PREVIEW -- Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake is an upcoming action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 4. Split across multiple releases, the first part is scheduled for March 3, 2020. The game is a remake of the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII, following mercenary Cloud Strife as he and eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE battle against the corrupt Shinra megacorporation and the rogue former Shinra soldier Sephiroth. Gameplay is planned to combine real-time action similar to Dissidia Final Fantasy with other strategic elements.

The remake was announced following years of rumors and fan requests. Key staff members returned to help with Remake: original character designer Tetsuya Nomura returned as both director and main character designer, original director Yoshinori Kitase acted as producer, and Kazushige Nojima returned to write new material. Due to the scale of the project, the team decided to release Remake as multiple games so no original content would be cut. They also decided to add new content and adjust the original character designs to balance between realism and stylization.

E3 2019 Square Enix Conference Trailers:

Right off the bat, this game looks pretty fucking nuts in terms of the multi-tiered boss fight for the Guard Scorpion in the first Mako reactor run of this gameplay reveal demo. 

The real-time action reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts at first glance, but the developers have assured players that there's the option to slow things down once an ATB bar is gained from normal attacks. From here, you can slow the action down to slow-motion effects and have time to think about your next plan of attack. This can be set to Wait or Active like traditional turn-based Final Fantasy titles for players who were fans of that style of gameplay won't feel alienated with the more action-oriented style to the changes to the battle system. 

One major change that may have noticed from the footage above is that you can swap characters on the fly to take advantage of each character's unique abilities. Cloud can't attack flying enemies, so he has to swap to Barrett to shoot them down with his gatling gun. I'm intrigued to see how that will play out with the return of the Materia system when there was a Long-Range Materia in the original FF7 that allowed characters like Cloud (who specialize in close-range attacks) to attack flying enemies. Another change to the gameplay is that your characters have the ability to evade/roll or block incoming attacks. The block ability seems to work like the Cover Materia, where the attack damage is reduced in some capacity but you are able to counterattack with a stronger reversal in response. There also seems to be a type of combo system in play too where your party members can combo your various abilities (spells, enemy skills, etc.) and Limit Breaks back to back via the ATB gauge. You can potentially knock your enemies off-balance or stagger them (in the same vein as Final Fantasy XIII) and deal additional damage while they are in this state. 

(Whistles) Wow, this looks amazing.

I think Square Enix wants players to dive into the combat of this game that while it has some of the same bells and whistles of the original FF7, that players should treat it as a different beast entirely. The impression I got from this is that they want to continue to evolve the combat of their modern titles without having feeling like they have to regress their advances for the sake of mere nostalgia. 

Ever since this game was announced, I have been HEAVILY skeptical of it. I'm probably going to continue to feel that way until I physically have the game in my hands and have played all of the installments in succession to completion. I kept noticing a theme with all of these trailers that Square Enix would keep sharing - they aren't showing anything outside of Midgar. That instantly threw up a red flag that they were further behind on this project than they have let on previously. If only the first portion of the game, Midgar, would be solely focused on this area, then we could be potentially looking at this game stretching out to be at least 4-6 installments at this point if they tend to expand the original narrative, revises other points of it, and even potentially include the stuff they added into the lore over the years. This is going to be one hell of a stacked game.

Confirmed Information:

Final Fantasy VII Remake hits the PlayStation 4 on March 3, 2020 with multiple editions of the game available for pre-order.

The game will be split into two Blu-ray discs.

This first part will take place entirely in Midgar.

Gameplay footage revealed at E3 showed off its new combat system, which combines real-time and turn-based elements.

3.3.2020 - the day a LOT of people will be calling out sick from work/school...

From Square Enix's own website and I quote, "FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE will be told across a multi-part series, with each entry providing its own unique experience."

In another significant structural change from the original, Final Fantasy VII Remake is to be segmented in multiple installments, each of which will be the size of Final Fantasy XIII, according to producer Yoshinori Kitase. Kitase, in the same interview, said the game the company's creating is just too big to play in one installment.

At E3 Kitase explained the game would take place in two parts, over two Blu-Ray discs, but did not indicate these parts would be released at different times.

It sounds like the team is recreating the hell out of this game, as Nomura and Kitase, in the few interviews they've done, make reference to its immense scale. Another clear theme: The duo aren't interested in a straight remake. The changes they're making aren't just to the combat, or to the vastness of the world, but to the story as well.

"I don't want the remake to end as something solely nostalgic. I want to get the fans of the original version excited," Kitase said to Dengaki, again translated by Gematsu. "We'll be making adjustments to the story with this thought in mind."

Nomura added to this, enigmatically saying, "I hope that [fans of the original] can be surprised once again." - CNET

My Personal History With Final Fantasy VII & Thoughts So Far:

Final Fantasy VII is a game that means a lot for many gamers. For many it was the gateway JRPG into the genre. Others it was the definitive reason to own the original PlayStation/PSX/PSone. Then there's many people who consider it to be one of, if not the best, games of all-time.

That last one is a bit of a stretch for me after all of these years. I got PSX during the tail-end of the '90s and the first games I got for it that Christmas that year were Mega Man 8, Soviet Strike, and Crash Bandicoot. It wasn't until my best friend who got one around the same time wouldn't shut up about FF7 while we would be at school and/or hanging out. Eventually, I caved and asked my dad to get it for me. For me personally, this was my first "proper" entry into the JRPG genre as I can't consider Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series a traditional RPG.

All of the playable characters that have been shown so far in trailers and gameplay videos.

