This review contains spoilers
There obviously isn't any real reason for this DLC episode to exist, as Yuffie wasn't exactly crying out for additional backstory before she encounters our main group in Final Fantasy VII. However, Yuffie was one of my favorite party members in the original game since her antics would always make me laugh. So if you were going to do something like this for any of the post-Midgar party members, Yuffie was probably the best choice, especially since as a thief she'd be the most likely to find herself in Midgar anyways.
One thing I didn't find a good opportunity to dive into in my review of the main game was the new combat system. Final Fantasy VII Remake moves away from the turn-based combat system of the original to an action RPG approach. But I think they found an interesting way of still incorporating some of the spirit of the original game's take on turn-based combat. In Remake, as you attack enemies, you build up the ATB meter, which you can then use to freeze time in the Command menu and access unique attacks along with spells and items, much like how you would use a "turn" in the original game. It's not breaking new ground, it's still fundamentally an action RPG, but it does feel like a distinctly "Final Fantasy VII" approach to that kind of game, which I appreciate. I'm more into action games anyways, so I had a lot of fun with it, which might help to explain my confusing 3.5/5 rating despite the fact that almost the entirety of the review was spent harping on the storyline.
Which brings us to probably the most interesting character to play as within this game's combat system, Yuffie. Yuffie fights with a throwing weapon, much like in the original Final Fantasy VII. So while you can just get up in an enemy's face and slash at them much like with Cloud's sword, what really makes Yuffie stand out is her approach to ranged combat. Pressing triangle allows Yuffie to throw her weapon at an enemy, where it will stay and continuously spin around them, dealing small damage. From here, you can either press triangle again to immediately have Yuffie close the distance and do an attack while simultaneously returning to melee, or you can access ninjutsu attacks, small magic explosions Yuffie can unleash from a distance when she does not have her weapon in her hand. But where this gets interesting is how all of these things interface with the command system.
Yuffie only has access to a few command abilities overall, as the weapon variety is a lot smaller due to the DLC's short length. But the developers got a lot of depth out of this arsenal, to the point that I feel like I had more options with her than any other individual character in the main game. There are some basic melee moves like Art of War and Brumal Form, but what gets more interesting are the magic-based ones. For example, Windstorm unleashes a large gust of wind in an area that pulls enemies towards Yuffie. What's interesting about this one is that its position is based on where Yuffie's weapon is, which means it's best used from a long distance as another way of switching from ranged ninjutsu back to melee, dragging the enemy to Yuffie rather than sending her in the enemy's direction.
The real stars of the show are Elemental Ninjutsu and Banishment though. Elemental Ninjutsu allows Yuffie to imbue her ninjutsu attacks with any of the four elements available in Final Fantasy VII Remake, allowing her to easily exploit any enemy's weakness. This basically cuts out the need for her to have any offensive magic materia, which is so ridiculously powerful that I have to imagine Rebirth is going to rein it in and increase its cost to 2 ATB charges. This ability also syncs with Banishment, an ability that grows more powerful as you perform other command abilities and charge it up. Banishment is an extra-powerful Ninjutsu attack, and so it'll be imbued with whatever element you selected, dealing disgusting amounts of damage if executed at full charge against an enemy weak to that element. Personally, I think Rebirth should make this ability "cancel out" Yuffie's imbued element, reverting it back to a non-elemental state, so there's at least some additional cost to using this attack.
Yuffie has so many options available to her that assuming her gameplay is still fundamentally the same in Rebirth, I almost can't imagine playing as anyone else. She has so many tools in her arsenal that it's basically impossible to approach a single battle not having an advantage. In fact, the only thing that really challenged me in this DLC (aside from the surprisingly challenging box minigame) was the last boss. While my playstyle mainly just amounted to throwing my weapon and pelting them with ninjutsu, even a more melee focused playstyle has a lot of merit, especially when you factor in that Yuffie also has a perfect guard system that gives her different buffs depending on which weapon she has equipped.
