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. Vmac19
    Apr 22, 2020
    5
    Honestly it was beautifully made and really well done. All the way up to chatper 17 was amazing. It was the ending that was bad. It was literally 2 hours of nothing but a crap tone or pointless bosses and subbosses. They changed the ending to the original which alone isn't so bad. It's just felt rushed and half assed. felt like that just ran out of time and said screw it.
  2. Orfeas1989
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    Unfortunately i got this game digitally out of boredom and now i cant even sell it... i regret it every day. Its tedious, uninspiring, full of hollow characters that have the brain of an 8 year old, the story is rly shallow, the side quests are boring fetch and grab, the mini map dissappears for no reason and you have to spam the pop up map just to see where you are going at this ugly andUnfortunately i got this game digitally out of boredom and now i cant even sell it... i regret it every day. Its tedious, uninspiring, full of hollow characters that have the brain of an 8 year old, the story is rly shallow, the side quests are boring fetch and grab, the mini map dissappears for no reason and you have to spam the pop up map just to see where you are going at this ugly and boring junkyard of a city. The combat system is a mess, dodge is useless since you dont have iframes, enemies are bullet sponged artificially inflated to add the illusion, You get pinned down all the time and all you have to do is spam healing potions. Its like ff 15 all over again. 0 strategy 0 tactics… Expand
  3. Kimbohdoy103
    Jun 20, 2020
    5
    Game was fun
    But the story was meh!! Not that great plus confusing
    The gameplay as i ve said before was fun tho the STUDIO felt like was so lazy to do his job i mean the amount of details ignored is ridiculous like, stupid AI
    Like the sneakin scene to the buildin was totally childish and STOOPID... MANY OTHER THANGS THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT BETTER
  4. DarkFireUmad
    Apr 20, 2020
    5
    Este juego ha tenido el potencial de ser mejor que el juego original y se ha quedado en intento. Como puntos positivos debo poner el desarrollo de los personajes principales y sobretodo los miembros de avalancha que me ha parecido espectacular, no voy a poner como punto positivo los gráficos porque es algo que se esperaba y el sistema de combate no me convence pero a cada uno con suEste juego ha tenido el potencial de ser mejor que el juego original y se ha quedado en intento. Como puntos positivos debo poner el desarrollo de los personajes principales y sobretodo los miembros de avalancha que me ha parecido espectacular, no voy a poner como punto positivo los gráficos porque es algo que se esperaba y el sistema de combate no me convence pero a cada uno con su gustos.
    Lo que me parece mal son los nuevos personajes con 0 relevancia y que son para meter paja y que no sea un juego de 10 horas, han cambiado la historia y no estaría mal si no fuese un despropósito, en el original ya veía mal como tratan el tema de Zack pero aquí es incluso peor, hubiese sido mejor el no sacar el tema. La banda sonora creo que las músicas de escenario son mejores porque tiene variaciones y acompañan muy bien, pero las músicas de batalla y en específico la de jefe creo que han perdido su fuerza y los que las hacían míticas o al menos es la sensación que he tenido a lo largo de este juego.
    En conclusión, es un juego con un final que lo único que hace es que los jugadores tengan que jugar al original o esperar unos añitos para que sepas algo más de esta historia. Yo lo hubiese vendido como un reboot y no como un remake.    … Expand
  5. Azizshiha
    May 16, 2020
    5
    The gameplay is fun but the story is **** Really ****ty. every scene is un-necessarily extended with garbage dialogue.
  6. crowstastegood
    Dec 25, 2021
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. you know, i feel like everyone who gave this game a 10/10 didn't play the original. the visuals are good but performance felt choppy and some textures looked awkward. music was good but the original also had good music so it doesn't necessarily make this game superior. combat is better or worse depending on what you like, however, it doesn't matter either way as the materia was always the fun part about ff7 combat, and since this game is only 1/7 of ff7, original ff7 has much more materia options, and for that reason, the combat is more interesting in original ff7. the story is just sh*t in this game. foreshadowing in this game can barely be called foreshadowing. they hint at cloud not being a soldier during midgar except everyone around cloud just doesn't care that he's not a soldier for some reason, despite that it should be a surprise since only tifa should know. a lot of dialogues are also sh*t. the added backstory to characters is pretty bland and uninteresting, on top of that they don't add much depth to the main cast and only focus on side characters no one cared about (except for yuffie but she's in ff7ri and is technically a side character). the side quests are also bland and uninteresting. the worst part of this game though, is definitely the ending, which is also sh*t. basically, everything related to writing is sh*t and whether the combat is good or not is debatable. the excuse for this review would probably be "well it's a reboot not a remake" but that's false advertising, which is a crime, and it wouldn't even change the fact that the side characters and added backstory are bland and uninteresting. overall, i'd recommend playing the original since you won't have to wait 30 years and it's also not a cashgrab.

    to be fair, at least this game actually had good translation which is one plus i guess, but it should be expected from a $60 game (for context, the original PSX release had a sloppy translation. it does actually have a fan translation though, which is much better. unfortunately, it's pretty buggy and a few things are broken. from my experience, it took about an hour to do the shinra march minigame due to not working properly and trying to attain the cave materias crashed the emulator.)    … Expand
  7. 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
  8. limfusen
    Apr 17, 2020
    5
    Love every bit of it!! Can't wait for part 2
    Thanks Square for the Remake
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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.
  12. 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
  13. Loffs
    Apr 11, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I like this game. At times I love it, but unfortunately at other times I hate the monumental story changes that I wish somebody spoiled it early so I could've cancelled my preorder. Just because Sephiroth is a fan favourite doesn't mean you can squeeze him into every cutscene, make him the final boss AND give him time travel powers to justify him appearing so early. How will the actual ending even work now that we've already fought him and sliced buildings like it's Advent Children? Square Enix changed up the story just for an "epic" fanfiction fight, and it will cheapen any use of Sephiroth later.

    I might be in the minority here but I really don't like how anime this is. All the gasps, grunts, moans and exaggerated animations outside main stort cutscenes is super awkward. I thought after FF15 they understood that. I know it's a Japanese production but you don't see Capcom doing this in their games. I don't need an "ugh-huh" every time a character makes a movement.

    I hate comparing everything with the Witcher 3, but that game set a standard for how sidequests can be immersive and fun. It also set a standard for detailed and well crafted NPCs, while in FF7R at one point I saw the same low resolution person copypasted three times in the same frame. The sidequests are literally World of Warcraft "Go over there and kill 10 rats" level of originality. It's not even an open world game! What were they even doing all those years when developing this?

    Positives: Love the gameplay, the music and the atmosphere of Midgar. When the game sticks with the core of the story, it's incredible. It's got tons of potential. Again, I do like this game. But I really wanted to love it and introduce my friends to it who never got into the original. With all the story changes I can't do that, and it's frustrating. A remake shouldn't require beforehand knowledge of the game. It's disappointing.    … Expand
  14. 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.
  15. davidlawson
    Apr 12, 2020
    5
    Good combat. Too much filler quests. Horrid dance scene. Great soundtrack. Great style. Horrible telling of a great story. Filled with Kingdom Hearts BS.
  16. 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
  17. Renegade1503
    Apr 13, 2020
    5
    Based on 25h of gameplay.
    An okay game, but way too hyped imo. Beautiful graphics, but that's it. Nothing else is special about this game. And I have played FF games since FF III (EU).
  18. arizonagreg
    Apr 13, 2020
    5
    It's a great game but for one it's not a real remake. Also the ending speeds things up too fast. The ghosts/fate beings are just annoying. It's like nothing you choose really matters.
  19. Darkiboo
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. With how often promotional material for Final Fantasy VII Remake advertised a "faithful" remake, after completing this game, you'd question how these people would function in a romantic relationship. Perhaps to them, being faithful is only cheating on their partner once a week. Let that metaphor sink in for the following review: This Is Not Final Fantasy VII Anymore.

    Here is a list of 'absolute' story changes this "Remake" deploys on its player base:

    1) Wedge and Biggs survive the fall of the Sector 7 plate, removing Barret's raison d'être for his fueled hatred against Shinra. So much emotional weight was put into these connections for it to be satisfyingly sad when they perish. Except permanent death is not a thing nowadays. It is now a sin to have an audience experience negative emotions that capture the tapestry of life.

    2) Sephiroth is not an unknown presence to be feared and learned about. He is immediately recognized as a threat to every single person who witnesses him--and everyone witnesses him because he appears multiple times throughout the game, including as the final boss. This final encounter copies the cinematography and choreography of Cloud's battle at the end of FF7: Advent Children. Sephiroth envelops Midgar in shadow; Cloud and him face-off 1v1; Sephiroth tells Cloud he'll exist forever after being defeated. Previous ideas are recycled to pad nostalgia further in this climax.

    3) The overall story now closely resembles Kingdom Hearts. The epicenter of divergence from the original story happens in a place called "Destiny's Crossroads" (like Destiny Island from Kingdom Hearts). Here, you'll encounter a massive fiend the same shape as a Darkside Heartless. This fiend is attached to three new Time/Space entities that give visions to EXACT FOOTAGE from the END of FF7 and FF7: Advent Children (such as Meteor hitting the planet, Red XIII and his children, Aerith dying, and the final battle against Sephiroth). This story now involves multiple timelines and time travel I guess.

    4) Speaking of timelines, Zack appears and he's alive and well, watching you defeat Sephiroth. It is unknown if every game after the original FF7 will become moot after this Remake is complete.

    5) After defeating Sephiroth, Cloud already has a feeling that the Sephiroth wasn't real and needs to find the real one. There is little reference to Jenova in this entire game, and the concept of "Reunion" seems like common knowledge, so it is impossible how these characters come to such a comfortable conclusion of hating Sephiroth, believing he was a fake, and thinking he'll destroy the planet. Aerith even goes so far as to say to Sephiroth, "Everything about you is wrong." Remember, Aerith has never met Sephiroth before. You'll often find this dichotomy of writing that has the characters fully aware of the game's expanded lore and then sometimes not at all.

    6) Sephiroth transports Cloud to a distant planet for a short duel. He wins, but says that Cloud has 7 seconds to make a change. If you count to 7, nothing happens by the end of it... Afterwards, Cloud somehow returns to Midgar and his party is ready to track down and destroy Sephiroth. None of this makes sense.

    7) The earliest change players will encounter are called "Whispers". These mysterious, hooded ghosts appear during divergences from the original game. It quickly becomes apparent that these ghosts sometimes impede your progress to sustain the original FF7's plot, and then sometimes intervene to change it. They ensure you can't save Jessie, because she's supposed to die, but they are involved in the final battle against Sephiroth that is felt by every citizen of Midgar. Also, these Whispers are seen by Aerith immediately, and then eventually everyone else in the gang, including Rufus Shinra, but not by any of the Turks for some reason. These things exist solely to be theorized about by Youtubers to prolong the exposure of FF7R.

    Conclusion:

    This game's combat and materia system is complex and beautifully designed. The music is astounding and very fitting, except for a new arrangement of One Winged Angel that sounds flat. These components are the sole reason to play the game. New characters like Roche fit well into Midgar, but new story scenes create a lack of urgency that get annoying. And the main plot is now the epitome of everything wrong in modern storytelling. Content is obtuse, actions are convenient, characters never speak their mind which lead to cliche story problems, and the more mystery for people to talk about the better. Final Fantasy VII Remake is well-worth renting, or buying used for ~$30. The story experience and concluding frustration and confusion is not worth full price. I will not support the future games that draw on the same tropes and rehashing of ideas that exist in parallel franchises. Depending on your taste in storytelling, buyer integrity, and disposable income, you will make a choice appropriate to your life.    … Expand
  20. Conot
    Apr 14, 2020
    5
    Best remake in the history of gaming. Every aspects of this game is an A++ from the graphics, to the story telling, to the game mechanics this game nails it.
  21. 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.
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. willko
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    The battle system has been a massive disappointment. This game is a remake of a game that used a turn-based combat style. I strongly prefer turn-based combat over action-oriented combat. While this battle system tries its best to be a hybrid between the two styles(which in and of itself makes it lower quality than pure turn-based), it leans more toward the action side than the turn-basedThe battle system has been a massive disappointment. This game is a remake of a game that used a turn-based combat style. I strongly prefer turn-based combat over action-oriented combat. While this battle system tries its best to be a hybrid between the two styles(which in and of itself makes it lower quality than pure turn-based), it leans more toward the action side than the turn-based side of things.