There's a lot of things that I'll always remember FF7 for - the unforgettable characters, the music (that still floods my randomizer on Google Play music at times and I still have a wealth of mixed CDs with tracks from this game that I made back in high school and college), the battle system/mechanics (no one is going to ever forget the first time they saw Omnislash), and last, but not least - the story. Say what you will about the story that it was flawless and remarkable, but at the end of the day, this was a very flawed narrative. Even the producers and original developers admit to this as they got to the point where they couldn't even agree on the definitive ending, hence why there's code left in the game for Aeris to be present in the final battle against Sephiroth - but that's a conversation for another day.

FF7's narrative essentially revolves around Cloud Strife, who joined a military group - simply known as SOLDIER - that has ties to the shady Shinra Corporation. The bulk of Cloud's history is surrounded in mystery as left SOLDIER not too long before the events of the game start to join a rebellion group, AVALANCHE, as a mercenary for hire as per the recommendation of his childhood friend, Tifa Lockhart. (Laughs) After all of these years, I saw Cloud's actions as simply joining the military to impress the hot chick from his hometown that he was crushing on and ended up falling on his face in process, which somehow turned into a global destruction plot. Boy the things some people would do to get laid...

As events progress throughout the game, it's revealed that the Shinra Corporation have global domination in mind as they harvest their planet's resources for their own benefit, but the former leader of SOLDIER, Sephiroth, has his own plans as he wants to destroy the planet and all life living on it altogether. Cloud and Sephiroth's estranged history is revealed through flashbacks, shedding light on how Sephiroth's sanity deterioted until he became the megalomaniac that the game paints him as the title's titular villian.

Even after he's defeated in FF7, Sephiroth's villainy would live on for years to come afterwards with his constant reappearances in other Square Enix/Squaresoft games, such as the Kingdom Hearts series (optional boss), Dissidia: Final Fantasy series (playable and non-playable character), and even the FF7 tie-in games/spin-offs - Crisis Core (prequel to the events of FF7) and FF7: Advent Children (sequel CGI movie to the events of the original game). Apparently, Square Enix didn't know how to keep this guy buried six feet under. I honestly can't blame them though as everything involving him or FF7-related content period tends to sell like hotcakes.

Cloud would make a wealth of allies on his journey to save the planet from the combined threats of the Shinra Corporation and Sephiroth. He would reunite with his childhood friend, Tifa, and align himself with the leader of AVALANCHE, Barrett Wallace, shortly thereafter. Fate would have him cross paths with the last "Ancient" in existence when he met the flower girl, Aeris Gainsborough, who would live on in fans' memories of this game forever after being killed by Sephiroth. His party would discover Red XIII being experimented on in one of Shinra Corporation's laboratories, who would promptly join their fight as well. Before the quest is said and done, they would joined by the pilot/mechanic, Cid Highwind, the master thief/amateur ninja, Yuffie Kisaragi, the talking puppet, Cait Sith, and the former Turk, Vincent Valentine. Both Yuffie and Vincent were recruited by optional means in the game's narrative and not required to complete the game. Despite of this fact, both characters have been considered fan favorites over the years.

I guess the beauty and legacy of Final Fantasy VII is that these characters stand the test of time and this narrative has stuck with many gamers for over two decades now. The characters and their designs have become iconic and a mainstay to the genre for the years that followed, with little to no chance that will change anytime soon. I always felt the game's ending left a lot of things left to be desired. We got a nice cutscene to wrap the major crisis up, but we never got to see what happened next. In my honest opinion, the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, which includes Advent Children, The Last Order (OVA movie), Dirge of Cereberus, and Crisis Core don't count as they added far too much unnecessary baggage and bullshit that Square Enix has to navigate through in terms of continuity for this game. As it's original stand-alone release, FF7 was a good game, a great one at various points of it's duration for that matter. I'm not going lie to myself saying that it's the best game that I have ever played nor I am going to say that it's the best gaming narrative out there, especially when even the producers and developers themselves say it's incomplete and flawed. On top of that, I've played and have seen games done better and tell their stories better. Nevertheless, the memories of this game have remained with me and I doubt they ever will go away for me or any other gamers that experienced this game in it's original format.

Much like the re-release of Resident Evil 2 (another beloved title from the PSX era of gaming) by Capcom earlier this year, nostalgia googles are going to be one hell of a drug when it comes to the reception of this game in the coming months (and years with the future installments). I want to see Square Enix get this right and remake this game to the capacity and proper vision that they want for it. I'm not a fan of splitting the game up into installments (clearly a cash cow scheme by Square Enix when it's common knowledge that nothing from them outside of Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy related isn't making them much money), but it's whatever. It's clear that they aren't making this for me. I'm not part of the hardest of hardcore fans of this game. They are making this for the people who were literally losing their minds seeing this footage at E3 and around the world over the internet. These are the fans that live and breathe FF7. These people were in TEARS just to see this become a reality. I have had movies move me to tears, but it's completely over my head to see that type of a reaction just from people seeing this game being remade.

People have a right to be losing their minds about this game visually. This is like day and night in comparison from how this looks currently in comparison of the original release two decades ago.

I genuinely hope that this game is a success. Square Enix have a lot riding on this game in terms of their reputation in the gaming industry, financial resources and man-power behind the development of this game. Work on both Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts had to be prioritized at one point to get those games completed before those teams were brought in to work on this game as well. There's no doubt that Square Enix is under a lot of pressure to deliver with this massive love letter to long-time fans of this beloved entry of the Final Fantasy series. Fingers are crossed. Let's hope this remake will be one to remember.