. Story-wise, for what they added and what they plan to do, a 2 is courtesy.

    My recommendation: play it, get to the final dungeon (Shinra building), stop, sell the game, pretend you never saw anything.    … Expand
  18. Bill_Whithers
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    This is my first, and most likely, my last review. I have never felt the need to ever review any game (largely because I think most reviews are either paid, ridiculously biased, or bare-bone garbage pushed out for money). Yet due to the circumstance of this game, I felt like I needed to. Please ignore my lack of articulation.

    I remember playing FF7 for the first time. It wasn't    This is my first, and most likely, my last review. I have never felt the need to ever review any game (largely because I think most reviews are either paid, ridiculously biased, or bare-bone garbage pushed out for money). Yet due to the circumstance of this game, I felt like I needed to. Please ignore my lack of articulation.

    I remember playing FF7 for the first time. It wasn't actually my first Final Fantasy. That honor (or dishonor, depending on who you are) goes to FFX. Seeing how much I enjoyed that game, I decided to backtrack through the catalog. Thus, a couple of games later, I stumbled on the majesty that is FF7. The moment I booted up that game, I knew I was in for something special.

    Despite the limitations of technology, the somewhat unreliable translation, and missteps here and there, FF7 has stood the test of time as one of, if not, the greatest JRPG of all time. The atmosphere, plot, characters, and battle mechanics are truly a wonderful experience and something every JRPG fan should enjoy. Whether or not you believe FF7 is overrated, most will agree that it's place in gaming history is an important and significant one.

    That's why, despite the recent SE track record, I, along with many others, were very excited when they announced the FF7 remake. For decades we discussed, with childish gleefulness, what a FF7 remake would look like. The idea of the world of FF7 being expanded upon with modern technology and a vast amount of resources made most of us extremely excited with high hopes of seeing our beloved game in a new light. And then, reality hit with the release of FF7R.

    It's not good. I knew there was going to be many changes to the game. How could there not be? Most remakes of any medium suffer through such changes. What I didn't expect was a complete butchering of the original plot and characters. The amount of nonsense added into the plot and character changes basically makes this game not a FF7 remake, but more of a Kingdom Hearts reboot, masquerading in a FF7 suit.

    Before I complain, let's start off with the good. The combat, atmosphere, and certain expansions of side characters are all great; especially the character development of the rest of the cast of AVALANCHE and I personally think they did a good job with the design of Midgar. They truly bring the mechanical city to life. I also found the combat to be enjoyable; Nomura seems to have managed to take the best parts of FFXV and KH, and combine it into something that is highly enjoyable and very intuitive to play. The boss characters aren't just "mash A to win"; despite being an ARPG, there is still a bit of strategy and thinking involved. This is all good.

    Here's the bad: They have completely massacred FF7. The plot has been convoluted with what I can only describe as "Kingdom Hearts BS" (That's a quote from IGN, not me). I don't want to spoil anything but if you are going into this game expecting a "faithful remake" or maybe even just "a complete overhaul that hits all the major beats of the original", you will be disappointed. So many things have been changed that this feels like a deluded fans weird interpretation of what they think it SHOULD have been instead of what it was. Decisions made completely change character's motivations, flaws, and the weight of their choices. No longer are you hit with wonderful story telling, character development, and themes of loss, accepting who you are, and guilt like in the original. No, this "remake" feels like a cash grab that found all the superficial aspects of the original and jacked it up to 11. It honestly is a travesty and a complete betrayal to any of the OG fans and/or purists.

    If you can ignore all that (which how could you? It's an JRPG; like most, it's entire spirit revolves around it's plot) There are still major issues. The side quests are nothing but glorified fetch quests, characters both new and old, feel like flat, hollow characters. While Midgar does have amazing atmosphere, the actual textures themselves are horrible. The pacing of the game is also off; menial tasks seem to take unnecessarily forever, most likely in an attempt to pad out the game. This game either should have been 30% shorter with a smaller price tag or they shouldn't have padded out so much of Midgar and ended the journey farther along in the plot. It honestly is a mess.

    This is why I'm giving the game a 5. I just can not forgive what they did to the plot of this game. It's borderline treason to those who have waited and begged for decades. We did not want some form of re-imagination or "pseudo-sequel"; what we wanted was a faithful remake with QoL changes and expansion of what was there (like how it was advertised). While ridiculous, all the people who are giving 0s are just fans who feel betrayed like I do. There is a lot of good here, specifically the combat. But the bread and butter of what makes a good JRPG has been tainted.    … Expand
  19. BanMaster
    Apr 13, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It's NOT a remake it's kinda a Kingdom Hearts sequel.

    The positive things:
    Some music, some great arrangements
    The combat is something i liked (although enemies just focus who's in control)
    Some voice acting is really good and some not so.. like Sephiroth and Zack
    The graphics are fine for the most part. Although some textures wont show up. ("but there's a day one patch" my ass)

    The negative things
    Plot ghosts everywhere.
    The side quests are boring
    Not a lot of monsters/humans spawning to fight ("but theres a arena" yeah sure still not much..)
    Cloud PTSD-ing in the church seeing Aerith die
    No bloodtrail"in the Shinra building or the lack of blood overall, like Corneos dungeon
    (i last cut my finger and when i checked there was NO smoke coming out)
    Barret letting president Shinra live (we killed 5000 soldiers so far but noooo not president Shinra)
    "We fight against Destiny" Bulls**t
    Everybody lives Biggs Wedge (Jessie most likely or not don't care) and a whole lot of Sector 7
    Seto Kaiba enters the game... i mean Rufus with some belt problems
    Even ZACK!! survived..... (he can be a Sephiroth Clone for all that matter now)

    They even killed the word REMAKE cuz its not    … Expand
  20. skads7
    Apr 10, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Por favor, Square Enix, dejaos de rollos y no llaméis a este juego REMAKE, porque no lo es. Esto es un REBOOT/ SECUELA EXTRAÑA, con todas las palabras. Vivimos en un mundo donde un juego como este, que se inventa por arte de magia finales donde no los hay, con viajes en el tiempo y miles de mierdas que no vienen a cuento, se lleva nueves, cuando este juego no vale más de un 6.

    Final Fantasy VII no es ni Chrono Trigger, ni Kingdom Hearts ni Harry Potter. Los viajes en el tiempo, los espectros, los mundos paralelos y las pajas mentales que os montáis, cansan demasiado ya. A los vendemotos de "Es que me he pasado el juego 20 veces, necesito algo nuevo". Si queréis algo nuevo, no hace falta cagarse en la memoria de un clásico, lo tenéis muy cerca: La ventana más cercana, la abrís y para abajo os tiráis, que vais a volver al planeta como Aeris, a ver si lo salváis, a menos que venga un espectro y os de un empujón a dentro de vuestra casa, no sea que vayáis a fastidiar la linea principal del tiempo ;))))

    Jugablemente, es repetitivo, pasillero y muy cansino. Ni justifica que el juego se base solo en Midgar y mucho menos justifica tantos años de desarrollo para este juego. Hasta Don Corneo, todo va como la seda y suave, ahora, cuando llegas a las alcantarillas, el juego cae en picado.

    Devolvedme mi dinero Square, sois una mancha de estafadores de cuidado y esta es la última vez que compro un juego más de salida vuestro.    … Expand
  21. kc0321
    Apr 27, 2021
    7
    This game has nice graphics , however the gameplay is pretty shallow. Most of the time doing repetitive missions or running circles in the map.
  22. LeChatwin
    Apr 10, 2021
    6
    rilliant in parts but too much filler content.

    Doing odd jobs for Tifa, the train graveyard, the dons henchmen side story and the stuff with hojo is there purely just to pad out the run time and makes the whole experience less enjoyable. If they had stuck with the original story they probably still could have split into two games and not taken away from the experience. Good for a one off    rilliant in parts but too much filler content.

    Doing odd jobs for Tifa, the train graveyard, the dons henchmen side story and the stuff with hojo is there purely just to pad out the run time and makes the whole experience less enjoyable. If they had stuck with the original story they probably still could have split into two games and not taken away from the experience. Good for a one off play through but will never play multiple times like the original.    … Expand
  23. Ahmed_Fahmy96
    Mar 9, 2021
    5
    It’s one of the best games I’ve played on the last 10 years The best ff game that ever been made I mean ever
  24. Corvonero
    Jun 20, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Combat has to be praised, it has improved a lot since FFXV. Graphics are inconsistent - Shinra is gorgeous while Slums are quite lazy, both in terms of aesthetic and size of the map.
    There wasn't any need to add fetch quests to dilute the game either.
    Main issue however is the story - as a fan of the original FF7 the remake's final chapter with major plot changes completely ruined it for me. I was open to minor tweaks, additional scenes, new sidequests or minibosses but not major plot changes with iconic events cut from the original.    … Expand
  25. Baristashin
    Jul 1, 2020
    6
    Final Fantasy 7 wasn't my best FF series I have ever played, but it is one of memoriable FF series that in my childhood memory.
    I always thought when Square Enix makes remake of FF7 or 6 it would mean they are desperate.
    Well, as soon as they have announced remake of 7, I thought this better be great not just good. Graphically I have no complain. I love to see Tifa and Aerith in    Final Fantasy 7 wasn't my best FF series I have ever played, but it is one of memoriable FF series that in my childhood memory.
    I always thought when Square Enix makes remake of FF7 or 6 it would mean they are desperate.
    Well, as soon as they have announced remake of 7, I thought this better be great not just good.

    Graphically I have no complain. I love to see Tifa and Aerith in flawless motion and Cloud actually speaks. They showed how big Midgar is and what kind of city it is, they have succeeded. At some point I was bit disappoint how meaningless NPCs felt.

    Battle system is fun, but I wish summon and limit break bar carries over to next battle. It's only available in one long battle. This is such a disappointment for me. You have to be in control of each character to build ATB or otherwise they sometime just stand there wasting time. I think they could've done better at this.

    One huge disappointment was quests. There are lot of sidequest you either skip or do, but some I had to search around not knowing where to go due to lack of information and guidance.
    I don't feel like I'm achieving by doing quests. I felt Square was trying to extend play time by adding numerous and meaningless side quests.

    Gamers waited 7 years for this such short game(I think about 10~20% of original?).
    I don't know what's Square's plan by making this game in numerous series, maybe 3~5?
    Maybe take 20 years to complete?
    I feel like they made a huge mistake releasing this unfinished game now and make gamers to wait 2~5 years for next one and another for next which I find stupid.    … Expand
  26. UT99
    Nov 26, 2020
    7
    Didn't quite live up to the hype mainly because you're stuck in Midgar for 35 hours but shows promising signs for Part II. FFVII Remake is visually stunning but lacks any real substance in the game play department as the combat is grinding and gets repetitive very quickly. Some of the characters like Aerith lack any real substance and gets very annoying quickly with her shallow dialogue.Didn't quite live up to the hype mainly because you're stuck in Midgar for 35 hours but shows promising signs for Part II. FFVII Remake is visually stunning but lacks any real substance in the game play department as the combat is grinding and gets repetitive very quickly. Some of the characters like Aerith lack any real substance and gets very annoying quickly with her shallow dialogue. Barrett is a stereo type comic relief character with a lot of obnoxious meat head quotes. Jessie is surprisingly a witty and charming character but her constant affections for Cloud become tiresome. Talking about Cloud he's apparently the biggest chick magnet in Midgar and reeks of being a emotionally broken bad boy.

    All that aside FFVII Remake isn't a bad start but it would be nice if the dialogue and combat had a bit more substance in part II of the remake.    … Expand
  27. Arcanaxxiii
    Apr 29, 2021
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Coming from a long time FF original series fan, this game doesn’t quite add up to the original FF7. First I couldn’t truly connect to the characters as before, plus the music is more “noisy” bkg filler. The gorgeous FF7 soundtrack is lost or barely heard. It only covers Midgar and introduces new characters too quickly. The mystery of Sephiroth is overplayed and much like the movie instead of the game. The story is jumbled or forced and not laid out smoothly or gradually. It’s replay value is ok. But you have to play by chapter not by free form as the original.

    Jenovah is fought too soon. It was a climax and surprise to learn of her. Plus you had to go to the meteor crash to find her. It’s like they jumbled the whole game into Midgar at once. No free world exploration.

    Oh and Sephiroth was not a one winged angel, he had many wings and was magnificently designed when he transformed. At least that music was close to the original. Oh and I hated that after each battle with main characters none of them actually died. Or most of them.

    The fact of trophies and rewards for perfecting scenes or mini games were a bit annoying but this may be the new thing. I liked the logic puzzles and exploration bits to find powerful items not see how good you are at pushing buttons.

    The dance at honey bee was fun but really wasn’t my thing. I tried a couple of times to perfect it but it was just not my taste of music or flamboyancy. To each there own. Seeing cloud in a dress was funny like the original. I’m glad they kept that.

    I do still like the game but I miss the original feeling of FF7. I cried when “Aeris” died. That’s the emotion I was expecting n this remake. Of course it’s only part of the game but I may not buy the other parts as I assume they’ll only get worse for greed and speed of production through anticipation or lack of funding. That’s only a guess. I’ll wait and see.    … Expand
  28. JesseDillinger
    Feb 1, 2023
    7
    I've never played the original FF7 so I went into this completely blind. I had a great time playing this game, however, you could easily cut off about 7 hours of filler from it. There's just way too many slow paced walking around sections and the side quests are very dull. The combat is fun af though. Even on normal it was a real challenge. Cloud is a very meh character though and JessieI've never played the original FF7 so I went into this completely blind. I had a great time playing this game, however, you could easily cut off about 7 hours of filler from it. There's just way too many slow paced walking around sections and the side quests are very dull. The combat is fun af though. Even on normal it was a real challenge. Cloud is a very meh character though and Jessie is way too horny. But great combat, alright story, nice visuals. I'll play the sequel.… Expand
  29. lgndsgn
    Jul 29, 2020
    6
    I'll make this short. The original was FARRRR better.

    SquareEnix is milking the hell out of this game. It doesn't even compare to the original. 1) The music has been butchered ("remixed"). No longer does the music mesh perfectly with the environment and really draw you in like it did in the original. The motifs have been destroyed to make it more "modern" sounding. The jukeboxes mess    I'll make this short. The original was FARRRR better.