    Square added a "Classic Mode" which was intended to be something of a compromise for the turn-based fans. But, Classic Mode is a complete joke. Classic Mode locks the difficulty to the Easy setting and simply dumbs down the gameplay of the action-oriented combat. It is not "classic" in any way at all. When you use Classic Mode, two things happen: difficulty is locked to Easy(as I mentioned) and your character will automatically do physical attacks and blocks during a fight. If the developers think that turn-based fans just want a dumbed down and easier game, then they misunderstand their fans entirely.    … Expand
  25. kevinmason09
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As a loong time fan of the original Final Fantasy 7, and the promise of a "faithful recreation" of the original game, I find myself bewildered and disappointed at the direction they are choosing to go with this series. Alternate time realities? Suggesting that Zack is in fact alive, and that the narrative will no longer follow the plot of the original has me so utterly disinterested in the future. I don't understand where this even came from. Why deviate from such a beloved narrative? Go write your fanfic Square, I hope this makes you guys happy to stamp out the hopes and dreams of long time fans of the original. This was supposed to be something very special for a devoted base of fans that are the reason you even decided to do a remake in the first place. It's sad to see how you dishonor that legacy.… Expand
  26. Gogmagog
    Apr 15, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Game's a bomb, but that can only go so far. After the highway chase, everything becomes weird and unnecessary. Felt like the game's right next door to Kingdom Hearts.… Expand
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 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
  30. 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.
  31. 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
  32. Sebsta696
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    Battle system is lacking, battles don't feel satisfying due to hybrid system that isn't as nice as the original, lack of grinding, story changes are shoehorned and feel like Kingdom Hearts. The cutscenes and production values feel too overdone, gameplay suffers. The linearity of the original is exacerbated by extremely lengthy and boring hallways and corridors.
  33. R00K
    Apr 18, 2020
    5
    Pros + fight system
    + graphics
    + voice acting

    Cons
    - filler content
    - game play length
    - controls

    Overall FF7 remake is a decent game with an outstanding fight system. However the game lacks sufficient depth to make it a outstanding game. In the end the game trades filler content to make up for the lack of story with the game being unfinished and rushed to market.
  34. Sleepydoggo
    May 7, 2020
    5
    A wonderful soundtrack and some breathtaking visuals start the game off on nostalgia driven high notes. Add to that some poor game mechanics, even poorer pacing, and an increasing stale battle system, and you have one of the most anticipated video games of the year falling flat on its face.

    The game starts with what every fan of FF7 wanted from this game. Stunning visuals, outstanding    A wonderful soundtrack and some breathtaking visuals start the game off on nostalgia driven high notes. Add to that some poor game mechanics, even poorer pacing, and an increasing stale battle system, and you have one of the most anticipated video games of the year falling flat on its face.

    The game starts with what every fan of FF7 wanted from this game. Stunning visuals, outstanding music and a verbatim opening mission that lead many, myself included, to believe this was going to be a remake in the same vein as what Capcom did for Resident evil 2. But just as quickly as the hopes came they soon dashed away. The battle system, while being entertaining at first quickly devolved into a weird combination of hack&slash and micro managing. As an Action RPG you attack, dodge, and fill up special gauges in real time. You, however, control only 1 of 3 party members at any one time. The other 2 will barely react in the interim causing the player to have to constantly take control and manually move and queue up attacks. This simply makes the point of moving away from a turn based system bizarre at best and inconsiderate at worst. And to drive home the point that the other 2 party members are basically statues the enemies you fight rarely target them instead focusing on the player character no matter who that be. So if you were hoping to switch to a healing character and get a more objective view of the party you are out of luck.

    The Main character design and immediate level artwork were immaculate. Absolutely breathtaking. But it was soon obvious that’s where the bulk of the processing power went. the background and deep scenery were prerendered paintings which was only really of note because they clashed so wildly with the characters. By characters, I of course mean just the main ones as well. All the NPCs look decent enough to be in a ps3 game at best. Luckily they look right at home with their immediate background and surroundings lacking ps4 quality textures.

    The biggest problem of note however was the awful pacing of the game. As many know this game took the first 5 or so hrs of the original and stretched it to 35. How they did that left me scratching my head more often than not. I first noticed on an early 90minute long mission with my new avalanche buddies learning their motivations. I thought if this type of content is what I’m getting with a new game and 60 bucks I’m all for it baby give me a slice of that pizza. But then I realized that was the major extent of the extra content. The rest of the added 23 hours were either (forced) Slow down walking sections while I listened to the usually well done voice acting speaking what I could have read in a fraction of the time, or I was tracking down kitty kats or chasing fish frogs through a sewer for a key. All this was punctuated by extreme cut scenes of urgency, explosions, and blossoming friendships. I have never felt such a hurry up a wait mentality before in a game.

    If you are a fan of the original FF7 this game might just scratch that nostalgia itch. If you are trying to find a new game to sink your teeth into this one probably isn’t the one for you. I left this one feeling oddly similar to how I felt during FF13 in terms of story structure and level design. So if you liked how 13 was put together with the possibility of having a partial FF15 style combat then give this one a try and you might just love it. If not, wait until it goes on sale or to your local library to rent it. 5/10    … Expand
  35. driew
    May 26, 2020
    5
    I hate to admit it but I played this game purely because of nostalgia. The best thing to come out of this game was Jessie.
    Pros:
    - The combat system is pretty good for the most part and quite fun to play. The downside is that the AI is sorely lacking and you'll have to micro manage your party if you want to do well in combat. - The character models and graphics are great for the most    I hate to admit it but I played this game purely because of nostalgia. The best thing to come out of this game was Jessie.
    Pros:
    - The combat system is pretty good for the most part and quite fun to play. The downside is that the AI is sorely lacking and you'll have to micro manage your party if you want to do well in combat.
    - The character models and graphics are great for the most part except for non important NPC characters. They look plain bad!
    - Voice acting

    Cons:
    - Story has been changed quite a bit and doesn't really make sense. Story feels rather shallow.
    - I didn't really care much for most of the characters and Jessie was the real standout even though she's not a very important character
    - Dialogue is shallow and feels cheesy.
    - Too many forced walking segments. You'll feel like you've done dozens of these.
    - Map feels small and generally has repetitive layout.
    - Side quests are bad but so are the main missions. For example, you'll be fetching cats. Like really? Is that the best use of our time. Games need to look at the Witcher 3 on how to do side quests properly.    … Expand
  36. 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
  37. Cesspul
    May 2, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. 10/10 game of the year. Nothing but good things to say about it. Fantastic is every way.… Expand
  38. Shalfei
    May 4, 2020
    5
    This is a total failure. People were waiting for years for this game to come out and what do we get? A mediocre game with hours of boring corridor gameplay with elevators, robo-hands, cat-finding, kid-finding etc. The plot? It is OK, but it gets really absurd when the game is showing up characters that are extremely important to the plot, but which make no sense to the current situationThis is a total failure. People were waiting for years for this game to come out and what do we get? A mediocre game with hours of boring corridor gameplay with elevators, robo-hands, cat-finding, kid-finding etc. The plot? It is OK, but it gets really absurd when the game is showing up characters that are extremely important to the plot, but which make no sense to the current situation and should be shown much much later.
    The battles? They are made with care, quite interesting and dynamic, BUT! About 20% of the battles are extremely long - there is a lot of enemies and bosses that you can only damage in tiny time windows - that is super annoying. Not to mention that any super damage-dealing skill can be easily avoided by the enemy or stoped by hitting the spell caster.
    At the last 3 chapters of the game I was so bored that I have stopped playing it for a few days...    … Expand
  39. Jabbalocu
    May 7, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Juego esperado por muchos años anunciado con mucho tiempo y terminamos con un juego incompleto y sin saber cuánto tiempo tendremos que esperar ni cuantos juegos tendremos que comprar para jugar el juego completo… Expand
  40. beckar85
    May 12, 2020
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Speravo di poter scrivere una recensione positiva, ma sarei falso con me stesso e con chi mi legge.
    Terminato il gioco, il senso di soddisfazione era elevato. Ma, esaurito l'effetto nostalgia, ho ragionato su ciò a cui avevo giocato: un disastro.

    Detto questo, provo ad analizzare il gioco in se:

    - Musica: salvo la colonna sonora. Su questo argomento, nulla quaestio.

    - Grafica: protagonisti bellissimi, ok, ma tutto il resto? Esclusi i capitoli 1 e 16, il resto è scarno. Texture slavate; texture che caricano in ritardissimo, o neppure hanno la forza di caricare; ambientazioni prive della minima interattività; elementi degni di una PS2; sfondi panoramici dalla resa pessima (l'apice dell'orrido nel capitolo 15). Quindi, tutti questi anni di attesa e di promesse, per avere una grafica degna della PS3 (per essere gentili)?

    - Sistema di combattimento: lo salvo, per gusto personale. La deriva action è interessante, ma cozza con la mancanza di realismo tanto nella grafica, quanto nella fisica di gioco. Una mancanza, per esempio, è l'ignoranza dei due membri non comandati direttamente: è impossibile impostare delle strategie. Si è sempre obbligati ad impartire ordini diretti. O svecchi bene, o tanto vale conservare il metodo del 1997, molto più ordinato.

    - Gameplay: Cloud NON SALTA. Siamo nel 2020 e una limitazione simile è inconcepibile. Nel capitolo 2, anzichè saltare oltre l'auto che gli blocca la via, il gioco ti forza a fare il giro di un palazzo, per ritrovarti esattamente oltre l'auto che non hai potuto scavalcare. Ridicolo. E questo genere di situazioni si ripete costantemente. Ma voglio anche ricordare le innumerevoli scale, scalette, strettoie, passaggi in cui ci si abbassa, passaggi su paletti, tutti rigorosamente indicati con freccette luminose (giusto per calarci nell'atmosfera...). Non basta il marcato backtracking tra missioni in cui hai nel gruppo prima un personaggio e poi altri, NO, devono pure farcire il gioco con questi piccoli elementi che nel minutaggio hanno fatto gola agli sviluppatori. E aggiungo anche le svariate "passeggiate obbligatorie", lentissime, dietro al personaggio di turno che deve farti strada verso un determinato punto.

    - E qui ricollego subito il gameplay alla longevità: il gioco si compone di 15 ore di video e circa 25 ore di gameplay (Modalità Normale). Solo che in 25 ore sono comprese tutte le missioni secondarie, tutte le azioni indicate nel punto precedente (come l'assenza del salto), e il tempo che si perderà dentro ai menù di gioco, tra gestione delle materie e sviluppo delle armi. Ho finito la prima run raggiungendo il livello 40 con tutti i personaggi (su un massimo di 50 livelli di esperienza).
    S'era tanto parlato di una Midgar "viva" ed estesa, ma a conti fatti dell'affascinante città che vediamo nell'introduzione di gioco, in game visiteremo quattro zone in croce, lineari e basate su un pesante backtracking.
    Vorrei fare un parallelo col gioco originale, visto che in sostanza sono le stesse zone (se escludiamo l'uscita per andare a trovare la madre di Jessie e il capitolo 15): se vuoi fare un remake esteso, di un prologo che dura 4 ore, devi aggiungere nuove zone visitabili...inventare qualcosa per farmi visitare quella bella cittadina viva vista nell'intro, altrimenti è tutta aria fritta e mi gioco le 4 ore originali.

    - Infine, la trama: hanno preso un gioco del 1997 e, anzichè svecchiarlo e ripulirlo nei punti poco coerenti o poco chiari, hanno demolito tutto in virtù di uno pseudo seguito di Advent Children.
    Nel prologo originale, Sephiroth era un uomo leggendario, circondato da un affascinante alone di mistero e lo avremmo visto solo in seguito. Nel remake, te lo sbattono in faccia dal capitolo 2 fino al 18, senza ritegno, spiegando già tutto.
    I Numen (Whispers) devono vigilare sul corretto prosieguo delle vicende originali, che portano alla salvezza del pianeta, ma lo fanno solo quando fa comodo agli sviluppatori, generando anche situazioni paradossali (e non mi riferisco a Zack).
    Il trio Biggs, Wedge e Jessie era inutile nel 1997 ed è solo stata amplificata la loro inutilità, per non parlare della macchietta Roche che, probabilmente, sfrutteranno nel prossimi episodi per continuare ad allungare il brodo inutilmente.

    Conclusioni: se non avessero speso tempo e denaro dietro ad una grafica pompatissima (che a conti fatti non abbiamo ricevuto), scendendo a compromessi avrebbero potuto benissimo realizzare tutto in un unico gioco. La prova palese della pigrizia di questo team, mista all'incapacità di gestire un progetto, è un gioco realizzato nel 2017 da un altro team della stessa azienda: Dragon Quest XI.
    Se cercate un gioco completo e realmente appassionante, puntate su DQ, perchè FF7R è un'operazione nostalgicamente spillasoldi.
    Hanno preso una briciola dell'originale e l'hanno espansa bagnandola nell'acqua...ma sempre una briciola resta.    … Expand
  41. thepipina
    May 16, 2020
    5
    There was no reason to change the story for the worst. I didn't buy into the "meta commentary"- it was badly done and disrespectful to fans. The Dementors belong in the Harry Potter universe. BEWARE this is not a remake but rather a spin-off. I almost stopped playing the game before the end. Best moments: when the actual moments of the original were recreated...
  42. toasted_Sopas
    Jun 7, 2020
    5
    This s*** is so padded, the characters have a conversation about everything in every step of the way. If you cut out half the pointless dialogue the usual 30+ hrs to finish this game would probably drop to < 20. Yes Tifa we know we need to hurry so stop having a 2 minute conversation about hurrying up and what could happen if we don't hurry every time we enter a new area.
  43. princessfurios
    Mar 3, 2021
    5
    "Проходная" Final Fantasy XV: Ноктис и его друзья едут на свадьбу к няшной тян, попутно спасая вселенную. Открытый мир, динамичные бои, разнообразные локации.

    "Признанная классика" Final Fantasy VII Remake: "Клауд, убей всех крыс на помойке". "Клауд, помоги девочке собрать сбежавших кошек". "Клауд, помоги бабке сменить фильтр в раковине". Локации - коридоры и кишки однообразного (хоть и    "Проходная" Final Fantasy XV: Ноктис и его друзья едут на свадьбу к няшной тян, попутно спасая вселенную. Открытый мир, динамичные бои, разнообразные локации.

