Mario’s Musings (Video Game Edition): Final Fantasy VII Remake Demo
The remake cover art.
I have a lot of fond memories of my childhood. Of course, I was a bit of a nerd so a lot of those fond memories involved movies, video games, and Legos. And since this review focuses on a video game, let’s go back a bit to my childhood, around 20 years ago to be exact, when I was still in grade school. While I was still enjoying the likes of Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda, one of my best friends, Eric Krause (yeah, he’s getting a name drop here), decided to introduce me to the concept of role-playing games (or RPGs, more on this later), which brought me to the original Final Fantasy VII.
Yikes, that old gameplay footage.
Final Fantasy VII was released way back in 1997. It was the game that brought the Final Fantasy series into the 3D world and into the mainstream, briefly holding the Guinness World Record for highest selling video game of all time.
The story of FFVII is surprisingly ahead of its time. One of the main characters in the game, Barrett, is obsessed with trying to save the planet because the villainous Shinra Corporation is slowly draining the planet’s resources, while the other, Cloud, just seemed to be apathetically collecting a paycheck. Barrett himself has aged poorly, because Square Enix seemed to think kids loved cursing so they had Barrett and later on Cid cursing up a storm and it just came off as trying too hard.
Due to its popularity, Square Enix decided to announce a complete 3D remake to the bewilderment of everyone. And to the excitement of everyone including me, they just released the demo today, a month ahead of the game’s official release! And boy is it a doozy! The story is exactly the same as the original, but everyone is given more room to grow character wise. Background characters like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie are given more personality, thanks to added voiceovers, not to mention being recreated as full 3D models. The voiceover work also gives more depth to characters like Cloud and Barrett, especially when Barrett is giving a passionate speech about the planet’s plight and Cloud just replies with his trademark snide remarks.
Yowza!
My own screenshot!
Now this is more than just a visual remake, as Square Enix decided to update the gameplay mechanisms as well. Traditional RPGs usually involve turn based combat, where you input commands to your team while the enemies on the other side don’t move and vice versa. It may sound boring but it’s surprisingly not, especially when the game has engaging stories to accompany them. In the case of this remake, it feels more like a hack and slash, but with additional options to enter commands to use magic or special skills. It’s somewhat similar to what Kingdom Hearts first implemented back in 2002.
I haven’t finished the demo yet, but from what I’ve played, I genuinely enjoyed the lay of the land so far. The graphics are beautiful, the gameplay is well structured, and the dialogue is genuinely fresh. Everything has been redone, even the music has been given a orchestral makeover. As a nostalgic person, it gave me a punch in the nostalgia gland that I didn’t know I needed. Now as far as finishing the demo goes, I just need to get used to checking my characters’ health bars in the bottom right corner of the screen so that my characters don’t unexpectedly die on me. Maybe I’ll actually be good at this game when the full version releases next month?
The full version of Final Fantasy VII Remake releases on April 10th, 2020, so get ready to travel back to Midgar.