    SquareEnix is milking the hell out of this game. It doesn't even compare to the original.

    1) The music has been butchered ("remixed"). No longer does the music mesh perfectly with the environment and really draw you in like it did in the original. The motifs have been destroyed to make it more "modern" sounding. The jukeboxes mess up the atmosphere by introducing music that doesn't fit the scene. 2) graphics are better, of course... but there's a hell of a lot more to a game than graphics. I feel like they dropped the ball. 3) wayyyy too linear. 4) ending was contrived and forced... again, just to say to fans "look this was an exciting ending wasn't it?"... 5) much of the story in this game is straight up FILLER... just for them to says "look, this is worth $60!!!". But it's not QUALITY story like the original. The original was pretty damn close to perfect in terms of story chapter and pacing. 6) 25% of the story seriously just feels like a dating simulator with a love triangle. This was not in the original and its so dumb. 7) way too many cliches.... how many times are they going to show us a character falling off a ledge like they're about to die and then another character swooping in to save them. 1 time is enough (or not at all), but SquareEnix decides to use this cliche probably 10 TIMES!!! Seriously?? 8) they had to add pro-trans "gender is anything you want it to be!!!" propaganda BS that, of course, wasn't in the original.

    Ugh.... anyways, it's not bad. I just don't understand why they have to milk it and destroy the soul of the game. Oh wait, I do. It's called money.

    And SquareEnix, if you read this, you BETTER not take out the overworld airship flying in the next one or you're going to have a lot of pissed fans. Please, please don't get rid of the airship/overworld and make everything menus and linear BS like every FF since FFX.    … Expand
  30. WondemanLocke
    Nov 22, 2020
    7
    Game got released too early, really much bugs, less testing and really annoying minigames that ruined a potentially good game for me. About a half of game time is a pleasant gameplay, then rest is replaying annoying parts of the game over and over.
  31. lukie116
    May 26, 2023
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The graphics are probably the most beautiful game of all time, I still absolutely love the characters, no idea why they decided to completely butcher the story and combat and add a whole buncha filler bullcrap to the game. If I wanted to play kingdom hearts, i'll go and play kingdom hearts, I wanted to play Final Fantasy VII with modern graphics and that's really not what this is.… Expand
  32. DrSiko
    Oct 26, 2020
    7
    I will focus on the negatives here because I don't want to rehash the same what others mentioned: The visuals are beautiful. The music is outstanding and the dialogue is (in most times) entertaining and fun.

    Overall, the game is entertaining and it's great to see the characters who we loved to show again in today's technology. What made FF7 great is the rich story and characters.    I will focus on the negatives here because I don't want to rehash the same what others mentioned: The visuals are beautiful. The music is outstanding and the dialogue is (in most times) entertaining and fun.

    Overall, the game is entertaining and it's great to see the characters who we loved to show again in today's technology. What made FF7 great is the rich story and characters. Unfortunately, the "remake" did not live up to the same level.

    The remake could have stuck to the original story and be one of the greatest modern hits, but they decided to manipulate the story to be 100+ hours longer in order to create several installments. The story was dumbed down the dark and nihilistic side. The characters are too cheerful considering how their situations are.

    The people in the slums look too "clean" as they are your usual Starbucks customers rather than what supposed to be laborers who are suffering from bad living conditions living under a huge metal plate covering the sky and inside huts with no lights and rats running everywhere.

    Some parts of the cutscenes and dialogs are cringy, like Berret's overreacting over how he cares about Marlene and the anime-like behavior of the girls namely Aerith, Jessie and even Tifa.

    The side quests are **** What made FF7 stands above all the other RPGs is putting the player into the action rather than wasting time on fetch quests and "bring me my cats" **** to fill up playtime. None of the sidequests were interesting. They could have invested richer dialouges and side stories to add more interesting characters but they dropped the ball hard time.

    There are a lot of levels with 1-2 hours of corridors and one-way routes that are too long they become boring and you just want to finish them ASAP to move on.

    The new characters are all cringy and annoying you wish you can hit them hard in the face, especially Johnny who isn't annoying in a funny way.

    Finally, the "ghost" thing was a very bad diversion from the original story. As I said before, because the original story is grim and dark, they want to fix it (it's not broken in the first place) by changing the story to a fairytale. I won't proceed more so my review don't spoil it, but the story is going to be a Disney-like franchise where people are happy thereafter.

    The game is ranked as "T" for teens, a game which 80% of its fans are now in their mid 30s and older.

    The game took too long to be released, and not even the full game too. You can see they used most of FFXV and KH's engine and mechanics so it looks like the game wasn't in production until far later when they reused the existing stack, which is not necessarily a bad thing.    … Expand
  33. supermalik987
    Jun 27, 2020
    7
    I did enjoy my time with the game . But i did felt parts of the game did drag on a bit to long . And the party ai really like Donoad doesn't cast for Sora bad . Maybe its just me . What i liked about the game . Graphics looks nice, Great soundtrack with a return of Nobuo Uematsu . combat was good did remind me of ff xv . good English and Japanese dub . I can understand why some fans didn'tI did enjoy my time with the game . But i did felt parts of the game did drag on a bit to long . And the party ai really like Donoad doesn't cast for Sora bad . Maybe its just me . What i liked about the game . Graphics looks nice, Great soundtrack with a return of Nobuo Uematsu . combat was good did remind me of ff xv . good English and Japanese dub . I can understand why some fans didn't like the game . And im kinda hoping what's going happen in the sequel… Expand
  34. Brianf
    Jun 26, 2020
    7
    The game looks beautiful and has great voice acting. The fighting system is real time and it’s alright. Tifa is the most overpowered character in the game. The story changes slightly and some for the good and some bad. They did add some fun side stories but the game only covers Midgard. The weapons and stealing system were my biggest disappointments with the game otherwise I would haveThe game looks beautiful and has great voice acting. The fighting system is real time and it’s alright. Tifa is the most overpowered character in the game. The story changes slightly and some for the good and some bad. They did add some fun side stories but the game only covers Midgard. The weapons and stealing system were my biggest disappointments with the game otherwise I would have given this game a solid 9. The weapons are more just for appearances. You can upgrade them anyway you want and automatically learn their abilities. Stealing is useless even if you get it to work where as it originally was required to get some of the best items in the original game. They really did an amazing job with Tifa’s character in this game though I well admit they made her a bit more feminine in this game. Overall it was a fun experience… Expand
  35. DionXFC
    Jun 27, 2020
    5
    This game was fun, but it's easily the most over-rated game of the year. The dialogue and script simply does not hold up against the elite in 2020. Graphically this game had moments of brilliance but couldn't maintain that level of quality consistently. Sometimes I felt like I was looking at a different game. The lack of polish had me realising that Rockstar Games, Naughty Dog and SantaThis game was fun, but it's easily the most over-rated game of the year. The dialogue and script simply does not hold up against the elite in 2020. Graphically this game had moments of brilliance but couldn't maintain that level of quality consistently. Sometimes I felt like I was looking at a different game. The lack of polish had me realising that Rockstar Games, Naughty Dog and Santa Monica are so far ahead of the opposition. Not upset I played it, but it's an experience I could've easily gone without.… Expand
  36. Hackslashshoot
    Apr 30, 2021
    6
    My first FF experience . I always thought these games looked lame. Got it free with Playstation Plus and gave it a go. Made it to chapter 6 and deleted . I usual give games a few hours to see if they grip me. This one just seemed like it would be a run around and listen to potion bottle clinging together with annoying foot patter sounds then fight a few enemies and continue. Lack ofMy first FF experience . I always thought these games looked lame. Got it free with Playstation Plus and gave it a go. Made it to chapter 6 and deleted . I usual give games a few hours to see if they grip me. This one just seemed like it would be a run around and listen to potion bottle clinging together with annoying foot patter sounds then fight a few enemies and continue. Lack of builds and customization hand holding . Dumb maps. Man i am so tired of that map design in games. Just not my type of game.… Expand
  37. L1nktendo
    Jul 19, 2020
    7
    As Big fan of all the Final fantasy games (except the online ones) I really wanted to give this a 10. But when the credits rolled after I nearly pulled my hair out beating Sephiroth, I was left reflecting on my journey. At times the experience was amazing but other times while exploring bland corridors I literally fell asleep with the dual shock in my hand. I feel like the game wasAs Big fan of all the Final fantasy games (except the online ones) I really wanted to give this a 10. But when the credits rolled after I nearly pulled my hair out beating Sephiroth, I was left reflecting on my journey. At times the experience was amazing but other times while exploring bland corridors I literally fell asleep with the dual shock in my hand. I feel like the game was unnecessarily but purposefully drawn out. I guess we will have to wait another half decade before we see where Square-Enix takes it next, but I hope it’s less linear next chapter.… Expand
  38. leothelionninja
    Jul 22, 2020
    7
    The visuals, music, and combat are outstanding and jaw dropping. The writing was beutiful but not outstanding. The game all the way to the last hour was honestly wonderful. But that last hour proved once again that Nomura is a hack-job director and writer..
    The problem with FF7R is that it is in fact not the game anyone was promised. The ending has worse writing that all of Kingdom Hearts.    The visuals, music, and combat are outstanding and jaw dropping. The writing was beutiful but not outstanding. The game all the way to the last hour was honestly wonderful. But that last hour proved once again that Nomura is a hack-job director and writer..
    The problem with FF7R is that it is in fact not the game anyone was promised. The ending has worse writing that all of Kingdom Hearts. Decides to ditch the original concept of FF7 and let Nomura do his own thing g. And honestly it ruined a game that would have been a 10 for me. Do not play or buy FF7R if you are looking for a a remake of FF7 because it is not that. It is an original series with many elements from FF7.    … Expand
  39. FuzzyFluffy
    Jul 28, 2020
    6
    I was honestly quite surprised to see the high score that this game has gotten not just the Critic Review score but also the User Review score both hovering in the 80s

    I think a lot of this might have to do with the fact that its a remake of a beloved old game that a lot of people have fond memories off the reality is though that this game is deeply flawed its rushed this can clearly    I was honestly quite surprised to see the high score that this game has gotten not just the Critic Review score but also the User Review score both hovering in the 80s

    I think a lot of this might have to do with the fact that its a remake of a beloved old game that a lot of people have fond memories off

    the reality is though that this game is deeply flawed its rushed this can clearly be observed through the awful and i do mean awful texture work and its clear this is not simply just because unreal engine has texture streaming issues its lazy

    the further you go into the game the worse it becomes for example at one point i literally gawked at how terrible it looked i was close to the end of the game and the entire background was just a gigantic flat low resolution jpg...

    The environments are frequently reused you will have traversed and seen the same areas multiple times before you reach the end often you have to backtrack through exactly the same areas and you will get lost because the map is useless and everything looks exactly the same

    their attempt to hide loading screens fails you usually have to wait for 10 seconds to pull a lever now and then and whenever you come out of a cut scene the character has to stand still for 10 seconds before you can move them often you cannot even run you have to walk at a snails pace as if the main character has pooped his pants i really greatly dislike when a game does this

    The game has obvious padding throughout the side quests are nothing but fetch quests what hurts is that they clearly have cared but only in very specific spots the graphics in the boss battles are fantastic

    there are some great effect work the main character models looks freaking amazing though everyone else in the game looks like they came out of a ps3 game

    I have no idea how anyone could rate this game so highly considering how deeply flawed it is but that is not to say the game is all bad i love the battles i think Square done a great job mixing a tactical sorta feel with action it is almost a perfect hybrid more tactical than final fantasy 15 which was really just an action rpg

    Sadly the rpg elements are weak fairly linear choices can be made to improve your weapons sadly there aint many weapons in the game the battles are great fun strategic and action packed but the rpg portion of the game is shallow and linear

    The story is really well told there is nothing new here but what is there is done well even about 10 hours of the game are cut scenes and it never slowed down the pace i enjoyed the story and the battles i also liked the bike sections i thought they were cool

    But except the battles and story we have non existent jpg elements repeated reused environments backtracking horrible textures and low quality jpgs to fill in for actual graphics if this game was not a remake of a beloved game if it was not part of a big popular franchise i do think a lot more people would be critical about it

    This game was rushed that is clear through the entire game it just becomes more and more obvious the more you play playing it for the story and the battles alone is definitely worth it but font expect too much i did not view this game through rose tinted glasses like i suspect a lot of people here did

    I have never played final fantasy 7 before but i have played a lot of rpgs and jrpgs

    because the battles are so enjoyable and the story is so well executed i would give this game a 6 its saves itself from mediocrity but that is somehow even worse this game actually had potential when you play it you can see how this could have been a 10 out of 10 game

    but it has such fundamental flaws littered throughout and poor decision making is a constant red thread throughout the whole experience

    And this is personal and not part of my review score but i dislike parts of the art style what is with the 1940s type of aesthetic for cars and character clothing? And why.. why is Tifa wearing plate armor.. it looks ridiculous i get it Square thought when making final fantasy 7 we can just mix our sci fi with our medieval aesthetic and nobody will be left out.. and just threw in the 1940s because why not

    but it often looks ridiculous    … Expand
  40. Quills
    Aug 2, 2020
    6
    I wanted it to be better. After so many years in development, and so much feedback from the demo testing, I wanted it to be better. So much was done right from music, to the NPCs, to the weapon upgrade system;however, so much was done wrong like camera angles, battles, and cutscenes. If you want to see more in-depth reasons for my rating see my Pro/Con below.

    Pros: Music: I LOVED the    I wanted it to be better. After so many years in development, and so much feedback from the demo testing, I wanted it to be better. So much was done right from music, to the NPCs, to the weapon upgrade system;however, so much was done wrong like camera angles, battles, and cutscenes. If you want to see more in-depth reasons for my rating see my Pro/Con below.

    Pros:

    Music: I LOVED the music in most sections. I usually turn video game music off to listen to a podcast or something and I haven't done that once with this game.

    NPCs: The sectors felt alive as I went through them. I liked to hear dialog about their lives as I walked past. Also, the little side quests were a nice way to "grind" without it feel like grinding.

