So here we are then. After spending one entire RPG's worth of adventuring time within the bowels of gloomy and oppressive Midgar, it's time to leave all that behind and discover the wide and colorful world of Final Fantasy VII at large. It's a big moment for sure. In the original game, many players didn't even realise they would be leaving the slums of the city eventually and that several actual continents were still waiting to be explored. It was the moment where you suddenly came to realise how absolutely huge this game actually is. It didn't come on three discs for nothing.

Rebirth comes on two discs instead, which is equally notable considering the available storage space on modern day Blu-ray discs compared to the CD-ROM format from back in the day. It was notable enough that Square-Enix turned it into an actual selling point for their marketing of the game. This game would be big for sure. Exactly how big though, is not something that anyone could have forseen. Remake stretched out a 5 hour long first act of a bigger story into a 30-40 hour long experience. Rebirth in it's turn stretches out a 10-20 hour long second act into an adventure that can last you well over 100 hours, depending on how much content you engage with.

Like Remake before it, Rebirth turns everything from the original game into something bigger and bolder, with some additions on top. Certain fans were worried that Rebirth would change things up too much from the original, considering the literal destiny defying ending of Remake. This is not the case. Like Remake, this game stays very faithful to the events and locations of the original game, while embellishing everything. Also like Remake, the big change-up in the story doesn't come until the very end of the game and it muddies the waters somewhat. Even so, the general trajectory of the plot remains intact. Fans shouldn't be worried about the third and final game in that sense. You can trust that the developers will make sure that all the beats are hit, both big and small.

Most of those beats are explored and expressed through the central cast. Again, like Remake, this game understands that it's the characters and their relationships that should take center stage. All of them experience growth and go through their own personal arcs, while the interpersonal relationships continue to develop as well.

Barret comes face to face with his past demons and learns how to live with the burden of guilt; Tifa struggles to reconnect with her past in order to discover what her purpose in life actually is; Aerith deals with her heritage as the last remaining Cetra and what that means for her role in this fight for the future of the planet; Red XIII learns how to trust others and finds something to actually fight for; Yuffie looks for a tangible way in which she can help out her people in Wutai; Cait Sith attempts to do right by everyone and wishes to be trusted, despite his employment at Shinra; Cloud is trying to find who he even is in the first place.

Most of these arcs have some big, emotionally resonant scenes attached to them. Barret's confrontation with his old friend Dyne and Red's revelation about his father's legacy are particular stand-outs. Meanwhile, Tifa's moment of personal discovery in the lifestream at Gongaga, will have you reeling and desperately trying to find some footing in the best possible way. It is a shame that not all of these scenes get enough room to breathe. Particularly Barret's big emotional moment is crudely cut short and undermined by Palmer showing up right after, with a big combat robot in tow while acting like a dumb clumsy fool.

These are curiously tonedeaf directorial choices in a game that otherwise deeply respects their characters and keeps the central theme of identity firmly intact throughout the plot, not unlike the original. Examples of this include the way in which Barret comes to truly respect Red XIII after their trek through the Cave of the Gi. He always calls him by his real name, Nanaki, right after. Or how Aerith and Tifa become best friends by constantly confiding in eachother. Similary how Aerith confides in Red XIII. There's mutual trust there, through their shared connection with the planet. Yuffie who fully drops her façade as a single-minded materia hunting ninja when she mourns Aerith's death. Red XIII who, rather jarringly, drops his own façade as an old and wise warrior; showing his true face as an insecure teenager when we arrive at his hometown of Cosmo Canyon. And of course the struggles that Tifa goes through with Cloud and their shared history, as well as Aerith trying to find the real person hiding behind our protagonist's carefully built persona.

All of these moments have to be mentioned, because it's genuinely excellent stuff that shows where a lot of the strengths of this game lie. It shows, possibly more than anything else in this game, that the development team understands what makes FF7 tick and why it resonated so strongly with so many people back in the day; back in their most formative years. It's humanizing these colorful and larger-than-life characters who are faced with extraordinary yet entirely relatable circumstances in a fantastical world that in a lot of ways still mirrors our own in terms of the issues it is dealing with.