    "Признанная классика" Final Fantasy VII Remake: "Клауд, убей всех крыс на помойке". "Клауд, помоги девочке собрать сбежавших кошек". "Клауд, помоги бабке сменить фильтр в раковине". Локации - коридоры и кишки однообразного (хоть и красивого) города и свалок. Бои - колупание врагов мечом стоя на месте.

    При всем уважении к красавицам Айрис и Тифе, сравнение отнюдь не в пользу FF7.    … Expand
  44. 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
  45. 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
  46. MiltonvaderBR
    Sep 5, 2020
    5
    That a wonderfull game. I love it. The best final fantasy ever... the classic never be represent like that.
  47. Yaskaveloutch
    Jun 23, 2020
    5
    This game is a joke. Half of the game is made with useless cinematic without any utility, there is fights we could just cancel (the dev I mean). And there is an entire chapter (the 10) inside f***ing sewers ! WE STOPED TO DO THIS 10 YEARS AGO ! Cloud is just a Dark Sasuke with no personalities. I killing myself trying to finish the game because I'm bored. People loved it only because ofThis game is a joke. Half of the game is made with useless cinematic without any utility, there is fights we could just cancel (the dev I mean). And there is an entire chapter (the 10) inside f***ing sewers ! WE STOPED TO DO THIS 10 YEARS AGO ! Cloud is just a Dark Sasuke with no personalities. I killing myself trying to finish the game because I'm bored. People loved it only because of nostalgia. I'm a millennial and I say it : this game sucks.… Expand
  48. WallCrouton
    Dec 5, 2022
    5
    I never played the original so I thought I'd finally experience the FFVII story with this one. Until I learned that it's not the original story AND the bulk of it is just Waifu Walking Simulator.

    It's a shame, because there's a lot of cool stuff about it visually, the combat (mostly, anyway), etc. but there's just so much fluff and filler. The original was long enough apparently, why    I never played the original so I thought I'd finally experience the FFVII story with this one. Until I learned that it's not the original story AND the bulk of it is just Waifu Walking Simulator.

    It's a shame, because there's a lot of cool stuff about it visually, the combat (mostly, anyway), etc. but there's just so much fluff and filler. The original was long enough apparently, why make it even longer?

    Just go play the original, imo.    … Expand
  49. TheGuilox
    May 19, 2021
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Un juego decepcionante, ese seria el mejor resumen que puedo hacer del mismo.
    - Los gráficos son excelentes, la ambientación de migdar es increíble, pero todo palideces con un diseño de niveles desastroso (de los peores de la generación).
    - El sistema de combate es divertido y profundo, pero se vuelve muy tedioso con la pésima inteligencia artificial que tienen los compañeros y eso sin mencionar que los enemigos son esponjas de daño, si no tienes equipada la magia a la que es débil, las batallas se vuelven excesivamente largas. Literalmente te vez obligado a llevar la materia que evaluá a los enemigos, lo cual se vuelve coñazo.
    - El juego es demasiado pasillero, lo cual no debería ser un problema, me gustan los jugos lineales; pero se vuelve un coñazo cuando no te dejan explorar a libertad y todo el tiempo te obliga a seguir la misión de turno.
    - La música del juego original es casi perfecta, solo necesitaba una materización, pero en lugar de ello decidieron crear remix extraños que suenan muy inferiores a las canciones originales. Solo basta con escuchar lo que hicieron con la canción "mako reactor" o "the oppressed".
    - Por ultimo quiero nombrar los cambios en la historia, si un juego lleva el nombre "remake" significa que su historia será 1 a 1. Si pretendían crear una "re imaginación" le hubieran colocado otro nombre y los que amamos el juego de 1997 nos evitábamos tener que jugar esté bodrio. El añadido de los "ecos del destino" no suma nada, al contrario resta y la sobre explotación de la figura de sephiroth lo convirtió en un villano plano y sin justificación alguna. Los que jugamos el original entendemos su motivación, pero un jugador nuevo no, el haber perdido ese aire de respeto y misticismo que invocaba su figura es desacierto. Lo peor de todo es que la historia original era más adulta, no tenía reparo en matar a todas las personas del sector 7, cuando jenova escapaba no tenía timidez en mostrar sangre, el edificio destruido y al presidente asesinado... Podría escribir paginas de los cambios que arruinaron parte de la historia, pero mejor ejemplifico todo con mi nota.
    En fin... un juego que esperé por años, pero por desgracia me dejo un gusto amargo.    … Expand
  50. BerserkWolf
    Jul 10, 2021
    5
    Un arte maravilloso al igual que su música, la originalidad de cambiar su historia no le resta nostalgia pero si esencia, respecto ala jugabilidad me dejo un mal sabor de boca el cambio del funcionamiento de las materias de igual forma en las batallas terminas un poco limitado especialmente cuando debes de enfrentarte a los retos del juego ya que no existe mas opción de crecimiento, y porUn arte maravilloso al igual que su música, la originalidad de cambiar su historia no le resta nostalgia pero si esencia, respecto ala jugabilidad me dejo un mal sabor de boca el cambio del funcionamiento de las materias de igual forma en las batallas terminas un poco limitado especialmente cuando debes de enfrentarte a los retos del juego ya que no existe mas opción de crecimiento, y por ultimo de verdad era necesario el modo difícil? creo que termina por arruinar la esencia del original… Expand
  51. Beegee84
    Sep 9, 2021
    5
    The original was the best game ever made. It was dark sofisticated and engaging. The remake re-wrote the story taking away things that had impact, absolutely everything that made the original good is gone. The open world exploration after midgard..... gone

    The tactical combat...... gone Meaningful choices....... gone Music that fits...... gone Everything that's been fleshed out is pure    The original was the best game ever made. It was dark sofisticated and engaging. The remake re-wrote the story taking away things that had impact, absolutely everything that made the original good is gone. The open world exploration after midgard..... gone

    The tactical combat...... gone
    Meaningful choices....... gone
    Music that fits...... gone

    Everything that's been fleshed out is pure filler nothing that's been added is good or worth anyone's time. It's literally just loads more wandering down linear corridors that don't even look pretty to the point where the story is near impossible to follow. The gaps between important events in the game are spread way too far apart.

    Its more like a walking simulator like say death stranding without the graphics than the original ff7. Everything is such a chore endless fetch it quests childish dialog which wasn't present in the original.

    Its like the whole thing got beaten by a PC culture stick.

    The original had you dying to find out the mystery of sephiroth. This game re-writes the main things that kept the original interesting by giving sephiroth to much of a role too early........ throughout the original you were dying to work out what was going on with sephiroth is he good or bad he was talked up so much before you interacted with him and then when you did it had a huge impact..... all of this is removed    … Expand
  52. Yufyn
    Mar 29, 2022
    5
    Un juego muy decepcionante.
    En primer lugar, este juego no es una nueva versión real, sino un reinicio reescrito del original. Y en eso es un poco estafador.
    En segundo lugar, el juego es completamente lineal y el 80% se compone solo de escenas.

    Profundamente decepcionado después de la espera.
  53. BoltDown
    Feb 16, 2022
    5
    The only thing this game is, is pretty, it's stunningly beautiful and THAT IS IT
    1. This is an interactive movie, there are so many cutscene interruptions that it gets down right annoying. SE can I have some GAME with my video?
    2. Playing on standard combat is pathetic, your NPC companions are dumb as a box of rocks stuck in cement. Give me the old FF& combat style any day over this.    The only thing this game is, is pretty, it's stunningly beautiful and THAT IS IT
    1. This is an interactive movie, there are so many cutscene interruptions that it gets down right annoying. SE can I have some GAME with my video?
    2. Playing on standard combat is pathetic, your NPC companions are dumb as a box of rocks stuck in cement. Give me the old FF& combat style any day over this.
    3, Story plot at points are down right stupid... how your characters don't take action to stop something they bloody well can as they stand there and WATCH! go back to the writing desk and make a sensible story you hacks!
    4. There are no real good spots to farm for xp for level and materia growth... the game seems less RPG then an interactive movie.    … Expand
  54. Milkthief
    Apr 13, 2020
    4
    Final Fantasy VII Remake is a real mixed bag. The additions to the story, fleshed out characters and general world building is fantastic. The visuals are (usually) top notch, with some breathtaking scenes and environments. The real issues are #1: HORRIBLE PACING. Like some of the worst pacing I have ever seen in a game, the amount of fluff totally grinds the story to a halt, and sectionsFinal Fantasy VII Remake is a real mixed bag. The additions to the story, fleshed out characters and general world building is fantastic. The visuals are (usually) top notch, with some breathtaking scenes and environments. The real issues are #1: HORRIBLE PACING. Like some of the worst pacing I have ever seen in a game, the amount of fluff totally grinds the story to a halt, and sections that took minutes in the original now take hours? They really tried to drag it out, and that shows.

    Overall I really enjoyed it, aside from silly side quests that didn't do much for me other than make me frustrated and impatient. The combat system is great, if a little flawed (I wish I could dodge or block to cancel my attack combo, am not really into my spells missing or getting cancelled when I get hit.)

    I am looking forward to continuing this series, and hope they don't nomura the story too hard.. and maybe fix some of the rough edges.    … Expand
  55. DarkChaplain
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    All Square Enix needed to do was follow the script's core beats, and flesh it out, while fully realizing the setting's world, ambiance and characters. For about half the game, they actually achieve this. It's a joyful, nostalgic trip to Midgar, with Avalanche growing dear to your heart all over again. Tifa and Aerith are stunning in their added depth and interactions with the rest of theAll Square Enix needed to do was follow the script's core beats, and flesh it out, while fully realizing the setting's world, ambiance and characters. For about half the game, they actually achieve this. It's a joyful, nostalgic trip to Midgar, with Avalanche growing dear to your heart all over again. Tifa and Aerith are stunning in their added depth and interactions with the rest of the cast. Infiltrating Don Corneo's abode had me laughing at just how good it was.

    But the further the story progressed, the harder did Nojima and Toriyama deviate from the original's story and developments. From introducing core villains, whose presence was supposed to be felt as a looming dread, without fully unveiling them yet, far too early over additions of fate ghosts to a completely absurd, rewritten ending that pulls everything into question while making it clear that no, this is not a Remake, but a reimagining, a reboot, with the publisher opening the next part up to being whatever they wish it to be (or is easier to produce than a faithful sequel), the so-called Remake is a massive letdown.

    I was ready to adore this game. Cautiously optimistic ever since they announced it, being of the old guard that had been wishing for a faithful remake for a decade before the announcement dropped, I wanted to love it. For a good amount of hours, I actually did. It is a great shame that they decided to abandon the script in favor of Nojima's prime storytelling device (not to spoil things directly, but if you look at a list of games he's written for on Wikipedia, you'll be able to tell what most of them have in common...).

    The real tragedy of this first part of the "remake" really is that they did nearly everything right for so much of the game. From adding sidequests to flesh out the Sector 7 slums and their inhabitants, adding dialogue, making a real show out of the Honey Bee manor, speeding up some tedious parts while allowing further exploration in others. Graphically, the game looks absolutely stunning and I am ready to consider the main cast here to be the definitive versions, the best overall designed and authentic renditions. The music is for the most part incredibly well arranged from the original Uematsu tracks, although the new tracks fall short on a stylistic level. Added characters and comedic relief work in the game's favor at the point they occur, before everything comes tumbling down to crash and burn.

    It left me asking myself whether these changes were intended from the start, or were taken as a get out of jail free option when Square Enix's executives realized just how expensive the full game would turn out being, if they kept the same level of detail and interaction throughout all we remember from the original. It's almost like they put so much of their budget into the first half, they couldn't possibly maintain this scope for future zones, cities, dungeons and the like. Abandoning the original makes sense on some level, considering that, especially when it comes with a sort of justification to do things differently with part 2. The problem is, that none of these full rewrites are good. They're fanfic-level absurdities that fail to grasp what made the original beloved in the first place. It's as if they didn't truly understand why fans wanted a remake, or what they expected of it. Maybe they figured that sales of Kingdom Hearts 3 indicated that people wanted more of that absurd type of modern Square Enix storytelling? I'm grasping at straws here, trying to somehow understand what made this company throw one of their most highly valued and cherished title into the river to drown any future expectations.

    If I had Nojima's timey wimey powers vested within me, I would like to turn back time to the moment that the relevant staff at Square Enix decided to make these fatal decisions, and force them to defy fate. I wished this game nothing but success, but this company has once again managed to disappoint and, in a sense, infuriate. My biggest fear is that the rewrites will tarnish the original's legacy, especially for the newcomer audience that expected to hop into it with no prior experience. To them, it'll feel very disjointed, but probably cool due to the way it looks and plays. They won't be able to grasp what made the original a classic for the ages, however.
    That's a shame.    … Expand
  56. supercriticguy
    Apr 20, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The worst part about quarantine is being stuck in the same building as Kingdom Hearts 4--err, FF7 Remake.

    First half of the game was great. Second half was padded to hell and back with so much filler that it was a struggle to get through. The fun pretty much ended after Wall Market.

    Though I wasn't enjoying myself anymore I kept going, unaware of just how bad it was going to get. Near the ending the (original) story is hijacked and becomes Kingdom Hearts--and as a writer (and someone with enough intellectual capability to boil an egg) nothing could be more disappointing.
    I saw the signs early on but I never thought they would culminate into quite possibly the worst plot decision possible.

    Random ghosts interrupting Aerith's introduction scene, forcing her to emit Vanille's orgasm sounds, and then chasing her down an alleyway? Weird, awkward, but entirely in-line with modern Japanese storytelling.