    Weapon Upgrades: Really nice to customize the characters to support a play style I liked.

    Cons:

    Camera Angles: Why were the angles so bad? Why? Half the time I couldn't see where I was fighting or was phasing through other characters during scenes.

    Freedom of Movement: Yes, FFVII was a linear game and I expect some of that to return but in a way this was worse than the original. We have the technology now to make it so slow walking through a sector isn't the only way to get to an endpoint. Clearly they can climb, jump, etc. so why not allow that a la Assassins Creed?

    Battles: Warning rant/screed ahead. tl;dr: Battles make no sense.

    Hitting an enemy who is resistant to physical attack just so I can get enough ATB to use the magic I should be using is annoying. Special abilities I get, but things like magic and items should be available for use anytime. When I am fighting and trying to move away from an enemy who is about to attack, half the time I end up bumping into one of the other party members.

    Faces: For the most part the female faces were okay. Not always great but okay. Male faces were always too soft and rounded. They felt out of place when looking at someone like Jesse. It feels like two different art styles got tossed together and whoever did Jesse is the superior artist.    … Expand
  41. jallday
    Aug 3, 2020
    7
    what coulda made the game great came in small doses

    cut scenes crowded the game leaving the gameplay to take a passenger seat. didnt feel they needed to stretch such a small portion of the game so much only to not really have a ending. controls, fighting systems and visuals were all great tho. but they got carried away with the story and presentation
  42. ColinDa
    Aug 28, 2023
    6
    Not bad, but unfortunately it is hard to really hold my interest to keep playing the game. I do like the game but at the same time you are largely working on the game chapter by chapter and there is only so much that can be done in a chapter. After a bit of trial and error I defeated the chapter bosses but all of them are brutal tough which made the game less enjoyable. The chapters can beNot bad, but unfortunately it is hard to really hold my interest to keep playing the game. I do like the game but at the same time you are largely working on the game chapter by chapter and there is only so much that can be done in a chapter. After a bit of trial and error I defeated the chapter bosses but all of them are brutal tough which made the game less enjoyable. The chapters can be finished on easy but you need to complete the chapters on normal to unlock chapter select. And the story is different from the original but for the most part the changes make sense. For me it a game you finish it up perhaps get as many trophies and you can then never play again.… Expand
  43. SeaSphynx
    Jun 14, 2021
    7
    It took a while for the game to sorta click with me but when it did it wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. The non-battle gameplay is the most boring thing ever, the story ending is the most confusing thing ever, and WOW is the dialogue absolutely atrociously annoying and The game is fun and even exhilarating at some points but so much of it feels like cheap filler quests that, as aIt took a while for the game to sorta click with me but when it did it wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. The non-battle gameplay is the most boring thing ever, the story ending is the most confusing thing ever, and WOW is the dialogue absolutely atrociously annoying and The game is fun and even exhilarating at some points but so much of it feels like cheap filler quests that, as a whole, it didn't live up to what I find fun and/or interesting.… Expand
  44. AnthonyRickard
    Nov 26, 2020
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Combat is okay when camera can keep up. Don't even mention the frame rate in areas. Graphics are gorgeous, until you're on the plate looking down on the slums. 7 months later and it still hasn't been patched

    The story and setting is fantastic for the first 90% of the game. You're being fleshed into the avalanche plotline and fight, while getting mild flashes of intrigue towards sephiroth, just like the original, then you get to the final couple hours of the game and OH BOY, does it get whack. Sephiroth all of a sudden gets forced to be a final boss. You spend 40 hours plus fighting Shinra, getting emotionally involved, absorbed into the lore, to then be told at the end 'ok, sephiroth bad guy, go kill'


    Sephiroth is the villain, I get it, but considering this remake is just up to midgar, there is still a whole two thirds of the original game that would continue to build up the sephiroth fight, but in the remake, I'm expected to care about sephiroth in the last 2 hours, after spending 40 hours battling shinra and enjoying midgar. Just seems tagged on, almost like that ran out of ideas in how they can actually 're-boot' the next game. Most areas are glorified hallways. No where near as bad as ff13, but they have learned to be a bit more discreet about it. Gameplay boils down to 'run forward, squeeze through rubble gap, fight enemy, run forward, destroy item cache's, walk forward, rinse and repeat. EXCEPT, now 5 minute sections of the original game are padded out to last an hour. People will try and say it's fleshed out, but it's just running through bland repetitive dungeons. It's padding, nothing more, nothing less. All in all, as a mega ff7 fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the expanded avalanve Vs shinra plot, the main cast where well voice acted and incredibly likeable, and the combat is a big improvement from ff15, with lovely visuals. The general gameplay and late plotline will inevitably frustrate you, and make you question whether it was even worth playing. Knowing the route the plot is now going down in the second part, I won't be in any rush to play part 2 when it does come out. 7/10    … Expand
  45. v__GALAHAD__v
    Dec 14, 2020
    7
    FFVII remake is a great experience for anyone that owns a PS4. The setting of Midgard is visually stunning and creative, not to mention the graphics are stellar (apart from some very bad background visuals in one area). The combat is amazing, it's a perfect blend of real time action and turn based combat that is well complemented with a varied party and plenty of weapons and skills at yourFFVII remake is a great experience for anyone that owns a PS4. The setting of Midgard is visually stunning and creative, not to mention the graphics are stellar (apart from some very bad background visuals in one area). The combat is amazing, it's a perfect blend of real time action and turn based combat that is well complemented with a varied party and plenty of weapons and skills at your disposal.

    The overall plot for me was intriguing enough to keep playing and really lives up to the title of this game being a REMAKE and not a carbon copy of the original. The highlight for me was visiting Sector 6 where the game really shines and also the jaw dropping finale.

    The characters writing for me was below par with overly dramatic lines and cringeworthy dialogue exchanges. This doesn't help by the wooden English acting of some characters, particularly Cloud. The overuse of Sephiroth really makes the character less intimidating and more of a crazy ex that will not leave you alone.

    One major flaw of this game is the amount of padding it has. Certain chapters and scenes are excruciatingly drawn out, particularly chapters 4, 6 and a particularly annoying scene in chapter 12.    … Expand
  46. L30x
    Dec 28, 2020
    7
    The good:
    - Excellent combat system. Never gets boring and is very fluent as well as complex and punishing if you don't pay attention.
    - Great soundtrack. - Detailed character designs (in combat and cut scenes) and overall sharp graphics with very little aliasing. - Good paced story with some nice additions (imo) to the original storyline. The bad: - Terrible voice acting and/or dialogue    The good:
    - Excellent combat system. Never gets boring and is very fluent as well as complex and punishing if you don't pay attention.
    - Great soundtrack.
    - Detailed character designs (in combat and cut scenes) and overall sharp graphics with very little aliasing.
    - Good paced story with some nice additions (imo) to the original storyline.

    The bad:
    - Terrible voice acting and/or dialogue directing. While the original FF7 was somewhat goofy in it's tone this one is outright hysterical and over the top. Barret in particular is super cringy.
    - Clunky and inaccurate controls when navigating the world. Feels very pre-gen.
    - The environment is poorly textured and looks like a PS3 game that got remastered. It is probably due to the very long development and this does not at all look or feel like a current generation game from 2020.
    - Overly convoluted and poorly explained menus. The leveling system and equipment is rather basic compared to other RPGs (not neccesarily a bad thing) yet navigating it is a chore.

    It is mind boggling how this game in almost every aspect is a step down from FFXV that came out 3.5 years prior to this one. And with the insane and very delayed development I highly doubt they will ever release the rest of the episodes.
    I did however very much enjoy the game as I am a big fan of the original and the combat was very entertaining so it was easier for me to look through the flaws. For someone who didn't play the PS1 title back then it might not be as easy.    … Expand
  47. zai_zai
    Dec 31, 2020
    6
    Pros:
    1. Interesting characters and voice acting
    2. Somewhat repetitive but fun and visually appealing combat system Cons: 1. Side-quests are MMO style fetch quests 2. Bad environment design, many quests will take place in hour long bland corridors 3. Ton of filler content when compared to original. Many design choices are added to deliberately pad the length of the game which    Pros:
    1. Interesting characters and voice acting
    2. Somewhat repetitive but fun and visually appealing combat system

    Cons:
    1. Side-quests are MMO style fetch quests
    2. Bad environment design, many quests will take place in hour long bland corridors
    3. Ton of filler content when compared to original. Many design choices are added to deliberately pad the length of the game which leads to uneven pacing and boring portions of the game.
    4. Hit or miss boss battles. Boss fights can be very unenjoyable meat-shields. Bosses often don't do much or take much damage leading to a wet noodle button mashing fight that does not feel satisfying.

    Overall mediocre game that I would only recommend to the biggest fans of Final Fantasy. Otherwise it is just a generic action-rpg that does not do anything particularly well.    … Expand
  48. Ausama95
    Jan 9, 2023
    7
    Good graphics but the combat is very repetitive which makes the game become boring, especially at the end, and story-wise it wasn't that special compared to nowadays games.
  49. Davidnotavailab
    Jul 1, 2023
    7
    I had times where i loved this game, and times where i got so bored i wanted to drop the game but then it got good again and i kept interest. However this game was pretty poorly optimized, and i kinda didnt finish because of that, which is sad. Still played 80% of it maybe im gonna give it another try sometimes, even tho its unlikely cuz some of the sidequests were so boring i dont want toI had times where i loved this game, and times where i got so bored i wanted to drop the game but then it got good again and i kept interest. However this game was pretty poorly optimized, and i kinda didnt finish because of that, which is sad. Still played 80% of it maybe im gonna give it another try sometimes, even tho its unlikely cuz some of the sidequests were so boring i dont want to do all that again… Expand
  50. george_bondo
    Jul 6, 2023
    7
    i'm not so crazy bout this game, this is the first part that I went through in the whole series, and it turned out to be a remake of a very old game (the game is very good as a remake), but whatever one may say, this is an old game design, where the story is not crazy, fighting the system got boring by the half of the game (by the way, in my understanding the game is very long), and at thei'm not so crazy bout this game, this is the first part that I went through in the whole series, and it turned out to be a remake of a very old game (the game is very good as a remake), but whatever one may say, this is an old game design, where the story is not crazy, fighting the system got boring by the half of the game (by the way, in my understanding the game is very long), and at the same time the side quests are terrible,
    but the game definitely has its perks.    … Expand
  51. Taken_Hades
    Jul 6, 2023
    7
    -7/10 story
    -7/10 gameplay
    -8/10 environments
    -8/10 characters
    -8/10 music
  52. backinred
    Jun 30, 2023
    7
    A triumph of hybrid combat systems, and a failure of thoughtful storytelling. Replacing the themes of environmentalism, corporatism and self-identity with a melodramatic brawl between ''destiny and those fated to it,'' makes of the Final Fantasy VII's narrative a juvenile clownfest that is as weightless as it is meaningless.
    It's overly long, and it's overly dull— but the worst part is    A triumph of hybrid combat systems, and a failure of thoughtful storytelling. Replacing the themes of environmentalism, corporatism and self-identity with a melodramatic brawl between ''destiny and those fated to it,'' makes of the Final Fantasy VII's narrative a juvenile clownfest that is as weightless as it is meaningless.
    It's overly long, and it's overly dull— but the worst part is that it's barely a resemblance of the original game we've come to love.    … Expand
  53. Shockscape
    Aug 17, 2023
    6
    Got this game, I think because it was free on PS plus at the time. I played it a fair bit and it’s OK. I couldn’t care less about the story because the cutscenes are incredibly boring, which is what drags this game down heavily for me. The same thing happened in FXVI for me, but the combat in that game was better. In this game combat is OK but gets repetitive and is pretty easy. I only gotGot this game, I think because it was free on PS plus at the time. I played it a fair bit and it’s OK. I couldn’t care less about the story because the cutscenes are incredibly boring, which is what drags this game down heavily for me. The same thing happened in FXVI for me, but the combat in that game was better. In this game combat is OK but gets repetitive and is pretty easy. I only got stuck on 2 bosses in the time I played. Overall it’s better if u skip the cutscenes but still not great.… Expand
  54. peanut_1223
    Apr 11, 2021
    6
    (+)Satisfying combat

    (+)Good graphics

    (+)Good music

    (-)Slow pacing

    (-)Boring puzzles

    (-)Awkward dialog
  55. Melopahn
    Apr 13, 2021
    7
    Was the gameplay fun? Yes it was, absolutely a pinnacle of the genre and a framework for how RPGs can move into the current generation of gaming. Fast paced, full of action, yet the aspect of strategy is still rewarded. Its the first step in the right direction since they ditched the standard Turn based strategy in FF12.

    Was the music and sound good? Absolutely 10/10, final fantasy    Was the gameplay fun? Yes it was, absolutely a pinnacle of the genre and a framework for how RPGs can move into the current generation of gaming. Fast paced, full of action, yet the aspect of strategy is still rewarded. Its the first step in the right direction since they ditched the standard Turn based strategy in FF12.

    Was the music and sound good? Absolutely 10/10, final fantasy music has always been excellent and the Remake didn't disappoint.

    An additional positive for me was the Hard Mode... I didn't know that I wanted that, but I did and it was great.

    So why isn't it perfect 10/10? Nomura is a moron! Not only should he not be in charge of the story he should never be involved in the development of any game ever again. The mastermind behind the **** show that is Kingdom hearts has shat all over the story of FF7 which was already questionable at best and laughable at worst. The issue is the original FF7 story felt silly and grandiose, with certain moments being serious and others being satirical. Going all out on the story and characters being "Gritty and realistic" makes the laughable stuff seem insulting to the characters and story.