This is not all directly tied to the main plot either. These character moments pop-up in equal measure during sidequests and optional dialogues that all influence their individual relationship with Cloud. This in turn not only determines what dates you go on at the Gold Saucer in both chapters 8 and 12, but even influences combat mechanics and the other way around. There is a general party level on top of all this, which unlocks more abilities and stat boosts in this game's equivalent of a skill tree. Everything is tied together; synergized if you will.

Indeed, synergy is the name of the game here. Both literally and figuratively. Sidequests, character relationships and combat mechanics are synergistically linked and this is expressed in actual gameplay through the synergy abilities and synergy skills. It's an extra layer of mechanical complexity added onto the already best-in-class hybrid combat system of Remake. Everything in combat feels even tighter to control than before; Cloud can more easily attack airborne targets; Aerith can warp around the battlefield to trick her pursuers; Barret has an active reload on his Overcharge; you can time perfect blocks now to mitigate damage entirely. These are fun additions for sure, that make the combat even more dynamic, especially during the numerous exciting and engaging boss battles, but it's the synergy mechanics that introduce the biggest differences.

The synergy abilities were first introduced in the Intermission DLC for Remake and they are greatly expanded upon in Rebirth. These special moves link up two party members and let them dish out a good amount of damage, while also gaining specific buffs on top of that. You can only activate these abilities after having executed several ATB commands with both involved party members. This encourages the player to actively switch between the different members of your team and actually use all the different commands at your disposal. It's an effective way to make players utilize the entire toolbox, instead of mostly just relying on basic attacks and dodges with one character.

The implementation of synergy skills feel less refined in comparison. Their addition is sound on paper. You can use them whenever, even while ATB is still charging. So you don't have to just rely on regular attacks anymore to fill up ATB charges in order to actually do something effective in the meantime. They allow you to counter ranged attacks, launch ground based characters like Tifa into the air, charge a special attack, perform special ranged attacks of your own, or get into a strong defensive stance to mitigate damage. It´s hard to get a proper grasp on them though, since you have to combine two button presses to execute them without slowing down the action and also because the skills change depending on party composition. It will probably take you a good few chapters before you start to get to grips with it.

The folio system, the skill tree that let's you unlock the synergies, among other things, is also a bit tricky to get a good handle on. It's implementation is unwieldy. You can only access this skill tree from specific locations, without there being any clear balancing reason for having this restriction. It's not accessible through the regular menu at all. It just does not gel very well with all the other systems already in play.

So perhaps they took the combat mechanics one step too far here. Especially considering that there are also three brand new characters that you have to learn to control effectively.

Yuffie was first introduced in the Intermission DLC and everyone loved to play as her in that part of the game. No wonder, as she is arguably the most mobile character, who can switch freely between ranged and melee attacks and has a plethora of abilities, some of which strengthen eachother. She can even add elemental properties to her normal attacks. She might arguably be a bit too good in fact.

Much less mobile and fully ground-based, but still fairly quick on his feet, is Red XIII. He is the first mostly defense-based character, which takes some getting used to. He is essentially even more of a tank than Barret and arguably more suited to magic use. His trick is to build up his Vengeance meter by blocking attacks and then unleashing his most potent stuff by activating that meter once filled. With it active, he transforms into a veritable lion. Without it, he feels closer to a cub.

Cait Sith is entirely unorthodox and by far the hardest character to master. A lot of his abilities are chance based and increase in potency through his Luck stat. He can summon his big stuffed robot Moogle to his side and fight sitting on top of it, or seperate from it. He is versatile and generally good for support, but his unpredictability and curious controls make it hard to get a proper grasp on him.

All of these aforementioned elements spice up the combat a lot and inject it with more variety. In fact, if there is one other keyword that defines this entire game, it's variety. Once again embracing what the original game offered, there is a huge variety in zones and towns you visit throughout. All of them have their own unique vibe, expressed both through their generally appealing visual design and the accompanying music, which once again dynamically shifts in wonderful ways between exploration and action.

