Mario’s Musings (Video Game Edition): Final Fantasy VII Remake
NOTE: You can read my review of the demo here, which sets the stage for the review of the complete game.
Well, I finished it.
I actually finished a modern video game not named Legend of Zelda for the first time in a long while, although I usually go out of my way to finish any Final Fantasy game (okay, I haven’t finished XII, XIII, or XV yet).
ANOTHER NOTE: All these screenshots came from my play through of the game. That share button is addicting.
For those not in the know, this game was only PART ONE of the story of Final Fantasy VII. In the original, this section of the story was only maybe a few hours long out of a game that took 50 plus hours to finish in it’s entirety. Once you left Midgar, the city in which part one took place, you went into a huge sprawling world with multiple continents.
The story of the remake is pretty much the same as the original. The player enters the city of Midgar as Cloud Strife, mercenary for hire, who decides to take odd jobs working with Avalanche, an eco-terrorist group trying to prevent the Shinra Electric Power Company from draining the planet’s Mako energy. The leader of the group, Barrett Wallace, doesn’t like the fact that Cloud’s only in it for the money, but takes him on missions because he’s an old childhood friend of Barrett’s associate Tifa Lockheart. Along the way, Cloud encounters Aerith Gainsborough, a flower girl living in the slums of Midgar, who is of great interest to Shinra.
However, due to this being a remake, the word is taken literally as there are changes to the actual story. For instance, background characters like Barrett’s fellow Avalanche members Wedge, Jesse and Biggs (who looks A LOT like Charlie Sheen for some reason) get much more time to shine with their own backstories as to why they’re in the fight against Shinra. In addition, there are new characters sprawled throughout Midgar that Cloud and company get to know.
Seriously, I’m not the only one who sees it right?
Come on, it’s Topper Harley.
One of my favorite things this game does is the building of relationships between the characters. There’s constant dialogue between them before, during, and after fight; with some especially hilarious comments from Barrett (sometimes he sings the Final Fantasy victory fan faire… badly), and Tifa telling him to tone it down.
Another aspect of this game that I really enjoyed, almost nauseatingly so, was the environments. I think I would have finished this game a lot sooner if I hadn’t spent so much time taking screenshots during the game (and then posting them to social media). But the recreation of all the little towns throughout the city of Midgar was an architect’s dream; between the church where Cloud and Aerith formally meet, the Sector 7 Slums, Wall Market, and Shinra Tower, the game is flush with beautiful landscapes for the player to explore.
And I loved every second of it.
I loved the story despite the obvious filler. I loved the new characters, the expanded original characters, the soundtrack (seriously, it’s a HUGE soundtrack), and I especially loved the ending, which really opened future games up to all kinds of possibilities. It’s an amazing remake.