    By the time this is all said and done it will likely make KH seem like a coherent and childish story. FF7 shouldn't be a shonen jump anime, but this is the beginning of that downfall.    … Expand
  56. Hackattaque
    Apr 11, 2021
    7
    7/10 game for me.
    Remaking and rebooting FF7 at the same time is a cool concept, and when everything clicks it really clicks. The train graveyard, the Corneo confrontation with Leslie, and the endgame section are real highlights.
    But the execution falls short. I was simply bored for half this game’s run time. The side quests are mind-numbing and a lot of the dungeons are shamelessly    7/10 game for me.
    Remaking and rebooting FF7 at the same time is a cool concept, and when everything clicks it really clicks. The train graveyard, the Corneo confrontation with Leslie, and the endgame section are real highlights.
    But the execution falls short. I was simply bored for half this game’s run time. The side quests are mind-numbing and a lot of the dungeons are shamelessly padded with far too many back and forth lever switching and trolley riding.
    I also think Sephiroth as a villain has lost a lot of his mystique and menace. He gets far too many close ups and flashbacks with no explanation as to who he is or what horrors he’s committed.
    I am intrigued for what comes next though …    … Expand
  57. AllanWake
    Mar 20, 2021
    7
    Junte um sistema de combate extraordinário com diversas mecânicas interessantes e únicas com uma história arrastada e enrolada de forma geral e você consegue esse jogo. A história anda a passos de formiga, com side quests desinteressantes em sua maioria. Esse jogo poderia facilmente ter 25 ao invés de 35h de história que ninguém sentiria falta de nada. O final é bem confuso porémJunte um sistema de combate extraordinário com diversas mecânicas interessantes e únicas com uma história arrastada e enrolada de forma geral e você consegue esse jogo. A história anda a passos de formiga, com side quests desinteressantes em sua maioria. Esse jogo poderia facilmente ter 25 ao invés de 35h de história que ninguém sentiria falta de nada. O final é bem confuso porém extremamente bem feito e interessante, me deixou ansioso para as próximas partes.… Expand
  58. alank8704
    Mar 25, 2021
    7
    First time playing a Final Fantasy game and any jrpg. I enjoyed but its not a genre for me. I dont understand why people love this game so much but thats just me. It was good for me to finally try out a jrpg and a final fantasy game. And i did finish it so i did enjoy it. But didnt do anything else except for a few small side quests. Wont be buying any jrpg or final fantasy game but if itsFirst time playing a Final Fantasy game and any jrpg. I enjoyed but its not a genre for me. I dont understand why people love this game so much but thats just me. It was good for me to finally try out a jrpg and a final fantasy game. And i did finish it so i did enjoy it. But didnt do anything else except for a few small side quests. Wont be buying any jrpg or final fantasy game but if its free on ps plus then i will try it out… Expand
  59. BrachiasB
    Dec 5, 2021
    7
    Finished the game, done all sidequests with 50+ hours on it. I have played and finished the original, and because of that, there are numbers of elements that made me disappointed with this remake.

    First off, the padding, and no matter who looks at it, this is a fact. Some part of the dungeon was really redundant like the ship grave, sewage and especially both of the Hojo's labs. Was all    Finished the game, done all sidequests with 50+ hours on it. I have played and finished the original, and because of that, there are numbers of elements that made me disappointed with this remake.

    First off, the padding, and no matter who looks at it, this is a fact. Some part of the dungeon was really redundant like the ship grave, sewage and especially both of the Hojo's labs. Was all of these necessary? Did any of the dungeons I've listed developed a major character development like the Jesse's arc? No would be the answer. Sure there were some interactions, but all of them could've been done on different area, I could just skip or cut the whole dungeon part and I would see no difference on story progression from before and after entering the dungeon. Hojo's lab was the worst, because you learn absolutely nothing new as you progress the lab other than Hojo is a mad scientist, where in other news water is wet. Whether you like it or not, you get to know a lot more about Hojo after getting out of Midgar, so showing that this guy is a freak by making you go through useless dungeon is not a smart idea.

    Second, the combat system. This is not a problem if you're on easy, but anywhere higher literally shows all the bad parts of the combat. The reason is the amount of attack from the enemies can be really annoying, like you getting attacked in middle of healing immediately cancels the animation for whatever reason. Not only that, the game won't give you back the gauge you have spend on the action to cast the spell and I think that's disgustingly unfair considering all the enemies on late game have super-armor (unless you stagger them but that's not the problem). Another thing is that I hate how some of the attacks can be unfair where it's nearly unavoidable. If there is an dodge mechanic, wouldn't it make sense to have certain amount of frame that gives you invincibility? Take a look at monster hunter for this one, it makes you feel fair if the game gives you the chance of not taking any damage, but the remake doesn't. They make you eat all the damages without giving you a chance of getting up. even guarding won't reduce the damage a lot. In hard mode, all of these gets worse plus even the weak ones are took too long to beat, which made me gave up on hard run due to it being a waste of time.

    Third, the whispers. Why do these exists? They only made the story more annoying to look at the moment you know what these things are, especially the beginning. Doesn't matter if they play a major role on the sequel, this is not the kind of things you want that never existed on the first place. If they really meant for a build up, then they could've at least made a new character instead of making a swarm of gross looking ghosts.

    Fourth, take this as my nitpick, music. Half of them were good/okay, the other half was a shame towards Nobuo Uematsu's original musics. Like the Jenova's theme was exactly I expected and I loved it. I also kind of liked the airbuster's version of "those who fight further", but the rest of the versions of " were terrible, they don't sound like the original in terms of epicness (like not including the electric guitar). The wall market's theme got changed instead of the very fitting 'oppressed people'. If you like them, fine, this is my opinion after all.

    The positives are the environment being top notch, really makes you grasp how it feels like to live in Midgar. Looking forward to the remake version of Junon, Cosmo Canyon, Forgotten Capital and Wutai. The turks were also what I've expected, loving those dudes including Rufus so far. I don't know if the devs will ever include the rest of the turks, but I would really love to see them.    … Expand
  60. LesandroBonucci
    Jun 12, 2021
    6
    my first game in this franchise
    +lots of unique Bosses,
    +gorgeous animations and music +cool combat system, (but i was getting tired after 20h,) -every 20 minutes there is a BOSS, i d like to get more story than fighting, so it was hard to play this game more than 2h straight, it took me 40 h within 3 weaks to beat it, for instance TLOU2 took me 40 h but during 1 weak. -cringy    my first game in this franchise
    +lots of unique Bosses,
    +gorgeous animations and music
    +cool combat system, (but i was getting tired after 20h,)

    -every 20 minutes there is a BOSS, i d like to get more story than fighting, so it was hard to play this game more than 2h straight, it took me 40 h within 3 weaks to beat it, for instance TLOU2 took me 40 h but during 1 weak.
    -cringy childish dialogues
    -side quests are ridiculous
    -sometimes turn based systen doesn't work

    its solid 6/10 to me, could ve been 7/10
    if you are new to these franchise, i would not recommend to play this game,
    good game, jusy not my cup of tea    … Expand
  61. Talents2SBeach
    Apr 29, 2020
    6
    Like others have mentioned in their reviews, there is plenty of good and plenty of bad. At the end of the day, my only real issue is that this should not have been a $60 game. Stretching the original Midgar segment works at some points; there is probably 3-4 hours of additional content that is not in the original game and really adds well to the story. Unfortunately, the rest of the game'sLike others have mentioned in their reviews, there is plenty of good and plenty of bad. At the end of the day, my only real issue is that this should not have been a $60 game. Stretching the original Midgar segment works at some points; there is probably 3-4 hours of additional content that is not in the original game and really adds well to the story. Unfortunately, the rest of the game's additions consist of meaningless and time-consuming side quests, long runs through dull linear levels, and repetitive fights in a clunky combat system.

    If you strip away the hype surrounding the title, you're ultimately left with a shallow and incomplete RPG that is 20 hours too long and $20 too expensive. There is still plenty to enjoy here, but there are definitely better RPGs for the money.    … Expand
  62. virtualvince
    Apr 23, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Finally did the Platinum, and ready to give my thoughts on the game. Played and reviewed on a base PS4.

    Definitely a ride of peaks and big dips.

    Music is excellent, cut scenes epic, the bosses mainly amazing, the characters and the combat, in spite of the inflexibility of managing Materia, was the most fun I've played in a long time. Also the story was engaging to me, and found certain scenes even got some emotional response, which rarely happens in films or tv for me, let alone in video games.

    Materia is key in hard mode.and having to switch it around on the fly is a requirement. No presets or load out switching here unfortunately, it's all about swapping around those blobs, and remembering or knowing what you were in case you want things back again. But learning about everything the combat had to offer through the Materia acquired was a real pleasure.

    Side quests? Terrible, absolutely a chore to do. I'm not talking about the VR missions, those were cool. In fact anything involving an arena battle type sim is fine by me too and some damn hard battles to grind toward the end of hard. The terrible stuff are the fetch quests, repeating same areas multiple times back/forth, and talking with cringe or cheesy NPC's, be it a little girl looking for lost cats... or fetching music discs to make other cringe unhappy NPC's get up and be not-unhappy, just happy cringe NPC's.

    There's also a hapless side quest strand individual called 'Johnny' who turns up, and is a super annoying "Bro". Most of the side stuff felt like would appeal to my 13 year old self, whereas the mostly engaging main story is for grown-ups. It's just a strange contrast. I'm not even against side-quests in principle. I've played games with great side-quests. These just aren't it, and totally go against the main story, and highs elsewhere.

    The reason the game isn't getting into the high 8's or 9's is because of its flaws, which are extreme to me. There's also some issues where textures are not the same quality, or not loaded correctly. Contrast the average chapter 15 with its PS1 background with 16 for instance. It's oddly mixed, suggesting they couldn't work something out ahead of launch, and left it as is. Not that it affected gameplay.

    The game is linear. Which is fine for me, but some people seem to dislike linearity in game design these days. For me, coming off the likes of Far Cry 5, some linearity was welcome this time. That said, there are definitely a couple of areas that open out, with a few alleyways and the like, but it's not that open and not that interactive, either.

    Also, the ending is confusing, because the producers have decided to add in some timey wimey space time alt universe nonsense, which will hopefully make sense in 3 or 4 years when they get around to the next game but the story overall was easy to follow until the end part.

    Other things I appreciated: the difficulty spikes, especially in hard with the last few bosses, the bike race segments, the amazing visuals in certain areas, e.g. Shinra. I also personally liked the voiced acting in general, although Barret started to become super annoying "duh duh du du du du duuuur", etc

    Yeah, a 6 is fair. Expectations mostly met, though major lows throughout as well. There's a lot of game here, even if some of the side content is very questionable. Part 2 could be special if they take the best of this game, lose some bad ideas and possibly expand on the world to be a bit more open and interactive.    … Expand
  63. Subject98
    Jul 27, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As someone who did not fully play the original, I was expecting this to be a more faithful remake so I could experience the story in a package where the gameplay mechanics are more up my alley. But it's pretty disappointing that they decided to take it in a totally different direction, and not even in a very clever way at all. Basically there's a swarm of ghosts that represent 'fate' and when they're defeated the story is no longer on any preordained course. It seems to me like the whole reason they went with this plot device is to make an excuse for changing the story. It's 4th wall breaking in a way that breaks immersion, and at a point I stopped taking it seriously. I still think FF7 has a really cool underlying plot and setting, I'm just not sure I like how they are manipulating the story and characters going forward. On the bright side it wins some points back for having decent writing and dialogue for the majority of the game.

    There were things I enjoyed, the wide array of well designed and interesting boss battles being chief among the game's strengths for me. But there are definitely some weak areas too. While the graphics and artistry are quite top notch, the level design is ridiculously simplistic, most locations boiling down to a long hallway with tiny 10 second detours. After playing a lot of other similar games to this, it feels like they didn't even try to make exploration interesting, which is disappointing.

    The combat is good and can be really fun at times, but can also devolve into a cluster**** other times since you are trying to manage 3 characters while enemies are flailing all over the place. The party system and the way you have to manage it during combat makes things feel less skill based and more just plain high maintenance. This kind of depth of party control works for a turn based game like the original, but in all my 40 or so hours playing this remake I never felt like it quite clicked for an action RPG with aggressive enemies that don't give you room to breathe. It too often felt wrong. As I said before though, during boss fights is when the gameplay is at it's best in terms of skill and strategy.

    Plus the materia and weapon system underneath it all is pretty meaty and actually matters. You're really shooting yourself in the foot if you don't try to build your party up in a way that the characters compliment each other. That aspect of party management was something I definitely liked. It's when in combat managing control over everybody's actions that I found to be a pain in the ass, since the AIs controlling the characters you're not using are a bit brain dead and rely on you giving them commands to be even remotely useful.    … Expand
  64. michaelb1928
    Mar 11, 2021
    7
    Ive never played the original final fantasy 7 so going in blind, So far i think its pretty good.
    Some parts i really dig while others im not a massive fan.
    Firstly the graphics are great for the character models and cutscenes but look a bit ugly when it comes to the world and backdrop. The combat is decent and the materia system is fleshed out. The Story so far is fairly simple but    Ive never played the original final fantasy 7 so going in blind, So far i think its pretty good.
    Some parts i really dig while others im not a massive fan.
    Firstly the graphics are great for the character models and cutscenes but look a bit ugly when it comes to the world and backdrop. The combat is decent and the materia system is fleshed out.
    The Story so far is fairly simple but interesting id like to see where it goes.
    The side quests are meh but overall I had a good time with this game    … Expand
  65. jinv
    Mar 10, 2021
    7
    The story is different in a good way imo, remembered me of Chrono Cross. Graphics are good, enjoyed to discover Midgar a lot, hopefully the next part won't be so linear. The combat system is actually very good, but the balancing of it is a mess. Materia-System works well. Besides the story line not much to do.
  66. Jurax7x
    Mar 9, 2021
    6
    Uma jogabilidade de merda, esquiva serve pra nada, toma dano do mesmo jeito, defesa mesmíssima coisa. Você morre por estes fatores não servirem de absolutamente nada.
  67. Mousebringer
    Mar 16, 2021
    6
    Puuuh. What was that? Short Version it’s a pretty mediocre game. The pacing, the additional side quests to expand the story. A lot of running (or squeezing) through tubes/roads without anything. The big arsenal of enemies just got wererat‘ed. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the battle system but besides the SCS or the Arena there isn’t much to fight against (especially if you don’tPuuuh. What was that? Short Version it’s a pretty mediocre game. The pacing, the additional side quests to expand the story. A lot of running (or squeezing) through tubes/roads without anything. The big arsenal of enemies just got wererat‘ed. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the battle system but besides the SCS or the Arena there isn’t much to fight against (especially if you don’t like fighting rats). And I don’t want to talk about Sephiroth. Nostalgia and the hope of good fights keep me going till the end of the game. There was so much potential but instead of a remake we got a reboot with the story.… Expand
  68. ynesmabooy
    Apr 29, 2020
    6
    bad things
    1- bad ending
    2- play this if you want to waste 30 hours
    3- this game should be 11 hours.
    good things
    1- I like characters
    2- the story is ok
  69. Ellgill
    Apr 28, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A fun game with great ideas that quickly loses steam. Story is strictly for deep/hardcore fans making it near inaccessible for newcomers to have any real idea of what’s going on.