Every zone features it's own unique traversal mechanic, usually through different types of chocobo. Traversing the terrain itself, especially on foot, does not feel great. It is functional and doesn't get in the way, but it's not very smooth either. Some zones are more horizontal stretches, like the Grasslands and Corel Desert. Others offer more verticality, like Junon and personal favorite Nibel, with it's water-based hover mechanics. Cosmo Canyon and especially Gongaga feel more like traversal puzzles and require you to more consciously observe your surroundings and plan your route accordingly. It is engaging, but specifically in Gongaga it can lead to frustration because of bad readability due to the thick jungle environment and unpredictable jumping pads.

Love him or hate him, Chadley will prominently feature in all these zones too. You help him out with world intel: repetitive and rote tasks within the zones that will net you unique materia, as well as more world building and lore. The first thing Chadley does when meeting him, is lead you to a tower that reveals the different tasks you can undertake within a specific area of the map. This puts players into a grindy mindset of following strict waypoints and working down a checklist. It did not need to be this way. The different tasks are generally laid out in smart ways within the areas, the map design itself provides enough cues and landmarks, and there's other navigational elements like birds and magic stones for specific points of interest. Players could easily have stumbled upon a lot of these tasks through natural exploration and curiosity, yet the designers seemingly didn't feel confident enough about this.

Thankfully, there are generally not too many of these tasks for each zone and none of them individually take up too much of your time. You do not need to do all of them before moving on either. The game is very generous with letting you return to previous areas. In fact, chapter 12 is entirely designed around making return trips if you feel like it. It's a magical moment where the world truly opens up and you can literally cross the sea with the Tiny Bronco and dock at Under Junon if you wish. It's a perfect tease for what awaits us in the third game.

The actually fun world intel activities are the fiend fights, because they are built around combat. These are extra challenging variants of regular monsters, which eventually lead to an optional boss encounter that always gives you good rewards. In between, you also unlock dig sites in which you discover formulas by sniffing and digging with your chocobo, like a fun little treasure hunt. You can use these formulas to craft new worthwhile items, accessories and armor pieces.

Yes, perhaps unsurprisingly by this point, there is also a crafting system in this game. It is a very streamlined one that is not neccessary to engage with and therefore never gets in the way of the rest of the game. As mentioned, it can lead to good equipment. It also serves as an alternative means for obtaining more items, especially ones that are not readily available at shops, like the handy mist potions that cure your entire party.

Again, all the activities feed into tangible rewards as well as other stuff to do that in turn also nets you more rewards. For example, Chadley will keep adding new combat challenges in his VR simulator that offer up other materia than the ones you can obtain from him directly. This is also how you obtain the different summons, which you can make easier to beat by engaging with their corresponding world intel activities. These activities also give you more lore on the summons and their relationship to the environment in which they used to reside. It's all smartly designed stuff that ensures that all the things you do in this game have at least some worth to them.

The biggest world intel activity of them all is the Protorelic questline. This quest spans the entirety of the game and contains within itself a really fun sidestory featuring everyone's favorite eccentric swordsman: Gilgamesh. Seeing the questline through to the end, will lead you to some properly challenging endgame content that is sure to please the most dedicated fans. Variety once again comes into play for this questline, as each zone features it's own distinct activity to undertake. They are hit and miss though.

Case in point is the Fort Condor boardgame in Junon, which makes it's triumphant return from Intermission and is still fun, yet lacks some of the appeal of it's first iteration, due to a much bigger emphasis on aggresive play. The Cactuar quest in Corel has humorous bits and an interesting navigational mechanic, but also sends you back and forth a lot. The VR Turks fights in Gongaga are fine but unremarkable. The same goes for chasing down Beck's Badasses in the Grasslands, although that one certainly got a couple laughs out of me. The Gears and Gambits minigame has potential, but lacks an appealing audiovisual design and is essentially too mechanically complex for how late it is introduced in the game. Following the robed men in Nibel initially wastes a lot of your time, though they also cleverly poke fun at this setup.

One thing is for sure, this game does not skimp on content. On the contrary, the game is overflowing with it, all in the name of variety. The very length of this review, which wishes to thoroughly cover everything, is testament to that. Both Costa Del Sol and Gold Saucer feature their own suite of minigames, with varying levels of quality. The shooting gallery, space shooter and motorbike racer are simple but decently engaging. The brawler and fitness competition can be brutally unforgiving and demanding. Chocobo racing is genuinely fun and engaging and has way more content than it really needs. The animal soccer game feels janky to control, probably purposefully so, but can become frustrating because of it.