    Cloud having a seizure and Sephiroth appearing every 5 minutes, dispelling any potential mystery or build-up? Ham-fisted, but the narrators masturbating about how great their villain is was not unexpected.

    What I did not expect was for Aerith to suddenly and inexplicably become a possessed, all-knowing arbiter of time. I didn't expect the party to so easily walk through a fate-portal without asking what was going on. I didn't expect to kill the God of Fate. I never for a second thought that Sephiroth would kill Barret and then Barret would be revived Kairi-style. I didn't think that Fate had been controlling everything up until now, rendering everything I did in the last 40 hours meaningless.

    I can't believe they messed up this badly. If there was a BINGO card featuring all the ways *not* to write a story, FF7R will have filled out every square. It's impressive in an apocalyptic coronavirus kind of way.

    I'm sure there's an alternate version of me in a different timeline multiverse that *can* believe they messed up this badly. You just have to kill some fate gods to release me from those chains. But it's too late, because I'm already dead because Sephiroth killed me. Oops, now I'm alive again. Thanks, Fate! Hashtag Game of Thrones.    … Expand
  57. Dog4life
    Apr 21, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Finally a good and tactical combat system, way superior to FFXV. Character models are impressive and very detailed.
    BUT lot of low res textures and mediocre details .

    The level design is absolutely terrible : corridor , go right /left , straight corridor. Linear and very boring , major letdown .
    By chapter 14 this was beginning to be a drag.
    Secondary quests are mostly bland fetch quests and totally forgettable.

    It seems more a walking simulator at times , then a true flashed out action jrpg.

    I hope the sequel part 2 at least build up on the great new combat system . Overall a big let down.    … Expand
  58. Hasuki
    Apr 20, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS

    Firstly I think a lot of the positive reviews come from people who have not finished the game. Finishing it completely changed my opinion of the game.

    Good standalone game but this isn't a remake, it's FF7-2. I'm judging this as a remake.

    Where to start on this game.

    So I'm a huge fan of the original and with the remake I expected some differences from the original, which is fine as long as it sticks to the story.
    This is what made the original so good, the story itself but even more so the way it was told.

    This remake covers disc 1 of the original so covers midgar only.

    For the most part it stays true to the original right up to the last couple of chapters. (i really enjoyed it up until the shinra building)

    Lets start with the graphics:

    First couple of chapters, they look amazing but as the game goes on the graphics get worse, looks like a PS2 game in places. If I didn't know better I'd say Square put the most effort into the start of the game to hook people. After that it really is poor graphically and badly needs patching.

    Gameplay
    They have gotten rid of the turn based system and now realtime. It's isn't bad and I liked it after getting a handle on it, but would have preferred the original. It turns the game into an action game more than an rpg imo, which they also did with the story in a way, but we will get to that.

    I don't like how Red XIII is now not a playable character, they have dumbed down the materia system, less summons, less use of summons. Overall the combat is good but they have tinkered with it too much imo.

    Story

    This is where the they game falls on it's face unfortunately. They introduced new ghosts of destiny which I didn't like but not a game breaker. They made some changes in who survives the pillar scene, no big deal.
    Where it starts to fall apart is the shinra building. They skip over a lot of tension building in the shinra section, show way too much of Seiphorath, introduce some time/alternate dimension nonsense with the ghosts of destiny and pretty much have you fight Seiphorath in a battle similar to the last battle of the game in the original.

    With part 2 of the original, you were being built up to who/what Seiphorath was and what has happened with Cloud, in part one of the remake they have taken elements from the final part of the original game which completely removes any of the mystery.

    One of the main things I noticed, near the end in the building it was playing the seiphorath music, like the original, to build tension.
    In the original it worked as there were a lot of unknowns. In this it was out of place, I was running around hacking and slashing like an action game, had already seen lots of the main boss so there really was no tension at all, just another generic boss. Some heavy guitar would have been more appropriate.

    Overall this is a decent stand alone game but this isn't a remake, and I'm judging it as a remake.

    They could probably wrap the whole game up in one more part now as they have chucked so much of the game into the final chapters and just made a load of stuff up which wasn't in the original.

    I was eagerly awaiting this game for years, now it's out and the follow up will come in a couple of years, it's very meh.

    Fans wanted a remake, not a rewritten story with ghosts and alternative dimensions, frankly. If they hadn't screwed up the ending so badly this would have been a solid 8/10.

    Wouldn't surprise me if you told me Kojima directed this, convoluted nonsense. Again I was open to changes, but the changes are childish and nonsensical at the end which don't make me worry about the next chapter, but make me have written it off already.

    If you are a fan of the original, AVOID.    … Expand
  59. Kein
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A promise has been made and then it was betrayed.

    I don't really have issues with the *changes* that expand on the FF7 OG stuff. The nonsensical, new **** (literally quoting IGN here) *additions* is what ruins everything, just like a spoon of tar ruins a whole barrel of sweet honey.

    Jessie getting more backstory and actual parents and expanded background? Absolutely great.
    Biggs or Wedge or both survive? Fine too, it was done more or less naturally. Jessie is still dead, as far as we know for now, and Barret's character development was more influenced by the whole plate-crash event overall and him realizing he almost lost Marlene.
    Wall-market gameplay and plot segment changed to play out a bit differently? Three mafia heads were added to the area to expand on it? Great, more to the story.
    Wall-climbing changed? No problem, it makes more sense now actually.
    Shinra Tower events altered? It's alright, nothing sacred was massacred. They also added a bunch of great stuff like history, research divisions expanded, etc.
    Roche? Whatever, he does not mean much and kinda a fun, goofy thing for a comic relief (and a least-intrusive cameo from KH).

    None of these changes are bad or something even old fans would strongly oppose. May be they'd argue about some small details and the way they were implemented, but it would be nowhere as bad as:

    > Sephiroth appearing, like, 3485345 times in the first few hours of the game with **** nonsense. Literally almost the whole backstory from Kalm spilled out (which has important and pivotal aspects for Cloud's character development, like him learning he did in fact kill Sephiroth) and others also meet him despite the fact this does not happen until Disc 2 in OG.
    > "CHANGEBAD GHOSTS" as an insult at the OG fans (“You are bad and should feel bad for clinging to old stuff! Change good!”)
    > State-of-the-art dumb alternate universe/timelines (or even KH-like multiversetimelines) nonsense as an excuse to completely rewrite the story after Midgar because "well, son, you've defeated the ghosts now, we can be free, aren't you happy ^)"

    From the moment Nomura was brought back I knew things will go sideways for the remake.    … Expand
  60. alexlomba87
    Aug 17, 2020
    4
    [Spoiler free review]

    Without being a fetishistic nostalgic of the original, it's easy to see how the good bits of the game come from the past, while the new additions are cheaply thought, poorly executed, and certainly commercially driven. Newcomers will simply average what they see: a substandard to passable action-RPG with dull moments, good action but absurd plot. Fans of the    [Spoiler free review]

    Without being a fetishistic nostalgic of the original, it's easy to see how the good bits of the game come from the past, while the new additions are cheaply thought, poorly executed, and certainly commercially driven.
    Newcomers will simply average what they see: a substandard to passable action-RPG with dull moments, good action but absurd plot.
    Fans of the original will be fairly to heavily disappointed throughout the game; by the end of it, if they get there, they will be shocked in disbelief.

    First, the story and general writing. Too much *bad* padding immediately ensures that the main events lose strength.
    Some characters – both primary and secondary – are used so badly that plot and characterisations are diminished by them. Some characters exceeding screen time, in particular, extinguishes their charisma and ruins plot suspense. Others are simply annoying.
    With rare exceptions, most of the (new) plot content is so cheap - both in writing and often in execution too - that becomes frankly embarrassing to witness. In many cases, dialogues are cut short in an unnatural manner, clearly only to artificially leave questions open. But the worst is when the plot embarrassingly tries so to trick the player in mistaking cheap content for deep.

    Gameplay. Combat aside, the gameplay is so clunky it feels less advanced than 1997 - something I particularly felt in the motorcycle sections, but exploration comes first. Walking around feels somehow even more linear than in the 1997 original. All areas are minimally modelled, and the general perception is that the whole game is set in a series of long corridors.
    It is during the exploration phases that the padding assumes its worst form. Jumping over fences, activating switches, squeezing across passages... All environmental actions trigger an animation that can last from 2 to 10 seconds, and you will see *a lot* of these.
    Finally, puzzles are always bad, for similar reasons. The whole experience is frustrating at best, and depressing at worst.
    However, I personally enjoyed the combat system, although it poses questions on "sustainability" of the power scaling. By the end of the game here you will be quite powerful by the original game's standards, and it feels like they will need to "downgrade" your skills in the next instalments in order to enable a proper growth.

    Music suffers from wildly alternating quality too, the bad of which comes from some horrifying J-Pop/Techno-Dubstep new additions that simply ruin the atmosphere – to the point I've actually muted the speakers in some occasions. There are some excellent orchestral pieces, often used wisely, sometimes wasted on scenes that scream to be forgotten for their cheap content.

    So what saves this game from total oblivion?

    There is some stellar acting and good plot points in the middle of the cringey J-pop stuff - which sadly is not comparable to the greatness of the original.
    While it has been sometimes criticised, I really enjoyed the fighting system, and I think there is some objectively great work there. Alternating characters is fun, and while when they are left alone their AI does just the bare minimum, this actually drives you to keep alternating between them, rather than lazily stick with one. The fighters are well differentiated.
    Despite little variety on mini-bosses, enemies are well varied, and bosses – with only few very bad exceptions – are simply stunning and fun to play against.    … Expand
  61. mishayangg
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    If you love FF7, this game is not for you. It is a worse version of FF15 with some of the FF7 story slapped on top. The combat is hectic and confusing, most of the time you do not understand why you died or what you even were targeting. Camera goes haywire and you often end up targeting a enemy that is out of range. You do your special and, you are out of range. Now you are in range, ohIf you love FF7, this game is not for you. It is a worse version of FF15 with some of the FF7 story slapped on top. The combat is hectic and confusing, most of the time you do not understand why you died or what you even were targeting. Camera goes haywire and you often end up targeting a enemy that is out of range. You do your special and, you are out of range. Now you are in range, oh wait, enemy interrupted you or dodged and your camera didn't follow. Combat just feels very unfulfilling 10 hours in. Level design feels boring and a chore to get through. The new parts of the story feels forced and out of place. --- This is not JRPG, this is a under cooked and rushed action game. Your head will spin from all the character changing during combat, camera going wild and targeting being bad.… Expand
  62. Mauge
    Apr 11, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Finished it yesterday.
    All i can say is play it to the end before giving rates.
    For me FFVII Remake was a mixed bag, overlong dungeons which became very frustrating towards the end, felt like artificial ways to just get longer running time for the game.
    Characters were great and made me smile continuously, nostalgy was present many times but not as often i would have hoped.
    By the 26h mark i was getting bored. felt like nothing was happening in the game.
    When i got to shinra building my nostalgy were thrown out the window after i met hojo, he was fine but the dungeon of hojo was just too long and boring and added nothing to the story.
    When i got to see what happened to president Shinra, the changes we're just unnecessary and lacked punch compared to the mystery of sephiroth and the "horror" part of the original.
    So then i got to the end and had to step into some kind of portal... I knew it would go off the rails.
    I never personally liked Advent children's Cloud who is more like a superhero than traumatized ex-soldier. So the end ruined all hopes of me liking the next installment of remake series of final fantasy VII. If i want to experience superhero-story i will watch marvel movies instead.
    In my opinion Final Fantasy VII Original wasn't like this at all.
    I despise Square Enix for turning this into bland and hollow superhero fantasy in spirit of dragonball z.    … Expand
  63. tyber16
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    It's an okay game. The story has many **** filler kingdom hearts part but the game is a decent action-rpg. If you don't know the original than this will be a complete game like a first season of a series.
  64. greatduckguru
    Apr 12, 2020
    4
    They took something wonderful and just **** on it. It's the director of the game that really failed this. When the game is pushing for faster hyped up action it slows down. When you want to explore it drives you in a linear fashion. It is really just final fantasy XIII all over again. All the added content that they put in to what normally takes a player just a couple hours to beat itThey took something wonderful and just **** on it. It's the director of the game that really failed this. When the game is pushing for faster hyped up action it slows down. When you want to explore it drives you in a linear fashion. It is really just final fantasy XIII all over again. All the added content that they put in to what normally takes a player just a couple hours to beat it feels like they put filler in with no real substance to pad it out to 40 hours which if you do the math isn't insane level of filler… Expand
  65. Wardrobechaos
    Jan 10, 2021
    4
    This was the flop of 2020 for me personally. Had really high hopes for this as i loved the original FF7 and played it to death. What i liked: graphics, music and the characters.
    what i really did not like: the battle system - awful, messy - why oh why did they have to change it? when you are controlling one out of 3 characters the others do basically nothing, no damage no contribution,    This was the flop of 2020 for me personally. Had really high hopes for this as i loved the original FF7 and played it to death. What i liked: graphics, music and the characters.
    what i really did not like: the battle system - awful, messy - why oh why did they have to change it? when you are controlling one out of 3 characters the others do basically nothing, no damage no contribution, the rest of the enemies focus only on you. so badly done. the side quests, side areas etc are just ugly, boring and bloated time fillers. terrible
    the minigames - like the bike sequences are so awfully terrible - how could something like that have stayed in the game?
    difficulty - completely messed up difficulty - way too hard on normal with this poor battle system. when switched to easy you can basically (mostly) just beat through anything while the clunky combat system will be the biggest challenge.

    really a poor overall effort and worthy FLOP of the year 2020.    … Expand
  66. Vile-Okami
    Apr 13, 2020
    4
    I hate this game more the longer I play it. Combat is a chaotic, terrible mess. Graphics have a severe downgrade after the demo, and it's frankly just boring to play knowing it's only 1/8 of the actual game.
  67. quake2th
    Sep 12, 2021
    4
    A mess of a game.
    While the graphics are nice, everything else is deeply broken. Real-time combat simply does not work, you spend 99% of the time reviving you companions, which do absolutely nothing and just suicide themselves over and over. It's been proven countless times in games, companions should be irrelevant for the outcome of a fight, they're cosmetics and support. Having a party    A mess of a game.
    While the graphics are nice, everything else is deeply broken. Real-time combat simply does not work, you spend 99% of the time reviving you companions, which do absolutely nothing and just suicide themselves over and over. It's been proven countless times in games, companions should be irrelevant for the outcome of a fight, they're cosmetics and support. Having a party can only work with turn based games, or games where you can pause the action and issue individual commands every second. This kind of real-time mixed with turn trend that started with FF12 is HORRIBLE and BROKEN beyond belief. The same issue I had with FF12, FF13 and FF15, I have it here: companions just keep killing themselves over and over, doing absolutely nothing unless you switch like crazy between them issuing order, which distracts from the fight. Sometimes they're so far away from the enemies that you wonder what the f.ck is going on with the AI.