Not to mention, there's plenty of other options for switching in and out of melee that the game doesn't draw a huge amount of attention to. Holding the attack button in melee mode makes Yuffie leap backwards, providing a good opportunity to throw your weapon now that you've created distance. Holding the attack button in ranged mode creates a sort of magic fissure on the ground and then has Yuffie's weapon magically return to her hand. Additionally, several command abilities will also have Yuffie's weapon immediately return to her hand, including the aforementioned Windstorm. The amount of depth on display here is staggering, enough for a full-length game in which only Yuffie is playable, let alone a DLC you could beat in a few hours if you don't get distracted by the new Fort Condor minigame like I did.
And that's all without getting into Sonon! I practically forgot he existed for most of my playtime because I got complete tunnel vision due to how fun Yuffie was to play. Sonon isn't playable, but he does have a bit more going on as a "guest" party member than Red XII did in the main game, having his own ATB gauge and a set of unique command abilities. I imagine this was the developers testing out this concept given that the Kalm flashback sequence that I imagine will serve as the tutorial mission for Rebirth will likely need similar mechanics for Sephiroth who functioned similarly in the original game's version of that section. But what really makes Sonon special is the new Synergy system. Pressing L2 in combat will have Yuffie and Sonon enter "synergy mode" in which, as long as both Yuffie and Sonon have an ATB charge, Yuffie's Art of War and Windstorm abilities become "synergized", allowing the two characters to attack in unison and make both of these abilities much more powerful. The trailers for Rebirth seem to show similar combo attacks, so I'm hoping this system makes a return for all party members.
This DLC genuinely makes the main game feel like a prototype as far as combat goes. But what about the story, the thing I spent most of my review of the main game talking (and complaining) about? Honestly, I don't really have many thoughts. Yuffie is such a basic archetype, this overeager young kid with a simplistic view of the world getting way in over her head. Sonon is almost more basic, providing a more mature, level-headed counter to Yuffie's confidence. It's a fairly played-out dynamic, admittedly, but not one that isn't effective when used properly like we see here. I enjoyed having something a lot more light-hearted than the fairly dour main game. Some of the charm of Final Fantasy VII gets lost when you make an entire game out of Midgar, one of the most dour sections of the entire story, so it's nice that this DLC tried to break out of that framework.
The DLC is set at a fairly specific point in Final Fantasy VII Remake's story, starting in the aftermath of the Mako Reactor 5 bombing and ending right when the plate over Sector 7 is dropped. So the first chapter uses this as a chance to show a few scenes of what Tifa, Barret, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie were all up to during that portion of the story, since both the original game and the remake spend that entire section from Cloud's point of view. While this does take some of the focus away from Yuffie, admittedly, it's never to the point of utter distraction, it doesn't seem like we ever lose the plot just for the sake of adding connective tissue, so I ended up coming away from these scenes more positively than I would have expected had you pitched this concept to me beforehand.
The actual story revolves around the updated version of Wutai, a fairly underdeveloped side area in Final Fantasy VII (likely owing to Yuffie's nature as an optional character.) As the Remake established, the vague "war" referenced in the original game was actually against Wutai, which makes sense given that one of the few things we do know about Wutai was that they stood up against Shinra in the past, securing independence but otherwise withdrawing from any conflict against Shinra and the injustices they're committing elsewhere. The main game expands on this to much greater effect, one of the biggest story changes that I actually liked in Remake.
Shinra has incorporated a real-world propaganda tactic, using Wutai's resistance as an excuse to paint them as these scary, dangerous foreigners plotting the destruction of their society. They then concoct a narrative of them collaborating with resistance group Avalanche, now having a way of easily demonizing Avalanche, especially as Barret's more radical, destructive approach indirectly creates collateral damage. Shinra even intentionally worsens some of this damage (not to mention pinning the Sector 7 plate incident on Avalanche) to further characterize Avalanche as not really fighting for the planet, but as mere terrorists, an arm of Wutai trying to restart the war. This could not be further from the truth, as we learn that President Shinra himself is the one who wants to restart the war with Wutai, this entire propaganda campaign being his means to do so and continue expanding Shinra's control.
