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.
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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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