    Shameless money grab, not really a good game.    … Expand
  68. Aironically
    May 9, 2020
    4
    Nomura has proven his genius with this attempt at retroactively ending Final Fantasy with VII; as it almost did 23-years ago. Making final the fantasy of millions was no small task when surely even the unholy union of Square and Enix had to do justice to Midgar's literally on-rails portion. The scorn for a fanbase represented in-game mockingly by "fate whispers" says it all, for they sawNomura has proven his genius with this attempt at retroactively ending Final Fantasy with VII; as it almost did 23-years ago. Making final the fantasy of millions was no small task when surely even the unholy union of Square and Enix had to do justice to Midgar's literally on-rails portion. The scorn for a fanbase represented in-game mockingly by "fate whispers" says it all, for they saw what us plebs could not: we needed more Kingdom Hearts 'plot', FFXV combat and FFXIII corridors. Lots of corridors.

    Ironically, the sheer scope of Midgar shown in its iconic intro convinced my child self the whole game would play out within its confines, when it was merely an unforgettable chunk of a MUCH larger world. That impression was distinct and stayed with me; as did my sense of awe upon reaching the world map. Times have changed: gone is turn-based combat, gone are world maps and the Square of old are long dead. But I refused to believe a remake of arguably the greatest game of all time could fail, and was open to change. Expand the world, add to the characters and bring the universe to life in a way the hoof-handed, spiky haired polygons of old never could. That was ALL they had to do. Fans wanted to see the vision of the original, with current technology. No more, no less.

    Only now can I fully appreciate the driven urgency of the original, when compared against an entire chapter dedicated to turning off gigantic sodding lamps. Chapter 2's look at the aftermath of terrorist bombing gave a glimmer of world-building hope... before water filter busywork and Roach drained my optimism. 5-10hrs became a 30-40hr walkathon. The imminent dread of being crushed was disregarded for character switching; or, instead of following a trail of blood, forcing utterly pointless lever pulling. I was shoved down repeat corridors for hours upon hours, with no regard for pacing or cohesion. On and on and on I trudged until the warmth of nostalgia was replaced by cold indifference and anger. WRPG sidequests, like finding cats or kids, further grinded progress to a halt.

    There was some wonderful fan-service introducing the characters, such as finally seeing Aeris animated and hearing Barret voiced by a black man; preaching his views instead of just waggling his arms at Cloud. Chapter 9's Wall Market section was also so fabulous in its over the top silliness that it surpassed what the original tried to but couldn't do visually back then--Yakuza-esque absurdity. But that's about 2hrs out of 40! The few obvious highs were hit, with all the nuance in-between lost amidst last words dialogue consisting of a desire to eat pizza. And Wedge.

    And then there is the combat... or, more specifically, the bosses. What should be epic showdowns become a case of '...is it over yet?', with sighs of relief exclaimed after spamming items/curaga+magnify. The amount of HP and bizarre reliance on getting a stagger meter up to do damage, paired with bosses having phases like in Souls that abruptly reset stagger, made this one of the worst combat experiences I have ever had. Battles of attrition involving learning to abuse skills like triple slash to auto-kill grunts, and spamming overpowered magic. The best analogy I can make is a TV ad I saw involving a woman waiting, bored, for her lover to climax just to get it over with: impotent and inept. It is a hybrid battle chore, forever confused between turn-based command slow-mo and real-time useless dodging, with worse than useless AI. A mess resulting from not wanting to commit. And to top it off, you cannot change materia in combat and go into bosses blind, when they are even more unbearable if you don't bring *insert elemental here*. There's also no way to swap load-outs between characters, and ch17 has you switching constantly. Awful design choices, decades later. Truly, the most fun I had playing was raging at the pull-up mini-game.

    The final insult was saved for last: non-committal, nonsensical void world wtfisgoinonyyy that strongly suggests retconning, without context. Why 7 seconds? What are you on about? WHY ARE WE IN SPACE!? 'Change destiny' tripe gets repeated as Cloud fights a giant KH shadow. Red XIII exists solely to spout exposition about fate whispers. Barret lets an old man (why was he even hanging on that ledge?) get a gun, instead of killing him, as the rest of the cast standstill as if in a bad anime. People do not die when killed. And why does destiny need changing when the world was saved, again?... Aeris and Zack are treasured by the fanbase because their lives forced people to feel the weight of their virtual existences. The intent seems to be a happy ever after, and I am convinced they have no clue what they are doing and are too arrogant to care as inflated egos led to a dementors sucking away at my will to play.

    This is no longer my Final Fantasy VII: it is an Advent Children sequel sold as a remake. All that is left is an empty husk that ruins memories with tedium.    … Expand
  69. Spidor
    May 6, 2020
    4
    The Zack Snyder of FFVII - clearly written by someone who doesn't get this game, these characters or this story, and yet insists they can do it better. And, much like Zack Snyder, they fail miserably.

    Combat's better, graphics are good, but this is no remake - it's a pathetic, horny retelling that blows all its story points too early, reduces all its character's relationship into    The Zack Snyder of FFVII - clearly written by someone who doesn't get this game, these characters or this story, and yet insists they can do it better. And, much like Zack Snyder, they fail miserably.

    Combat's better, graphics are good, but this is no remake - it's a pathetic, horny retelling that blows all its story points too early, reduces all its character's relationship into amateur fanfic, and that is closer in storytelling to Kingdom Hearts than the legendary FFVII.

    Do not play this game before the original, no matter how technically superior it may seem.    … Expand
  70. punkpop101
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    I would seriously question every single 10 review on this page. Some of them said that they respected the original characters and story when in reality they butchered every single one of them with the ending of the game. The game is nowhere near a 10 and for the first time in my life I might say that some 0 scores are justified for this. It doesn't help that the game is Final Fantasy XIIII would seriously question every single 10 review on this page. Some of them said that they respected the original characters and story when in reality they butchered every single one of them with the ending of the game. The game is nowhere near a 10 and for the first time in my life I might say that some 0 scores are justified for this. It doesn't help that the game is Final Fantasy XIII levels of linear and has some of the most boring side quests to ever grace a JRPG title.… Expand
  71. SilentNightmare
    Apr 14, 2020
    4
    I finished the game now and this is what I can say about it:

    + Great Visuals + Great Soundtrack + Good Character Design + Good Voices +/- The combat has its strengths and weaknesses. I hope the next part goes back to the classic turn based battle. - Horrible Fetch Sidequest straight out of some MMO. - Way too linear and narrow "Dungeons". - The padding is very annoying, it    I finished the game now and this is what I can say about it:

    + Great Visuals
    + Great Soundtrack
    + Good Character Design
    + Good Voices

    +/- The combat has its strengths and weaknesses. I hope the next part goes back to the classic turn based battle.

    - Horrible Fetch Sidequest straight out of some MMO.
    - Way too linear and narrow "Dungeons".
    - The padding is very annoying, it doesn't add anything meaningful to this game, only exist to make it longer.
    - Too much Story changes from the original, the ending putt this game from a 6/10 to a 4/10.
    - No hard mode available in first playthrough

    All in all it is a pretty average RPG, buy it on a sale and you can have some fun if you are not a fan of the original.    … Expand
  72. clonc
    May 21, 2020
    4
    Gameplay is typical FF13 corridor walking with a handful of open areas in between. Some generic quests at the hubs, but they are few and pointless. The game constantly takes control away from you, forces you to walk or other annoying things.

    Story is FF7, mostly, just really padded.
    Main cast is OK, supporting characters are bad. Antagonists are really bad. Everything reeks anime cringe.
  73. Bloodbane2099
    Apr 13, 2020
    4
    Besides a beautiful graphics engine Final Fantasy 7 remake fails to impress gameplay wise on almost all fronts,im a Huge Final Fantasy 7 fan i must have played through the original more times then i can count which is why its sad to say this game is such a huge disappointment,essentially they took a tiny portion of the original the first 5 to 6 hours or so which was a terrible idea toBesides a beautiful graphics engine Final Fantasy 7 remake fails to impress gameplay wise on almost all fronts,im a Huge Final Fantasy 7 fan i must have played through the original more times then i can count which is why its sad to say this game is such a huge disappointment,essentially they took a tiny portion of the original the first 5 to 6 hours or so which was a terrible idea to begin with and made a long over dull and sadly not very fun to play re imaging of those first 5 to 6 hours,most aspects are padded to extreme levels to the point of just wanting to get it over with, chapters 5,6,and 7 are all a consecutive dungeon which devolves into running around hitting switches here and there and trying to get the matieria they tease you with that's just out of reach because of silly and just plain bad dungeon design,during combat the camera will often swing around wildly things will hit you off screen that you can not see because the camera is cropped so close to the character your using at the moment i swear there giving you a proctology exam,often times enemy attack animations will essentially stun lock you and the damage becomes unavoidable as well,the enemy's also seem to just gang up on the character your using at the time,they will actually stop attacking the AI controlled party members and make a B line for you alone,not to mention the AI controlled party members have abyssmil coding and will mindlessly attack what ever. in short combat is kind of a train wreck but with patches could be fixed,its a damn shame to see this happen but it is what it is,despite some beautiful graphics and some interesting music remixes, sadly poor retelling of the original midgard opening and dull boring and often times uninteresting gameplay will reserve this remake to only the most diehard of diehard Final Fantasy 7 fans =(… Expand
  74. DG7490
    Apr 22, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ahhhhh ! So close but yet so far....graphics are great for the most part, with some eyeball watering bad textures that look like they leaped across from the original 97 version that need to be patched out. The battle system is decent, and pretty fun and the summons have great animations. Voice acting is good and the sound is epic in parts.
    ...then the issues start to creep in ! Most people who fell in love with the original would have been jumping like a teenager again as you progress through the story until you realise early on that its trying to fill out its content, dragging its arse across the floor like a dog with worms. Slowing you down and squeezing you between gaps to literally pad out the game to hit the golden 30hr mark ..its starts to change key elements of the story, but you can live with it..what you cant get over is the childish surreal nonsense Nojima adds to this so called REMAKE. Adding **** characters, twisting the plot until it reaches its climax and totally ****s on the original..different timeline, characters that should be dead are alive and the biggest elephant in the room revealed..'its too expensive to make the full game in this fashion'...so it lures you in with a faithful first section of the game then they change the whole thing at the end and leaves the door open for Square Ennix to do whatever the hell it wants going forward with a bull**** Kingdom Hearts twist that a two year old could have made up. Its akin to the last installment of Star Wars, lures you in with old characters then totally destroys the originals lore and great story telling...if that pissed you off, then be prepared for a REMATCH with this REMAKE...it gets lots right, and some parts are magic, but it just seems like an elaborate ruse to get your hard earned cash before they recreate the whole story with the next parts of this multi faceted release the way they want. I hope to god Im wrong, but its got all the hallmarks of trying to please everyone and ending up not knowing where the hell its going !    … Expand
  75. zspturbo
    Apr 18, 2020
    4
    This game is so bad it has made me re-contextualize my childhood love of jrpgs. Are the Japanese losing it?

    It’s not fun, at all. It’s just pretty. That’s it. This is a nostalgia cash grab. They put no effort into making this an enjoyable experience, just making it look good in a promo. Every action has a 2 second pause as the animation runs for the character to pose, then open the door,    This game is so bad it has made me re-contextualize my childhood love of jrpgs. Are the Japanese losing it?

    It’s not fun, at all. It’s just pretty. That’s it. This is a nostalgia cash grab. They put no effort into making this an enjoyable experience, just making it look good in a promo.

    Every action has a 2 second pause as the animation runs for the character to pose, then open the door, then slowly walk through. Want to open a chest or something? Better walk straight up to it perfectly. And let’s not even talk about the speaking animations - characters mouths literally move like a **** ps3 game. And the characters? Holy **** if you thought final fantasy 15 was bad, wait until you see this. Barrett is a ridiculous racist overblown joke, and Tifa is literally a hentai character. She behaves with the cutesy little facial expressions and gestures that make it clear this was written by someone who doesn’t interact with humans, a hikkikomori or whatever. Can’t take it seriously at all. And then the Turks... oh god the Turks are so terrible. The most ridiculous unrealistic cartoonish bull**** of all time, and it makes NO sense. Overall, Square really messed up the voice acting and it destroys the storytelling aspect by taking you completely out of the experience.