    Acting and design is strong but the dialogue is woeful and for all the fun the game offers, there’s many a gripe as well.

    Combat seems almost too aware of your actions, landing perfect knockout blows right when you take a potion to heal, even moving very conveniently out of the way of your powerful attacks.... don’t even get me started on tonberry!

    I found the game came to a grinding halt the second I arrived at wall market, I became so disinterested that I quickly skipped cutscenes without any second thought, because it had drifted so far and so comically and stupidly from where we had started with such potential... if I wanted to dress as a woman and have a dance competition, I could have done it in my lounge for free, not spend sixty quid to press four buttons over and over for literally no reason whatsoever beyond, the game being stupidly over padded.

    If your hoping to find out what the fuss is about this sephiroth character? Then tough luck! You’re better saving the money and just finding out on YouTube if your that bothered, the game refuses to do anything captivating with him or deepen his story... he seems to just exist to look cool because, cool sells!

    Truth be told, this game should only take you about 5 hours to complete, that’s the real depth of what’s presented here. The rest is just wasting your time and not even rewarding you for it... go and round up some cats for half an hour just to get some xp and small money reward. And you will! Because you’ve received so little that you think you’ll miss something and ultimately you don’t!... my advice? Don’t even bother with the quests! There’s nothing enjoyable about them and they get lazily repetitive.

    Found the game to be a real shame, I don’t get the hype at all. The original must be completely different to be heralded as one of the greats because this is average at best.    … Expand
  70. Vanta77
    May 3, 2020
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Amazing game that was 10/10 for me until the ending that brought it down quite a bit.
    Its still a fantastic experience, i absolutely loved it but i dont like that newcomers feel like they have to play Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus and watch Advent Children to understand that Nomura wants Sephiroth to be a time traveler because thats his idea that ruined Kingdom Hearts which assumed people needed to play the 3DS game called Dream Drop Distance along with bunch of story added via phone app *breathes*

    That being said, excluding the ridiculous fate whispers and the minor problem yet new questionable additions like the japanese marketing booster Leslie and the "funny" obnoxious soldier Roche, FFVII Re-Imagined is ridiculously good. The music is good, although i wish we could switch to a different more similar original music though. I loved the Coliseum, even the sidequests because i loved having more to do, spending time with my favorite characters and not just rushing through the short part of Midgar. So i loved many of the new "filler additions" personally.

    The battle mode and graphics (excluding the background at times) is fantastic, the cinematics (when no whispers are around) is 10/10 and depth of the characters is 12/10, Aerith and Tifa are by far the coolest characters and i had to pinch myself a few times while playing, i'm really playing this timeless classic re-imagined, very similarily when i experienced as a 11 years old when it came out. The ending was the only boring part to me and i miss Sephiroth's depth, main good guys got some great depth but he really seemed to lose his mysterious presence in the game, where he killed President Shinra, while dragging the bloody body of Jenova out of the Shinra HQ while the gang was imprisoned (Which didnt happen in this game, minor bummer). We probably wont be astonished at him hanging the snake on a pole either. I just wish this was really a remake since the writers are expecting everyone to know Sephiroth so thats definetly less special for newcomers and to sum it up by time traveling and alternate timelines is just poor writing, one Nomura excels at unfortunately.

    Also the fact that the game isnt allowed to be more brutal is kinda annoying, you just dont see blood which is ridiculous.
    Original game was way more eery and dark, which was kinda one of its main atmospheric strengths.
    I also sincerely hope (which is my main concern) that we wont see more time travel/alternate timelines like Nomura did in Kingdom Hearts, i hope the Avalanche gang wont ALL survive and i really hope the heroic sacrifices that really made the story great, will not be touched, especially not through Cloud going through time to save certain someone. i sincerely hope FFVII will get to stay faithful to its roots while of course trying lots of new things that dont ruin the greatest moments. Making Zack and Aerith stay alive would probably be the worst decision they could ever make.

    My favorite moments were way too many, i loved the Honey Bee inn, Aerith smacking gangsters with chairs and Tifa being able to train in the gym as well. Sooo many fun details that were added, the materia system is fantastic, leveling up weapons was a good idea while not having too many of them. Also great that the game has New game plus and japanese voice acting. So if i wanna redo chapters i can have different language and play the game at my pace, Hard mode is really well done and the gameplay value is alot. I feel like those that love the game can easily end up playing 150 hours in 2-3 playthroughs. Incredible ride overall and i really hope Nomura wont screw this up, FFVII might become 4-5 parts even, who knows.
    I dont mind it as long as there are no more Whispers and time travel. Thats my only concern and what brought my rating down to 8/10.    … Expand
  71. Djcs4560
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    The game will sell and this "Remake" project will continue. This the reason why i am so pissed, because we were lied to... Not to spoil anything but the ending becomes metaphysical and becomes everything that OG FF7 wasn`t, when this was supposed to be a "Faithful Remake". The game for some reason also spoils like 90% of what happens after Midgar and ruins the main villain by introducingThe game will sell and this "Remake" project will continue. This the reason why i am so pissed, because we were lied to... Not to spoil anything but the ending becomes metaphysical and becomes everything that OG FF7 wasn`t, when this was supposed to be a "Faithful Remake". The game for some reason also spoils like 90% of what happens after Midgar and ruins the main villain by introducing him way early and making him super cool without caring about his development as character, style over substance basically. Remember the theme of death in the OG, and how it was permanent and you had to deal with it, not anymore in Remake and probably, most likely, the iconic death we all know won´t happen. This game is 90 Gbs, kind of the same as RDR 2, and look at the open world they made... are you telling me they could not expand the map a bit more so we could see more of the top plate? And not just that, sometimes you get a literal image as a background, why? The changes that expanded on what was there, i mean the OG themes and overall story, were AMAZING and i cannot express that more... now the new stuff, well just AWFULL... Graphics and music overall were very good and character interaction and development, except for one ( main villain ), were also very good. Why a 5? If i give it a 0 i would just be unreasonable, but if i gave it more than a 5 i would express that i was okay with what devs are trying to pull with that ending... So a 5 it is...… Expand
  72. mook
    Apr 23, 2020
    5
    2 / 3 for presentation
    1.5 / 3 for game-play
    2 / 3 other 5.5 / 9 total Summary: Good, but not good enough for what is going to be a £150 remake. Pros: The lead characters and summons look fantastic The environment set pieces are at times great Nostalgia, so much nostalgia Music, the score is fantastic The characters are more fleshed out and their tensions play better in this    2 / 3 for presentation
    1.5 / 3 for game-play
    2 / 3 other
    5.5 / 9 total

    Summary:
    Good, but not good enough for what is going to be a £150 remake.

    Pros:
    The lead characters and summons look fantastic
    The environment set pieces are at times great
    Nostalgia, so much nostalgia
    Music, the score is fantastic
    The characters are more fleshed out and their tensions play better in this game
    Voice acting is on point
    The battle system, a solid combination of classic turn based and more modern concepts

    Cons:
    Somehow there's less actual game here than in the original
    The environment set pieces are at times terrible
    The game is one long corridor, there is very little scope for exploration
    Short and at the same time somehow obviously padded
    Some of the environment textures are PlayStation 2 quality
    The weapon skill up system is complete crap
    The puzzles are terrible, like someone put the mechanisms in place and forgot to create an actual puzzle    … Expand
  73. KnightForlorn
    May 8, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Can an ending ruin a game? Like GoT became a prime example of this for TV, FF7R will be looked at as a case study for it in the medium of video games.

    The Whispers (or Dementors or Sephi-ghosts) prove to be the biggest problem in the game; overshadowing graphical issues (like NPC demon mouths), over padding (sewers and train graveyard), and bipolar swings between classic Aeris and all-knowing-reality-bending-demigod Aerith. This coalesces into the Meta stand-in for fanboys that must be defeated so the game can stand alone, divorced from it's predecessor. What actually results is a loss of any agency for our heroes as any and all struggles they face are simply preordained conclusions, the most egregious being the Sector 7 plate drop. After said rabid fans are put down, the game fast forwards to an unearned fight against Sephiroth that renders any further conflict with him devoid of stakes, since we've already killed him.

    Had the game ended with the highway, I would have given it an easy 8, maybe even 9, Whispers and all. I was riding high, excited to see what they do next, ready to go back for the Platinum trophy. But as it stands, I'm more worried than ever about future games and unsure if I should even continue with the series.    … Expand
  74. SplitMind
    Apr 18, 2021
    6
    Filler Fantasy 7.

    A FF7 Remake was always going to be controversial, but my qualms with this game are little to do with authenticity or butchering. I'll explain below. The graphics of this remake are top-tier and you can tell that's where monumental effort went into it. The character models are amazing and some of the scenery is spectacular. The downside is that the scenery    Filler Fantasy 7.

    A FF7 Remake was always going to be controversial, but my qualms with this game are little to do with authenticity or butchering. I'll explain below.

    The graphics of this remake are top-tier and you can tell that's where monumental effort went into it. The character models are amazing and some of the scenery is spectacular. The downside is that the scenery (especially the latter half of the game) becomes very bland and greyscale. This could be a result of the setting of FF7 but I found it quite underwhelming to go through yet another grey building with a darkened interior. This I think relates to my issue of padding and filler.

    The story is where the padding and filler is most noticeable. Despite being padded out with random and inane dialogue, the story still lacked coherency for me. Given that this is meant to be part one of a trilogy, it may become clearer in future instalments, but massive questions like who a person is, why they're doing this and how they know Cloud just left me baffled and unsatisfied.

    The gameplay suffers from the dreaded filler issue also. Despite being achingly linear (in itself not a problem), the game still tells you to explore and do side-quests, most of which appear to be fetch quests which are just more filler content that I largely ignored.

    Many of the levels suffer from antiquated designs, especially later in the game when you're constantly pulling levers and traversing elevators. One section with Tifa climbing across a ceiling had me nearly pulling my hair out from the ensuing boredom and tedium.

    The combat is a very strange experience too. I found that higher difficulties just meant enemies become damage sponges - more padding I could do without. The materia concept wasn't very well executed either as it drains money very easily (and things in this game are stupidly expensive for some reason) as many enemies are not worth fighting without magic, meaning duplicated materia for additional costs. It's understandable they wanted a more dynamic and fast-paced combat system, but swapping out turn-based mechanics for this mish-mash seems to be the worst of both worlds.

    Overall, this is a game that didn't need padding out and I am very reticent about buying the rest of the trilogy. It was very tough going to see this through to the credits but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. The final sections are enjoyable but by that point I just wanted the game to end. This is a hard game to recommend but it's worth finding out for yourself if it's your cup of tea,    … Expand
  75. Ichigozanget
    Apr 14, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. First of all is a good game but nothing else. Also bad done for the company calling it " remake " all who played it until the end will understand it. The ending that all people disagree, changes all the game to a spin off or a reboot not a remake. And selling it like a remake seems kinda illegal.... All media are judging it like a remake.... In second place if we consider that all is another story totally different it is other game not a FFVII. The point is All who say that graphics are 10/10 is a lie the npc are the worst of this aspect that seems from PSOne. In sound yes this title is excellent and the combat style for me isnt enough good. Other thing is the classic mode.... is a no-hands cinematic gameplay... totally dissapointed.Seems insulting for who likes to play multiturn based games. Needs updates in camera, textures and lipsinc.
    Above all a middle lineal title considered triple A with only fanservice with more of 5 years of develop....    … Expand
  76. DollyGoetz
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    Only 40% of positive scores have written reviews.

    66% of mixed scores have written reviews.

    64% of negative scores have written reviews.

    Metacritic, is not that clear for you that something is really wrong here?

    For me, this remake is a mix of both, good and bad game.
  77. Since1984
    Apr 19, 2020
    7
    The chapter 18 here completely destroyed all that good they do until it; it’s like a good meal ending with a dessert with mold inside... incredible. I waited this title with hope in the heart until that end. What a pity... p.s: thanks Nomura’s...
  78. Zark117
    Apr 20, 2020
    5
    I'ts ok, but too many anime/kingdom hearts **** in the end completely ruined it for me. If you like me hate uncoherent anime ramblings and ankward anime sounds and pauses, don't play it.
    also: why all the bad guys are left untouched, but the poor people working for them are beaten up continuosly. why??
  79. KovyPell
    Apr 16, 2020
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I got the chills when this game began. As soon as I heard the start menu music, I was dopamine blasted and it just kept getting better as the intro continued. I may have teared up.

    in terms of how the game looks, I couldn't have asked for better. It encapsulates many of the actual visions many had for the '97 version, I'm sure. For the first several hours, I was just so amazed at 'what they've done with the place'. They got it right. Weapons, I loved that they showed them when you switched them out in FF797, which was kind of a big deal back then. They are a true beauty to behold in the remake, I spent some time just staring at the Buster Sword on Cloud's back.

    I enjoyed more depth in some old toss aside characters (Jessie, Biggs, Wedge mostly) and that they were better at making Monsters that LOOKED bad ass and tough actually those two things in practice. There were bulls eye personality upgrades. Characters like Don Corneo and Professor Hojo really dug in and said, "No. THIS is how creeped out these guys are supposed to make you feel.".