Intermission makes this a bit stranger, as it does seem to imply that Avalanche and Wutai are collaborating to some extent. There's not much elaboration here, though, but Yuffie and Sonon were sent from Wutai to Midgar to coordinate a heist with Avalanche to steal an experimental Materia from Shinra, less to get their hands on its power and moreso as an intimidation tactic, to show that while Wutai is no longer fighting Shinra, picking a fight with them again is a bad idea. However, we also learn later into the DLC that Wutai and Avalanche were enemies in the past to some extent, though it's not clear how or why. This seems to result from Remake's new version of Avalanche.
I already talked a bit how I dislike the change from it being a makeshift group of five people started from Barret to a splinter cell of a much larger organization, and while I thought Intermission was going to be a chance to justify this change, instead I'm more confused than ever. What is Avalanche? How did such a large armed resistance come into being? And why were they fighting Wutai? And if they're working with Wutai now, was President Shinra's propaganda not actually a lie? Perhaps the Corel section in Rebirth will add some clarity here as we learn Barret's backstory and how he even ended up joining this new version of Avalanche.
As for how Yuffie and Sonon fit into this, their heist naturally goes wrong just at the finish line. Shinra's fight against Avalanche to restart the war with Wutai has taken top priority for them, and their "ultimate materia" project was temporarily shelved, leaving nothing for Yuffie and Sonon to actually steal. However, this is still a chance for Sonon to get revenge on the lead of the advanced weaponry department, Scarlet, whose weapons are the reason his sister died. It's not a particularly complex story, but transitioning from the ultimate materia heist to this more personal conflict seemed to flow rather naturally, and using an underdeveloped character like Scarlet as the main antagonist was a good idea to me. But Tetsuya Nomura couldn't resist making things more complicated, could he?
Introducing Nero and Weiss, two villains you can just tell at a glance were designed by Nomura, with their spiky hair and ridiculous outfits. They are barely explained, found locked up in Deepground, seemingly the deepest level of the Shinra Building. They hardly seem to fit into the world of Final Fantasy VII, so I honestly assumed they were original characters until I ranted about them to some friends, where I was informed that they actually do have some precedent. Apparently there is a little known spin-off of Final Fantasy VII called Dirge of Cerberus starring Vincent Valentine, though even after verifying its existence by looking it up I could still easily be gaslit into thinking it was some bizarre fanfic. Nero and Weiss are two major antagonists of that game, but otherwise I know very little of the plot because I arrogantly assumed the only thing I would need to play to understand Final Fantasy VII Remake was, you know, Final Fantasy VII.
I cannot explain to you how nonsensical this aspect of the DLC is, especially as Nero and Weiss only show up in the last hour or so of playtime after absolutely nothing else about the story seemed to be building up to them. And again, they're barely explained when they do appear, their first scene being Nero talking to Weiss about Shinra trying to create some sort of digital replica of him, after which Weiss doesn't even appear again. Nero, on the other hand, starts interacting with our main characters (after seemingly being released by Scarlet) and absorbing Shinra soldiers to gain power for whatever reason.
The final boss fight of the DLC is against him, despite the fact that he's a complete enigma and has absolutely zero connection to our main characters at all. He even ends up killing Sonon, and while that death works for me, it coming at the hands of this random masked dark angel guy takes so much away from this moment. I don't even know what the point of this is. Are we setting up a Dirge of Cerberus remake? Or will Nero and Weiss re-emerge as part of a Vincent chapter in Rebirth? I don't know and I kind of don't care because they're both one-note and forgettable and turning the end of this DLC into an advertisement for these characters would have soured me on them regardless.
I don't know, this doesn't really bother me as much as the final chapter of the main game because it honestly does represent such a small, insignificant chunk of Intermission's story. You defeat Scarlet, then Nero shows up, you do a couple of simulator battles, and then you fight him. You can basically just close your eyes and imagine Scarlet's robot killed Sonon instead and suddenly the whole experience works. So that's just what I'm gonna do here, because I had a lot of fun with Yuffie and Sonon, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Yuffie interacts with our main characters in Rebirth (and maining her once I finally get to play as her.)