    And the gameplay is absolute trash as well. You control one character in battle, and you’re lucky if the others do much at all. Outside of battle, they spent more time on background graphics than the things you interact with. The slums are laid out in a completely meaningless way, it’s just some random streets that are stretched out for no reason!

    I have nothing good to say. Avoid this game. Even if you’re nostalgic - preserve your nostalgia by not playing this. If you have to, watch someone else play on YouTube, but for the love of god don’t give these people your money.    … Expand
  76. Gordknight
    Apr 11, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Okay. This review is coming from someone who bought and played the original Final Fantasy VII back in 1997 at the age of 14. Played it religiously for years. Still play it at least every other year for a full playthrough.

    Be Warned First: THIS IS NOT A REMAKE as the title implies. It's more of Final Fantasy VII: Alternate Universe Part 1.

    Now first I will say what I liked about it because I'll give credit where credit is due. The combat system is fun and engaging. The music at many points is gorgeous and spot on. The music is bad too but I'll get to that later. The voice acting is great and believable.

    The pacing seems fine for the most part.

    Now the bad. And by bad I mean REALLY **** bad.

    They strayed so completely from the source material that this game can no longer be considered a remake. Its designed more of an alternate universe prequel to Advent Children and a sequel to Crisis Core. Some of the music is such a poor rendition of the original track that its distracting. You find yourself listening closely to see if its the music that should be playing at that point/area in the game or not.

    The game is overall a marketing scam. We were sold with the deliberate pitch that veteran FFVII players would get some moments of surprise.

    That is putting it mildly. We didnt get moments of surprise. (SPOILERS BELOW)

    They rewrote the whole **** plot. In the original game Sephiroth isn't even mentioned until he kills president Shinra near the end of disc 1. In the game he bounces all over the place. Constantly appearing and disappearing. He kills president Shinra, but he also kills Barrett. Then guess what? Barrett didnt die because a magical fate ghost saved him. These stupid ass fate ghosts BTW will be appearing over and over again throughout the game. Making sure that the current time line stays in accordance to FF7 I guess? But then instead of walking into the sunset on your great adventure because president Shinra is dead and Cloud wants to pursue Sephiroth (who at this point in the original) is still a mysterious character that Cloud thought was dead) you fight the god of fate itself and then the Advent children version of Sephiroth thus changing the timelines and making Biggs back alive, ZACH appears never died and set the timeline on the course to what it seems is going to lead Aerith (Aeris) to never die too.

    What the actual **** I thought I was playing FF7 with better graphics, sound/music and a more up to date combat system. Not a bad remake of Back to the **** Future with Final Fantasy VII characters replacing DOC Brown and Marty Mcfly.

    Honestly the moments in the game that followed the original plot had me smiling ear to ear, but the huge and story destroying alterations made me feel like I was reading a terrible fan fiction made by a virgin weeb whilst he stole ideas from a rejected script of Dr Who.

    TLDR: IF you loved the original FFVII, go play that. Don't buy this **** game. If you never played the original, go get the original and still don't buy this. Its just so sad and depressing that this **** is what we got.    … Expand
  77. Ploppy0
    Apr 11, 2020
    4
    PROS :
    -The music is good, most remix respect the source material and feels even better.
    -Some epic moment are taken to another level with the new engine. -The mains characters are nailed, their design and psychology. CONS: -The pacing and the narration rhythm is shallow and boring. -Every single new character is awful and cringe, Nomura just can't help it.(omg Shadley..) -The    PROS :
    -The music is good, most remix respect the source material and feels even better.
    -Some epic moment are taken to another level with the new engine.
    -The mains characters are nailed, their design and psychology.

    CONS:
    -The pacing and the narration rhythm is shallow and boring.
    -Every single new character is awful and cringe, Nomura just can't help it.(omg Shadley..)
    -The cinematic dialogue never stop and are everywhere.
    -The combat are frustrating, they fail at providing strategy or proper action, the camera is anoying.
    -The graphics are unbalanced with some beautiful place and some other directly from an old PS3 build
    -The large majority of side quest are chinese MMO level with dull NPC who can't help to talk for long minutes about things you don't give a damn, to just kill 3 monsters in the end.
    -The UI/menu are very cheap.
    -The 'new' story change are dumb and mostly here to extend the game for no other purpose.
    -The level design is insulting and remind the worst "maps" of FF13
    -All the NPC looks like hipsters lost in a FF7 theme park.

    The game is clearly rushed, what you saw in the trailer and the demo is THE BEST PART, everything else is average at best, This REmake is after ~10 hours a REBOOT filled with bad idea.
    DO NOT BUY, wait for the full release and eventually an enhanced version in few years.    … Expand
  78. Couriersixx
    Apr 11, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The Good:
    Game looks fantastic at times. Combat is quite good for modern final fantasy.
    Iconic characters are interesting and fun to interact with.

    The Neutral:
    Side quests can be generic Game world is made up of linear hallways and passageways, though midgar in the original was like this as well.
    Some of the extra content to flesh out the story doesn’t add much but extra padding to game length.

    The Bad:
    The game is too short, we’ve known for a while the game would only cover midgar, but with the way the story is paced I can’t see the game being fit into 3 parts unless they severely compress the story.

    The story itself goes off the deep end in the last hour to the point that calling it a remake is borderline false advertisement as the story devolves and takes a complete 180. It turns into a story about multiple universes where major character deaths are averted and the game turns into a giant anime battle in the sky’s of midgar with sephiroth and what looks like the heartless from KH. This game went from a flawed but serviceable remake of a classic game, to advent children fanfiction for seemingly no reason other than to pull a gotcha. Honestly never had a game depress me before, but anyone hoping for a remake of 7, you will be disappointed. The hopes of a true remake are gone, we can only hope this alternate universe game they are creating is successful in its own right.

    If you have never played ff7 and only know cloud and sephiroth from shirts at hot topics and vague memory’s I’d advent children none of this stuff will bother you so it may very will be an 8.5    … Expand
  79. zycore718
    Apr 16, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Square advertised this game series as the remake that fans had hoped and wished for, and for the most part the first game absolutely delivered on that. Midgar is faithfully reproduced and feels more alive than it’s ever been. The graphics are beautiful and perfectly match the character of the city and the slums. The characters are multi-dimensional, even the background Avalanche trio of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie get more to do and say. The combat is fun and challenging once you get used to the fundamentals and how each character handles. Aside from a few slow bits, too linear places and the admittedly boring sidequests, I had a blast with the first 17 chapters and it was getting me stoked for the future games. I wanted to see Nibelheim, Rocket Town, Wutai, Cosmo Canyon and the rest of the characters experience the same loving treatment given to Midgar in this game. I started to think to myself ‘this is too good to be true’, it was damn-near perfect.

    Well, turns out it was too good to be true. Having finished the game, I now find myself absolutely shellshocked that Square could take such an easy slam-dunk and fumble it at the literal final hurdle. Chapter 18 – the ending chapter - single-handedly brings the entire game down crashing and burning. It’s a baffling, disappointing trainwreck that rips apart the spirit of not only the ORIGINAL game but the first 17 chapters of ITS OWN GAME on top of that. I had several theories about what the floating things that kept popping up during the game were, but I honestly believed all that they were was something to do with the Reunion that is prominent in the story of FFVII. Nope, surprise! They’re mystical time ghosts who preserve ‘destiny’, because we clearly needed that crap from Kingdom Hearts in here – complete with a huge black blob boss. And double surprise! Sephiroth can now travel in space and parallel dimensions like **** Dr Strange. And Zack is somehow also still alive. Meaning that the emotional weight of his death is completely invalidated. I’M NOT EVEN LYING about any of this.

    The whole chapter and ending made me bash my head against the wall, and I still lost less braincells than watching it all unfold. I’m struggling to understand what the **** happened. And if your plot is unintelligible to a lot of your audience then I’m sorry, but it’s not a good plot. What was so wrong with the original story that warranted this absurd deviation? Did Nomura and Nojima decide that it wasn’t “”cool”” or “”meta”” enough for the Gen-Zers who’ve never played the 1997 original? We’ll probably never know. But nevertheless, it took my enjoyment of the game and excitement of the future and threw it in the trash. All my hype destroyed in one short hour. I can’t for the life of me understand how the hell they thought that this was the direction those like me who loved Final Fantasy VII wanted to go in. I can’t understand that the same people who gave us the original story that was almost perfect could turn it into such moronic drivel.

    The game was easily a 9/10 before Chapter 18, but that ridiculous ending seriously deserves a 0/10. So I averaged the score to 4/10. It’s frankly saddening. Square shouldn’t have advertised this as a ‘remake’. It’s clearly not. It’s clearly aiming to be a reboot. A reboot that, from the ending of the first part, will end up trumping Advent Children in the stakes of gaudy nonsense. It’s ‘Rebuild of Evangelion’ levels of reboot. I feel cheated, and I was one of the people who DIDN’T want just the original game with HD graphics, and expected there to be some story changes. But I expected those changes to actually ADD to the original story, not take away practically everything it had in favour of lazy, brainless tropes. I’m not gonna stick around for the next games in the series now. I don’t want the rest of Final Fantasy VII Remake if it’s based on the rubbish in Chapter 18. Sorry, Square, but you blew it. I’ll just play the original from now on.    … Expand
  80. greedyflygon1
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    Linear, incomplete, bad ff xv-like combat, weak music, and an altered story. The only thing this game has going for it is the graphics quality.
  81. Troxartas
    Apr 12, 2020
    4
    This game has been hyped to death and in the end, its not really worth it. If your a fan of the original then the ending will infuriate you. If you expected them to deliver the whole experience as it was in sequels, they wont. The game play itself is fine, though I would have liked for it to be 100% as it used to be. (because RPG's like that are a dying breed. But it isn't the worst. AsThis game has been hyped to death and in the end, its not really worth it. If your a fan of the original then the ending will infuriate you. If you expected them to deliver the whole experience as it was in sequels, they wont. The game play itself is fine, though I would have liked for it to be 100% as it used to be. (because RPG's like that are a dying breed. But it isn't the worst. As many have already said its combat is a lot like Kingdom Hearts, you will make periodic move choices like casting spells/using items. Graphic wise its good but SE has for a long time imo been making "Well polished turds".
    The Biggest problem is the ending where SE says "F%*ck you" to any fans of the original, who hoped to see the post Midgar sections as they were. Thanks to some out of left field story telling choices, SE give themselves free reign to do whatever the hell they want with the next installment. They now have free license to completely alter a story that was never broken. Nomura's influence seems especially heavy, as many of the retcons and universal resets are the same b.s. that hounded the latest Kingdom hearts entries.
    To sum up, if your looking to relive the old feelings FF7 brought you, Play the original. (its available on damn near everything now) I know many old school fans already pre-ordered the game and SE already has your money, but i would not recommend this game to anyone looking to relive the ff7 experience. At least wait a few months and buy it on sale for 20$, not worth the full price.    … Expand
  82. Gamala
    May 13, 2020
    4
    The game has a lot of good in it, yet it has a lot of little things that make it so much worse.

    Summary: General: To me this game feels like what Full Metal Alchemist movie was compared to FMA manga. It has the story elements of the original but even then the story falls far from the real story. (in this case, I would rate this game 7.5/10 if they would just completely remove    The game has a lot of good in it, yet it has a lot of little things that make it so much worse.

    Summary:

    General:
    To me this game feels like what Full Metal Alchemist movie was compared to FMA manga. It has the story elements of the original but even then the story falls far from the real story. (in this case, I would rate this game 7.5/10 if they would just completely remove chapters 17 & 18 from the game, but I get to that later.)

    This is a PG 3 game that has a PG 16 rating, the amount of hand holding even till the end is extremely annoying. Not only does camera ALWAYS show you where to go with fixed angle. Your NPCs tell you multiple times where you need to go or what to do. You literally cannot go wrong way because of "Cloud don't go there".

    Even the quest where you need to find undercover dude with password the quest marker literally is on his head all the time, there is no possibility to miss him or even wonder. This game seems to assume that you are literally so stupid that you cannot find even bathroom on your own, it's really off putting when game thinks i'm retarded. When game does this, I'm like no **** is that really the way to go, who would have thought.

    This game has too many benches that allow you to restore hp/mp full. Its harder to run out of mp between fights than to consume it all since sometimes you have bench literally after every other fight.

    I'll rope hard mode into this. in hard mode you cannot use items, but benches are still there, tho this time they only restore hp. I find this to be really stupid way of doing things, I didn't have any problems with hard mode, this just shifted my combat almost completely from materias to skills which didn't make any other difference than made combat more boring to me.

    I rather they removed the benches completely and let us use those items we collected in normal mode. After I hit hard mode I sold all items, since I used less than 10 of them combined truout the whole game before that anyway.

    Also I personally dislike hard mode exclusive items/skillpoint books. I think these should be obtainable even on normal but if you want to get multiple of the same items then you should be able to farm them on hard, or something like this. Looking at you secret battle.

    Visuals: 9/10
    Would have 10/10 but I keep getting distracted by doors and floors that look like they are copied from the original game.

    Movement: 8/10
    Personally I find it annoying that character starts circling around when you try to just move sideways a little. Also 5/10 for all those damn forced to wall near quest characters/objects, really annoying in some parts when you just wanna walk.