    There was a lot of conversation padding, don't quote me verbatim here but at times it just felt like a big case of:
    "What if I can't do it?"
    "I believe in you!"
    "I can't go on."
    "You have to, besides, here's yet again another list of all the problems followed up by the list of pick me ups I've been serving you for the last 20 hours!"
    Cloud "You're right. Let me spit out these new things I have to say with my yet again newfound resolve!"
    " C'mon, Cloud. Let's go do that thing that you probably forgot you even had to do since we've been having this same discussion AGAIN for about 20 minutes or so.

    Barret: " Let's kick some Shinra behind! I need to be as offensively stereotypical as I can be, FOR THE PLANET!!"

    This is what happens when you make Midgar a game all on its own. Midgar is just so small compared to what the rest of this game world brings to the table. They think FF7R will fit in just three games if they keep this up? If they do everything like Midgar, our generations kids won't ever see the end of this remake much less myself. This is only a scratch on the surface on what the whole story brings, and it worries me that they will start cut corners on account now they're in too deep doing it like this. They did give me an employee Shinra Key card with it in a nice little tin case. I wondered if we all got the same employee number. Sadly they're all the same, they missed an opportunity to make the fans happy there. Nice touch, though.

    Boss battles, in some cases, pulled the, 'You may have defeated this version of me but how about ANOTHER!!!' too much. It's as if they felt the game had to be a certain number of hours long, which is fine, but it's a shame when you've looked forward to a game for this long, only to hear yourself thinking, "When is this part just going to be done already??". The final say......I dunno, 5-10 hours were especially guilty of this. They made some pushover monsters from the past tougher. Sometimes it really worked, and I loved it. At other times it felt planted just to keep that clock ticking. Things got a tad absurd considering these heroes have a litany of other things to go see and do beyond Midgar. Long cut scenes, however, are what you sign up for with FF7. I loved them then, and I love them now.

    UGH, some of the corridors and forced camera angles! The seizure inducing spinning! Unnecessarily slow walking! NPC's that take forever to respond to you (and until they do, you're stuck buddy get comfortable.)!
    Side quests could have been more fun. I don't want to have to simply attack a certain way X times before I can get a Summon. I want to FIND things. If I'm going the wrong way, I'LL FIGURE IT OUT. There are markers on the map! Getting lost in FF97 was part of the fun! Here we have lots of invisible force fields, and, "No Cloud, THIS way!". Okay, okay! Here Tifa, just take the controller!

    I do love what they've done with Materia and upgrading weapons. Battles have more of a Star Ocean feel to them, and that's fine with me despite preferring turn based. I like the summons, but I'm not happy with the money side of things. Cactuar and Carbuncle are already available for cash if you only got the standard version. Money should only ever be for cosmetics.

    When this game is good, it's perfect. when it's not, I think back to how it didn't matter what they were making me do in FF97 as long as I could keep playing it. This game, despite its flaws, was a labor of love. That said, um... do I get to keep all the stuff I got here next time?    … Expand
  80. DaLawUK
    Apr 16, 2020
    7
    Did i enjoy what i played? Yes.
    Was i happy with what i got? No.
    This is an honest non biased review. I did enjoy the game but theres things about it that have knocked it down in score for me and i will explain below, i will also say what i liked after. The length of the game is a big down factor for me, this game is easily finishable in 25 hours with all main/side quests done on    Did i enjoy what i played? Yes.
    Was i happy with what i got? No.

    This is an honest non biased review. I did enjoy the game but theres things about it that have knocked it down in score for me and i will explain below, i will also say what i liked after.

    The length of the game is a big down factor for me, this game is easily finishable in 25 hours with all main/side quests done on normal and no cutscene skips. This i'm not happy with purely because of the price tag on the game with the amount of content given, my guide for games is £1 per 1 hour on my first playthrough and i never rush the first time (closer to the price tag it is with hours the happier i am). They didn't have enough content at all in this game for the price we paid, i would have loved some endgame stuff like going back to previous people you've met and talking to them with your endgame party. I would have preferred just more story overall but any type of new content to make the playthrough last longer i would have been happy with. Platinum'ing a game isn't where the hours should be, all main and side quests should at least be 45 hours of content on a game like this.

    This isn't anything big but it needs to be mentioned. This game needed more polishing, there are really weird delays at times like when talking to a vendor/person it can take 5-10 seconds for the speech to even happen. There are delays elsewhere even in combat and just exploring that like i said can easily be looked past i just needed to mention it. This game wasn't polished quite enough its in alot of the smaller things that can just make a huge impact that they didn't look into and fix. I have an up to date PS4 Pro that never gets exsessive use, so its not the console thats the problem. The AI need to be looked into too, there's many times im forced to switch to another character purely to just spam square so they have ATB to be used, Tifa wasn't bad she generally had at least one bar there for me to use when needed but everyone else would barely attack to even charge it. I'd be sitting there with 2 ATB before anyone even got half a bar. In a real time fighter, not a turn based game this shouldn't really happen.

    I liked the fact they've added more story to characters previously you didn't really care for because you just didn't know them. I like that they've risked a realtime combat system for a game that was purely turn based and its worked just needs to be polished. I loved the change to the way Aerith gets her dress, that person amused me quite abit. The characteristics of people really stand out, cloud even while you can tell Zach's memories have taken over he seems to have more of a cloud personality. I generally really enjoyed what i played its just i only got to play 25 hours.

    This is the game Sqaure Enix really cannot afford to mess up, If these points are sorted in the next part they will end up with a near flawless game. The playtime however knocks it down quite alot. That has made me unhappy with the product, there just wasn't enough. If this game was a 30-35 price tag i would have been happy. Thank you for reading guys and i hope this helps with any future purchases you're deciding on making, i like people to know exactly what they are getting into. I could have made a much longer review but theres a limit here.    … Expand
  81. Nuraya
    Apr 16, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I found myself frustrated more and more as I continued to play through FF7R. Mainly because the highs are SO high and the lows are just that low. A score of 5 only felt right for the very mixed feelings I had playing it.

    Aspects that stick to the original game work really well, I find myself grinning and giggling at points I’m enjoying, but in the next minutes the new additions jump in and ruin the mood. New characters like Roche, Kyrie, Chadley, and the whispers (see: Dementors) do not feel like they belong, and even their character design shows this mismatch. Maybe if Roche didn't feel like an ex-Organisation XIII member from Kingdom Hearts, and Chadley actually fit in with the aesthetic of the game, they may have been good additions. And even though they spent time designing these characters, they didn't take any time to get us interested in them at all.
    Rather than add new characters for the sake of it, they could have spent that time adding to the stories of those we already know and love (Jessies side quest was great minus the Roche's motorbike skills) or working on some of the NPC's we need to speak to for the new sidequests which feel like filler and could have been more interesting. These sidequests also destroy pacing in this very 'hallway' game (that XIII got ripped apart for) and takes away urgency in areas of the story: "A guy in black was seen going to your house" "Ah I'm sure it's fine, I need to find lost kids now or they won't let me finish this side quest".
    And speaking of characters we already know, why the creative decision to make Wedge an overweight trope, why not give us some backstory on who Wedge is as a person instead of just "I'm hungry". And then he (and others) don't die where they had in the original, too many convienient rescues in this game for characters who's deaths used to having meaning.
    Another point of frustration includes Cloud's multiple headaches and forever ruining any build up of tension leading up to Sephiroth. Are his friends not concerned about these headaches? And then they see Sephiroth is still alive and there is absolutely zero dialogue between Cloud and Tifa about this? There was no suspension, and I was really hoping I wouldn't have to hear One Winged Angel in this installment of FF7. But I could have accepted it if the game had decided to end there...
    The ending. Square Enix shouldn’t have called it a remake if they were going to change it up this much, it should be called Final Fantasy 7 Remix Final Mix 2.7 HD the amount of messing around they’ve done now, digging Zack back out of the grave and cutting Crisis Core fans to pieces. Who Cloud was and how he got to be the person he is was defined in Crisis Core, and bringing his friend back from the dead upset me as a fan of the originals.
    I dont think I'll be buying the next instalment, I don’t want to feel what I felt after that ending again.
    All of this along with some plot changes that deviate from the original game really took the wind of the sails for me and had me sitting at an 8/10 for the majority of the game until the end happened.
    All that being said, I couldn't put the game down while I was playing. The music, combat, original throwbacks, Avalanche and team members are fantastic. The quality of the game is outstanding with a list of texture bugs here and there. I found myself frustrated purely because it's hard to have something SO good contrasting with what feels like forced new additions and in the very last minutes, complete obliteration of the original storyline. I would be open to Square taking the game in a different direction but at least hire different writers that don't make it feel like I've just read a bad fanfiction online.    … Expand
  82. Guitaristjln
    Apr 19, 2020
    6
    So disappointed in this game, from the voice actors wooden performances to the non-stop unnecessary side quests/puzzles to move forward in the game. It seems they tried really hard to expand the story from the first part of the original, but I think it wasn’t done very well. I would say borrow the game from a friend and save yourself the money. This game really worried me about the futureSo disappointed in this game, from the voice actors wooden performances to the non-stop unnecessary side quests/puzzles to move forward in the game. It seems they tried really hard to expand the story from the first part of the original, but I think it wasn’t done very well. I would say borrow the game from a friend and save yourself the money. This game really worried me about the future installments, but let’s hope this was a test case and they will refine their story line and combat mechanics on the next one.… Expand
  83. Nok202
    Apr 20, 2020
    6
    This is a decent but not great video game. The combat starts out pretty fun but gets really boring by the end. There are a lot of things in this game that seem to be put there to either slow you down or mask loading times such as forced walking and many many crawl spaces. The game is also very linear with mostly just corridor after corridor. But the biggest issue is that it's not actuallyThis is a decent but not great video game. The combat starts out pretty fun but gets really boring by the end. There are a lot of things in this game that seem to be put there to either slow you down or mask loading times such as forced walking and many many crawl spaces. The game is also very linear with mostly just corridor after corridor. But the biggest issue is that it's not actually a remake. I won't go into spoilers here but the game has sold itself on something that it ends up not being which I feel is pretty shady. If you like modern Square Enix games like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 15 then you'll probably enjoy this game a lot. But if you are going in expecting a true remake to the beloved classic then you are probably going to be disappointed and quite possibly even angered by this game.… Expand
  84. Alcolock
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. If you have not played the original before completing the remake, you should, otherwise the true experience is lost forever. FF7 Remake does have great visuals and gameplay and would get a 10/10 if that was all that mattered. The original took patience to deal with the turn-based gameplay and polygon graphics (groundbreaking for 1997 no doubt). But it paid off with a deep storyline that took turns at every break point and invested your experience into the character development. That great spirit is why a remake was demanded 20 years later.

    Being an original fan I could look past the episodic release even though the 1st episode covers only 10% of the original. They did add depth to minor storylines that extend the playtime. The remake story followed pretty true until the final chapters of the game. The developers unfortunately pissed away a good deal of goodwill of their fans by forcing the main antagonist into the story way too soon, destroying the mystique of this antagonist and setting the road to completely altering the story that was what made this game last the test of time. Unfortunately, I don't see the need to invest more time and money in a story drawn out as a cash grab especially when that story was the one important element that should've remained the same.    … Expand
  85. Coviddre
    May 1, 2020
    6
    This is honest review coming from someone who has experienced FF7. Also yes, FF7 is one of my fav games of all time. I tried to approach this game with and open mind but since it does have the name FF7 REMAKE, i will compare it to the original as well.

    This game will take you about 40 to 60 hours to complete depending on if you go through all the sidequests. Off the bat I realize that    This is honest review coming from someone who has experienced FF7. Also yes, FF7 is one of my fav games of all time. I tried to approach this game with and open mind but since it does have the name FF7 REMAKE, i will compare it to the original as well.

    This game will take you about 40 to 60 hours to complete depending on if you go through all the sidequests. Off the bat I realize that combat is changed from turn based strategy to like a real time action system where you can pause and issue commands. If you've played FF15, it's the exact same, and almost feels as if it was pasted on to this game with FF7 skins. I wasn't really a big fan when they used that system with FF15 and this game didn't change my mind at all. The camera sometimes goes wacky and you can't see what's going on for about 5 secs. The lock on system is shotty at times and can be difficult to control. You will also at times miss attacks, spells or even LIMIT BREAKS due to interrupting cinematics.

    The graphics for the most part look amazing. Midgar was recreated from the ground up with immense detail. The characters look great, materia is seen in weapons and everything looks good in action. Unfortunately, it feels as if the graphics are the only thing this game has to offer.

    FF7 Remake has a completely different vibe than the original, that at times feels like a cheesy disney movie. The story is mostly the same with some questionable changes. These changes don't really add to the story because they don't really feel engaging. The changes just add more confusing elements to a story that already had them and it doesn't clear up anything.

    Gameplay is extremely linear and they hold your hand through most of it. The puzzles aren't thought provoking at all, and just feels like a waste of time. The sound design was done well and i appreciated a lot the original remixes. The side quests in this game feel close to pointless, mostly serve as filler and is only for getting extra items or materia etc. Actually about 8 to 10 hours of this game feels like filler with weak dialogue and endless banter. It's understandable because Midgar took 10 hours to complete it the original, but why not just use those resources to fully complete the game instead of drawing it out? Speaking of complete, Red13 isn't even playable and is just an a AI controlled character towards the end of the game, which is just disappointing.

    Overall I was left feeling duped once the game was over. Square Enix built of off the hype that was FF7 and released mediocrity. Knowing that there will be two more parts of this at the price of $70 a piece is disheartening and I can't recommend this version to anyone unless it's on sale for $20. It's apparent this game was made for a younger generation and not the original fans of it. This one falls into a long list of remakes that shouldn't even be bothered with.    … Expand
  86. SouthTsar
    May 7, 2020
    7
    I regularly check Metacritic for 'user' reviews of movies and games but I never made an account before, did it just to review this game. To put it up front I am a big FF7 fan but did not mind the episodic release, the real-time gameplay, or even moderate changes to the plot. In some ways it is two games put into one, a fantastic 10/10 and a 5/10 which makes you wonder why anyone wouldI regularly check Metacritic for 'user' reviews of movies and games but I never made an account before, did it just to review this game. To put it up front I am a big FF7 fan but did not mind the episodic release, the real-time gameplay, or even moderate changes to the plot. In some ways it is two games put into one, a fantastic 10/10 and a 5/10 which makes you wonder why anyone would spend the money and time developing it.