One thing I didn't find a good opportunity to dive into in my review of the main game was the new combat system. Final Fantasy VII Remake moves away from the turn-based combat system of the original to an action RPG approach. But I think they found an interesting way of still incorporating some of the spirit of the original game's take on turn-based combat. In Remake, as you attack enemies, you build up the ATB meter, which you can then use to freeze time in the Command menu and access unique attacks along with spells and items, much like how you would use a "turn" in the original game. It's not breaking new ground, it's still fundamentally an action RPG, but it does feel like a distinctly "Final Fantasy VII" approach to that kind of game, which I appreciate. I'm more into action games anyways, so I had a lot of fun with it, which might help to explain my confusing 3.5/5 rating despite the fact that almost the entirety of the review was spent harping on the storyline.
Which brings us to probably the most interesting character to play as within this game's combat system, Yuffie. Yuffie fights with a throwing weapon, much like in the original Final Fantasy VII. So while you can just get up in an enemy's face and slash at them much like with Cloud's sword, what really makes Yuffie stand out is her approach to ranged combat. Pressing triangle allows Yuffie to throw her weapon at an enemy, where it will stay and continuously spin around them, dealing small damage. From here, you can either press triangle again to immediately have Yuffie close the distance and do an attack while simultaneously returning to melee, or you can access ninjutsu attacks, small magic explosions Yuffie can unleash from a distance when she does not have her weapon in her hand. But where this gets interesting is how all of these things interface with the command system.
Yuffie only has access to a few command abilities overall, as the weapon variety is a lot smaller due to the DLC's short length. But the developers got a lot of depth out of this arsenal, to the point that I feel like I had more options with her than any other individual character in the main game. There are some basic melee moves like Art of War and Brumal Form, but what gets more interesting are the magic-based ones. For example, Windstorm unleashes a large gust of wind in an area that pulls enemies towards Yuffie. What's interesting about this one is that its position is based on where Yuffie's weapon is, which means it's best used from a long distance as another way of switching from ranged ninjutsu back to melee, dragging the enemy to Yuffie rather than sending her in the enemy's direction.
The real stars of the show are Elemental Ninjutsu and Banishment though. Elemental Ninjutsu allows Yuffie to imbue her ninjutsu attacks with any of the four elements available in Final Fantasy VII Remake, allowing her to easily exploit any enemy's weakness. This basically cuts out the need for her to have any offensive magic materia, which is so ridiculously powerful that I have to imagine Rebirth is going to rein it in and increase its cost to 2 ATB charges. This ability also syncs with Banishment, an ability that grows more powerful as you perform other command abilities and charge it up. Banishment is an extra-powerful Ninjutsu attack, and so it'll be imbued with whatever element you selected, dealing disgusting amounts of damage if executed at full charge against an enemy weak to that element. Personally, I think Rebirth should make this ability "cancel out" Yuffie's imbued element, reverting it back to a non-elemental state, so there's at least some additional cost to using this attack.
Yuffie has so many options available to her that assuming her gameplay is still fundamentally the same in Rebirth, I almost can't imagine playing as anyone else. She has so many tools in her arsenal that it's basically impossible to approach a single battle not having an advantage. In fact, the only thing that really challenged me in this DLC (aside from the surprisingly challenging box minigame) was the last boss. While my playstyle mainly just amounted to throwing my weapon and pelting them with ninjutsu, even a more melee focused playstyle has a lot of merit, especially when you factor in that Yuffie also has a perfect guard system that gives her different buffs depending on which weapon she has equipped.