    Music: 10/10
    Absolutely fantastic music.

    Combat: 6.5/10
    The combat mechanics are really good in general. I personally didn't like how summons work, but I still think they are fine nontheless.
    Your chars gets interrupted little too easily while casting or using skills and even tho you wouldn't have cast or attacked yet you still lose mp and action.
    Limit breaks are absolutely worst part of the combat. The fact that you can die, get interrupted or enemy moves a little so you hit empty corner during limit is really stupid. it also doesn't re-target a different enemy if the original dies. Don't get me wrong, they look nice and hit nicely when they work, but they should work like summon so that the rest of the game pauses till you have done limit.
    These are the main breaking points of combat for me. There are some other minor things but if they fixed limits and losing actions for nothing I would rate combat 9/10.

    Characters/character development: 8/10
    I love all other characters but Aerith in this game. Well-written, they seem to have their own stuff and seem natural. Aerith is written as annoying and out-of-place too often. For an instance, who talks about themself like "Since I'm so generous, I..." and this is not even sarcastic remark, since she actually does those things.

    Cloud character develops much faster into friendly soldier than in original which I don't like that much but its not that big of a turn off. And for some reason his mercenary side is played off as a joke towards end.

    Story: 0/10
    Here I will say that til chapter 17 I think writing was mostly good so I would give it 8/10.
    After that story went full StarWars part 8 in writing. Most things make no sense even with this games plot, not to mention original FF7 plot. I shall not spoil it, but that is mostly since I would need about 20000 more characters to point out all of the plot holes and points that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. As a fan of original FF7 with thousands of hours into it, this was more like spit to the face than anything else.

    Overall phasing of the game is good imo, but in the end the phasing goes from 0 to 1000 in 3 seconds which made it even worse. This game is the JRPG meme "find a kitten then kill a god" the problem is that they skip everything in between.    … Expand
  83. Teddy_Shinobi_9
    Apr 16, 2020
    4
    Did not expect the main story line to take such a KH3 like drastic turn. Not looking forward to the next part and will not buy it until I know what the whole story is.
  84. Lostasa
    Apr 18, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I am going to start out with Game-play, it's amazing I loved every second of it, very fluid and engaging imo it's an 8/10. Moving on to Sound I believe it's a little underwhelming during slow points but ramps up and is great during big battles and scenes so 7/10. Visuals I can only say breath taking it's so great to see the characters and world that I love so much looking as beautiful as it does 9/10 and I have heard of others talking about texture issues but I only saw it maybe once or twice so it didn't affect me. Now for the part that ruined it for me the Story, well what can I say they did such an amazing job for like 95% of the game step for step it was amazing but as soon as I hit the end of the highway and the game became Kingdom Hearts and I was fighting the Darkness it all fell apart, with them making this a new story it's not what I nor a lot of fans were looking for, the Final Fantasy 7 story was already confusing and full and they could have fleshed that out and made it perfect like they were doing for most of the game but for them to add alternate time-lines and whatever else they plan it just ruins it for me so I hate to do this but the story gets a 3/10. This is just so disappointing and I wish they hadn't gone down this path. This is my review for the first installment of the "re-imagined" FF7 series. If for some reason this ending doesn't do what it's portraying it's going to do in the second installment (rewriting the whole story line) and this is just what the original story was supposed to be like but with limitations of the time couldn't be I will change my rating after I play the next game, but for now it looks like they done f***ed it up imo.… Expand
  85. RuriGokou
    Apr 16, 2020
    4
    Ugh, just don't buy this game. It's also unfair that metacritic has locked the user score to 8.0. What a **** show of a site.

    Anyway, this game isn't Final Fantasy 7. This game is Final Fantasy 7-2. I wasn't expecting the game to be an exact remake. Sure I expected certain parts to be flushed out more, but this game just throws it all away to rewrite everything. This isn't a remake in    Ugh, just don't buy this game. It's also unfair that metacritic has locked the user score to 8.0. What a **** show of a site.

    Anyway, this game isn't Final Fantasy 7. This game is Final Fantasy 7-2. I wasn't expecting the game to be an exact remake. Sure I expected certain parts to be flushed out more, but this game just throws it all away to rewrite everything. This isn't a remake in the sense of remaking the game with better graphics and such. This is remake in the sense that Nomura and his turd Kingdom Hearts crew are remaking the game how they want it.

    Parts that would take 10-20 minutes in the original take up to an hour. Mostly because you're required to walk slowly or squeeze through tight areas. When you're not doing that, you are doing side quests that are taken from any run of the mill MMORPG. You have classics LIKE: find the mcguffin and return it to the owner, defeat X amount of enemies, and defeat unique enemy to get mcguffin and return it to the owner. What fun! I sure remember in the original when Cloud and co had to find cats and defeat rats for people. It doesn't even ADD to the lore of the game world. It's just padding and it's boring. I find myself just zoning out or skipping dialogue from scenes that weren't in the original because the dialogue is cringe and bad. Especially the character Jessie. This character went from neutral to cringe in an instant. Hate the character so much.

    Speaking of characters. What has happened to Tifa and Aerith? The dialogue is written and spoken in such a way to appear as a waifu material. It's so disgusting. I hated getting Aerith finally in my party because of her cringe cutesy dialogue as you're trying to get to Wall Market. Not to mention, I'm not a fan of this dialogue as you're walking around. It doesn't add anything to the game.

    I knew things weren't going to go well when in the first hour, Sephiroth appears. Just. What. ARE. THEY. THINKING!? Apparently the plot has something to do with going against fate/destiny. So, this game is some kind of alternate universe to the original. It was falsely advertised. That's right. This is a sequel because there is no way a new player could understand just what is going on. Nothing is explained very well at all UNLESS you've play the original game.

    The staff who made this game have no freaking clue what made the original great. Fans didn't want a story on fan fiction levels. Fans didn't want to see scenes taken directly from Advent Children in Final Fantasy 7. Fans wanted a game with the same major story beats as the original and having it in great graphics with some minor additions.

    Combat is horrible and can take up to 20-30 minutes just to finish a boss battle. The battles are so padded out. When you do a certain amount of damage, they'll be a cutscene or something. I'd hate to die just to sit through these cutscenes again. The character AI is so stupid. I wish you could program it to perform certain moves to help out like Final Fantasy 12 but nope. Instead the AI just seems to stand around only to get hit. I constantly have to be switching characters to put in the moves I want. And when you're not controlling a character, why does their ATB guage take SO long to even get ONE BAR!? With this kind of action RPG combat, it can get very stressful. It's not particularly fun. Especially on boss battles because they're giant damage sponges.

    I don't really remember using materia a whole lot at the beginning of the original game. Mostly just healing magic, but now you're required to equip all different kinds of materia because enemies now have weaknesses. You have to exploit these weaknesses to cause enemies to stagger. Wow, since when did Final Fantasy 7 become Persona 5? It's such a pain to go into a battle and not have the correct materia on. Be prepared for that because it'll happen often. Trash mobs should not take 10 minutes to defeat because you can't exploit the weakness and stagger them. This is what I hated about the combat in Final Fantasy 13!

    Because of how tedious combat and plot pacing is I could never see myself playing this game ever again. I've played the original numerous times since I first played it back in 1997. Not only is combat tedious, but there is no exploration. In the original game, I get to a new town or area of course I want to walk around and check things out. But this game is so on rails everyone is holding your hand and telling you what you can and cannot do. That's not fun at all. You can't even explore or interact with the towns. It's all just painting on the wall to look lived in. It's so bizarre to see 3 or 4 of the same looking NPC in a row right next to each other. Did they not even think about the placement?

    You fooled me once Squreenix shame on you. You won't fool me again. I'm not supporting Final Fantasy as a franchise anymore. I'm eagerly looking forward to the release of Trials of Mana. I've been wanting to play that more than this turd anyway.    … Expand
  86. Sonofocelot
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    i grew up with ff7 as my favourite game. It still is. I last played through it 4 months ago, my 43rd playthrough. This remake isn't a bad game I'm not going to go overboard and give it a 0 like some here, but in all honesty it isn't great. For one, it feels VERY linear. Even more so than the original, which was far from an open world game when you were in midgar. Secondly everything justi grew up with ff7 as my favourite game. It still is. I last played through it 4 months ago, my 43rd playthrough. This remake isn't a bad game I'm not going to go overboard and give it a 0 like some here, but in all honesty it isn't great. For one, it feels VERY linear. Even more so than the original, which was far from an open world game when you were in midgar. Secondly everything just feels.. clunky. The movement isn't good and the new battle system just doesn't have the strategic elements that the original did. Lastly the voice acting is just really cringe and it's hard to get past. No one feels well casted and everything feels over the top. Barret in particular is just making me red in the face through embarrassment every time he speaks. It might be worth playing if you're a huge fan of the original, mainly to see how certain scenery looks with modern day graphics. But in all honesty I would wait for a reduction in price. This is far from a good game, let alone a great one.… Expand
  87. Zands
    Apr 16, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Guess we're exiting the timeline where FF7 was such an emotional masterpiece directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and entering the one where Tetsuya Nomura got his job instead of being only the character designer. Because the original story was obviously not good enough if it had people still begging for a remake 20 years after it's original release. Good thing Nomura got us with his fate ghost and other kingdom hearts BS.

    Seriously, how can you manage to nail every uncertain aspects of a remake and F up the story?
    What was the point of creating a special comity to ensure the upcoming FF games would keep true to their roots if you can't prevent the guy from doing that?    … Expand
  88. tec
    Apr 15, 2020
    4
    A clearly style>substance / visuals>gameplay case.
    I looks gorgeous but behind the facade you see a very simple, straightforward and not subtle at all exposition of the first 4-6 hours of the original FF7 stretched into 30-50 hours boring running down hallways, looking at menus and watching another cutscene.
    Granted, the fights are entertaining for the most time but not very challenging    A clearly style>substance / visuals>gameplay case.
    I looks gorgeous but behind the facade you see a very simple, straightforward and not subtle at all exposition of the first 4-6 hours of the original FF7 stretched into 30-50 hours boring running down hallways, looking at menus and watching another cutscene.
    Granted, the fights are entertaining for the most time but not very challenging at all or simple try and error if you don´t analyze your enemies. Also being interrupted every Bossfight because he needs to show you either his next stage or a new move, is very offputting.
    Minigames are very spare and mostly very basic like push buttons in correct order, or push buttons quickly in correct order, or push the goddamn triangle, rarely hold triangle.
    Dungeons are just hallways with more monsters on your way, each time with a big one waiting for you at the end. Materia boils down to a simple system where you equip the one you like, and with each won battle, AP will be added to level up your materia after a dozen fights. Multiplying Materia trough mastering is gone. When the game picks up in action, it´s almost over again.

    Very dissapointing, if you waited over a decade in hope to see a decent game out of this remake, and you get a kingdom hearts on rails copy in the ff7 universe but only the beginning which is the atrocious part of the original game. Too bad because if they expanded it to the whole world, it could be epic but it´s just another JRPG which is to scared of jumping over his shadow.

    TL;DR: Simple style over substance with nothing breathtaking or groundshacking.    … Expand
  89. Cannon9
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    A game made for the kind of people that only appreciate presentation and graphics and nothing else.

    Leaving aside that the game is not complete and who knows how many episodes they will try to milk the fanbase with: The story is nonsense. We have some bad levels of fanfic here. The sidequests and some of the main quests are boring. The combat is a weird mix of turn based and action based    A game made for the kind of people that only appreciate presentation and graphics and nothing else.

    Leaving aside that the game is not complete and who knows how many episodes they will try to milk the fanbase with:
    The story is nonsense. We have some bad levels of fanfic here. The sidequests and some of the main quests are boring.
    The combat is a weird mix of turn based and action based but it doesn’t achieve anything. good from any of those.    … Expand
  90. Timenick
    May 7, 2021
    4
    I got this from PS Plus and I never played a Final Fantasy game before.

    Amazing graphics in every cutscene and a few areas but really bad ps3 level graphics in all other areas of the game. The characters are colorful and interesting but there is a lot of bad writing and cringy dialogue. The gameplay is unique but normal enemies get boring really fast. Most boss fight are good but some    I got this from PS Plus and I never played a Final Fantasy game before.

    Amazing graphics in every cutscene and a few areas but really bad ps3 level graphics in all other areas of the game. The characters are colorful and interesting but there is a lot of bad writing and cringy dialogue. The gameplay is unique but normal enemies get boring really fast. Most boss fight are good but some will take forever to beat.

    I know this is just the first episode but as a standalone product this is an average game with a few really bad hiccups.    … Expand
  91. YokaiChallenger
    Apr 12, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The spiderman movies have been rebooted 3 times. All having shared the same characters and story arcs to an extent but changing certain aspects of the STORY and character motivations. Devil May Cry was rebooted the same way, altering the look and feel of the series but keeping the characters of Dante, Virgil and others although the STORY was drastically altered. The thing is, these games and movies never promised to be a remake or sequels of the series.