    Originally I was going to give this game a 8. Most of the game was fantastic, the story, the gameplay, the world building, how old characters and places were fleshed out. It went down from a 10 to a 8 because there were several directorial decisions and new additions that just seemed odd and the pacing slowed down way too much at a few parts, at least 20% of the game, when it should have picked to match the drama of the moment (I actually didn't mind the sidequests much though they were relatively uninteresting). Likewise, the excessive inclusion of a character from the original that had very little presence at all in Midgar only weakened them with respect to the plot and compromised the Midgar/Shinra drama without bringing much to the table. While most everyone knows how the story plays out, a truly great story like that of FF7 keeps its magic with every replay/retelling and so I think it was a mistake to retcon them back into the story so early. It also went down to an 8 because of some of the graphical texturing and 2D pre-rendered background drops looked pretty bad, the Midgar plates in the distance looked pixelated to me (on PS4 Pro), which was only made more jarring when compared to the amazingly crafted character models in the center of the screen. Why is there no blood, at least in cut-scenes? Games can get Teen rating and still have some blood in them, they had talks of transexuality and basically a not so subtle allusion to climaxing during fellatio, but no blood? Also, the music was sometimes great, but some of the remixes felt off, and I was disappointed that the Wall Market music was reserved only for the Highway Ruin but instead got something lame in its place.

    From a nostalgia/story perspective, as the 1997 FF7 is one of my favorite games and I played it maybe 5 times, I thought most of the game respected and innovated with respect to the original in great ways. However, the last 10% of the game starts to differ in significant and significantly weaker ways and it climaxes in an utter garbage finale that makes no sense not only in the context of the FF7 universe but, even nostalgia aside, would make no sense in an FF7 Reboot that would have consisted of the plot up to that point. Even a particularly striking difference in FF7R from the original that occurs throughout could have had compelling meaning if tied into some of original's motifs like J----_ or the Lifesteam... but no, it culminates into a garbage finale that on its own would be given a 3/10, just garnering some points for moderate visual spectacle and some fun gameplay. Many have pointed to Nomura and Kingdom Hearts nonsense for that, and I really liked KH1 and think it's much better than the FF7R ending. Some people says it justifies the creators taking the game in a new direction, but that's not what most people wanted (is it even legal to brand it as a remake then?) and the Remake already differed in noticeable ways before the Finale without the ridiculous deus-ex-machina moment as a justification. Much of the game just awed me, and some of the additions and embellishments made future events, that I already knew were coming, all the more compelling. A great example are some of the Avalanche characters, their fleshing-out moved me all the more since I knew what was coming... or at least thought I did... In fact I did not mind saving (or not saving after being ghosted...) one of them, but then they shouldn't have had an earlier cutscene for them... Likewise, the expiration of the other members is done in a really hokey and drawn out way (example of bad pacing), should have followed the original where they are still talking and breathing till the very moment, well, where it would be impossible for them to. Well, the ending completely upends all of that, so, I actually don't know if they're dead or alive at the moment. The ending left me feeling utterly drained and disappointed... it's been days since then and I am still not over it....

    Kitase claimed in an interview that the rest of FF7R will still follow the original FF7 story... I hope so, and quite frankly it would be AOK with me if the rest of the episodes just completely ignored the final ending of FF7R-1 and ret-retconned the Big Bad to a more mysterious, distant position. I am tempted to give it a 6 because the ending is so bad, poor pacing and childish directorial decisions, significant graphics drops and poor music remixes, but I think an 7 is more fair given that 3/4 of the game was amazing.    … Expand
  87. danuffo
    Aug 2, 2021
    5
    Not my taste...

    All the classical feeling is gone, even the music sounds off, the original style was already good. The game feels more like a interactive movie (you know, the "quick action button" parts), too much cutscenes, irrelevant characters, no true turn based game. Only graphics get better but the rest get worse, there was no need to change the plot. On top of that, the    Not my taste...

    All the classical feeling is gone, even the music sounds off, the original style was already good.

    The game feels more like a interactive movie (you know, the "quick action button" parts), too much cutscenes, irrelevant characters, no true turn based game. Only graphics get better but the rest get worse, there was no need to change the plot.

    On top of that, the absence of a latinamerican spanish dubbing, it's a real pain to be listening american english voices specially when they casted star talents or youtubers as voice actors.    … Expand
  88. Yoshihito
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    As I play this game I have two feelings. One of enjoyment and the other akin to a heartache. I'm 35 years old and I fondly remember playing the original Final Fantasy VII on my classic gray PSX. However, over the years when I've gone back for a playthrough the one thing I always noticed was how bad the graphics really were. At the time they were pretty amazing, but rose tinted glassesAs I play this game I have two feelings. One of enjoyment and the other akin to a heartache. I'm 35 years old and I fondly remember playing the original Final Fantasy VII on my classic gray PSX. However, over the years when I've gone back for a playthrough the one thing I always noticed was how bad the graphics really were. At the time they were pretty amazing, but rose tinted glasses never saved subsequent playthroughs for me because everything outside of cutscenes and pre-rendered backgrounds looked polygonal and bland. For that reason, I've been a big proponent for a remake and have signed countless petitions asking as much. However, the first definition for 'remake' is to make again which is what I, as well as millions of other fans, wanted.

    I'm not so spiteful that I'll score the game a 0 so I picked my score to reflect not only how I feel but what I thought of the game in general. For me, it's a middling experience. I find myself enjoying certain character interactions and watching certain scenes that had a much needed and stunningly gorgeous graphical overhaul. However, I'm not enjoying the action combat and overall changes to the story. I will not be spoiling anything outright, but I will say that the ending of this first part sets up an entirely different story than the one we already know.

    The changes to the story and the fact the entire first part is relegated to Midgar is another reason why I'm scoring this so low. I've followed the development pretty closely and knew that it would only take place in Midgar. However, I was always disappointed by that fact and will continue to eschew them for their greed in splitting up the game into parts. No one here can tell me when the next part will come out. It could be next year, it could be two years from now or it could potentially be much longer than that. No one else can tell me how many DLC's we'll potentially be burdened with as well. And all of that scares me. And much like Final Fantasy XIII, this game is a glorified corridor simulator but worse in the fact that at least by the end of XIII you had a big open area to do stuff in. And I'm honestly surprised more people aren't outraged by that seeing as how it was a big deal when XIII came out.

    I have other gripes as well. The summoning system was completely ruined. If we end up getting later parts I'm super curious to see how Knights of the Round works out. This action combat was just a horrible choice all around. Sure, it looks cool and flashy but it's not what we wanted out of the remake. I don't know why SE keeps pushing away from turn based when their financial issues started when they began moving towards a more action based system. Their fans love turn based and would much prefer it over the spammy action system they now have. For example, I liked Final Fantasy XV but I can tell you with 100% certainty it would have scored higher and been more popular if they had named it something else.

    The lack of turn based combat, lack of an open world, and significant story changes (specifically ending) have soured what could have been the best game of the year, hell, decade. Crappy business practices and the continued spitting in the faces of fans have further tarnished the reputation of what used to be a great company. For all of those reasons, I give the game a 5/10 and hope that they will pull their heads out of their asses for future parts (but I won't hold my breath, lol).    … Expand
  89. heartstation
    Apr 16, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is a review from an honest FF7 fan who played the original back in 1997. I will breakdown this review into sections as this game needs a thorough breakdown.

    Graphics - Inconsistent at best. As soon as you get to Sector 5 you get a beautiful 240p shot of the slums and it looks so out of place. You might think it is a one off but from this point forward the game gets littered with low resolution textures and NPC's everywhere. Some would rival the PS2. Main character models and particle effects look excellent. Environments look great at times and true to source but often a low res back drop ruins the moment or just flat out bad textures.

    Soundtrack - Good but not great. Some of the new arrangements of songs fail to hit the mark and are often inconsistently drowned out by sounds or the volume is too low. I never got hit with the same feelings as I did with the original.

    Combat - Fun for a bit but gets tiresome later on. Friendly AI more often than not does nothing. You need to attack to get ATB up but you can fill yours 3 times over before an AI gets one section done. The game has a lock on target system that does not truly lock on. You will often end up jumping across the stage attacking something you didn't want to. So don't even try moving the camera around for a better view in battle. Camera angle is very inconsistent and jumpy. Battles go from too easy to overly frustrating very quickly.

    Voice Acting/Dialogue - I see this praised a lot but I found it atrocious for the most part. The delay when speaking to an NPC or interacting with a character has a very unnatural pause as both people do a robotic animation to face each other. Most conversations just sound cheesy and unnatural and that isn't to say the main dialogue doesn't suffer from this too. Gestures often do not match what characters are saying which is immersion ruining IMO. Barrett humming the victory fanfare makes me want to rip my ears off.

    Gameplay - Horrible pacing. From slow walk conversation, to crouch walking, to keeping balance over wide planks, or to the ever dreaded squeezing/shimmying between things. (These are obviously to hide loading sequences.) Side quests are nothing more than useless fetch quests to stretch the game. Yes they are optional but I always try to do these in FF games. These are the worst in FF history. Every small area is stretched out to repeating corridors and key fetching. These are boring and repetitive. Fighting the same boss twice just shows a lack of awareness and creativity from Square Enix. The bike sections are long and exciting for all but 2 minutes. Yes we all loved the motorcycle escape in the original but I don't think anyone enjoyed the 1 hour you spend on the damn bike over 2 sequences in this one repeating through the same environment over and over and over. I had to restart my game in 2 sections due to crashing from bugs. Once in the ducts in Shinra Tower and once in the final boss fights. Unacceptable for 2 parts you have to go through. Loved starting that fight back from the beginning.

    Story - Why did you do it Square Enix? You sold and advertised this game as a faithful remake but instead this game went full Nomura and now we are stuck looking forward to this? This is closer to a sequel. The new characters are forgettable at best (Roche, Marle, Leslie etc) and I really don't think we needed a trip to visit Jessie's parents. That whole part served 0 purpose like many other filler parts. The secret lab under Sector 7 where you fight hundreds of alien experiment things? Is this a joke? Does anyone even care what Shinra is doing at this point considering we get Sephiroth one hour into this and every hour after? One of the most epic moments in gaming history is believing Shinra is the big bad but waking up in the cell trying to break Aerith out and following the trail of blood to find Shinra with a sword through him stuck to his desk. Instead we fail at hitting Sephiroth and end up doing a boring Hojo lab grind? I won't even get into the ending because it is self explanatory. Dementors that only make sense to people who played the original like what is this crap?

    Personally I feel betrayed and hate the direction they are taking with this. There is already way too much FF7 content as is. Please bring FF16 before another part of this crap. I will not be buying the remaining parts of this. Count me out.    … Expand
  90. SmartBR
    Apr 14, 2020
    7
    Final Fantasy VII´s score is indeed a 7
    As a FF franchise fan, I´m very disappointed and expected no less than a masterwork after so many years in development. I´ll just list the cons
    - low textures, FFXV looks are superior - Camera isn´t effective in combat - Game is too linear, corridor curse from FFXIII - materia is too easy to acquire - leveling is easy and the cap is low    Final Fantasy VII´s score is indeed a 7
    As a FF franchise fan, I´m very disappointed and expected no less than a masterwork after so many years in development. I´ll just list the cons

    - low textures, FFXV looks are superior
    - Camera isn´t effective in combat
    - Game is too linear, corridor curse from FFXIII
    - materia is too easy to acquire
    - leveling is easy and the cap is low (50)...becomes too easy to level characters and materia after clearing the game
    - Game is very short, the duration is extended by plenty of slow walks, long conversations and 24-26 sidequests. No extra content end/post game.
    - Replay value almost zero, only because of boring trophies/achievements (hard mode,nine dresses, best in business)
    - Game gets too easy once you learn the mechanics, you won´t even bother with buff/debuff/stat remove materia...hardest boss is the gym owner    … Expand
  91. Drago_Zane
    Apr 14, 2020
    7
    The good, the bad and the ugly, i went through normal/max difficulty raking at 45 hours, used one third of my items and materia, limit breaks are sometimes rare when activated in normal mode. I also tried some scenes in tha game as easy , well, is easy. Some people might like it and some people might not like it, and here is the reason i'm giving it a seven (OK).

    The soundtrack,    The good, the bad and the ugly, i went through normal/max difficulty raking at 45 hours, used one third of my items and materia, limit breaks are sometimes rare when activated in normal mode. I also tried some scenes in tha game as easy , well, is easy. Some people might like it and some people might not like it, and here is the reason i'm giving it a seven (OK).

    The soundtrack, yes, worth it, some music that you will remember sound better, as if it was taken from the albums of Two step from hell, immediate music, positron music, Ivan Torrent, etc etc, all those stuff you find in their sites and youtube.

    The game straight out from the start fleshes the story from the original FF7 from the Ps1/PC back in the days, give more scenes and details on how each part is progressed by telling you more, and other moments that happened in between chapters from the old game, but some moments and parts you tend to wonder, "at this pace or decision making in the story is quite dumb/not smart so that you spend more time in levels or adding to the drama or pushing it as a shore". Still the story even with its flaws carries the game in most parts but quare-enix is once again going almost, not completely in to the (borderline) / returning to the non-condensed-monotonous BS way story telling of few games back then like kingdom hearts 3 and FF13-2, good games in some aspects but bad storytelling (not story wise in some aspects). I haven't played FF15 so i don't know how they transitioned.

    We got a few cool battle moments that some of it were worth it while others were seriously annoying, not because it is difficult, it is because sometimes the companions were "kinda" AI dumb or dead, seeing sometimes Barret going in circles glitching out, also seeing all of them just sitting there doing nothing but some battles it was just mostly a 1 vs 1 battle instead of 3 vs 1 battle and sometimes i used the exploit of the AI limited attention span to the player controlled character. But i would prefer that the enemy and specially some bosses would been programmed to be more of beating your butt even it uses their own spells that is fun.