Not to mention, there's plenty of other options for switching in and out of melee that the game doesn't draw a huge amount of attention to. Holding the attack button in melee mode makes Yuffie leap backwards, providing a good opportunity to throw your weapon now that you've created distance. Holding the attack button in ranged mode creates a sort of magic fissure on the ground and then has Yuffie's weapon magically return to her hand. Additionally, several command abilities will also have Yuffie's weapon immediately return to her hand, including the aforementioned Windstorm. The amount of depth on display here is staggering, enough for a full-length game in which only Yuffie is playable, let alone a DLC you could beat in a few hours if you don't get distracted by the new Fort Condor minigame like I did.
And that's all without getting into Sonon! I practically forgot he existed for most of my playtime because I got complete tunnel vision due to how fun Yuffie was to play. Sonon isn't playable, but he does have a bit more going on as a "guest" party member than Red XII did in the main game, having his own ATB gauge and a set of unique command abilities. I imagine this was the developers testing out this concept given that the Kalm flashback sequence that I imagine will serve as the tutorial mission for Rebirth will likely need similar mechanics for Sephiroth who functioned similarly in the original game's version of that section. But what really makes Sonon special is the new Synergy system. Pressing L2 in combat will have Yuffie and Sonon enter "synergy mode" in which, as long as both Yuffie and Sonon have an ATB charge, Yuffie's Art of War and Windstorm abilities become "synergized", allowing the two characters to attack in unison and make both of these abilities much more powerful. The trailers for Rebirth seem to show similar combo attacks, so I'm hoping this system makes a return for all party members.
This DLC genuinely makes the main game feel like a prototype as far as combat goes. But what about the story, the thing I spent most of my review of the main game talking (and complaining) about? Honestly, I don't really have many thoughts. Yuffie is such a basic archetype, this overeager young kid with a simplistic view of the world getting way in over her head. Sonon is almost more basic, providing a more mature, level-headed counter to Yuffie's confidence. It's a fairly played-out dynamic, admittedly, but not one that isn't effective when used properly like we see here. I enjoyed having something a lot more light-hearted than the fairly dour main game. Some of the charm of Final Fantasy VII gets lost when you make an entire game out of Midgar, one of the most dour sections of the entire story, so it's nice that this DLC tried to break out of that framework.
The DLC is set at a fairly specific point in Final Fantasy VII Remake's story, starting in the aftermath of the Mako Reactor 5 bombing and ending right when the plate over Sector 7 is dropped. So the first chapter uses this as a chance to show a few scenes of what Tifa, Barret, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie were all up to during that portion of the story, since both the original game and the remake spend that entire section from Cloud's point of view. While this does take some of the focus away from Yuffie, admittedly, it's never to the point of utter distraction, it doesn't seem like we ever lose the plot just for the sake of adding connective tissue, so I ended up coming away from these scenes more positively than I would have expected had you pitched this concept to me beforehand.
The actual story revolves around the updated version of Wutai, a fairly underdeveloped side area in Final Fantasy VII (likely owing to Yuffie's nature as an optional character.) As the Remake established, the vague "war" referenced in the original game was actually against Wutai, which makes sense given that one of the few things we do know about Wutai was that they stood up against Shinra in the past, securing independence but otherwise withdrawing from any conflict against Shinra and the injustices they're committing elsewhere. The main game expands on this to much greater effect, one of the biggest story changes that I actually liked in Remake.
Shinra has incorporated a real-world propaganda tactic, using Wutai's resistance as an excuse to paint them as these scary, dangerous foreigners plotting the destruction of their society. They then concoct a narrative of them collaborating with resistance group Avalanche, now having a way of easily demonizing Avalanche, especially as Barret's more radical, destructive approach indirectly creates collateral damage. Shinra even intentionally worsens some of this damage (not to mention pinning the Sector 7 plate incident on Avalanche) to further characterize Avalanche as not really fighting for the planet, but as mere terrorists, an arm of Wutai trying to restart the war. This could not be further from the truth, as we learn that President Shinra himself is the one who wants to restart the war with Wutai, this entire propaganda campaign being his means to do so and continue expanding Shinra's control.