    Don't belive what many are saying about people giving the game a low rating because it takes place only in Midgar. Many fans of the game itself, myself included, are upset over "bait and switch" SE has done with the game promising a remake when in all honesty, this is a reboot. Much of the original story remains the same with some additions up until about the 20 hour mark where they just throw what we knew out of the window in place of a "defy fate," time travel story akin to a KH game. Characters that should have died, don't and events that should have happened late in the story are forced into the Midgar segments. There is also a ton of filler, "kill this monster" and fetch quests as well that provide a ton of padding. There is a part in Sector 5 were you have to move a giant robotic hand for Cloud and Aeris to make it across the slums. Cloud is literally and errand **** boy during the Sector 5 and 7 segments of the game.
    Some of the new characters like Rosche and the trio from Wall Market were unnecessary in my opinion. On the other hand, the more fleshed out backstories for the original cast was nice though. Honestly, much of the first half is really good. The music is great, the battle system is actually pretty dynamic once you get the hang of it. Voice-acting is good. Seeing all of the original areas redone was jaw-dropping. This is what those who have been waiting 14 years after seeing the tech demo back in 2005-2006...

    What people are mad about is the butchery of the ending and the uncertainty of the future games. It's clear that there will be parallels worlds and what if scenarios. I wouldn't be surprised if a certain character doesn't die later in the story or Sephiroth becomes a good guy. People are upset because of the lies SE have spouted...it's not a remake...its a reboot. I'd even go as far to call it a glorified spin-off.    … Expand
  92. wblanc
    Apr 15, 2020
    4
    There is ton of things that don't work or are absurd. Why not have a TOTAL game for exemple ? Why change the history ? Why so lack of soul ? Why so many casual things ? Why "happy potter ghost" and "Sephiroth apparition" ? Why why why ? This history is damn good, there is nothing to change and you FAILED it, your damn ego.
  93. jonnysilverhand
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    una autentica vergüenza, pierde toda la esencia de final fantasy, se ríe en la memoria del original y el modo clásico (modo prensa), es un insulto al fan de toda la vida, ya que otros juegos actuales y que han triunfado, con combates por turnos. (dragonquest XI, persona 5,etc..) y este final fantasy se declina por una lucha estilo ffXV, que no es malo, pero no es ff., por cierto, se estauna autentica vergüenza, pierde toda la esencia de final fantasy, se ríe en la memoria del original y el modo clásico (modo prensa), es un insulto al fan de toda la vida, ya que otros juegos actuales y que han triunfado, con combates por turnos. (dragonquest XI, persona 5,etc..) y este final fantasy se declina por una lucha estilo ffXV, que no es malo, pero no es ff., por cierto, se esta notando el rewievbombing que se está haciendo para inflar la nota y que pueda vender más… Expand
  94. Daikyosenshi
    Apr 21, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is just horrible. I mean I had to stop playing, because I just couldn't bare another mini attraction with that handcrane thing. This is just too much. The dull and repetetive corridor **** broke me. And I know there's much more of the same in the chapters to come. So I'll watch the rest on youtube.

    While the main scenario cutscenes are great and frankly speaking all a fan could dream of and more, the gameplay is just horendous pile of garbage. But this is a GAME for **** sake. It is supposed to be played. Not watched. So what do we have beside the amazingness that is FF7R the movie?

    Repetetive gameplay, boring bloated mazes with ve-e-e-ry informative chit chat from your companions. Locked doors to open, keycards to find, switches to push, and levers to pull. All that is sprinkled with Cloud constantly shimmying in narrow spaces to allow for the game to load more of the same **** and the WARNING icon for when you try to have fun. Who's idea of entertainment is this? Even the characters themselves comment on that from time to time. They're like..."Cloud we know this is fecal, but we have to press on". How could you **** it up so badly. Man. This game is a drag. And the quests? Lol. Find some **** find some kids, bring this here, take that there. Mob hunts. Done. Yeah right, it's the FF7 glory as we remember it. And while're doing these meaningful quests you learn about the characters you love. You'll learn that Tifa is a waifu. Aerith is very nice. Jessie wants to **** but maybe not, because syke. God.

    The combat is all over the place. You've used the assess materia - you know the combination. You're good. You don't. Well tough luck. Reload. Sit through the loading screen. Try again. FUN! Hope you like hearing the same lines from your team over and over again. Activating combat mode combat resolved ptsd to the max.

    And the story....Oh lord have mercy. Nomura san, you just had to do it, didn't you. You just needed to inject some of your destiny ass keyhole aids into a perfectly fine story. But wait. If the story was left as it was this game would be BORING. Right? Sure. Yeah. Thanks squeenix. And thanks Nomura, for ****ting all over what could have been something really amazing. **** you too by the way.

    Don't believe those nostalgia induced 10 outta 10s. I've watched lots of reviews for this game. They ususally go as follows: Well um the quests are lame, but the game is amazing. Well the corridor stuff kinda sucks, but I'm so thrilled for what's to come. Well I was sitting there pressing X screaming OH MY GOD I DON'T **** CARE!!!! But i like what they did with the characters. Graphics looks really really bad, but the game is an eye-candy. What?!

    I don't really get where this is coming from, and i don't really care. Crazy people be crazy i suppose. Again. Cutscenes are great. Rest is cancer.

    On a more positive note...I like that I've lost any faith in SE capability to produce anything fun. I mean they did prepare me for this for quite some time now. It started with FFXIII. And after FFXV, i'd say this game is a tremendous success. So honestly i'm not dissapointed in the slightest. Too late for a refund though, so that's a shame. But oh well.

    P.S. Check out the four identical copies of and old man in an apron in the area by the orphanage. It is sublime.    … Expand
  95. Krille90
    Apr 14, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Average, bad lipsynching low textures on many things in the game, about the game being episodic didn't quite work as well as the original BUT! It can possibly get better in the 2nd part where we should get a open world, lets hope that it happens especially with the new PS5 coming out this year(gets easier to build). Really bad voice acting when it comes to certain characters like Cloud, Sephiroth, Reno and Rude.. the voices doesn't fit as well and it was a Huge! Let down for me especially when they had the perfect Sephiroth and Reno. Too many Changes is also bad, Cant summon when tou want too... Huge let down AGAIN!
    ... too much Kingdom Hearts than Final Fantasy..

    So what's good?
    Most of the Graphics in this game really shines through, Especially when it comes to the main characters. The Materia system! Oh god i friggin love that they stayed true to this system and also that it shows you when you level up materia(keept me searching for materia) Good Job!. The lightning effects are on point! , the acting itself (movement) is really well done and when it comes to combat, you really can feel when you use Barret's gun-arm or Cloud's Sword and heck! Even Tifa's fists when you fight enemies. Loved the music in this game just as I did on the original.

    ( This is the real un-paid review of this game )
    The game feels more like a movie than an actual game, the fighting, effects or music doesn't make this game any better than the original. I paid for a game and not a movie.

    Therefore I give Final Fantasy 7 Remake a weak 6 but close to 7 out of 10.
    (Input 6 to 4 because of the terrible choices to the story and VA's)

    It can be changed for some money ;), here I am Sony.    … Expand
  96. songforyou0313
    Jul 25, 2021
    4
    Everything is perfect except the story.
    The new concept could be pretty interesting but Square Enix only can write ****
    Tetsuya Nomura must be proud of FFXV and KH3. He really doesn't know the story sucks. FFVII RE is like a part of KH universe.
    Let's see how he will destroy FFVII totally in part 2.
  97. nephy
    Apr 24, 2020
    4
    So like most people I thought FF7:R was a remake;usually when remake is implied in the title;it's insinuating that they're remaking assets from the ground up;even though there are plenty of articles to show as sources that SE implied this was a 1:1 remake with a ton of content now padded to the game(the reason why they decided on episodic chapters);however this is not the case. FF7:R is aSo like most people I thought FF7:R was a remake;usually when remake is implied in the title;it's insinuating that they're remaking assets from the ground up;even though there are plenty of articles to show as sources that SE implied this was a 1:1 remake with a ton of content now padded to the game(the reason why they decided on episodic chapters);however this is not the case. FF7:R is a sequel to FF7,advent children, and Crisis Core. It's not necessarily a bad game;as a pseudo-action RPG it's pretty great. You might be wondering why I'm listing it as a "psuedo" action RPG;well one thing this game stays faithful to is how the battle-system works;similar to the original RPG;FF7R treats the player as if they're going through a turn-based combat system(very similar to FF12, or Crisis Core, but not quite). You're able to freely move, and utilize basic attacks, or pick specials without cool-downs(not including limit breakers);however unlike an action RPG your evasion inputs really don't matter unless you're avoiding large AOEs,constantly managing your party, and switching characters to utilize the best method of taking out enemies, or supporting fellow party members;as an action RPG it falls flat,as a spin to classic RPGS though it does a great job with its battle-system. If you're open to a new story I'm sure the game diverging the plot won't be an issue, but if you're expecting a 1:1 remake, or a follow up to the original story via ep.2 you're not going to get it;I'm emphasizing this is a sequel, because of Sephiroth, and because of a returning character from Crisis Core;also because of ghosts that weren't in the original story that now are;if you don't know what I'm talking about;play the game, or don't;maybe look up a walk-through. I understand if SE wanted to not spoil to the audience this would be a sequel, but HONESTLY it's false advertisement, and it's disgusting. All in all the "selling-point" of this "remake" is its gameplay, but it's a step below FFXV(which is saying a lot, because FFXV's combat was already severely flawed", and the materia system works, but that's it;nothing really exceptional going on with the battle-system, or the materia system. This game really just acts like fan-service to those who enjoy action RPGs who could never get into a turn-based game. What a disappointment Square Enix is.… Expand
  98. Gianmarco9412
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Questo gioco è un vero e proprio insulto a tutti i fan di vecchissima data, che per l'ennesima volta si ritrovano in balìa di un "autore" (un character designer e uno sceneggiatore con manie di grandezza) che è riuscito a rovinare irrimediabilmente un gioco che, fino al suo finale, era semplicemente stupendo. Hanno ragione a dire che questo è un pessimo capitolo di Kingdom Hearts, perché Nomura e Nojima non sanno fare altro che pessimi capitoli di Kingdom Hearts ormai. Hanno spacciato per anni, per anni, che questo sarebbe stato in tutto e per tutto FFVII riportato ai giorni nostri, mentendo spudoratamente su di un piccolo particolare: NON È FFVII REMAKE, È FFVII RE-MAKE 1.0. Si dice che non ci sia peggior detrattore di un'innamorato tradito, ed è esattamente così che mi sento, sono uno di quei videogiocatori che fino ad oggi ha amato FF, e questa sciaguratamente è l'ultima zolla di terra buttata sulla bara di un Franchise che ho amato, ma che adesso è sacrosantissimo e giusto abbandonare, perché a me sarebbe andato bene tutto, purché raccontato con rispetto del materiale originale, senza resurrezioni sconclusionate di personaggi che dovevano rimanere morti e viaggi spazio-temporali del cazzo che devastano l'intera timeline e gli interi eventi futuri (statevi tranquilli che qui Aerith non muore). Siete fan di vecchia data? Fatevi un favore, statene alla larga. Siete amanti dei JRPG? Fatevene un altro di favore, acquistate Persona 5 Royal, che è una revisione meravigliosa che non stravolge e non tradisce il gioco originale, ritenuto (giustamente) il miglior JRPG degli ultimi anni. Siete amanti di FF? Giocate gli originali. Questo FFVII non è rivolto a noi.… Expand
  99. Spokker
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    I'm a 30-something-year-old boomer, first played the original when I was 13 and replayed it off and on since then.

    When I played the initial bombing mission in the Remake, I felt like a kid again. As I progressed in the story, there were moments of great beauty. In some scenes it's everything I've ever wanted, the hairs on my arms standing at full attention. Then those *things* show up    I'm a 30-something-year-old boomer, first played the original when I was 13 and replayed it off and on since then.

    When I played the initial bombing mission in the Remake, I felt like a kid again. As I progressed in the story, there were moments of great beauty. In some scenes it's everything I've ever wanted, the hairs on my arms standing at full attention. Then those *things* show up and are like OOGITY BOOGITY BOOGITY and ruin the whole moment. It's like an annoying sibling running in the room and screaming at the top of their lungs to annoy you and you lose your good vibes.

    This game is padded more than Tifa's orthopedic underwear. If your goal is to tickle your nostalgia bone, then you are going to be frustrated when you want to discover the next remade scene, only to find that the game forces you to endure generic RPG quests and busywork in a horrid daytime rendition of the slums.

    I expected to make some compromises. I made peace with the episodic nature of the game. I prepared myself for some modern anime storytelling tropes and the cringe that goes with it. I wasn't expecting a 1:1 recreation. What we got instead was something akin to Kingdom Hearts, anime nonsense that doesn't mean anything.

    FF7 may have been science-fiction fantasy, but it was about something, particularly the Midgar portion. Corporations, environmentalism, class struggles, terrorism and so on. Some of that is in the Remake, but for every moment that captures the heart of the original, there are many more that seem to miss the entire point of the original as ghostly beings swirl around doing who knows what and the characters grimace at them. But not before you find Midgar's lost cats.

    It doesn't make me hopeful for future episodes. One could make the case the original FF7 went off the rails at some point in the end game. The Remake is off the rails within the first hour.    … Expand
  100. KillerAhab
    Apr 10, 2020
    4
    This game is so lazy i can not understand how it takes over 6 years to build this game. graphics are not good at all , when you play the demo the graphics were good but in the actual game after the prologue the graphics downgrade a lot!!!. lip sink are terrible and annoying. gameplay is look like FFXV which was not a good game either. and of course this game is not a full game and squareThis game is so lazy i can not understand how it takes over 6 years to build this game. graphics are not good at all , when you play the demo the graphics were good but in the actual game after the prologue the graphics downgrade a lot!!!. lip sink are terrible and annoying. gameplay is look like FFXV which was not a good game either. and of course this game is not a full game and square want to pick pocket us for another 60$ for this game.… 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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