    Also another annoying issue is some spells from enemies didn't have status markers specially paralyzing attacks, weren't stop/slow/sleep as they were rare in game, annoying but i got used to it, summons are also cool, not important but still cool to use and also necessary to cut short any long battle specially the chocobo summon    … Expand
  92. Shu_or
    Apr 16, 2020
    7
    I loved the game and game play but that last chapter felt like they took something great and turned it into fan fiction, I'm hopeful but very worried about the fate of future FF7 games to come.
  93. thegreencat
    Apr 14, 2020
    5
    positives points :
    - Game design, vibes : Very impressive, I spent times just admiring the environment and listening the different dialogues
    - staging : Every cutscenes are epic. It is, with no doubt, the main positive point of this game negatives points : - Fight mechanics: At the begining i said "why not ? ", but after 20 hours of gaming i just wanted to destroy the gamepad. Every    positives points :
    - Game design, vibes : Very impressive, I spent times just admiring the environment and listening the different dialogues
    - staging : Every cutscenes are epic. It is, with no doubt, the main positive point of this game

    negatives points :
    - Fight mechanics: At the begining i said "why not ? ", but after 20 hours of gaming i just wanted to destroy the gamepad. Every fight are boring, and the combat system suffer a lot of balance problems.
    - Equipment and materias mechanics: no interest, they wanted to simplify the old FF7 system and what's worked before isn't interesting anymore
    - limit break : Juste one limit break during all the game, a limit break who can be avoided or blocked ...
    - Esper : One esper per character, you can invoke them just for limited battle and just one time during the battle.
    - game's lifetime : 30 hours to finish full normal mode
    - chocobo : is it me or it's the first final fantasy where you can't ride chocobo ?
    - collectable musics : you can't listen to them during the game, only in some places, no interest ..

    mixed point :
    - history : Because i played to the original FF7 it's difficult to be objective. For me the story is half good half bad because of the altered reality they wanted to introduce in order to modify the original story. On my side i'm just disappointed but maybe this "version" will please the new players...

    For me this game deserve a 4/10 quotation, but in order to compensate my lack of objectivity i'll add 1 point. It's the reason why i put 5/10. For me this is not Final fantasy 7, it's just a reinterpretation of the original game. If you want to play FF7 buy the original game, not this one.    … Expand
  94. diolantern
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    Stuff FFVII, Michael Bay, and Ned Flanders into Brundle's teleportation machine and this bloated monstrosity will flop out of the other end.
  95. gloriousgoo
    Apr 14, 2020
    5
    A decent remake bogged down by pointless padding and an ending that Tetsuya Nomura probably wrote in his big fanfic notebook 10 years ago.

    The game proudly talks about "changing the future" and "defying fate", despite the fact they know 90% of us didn't want heavy deviations. Guess we'll see in like 5 years if the next installment is really going to be as **** crazy as we're all fearing now.
  96. DelitaThis
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The original Final Fantasy 7 is a top three game of all time for me and was my first real introduction into JRPG's on the whole, and like so many others I have been asking for a remake of my childhood for countless years. What we got, instead, was nowhere near what the fans of the original had asked for. Scenes are incredibly out of place (some impactful ones like the shinra massacre just downright removed) and any of the emotional weight of character deaths is exacerbated by the ghosts out of KHDDD2 that work as functioning dragonballs. Another thing, if you have not read any of the books, seen advent children and played Crisis core and or before crisis, most of the ending will not make sense. A lot of people I know were waiting for this to be their first pull into the FF7 universe, thinking it was just an updated and upgraded original like how it was marketed, but that is just not the case here. Without delving too much into spoiler territory this game is actually an alternate timeline sequel to the original events, to which you also find out that the original Final Fantasy 7; the game that you spent countless hours on to explore the whole of Gaia and save the planet from meteor, the game that taught you the importance of death and life being finite? Yes, that ending is now considered the bad ending. I wish I was making this up. While that may just be my critiques for the story, the idea of an expansion of this game was also falsely advertised. Minus just a single "walk to Jessie's house" area, there are NO new explorable areas from the original. There is no Sector 1 under city, no Sector 2 and 3 and etc. So how is this 4-6 segment now a 30+ hour game? Because they added time to go from point A to point B. The collapsed highway in the original FF7? That's now a 1.5 hour long use robot arm mini game that adds nothing to the plot, just tedium. Towards the end of the game as well, the gameplay becomes a little ridiculous as enemies just start soaking up damage beyond belief to the point where even staggering will not work. Despite that however, I did have a lot of fun with the combat except in shaky situations with a lot of enemies or certain camera issues.

    While I have only given critiques so far, this game does have positives. For the most part, the textures and graphics are something out of a CG movie. Yes, there are many textures which are just atrocious and look like they are directly pulled from the original (the characters comment on this late in the game) but they were stunning for the most part. As stated before, the gameplay was fun for the most part but it had its weird parts as well, though the majority was positive. The materia system is kept nearly intact from the original, and being able to use and level up all types of materia was also very rewarding and fun. Besides that, I would like to talk about the music. The soundtrack in this game is absolutely spectacular and is one of the best I have ever heard in the medium. The music is dynamic, and certain themes will strike an emotional toll with anyone who played the original (for me it was the remake of Ahead On Our Way). If anything else, the music is this game is superb.

    With that said however, this game assassinates what is Final Fantasy 7 in a fire so bright the Nibelheim incident looks tame. There are character assassinations, plot changes that will make ones headspin, and confusion and agony so abundant the final hour will be a torture for any fans of the original. If Final Fantasy 7 is an expensive painting I have in my house, I have just been tied to a chair and watched as my most cherished piece has been destroyed.

    This game and "Remake," if you could even call it that, has been riddled with false advertisement and character assassinations like some would not believe; and the most depressing factor is: we will still most likely never see the Remake that so many of us fans have been asking for since that fateful PS3 tech demo. I hope the time jannies/changebad ghosts can come in and save this mess, it's gonna take some major time travel.    … Expand
  97. tremault
    Apr 29, 2020
    5
    gameplay: no real opportunity to experiment. you fight a monster, it's gone. for the most part, in most areas, they don't come back, so how do you experiment? also, the battles go on for so long on normal, you get so fed up and if you get the wrong combination, you are screwed. and on easy you basically cheese the enemies so hard, your materia strategy is hardly even effective anyway.gameplay: no real opportunity to experiment. you fight a monster, it's gone. for the most part, in most areas, they don't come back, so how do you experiment? also, the battles go on for so long on normal, you get so fed up and if you get the wrong combination, you are screwed. and on easy you basically cheese the enemies so hard, your materia strategy is hardly even effective anyway.
    incredibly annoying minigames that catch you off guard and in some cases are impossible for some players.

    story: complete bait and switch. I got hit hard when I realised it wasn't what they led us to believe and I wasn't getting the amazing experience they promised. emotionally, I tanked and i can't forgive them for this.

    graphics: amazing in most places. really amazing. except for the places where the textures are obviously really really bad. like the apartment door. what happened there?? cats are amazing.

    music: some good remixes, but then there are other new music that are completely out of place and just don't seem to fit the theme of the game at all.

    pacing: the pacing of the story is utterly destroyed. the original game was crafter to give you the right feel of urgency in the right places and the feel of relaxation in others. an example, when don corneo tells you about the plate, you are really supposed to feel like it's pretty urgent to get there.. but in this remake, you are forced to go through incredibly long sequences with 3 bosses at least, and stupid dementor things getting in your way. that part is just ruined in terms of urgency. to be honest, the majority of this game has me feeling like I want to rush through it all to get to the next plot point.

    art design: The look and feel of the original is there for some parts but totally gone in other places. the underside of the plate was a gloomy place with the odd oasis of brightness and cheer. this is totally changed and now the places are simply junktowns in broad daylight with happy and vibrant communities. not the worst thing in the world, but it severely compromises the original concept of the city and detracts from the contrast that ought to come later with wutai etc.

    This really really hard to rate, because on some levels this is really amazing and if not for the bait and switch, the story idea could be clever and well received. I have to take all other things into account too, the pacing, the music inconsistencies, the gameplay, etc. I have to go with a 5 for this.    … Expand
  98. Ikarian123
    Apr 15, 2020
    6
    I am really disappointed.

    First of all, story, story changes and characters. Fine, I understand it is "remake" and not "remastered", but most of changes within game story are worse. Have now about 5 hours of gameplay, but I must admit I never ever met such annoying group of people like Avalanche, include Tifa. Barret - he was agressive already in original game, fine, he have right to    I am really disappointed.

    First of all, story, story changes and characters. Fine, I understand it is "remake" and not "remastered", but most of changes within game story are worse. Have now about 5 hours of gameplay, but I must admit I never ever met such annoying group of people like Avalanche, include Tifa.
    Barret - he was agressive already in original game, fine, he have right to be agressive, but sometimes, he overreacting even in totally strange situations.
    Wedge - only speaking with him is embarassing! Few more thumb ups and I will break his thumb.
    Biggs - wishy-washy at best.
    Jessie - probably least annoying and most finest character in Avalanche.
    Tifa - why? Why? What they have done to you?! Such great character and personality in original game, now she act like arrogant moron.
    Sidepersons (Marla, shop persons etc.) - terrible.
    What is most annoying is that everyone act toward Cloud like he is worst riff-raff and he even do not resist.
    At the end. Shinra Corporation is not much different from Avalanche. Shinra is greedy, Avalanche have messiah-complex. Shinra is arrogant, Avalanche is arrogant.

    Gameplay. Gameplay is probably strongest element.
    Openworld - fine, not great, not terrible, better than in FF13 I played as last FF.
    Quests - quests and sideactivities not worst.
    Battle/combat system - fine by me! Many people were angry (even I had doubts) about changes, but I think its fine.

    Graphic.
    There I have one very big criticism. On various places, textures and objects look like squashed low-res textures.

    Verdict: Game is fine and great for those who did not played FF7, but I was among those who grow up on FF7 twenty years ago and who love it... well... I am disappointed (at least now). I am not sure if I will buy another parts.    … Expand
  99. meiwaku
    Apr 19, 2020
    7
    This was a solid 9 for me until the last chapter. The ending felt like it was torn straight out of a kingdom hearts game. My score drops down to a seven because I really can't see how they are going to continue the story now. This really sucks because I was enjoying the game, but that ending left me feeling really conflicted. After letting it settle for a few hours I'm slowly beginning toThis was a solid 9 for me until the last chapter. The ending felt like it was torn straight out of a kingdom hearts game. My score drops down to a seven because I really can't see how they are going to continue the story now. This really sucks because I was enjoying the game, but that ending left me feeling really conflicted. After letting it settle for a few hours I'm slowly beginning to hate it more. The central themes of the original game feel like they're being thrown out, and I can't help but wonder why they decided to go this route. I have a bad feeling that the story is going to become a jumbled mess (similar to the issues with kingdom hearts). The sequel to this game is now completely unknown and Nomura can write whatever story he wants. After being disappointed with FFXV and KH3, I can't help but feel that Nomura is going to botch the story now. I just feel so conflicted because the game was really good, but that ending felt like a huge slap in the face (Game of Thrones vibes).… Expand
  100. Gamer1465
    Apr 14, 2020
    7
    This game feels more like a newcomer game than a game for the original fans.

    This game is really confusing as I'm not sure if it is a remake, reboot or a sequel. People know things they shouldn't and that's all I'll say about that but if it is a remake this is insulting to it's source material. Pros The graphics (character models are the best) look amazing, not the best looking game    This game feels more like a newcomer game than a game for the original fans.

    This game is really confusing as I'm not sure if it is a remake, reboot or a sequel. People know things they shouldn't and that's all I'll say about that but if it is a remake this is insulting to it's source material.

    Pros
    The graphics (character models are the best) look amazing, not the best looking game but still very impressive, this is what Square Enix excel at. For the most part the story was good, I was interested until the end. Character development to characters like Jessie is amazing and she instantly became one of my favorite characters in the game. Some standout chapters like the first two, four and chapter nine. Boss fights are really fun as well.

    Cons
    I hate these harry potter rip offs called the watchers of fate, they are the biggest plot convenience I have seen in a long time, Square Enix go to do something risky but these stupid things come to make sure certain things happen, interesting in concept but in my opinion poorly executed because of the ending. The ending is a massive middle finger, the cutscene at least, it completely changes the entire story for no reason apart from a cliffhanger to get you to play episode 2 which is just poor from square enix, they know fans are going to buy the game so why change this enormous plot point. Midgar only as well..... we could of had a full remaster which would please everybody with this combat as well, that would of been exciting, but oh well got to drag out a beloved game for money.

    Overall I had high expectations which where met at parts and ultimately at important parts I was let down. If this is a sequel/reboot, this is a great game and I wish square enix changed the name to something apart from remake, I'm sure this would of interested a lot more of the original fans including myself. But as a remake this is super disappointing and ruins some of the best moments in the well paced original which makes me extremely worried for the next episodes which will be released in four years or so.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

8
#8 Best PS4 Game of 2020
5
#5 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2020
4
#4 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
87

Generally favorable reviews - based on 126 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 116 out of 126
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 126
  3. Negative: 0 out of 126
  1. GameMAG
    Sep 14, 2020
    90
    Final Fantasy VII Remake is the game we've been waiting for from Square Enix for so long. Atmospheric, interesting and exciting all your attention modern jRPG with an interesting story and spectacular battles. To achieve the ideal, the project only needs more even graphics and all the content from the original release. If you were waiting for a turn-based classic with new graphics you will most likely be disappointed, since the game has changed a lot. Everyone else is happy with the release of the first really powerful single-player release from the internal Square Enix studio for many years. Especially after the failure of Final Fantasy XV.
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  2. Riot Pixels
    Aug 20, 2020
    80
    A good remake of the introductory part of the cult-favorite Final Fantasy VII. It improves on the original game in almost all aspects, yet lacks in scale and drops the ball at the very end.
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  3. Finger Guns
    Aug 10, 2020
    90
    What matters is still intact, and that’s the heart and soul of one of the greatest stories in video game history. It’s a return to form that has felt a long time in coming, and what’s even better is that there’s still at least two more games of this quality to come...They can’t mess this up, can they?
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