Intermission makes this a bit stranger, as it does seem to imply that Avalanche and Wutai are collaborating to some extent. There's not much elaboration here, though, but Yuffie and Sonon were sent from Wutai to Midgar to coordinate a heist with Avalanche to steal an experimental Materia from Shinra, less to get their hands on its power and moreso as an intimidation tactic, to show that while Wutai is no longer fighting Shinra, picking a fight with them again is a bad idea. However, we also learn later into the DLC that Wutai and Avalanche were enemies in the past to some extent, though it's not clear how or why. This seems to result from Remake's new version of Avalanche.
I already talked a bit how I dislike the change from it being a makeshift group of five people started from Barret to a splinter cell of a much larger organization, and while I thought Intermission was going to be a chance to justify this change, instead I'm more confused than ever. What is Avalanche? How did such a large armed resistance come into being? And why were they fighting Wutai? And if they're working with Wutai now, was President Shinra's propaganda not actually a lie? Perhaps the Corel section in Rebirth will add some clarity here as we learn Barret's backstory and how he even ended up joining this new version of Avalanche.
As for how Yuffie and Sonon fit into this, their heist naturally goes wrong just at the finish line. Shinra's fight against Avalanche to restart the war with Wutai has taken top priority for them, and their "ultimate materia" project was temporarily shelved, leaving nothing for Yuffie and Sonon to actually steal. However, this is still a chance for Sonon to get revenge on the lead of the advanced weaponry department, Scarlet, whose weapons are the reason his sister died. It's not a particularly complex story, but transitioning from the ultimate materia heist to this more personal conflict seemed to flow rather naturally, and using an underdeveloped character like Scarlet as the main antagonist was a good idea to me. But Tetsuya Nomura couldn't resist making things more complicated, could he?
Introducing Nero and Weiss, two villains you can just tell at a glance were designed by Nomura, with their spiky hair and ridiculous outfits. They are barely explained, found locked up in Deepground, seemingly the deepest level of the Shinra Building. They hardly seem to fit into the world of Final Fantasy VII, so I honestly assumed they were original characters until I ranted about them to some friends, where I was informed that they actually do have some precedent. Apparently there is a little known spin-off of Final Fantasy VII called Dirge of Cerberus starring Vincent Valentine, though even after verifying its existence by looking it up I could still easily be gaslit into thinking it was some bizarre fanfic. Nero and Weiss are two major antagonists of that game, but otherwise I know very little of the plot because I arrogantly assumed the only thing I would need to play to understand Final Fantasy VII Remake was, you know, Final Fantasy VII.
I cannot explain to you how nonsensical this aspect of the DLC is, especially as Nero and Weiss only show up in the last hour or so of playtime after absolutely nothing else about the story seemed to be building up to them. And again, they're barely explained when they do appear, their first scene being Nero talking to Weiss about Shinra trying to create some sort of digital replica of him, after which Weiss doesn't even appear again. Nero, on the other hand, starts interacting with our main characters (after seemingly being released by Scarlet) and absorbing Shinra soldiers to gain power for whatever reason.
The final boss fight of the DLC is against him, despite the fact that he's a complete enigma and has absolutely zero connection to our main characters at all. He even ends up killing Sonon, and while that death works for me, it coming at the hands of this random masked dark angel guy takes so much away from this moment. I don't even know what the point of this is. Are we setting up a Dirge of Cerberus remake? Or will Nero and Weiss re-emerge as part of a Vincent chapter in Rebirth? I don't know and I kind of don't care because they're both one-note and forgettable and turning the end of this DLC into an advertisement for these characters would have soured me on them regardless.
I don't know, this doesn't really bother me as much as the final chapter of the main game because it honestly does represent such a small, insignificant chunk of Intermission's story. You defeat Scarlet, then Nero shows up, you do a couple of simulator battles, and then you fight him. You can basically just close your eyes and imagine Scarlet's robot killed Sonon instead and suddenly the whole experience works. So that's just what I'm gonna do here, because I had a lot of fun with Yuffie and Sonon, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Yuffie interacts with our main characters in Rebirth (and maining her once I finally get to play as her.)