Even outside of these two locations, the game keeps introducing one-time mechanics, usually in the form of minigames. Both the main quest and sidequests feature them. This once again honors the original game, while expanding on it further. The dolphin race in Junon is quite fun and could do with some expansion. Shooting boxes from a minecart in Corel is a decent enough distraction. Plucking mushrooms in Gongaga is a bit silly, but certainly creative. Chocobo gliding in Cosmo Canyon feels entirely unintuitive and frustrating initially, but can be decent fun if you're willing to put the time in to get a better feel for it. Throwing boxes with Cait Sith has some perplexing controls and can waste your time a lot. There is even a robust piano playing minigame that spans the entire game and becomes genuinely challenging later on. Last but not least, the chicken luring in Gongaga is of course the very pinnacle of great sidequest design.

These various minigames are one of the reasons why the sidequests work better in this game compared to Remake, even if they do not all hit equally well mechanically speaking. Writing and presentation is another part of it. The stories for most of these sidequests are simply more interesting. Some of them are sad, others are exciting, a lot of them are just goofy and fun. Most of them feature multiple stages, so they don't feel as much like straight up fetch quests. What's also key is that the rewards for completing the sidequests tend to be fairly good, on top of the fact that you get to spend more time with specific members of the central cast during each of them. It's not the best this genre has to offer, but it is certainly a good improvement over what was on offer before.

All of this, on top of the main story, would've been more than enough for a content-rich RPG, yet the development team still wasn't done. This game also needs a card game, despite the original game never having one. Queens Blood could easily have been an entire game on it's own and in the future it might as well become one. It offers up genuinely compelling mechanics with a good amount of depth. It is easy to grasp but hard to master. What's more, there is another sidestory attached to it that spans the entire length of the game and which is genuinely interesting to see through to the end. One specific chapter of the game is even half-dedicated to an actual card tournament. Participating in this tournament is exciting, especially considering the memorable pay-off at the end of it.

The huge amount of content does come at the cost of pacing, even if more than half of it is optional. The general pace is, ironically perhaps, one of the weakest aspects of the game, while this was one of the original game's strong points throughout. Similar to Remake before it, this game takes a lot more time for everything. It helps with character and world building for sure, but comes at the cost of the plot itself.

This is further excarebated by the fact that not a lot really happens in the second act of this overall story. It's not until the third act that the plot of FF7 truly kicks into gear. The journey to get to that point does introduce you to the world at large in a great way, but otherwise it generally involves chasing after robed people without a great sense of urgency being present. That is going to stand out for sure, if all this is spread out over more than a hundred hours of content.

This is, paradoxically, a likely reason why Rebirth puts so much emphasis on all these side stories and activities and experiencing the wider world. The plot is currently at it's least exciting point, so why not entertain the audience with all of these distractions instead. Why not flesh out all these characters as much as possible. The developers knew that fans wanted to experience that magical moment of heading out into the larger world and seeing all these memorable sites and they do capture that with these open zones and side activities you can take part in.

It's the towns that steal the show though. Each of them has it's own distinct vibe. There is no repetition here. Every single town you visit almost feels like it's own character. They brought these places to life in ways that the original game could never hope to achieve. It's similar to what they achieved with Midgar in Remake, but spread out over the entire world in all kinds of differing styles. It's a resounding success.

All of these towns have their own stories attached to them. Not just in the form of minigames, sidequests or Queen's Blood matches, but also related to the main plot. The parade in Junon is an absolute highlight. Charming and compelling from beginning to end. Costa Del Sol is spiced up in a major way compared to the original and has way more character now. North Corel is an even more miserable place than it ever was before. The Dustbowl feels properly gritty and might as well have been a town straight from Mad Max. Gongaga feels really cozy and welcoming and features one of the best set pieces of the game.

In terms of straight up town design, both Cosmo Canyon and Kalm steal the show. Both of them feature intricate layouts and highly detailed architecture. Nibelheim and the Shinra Mansion are haunting and unsettling. It is a shame that we do not get an opportunity to explore the mansion's upper floors. Instead we have to make do with a much less compelling basement segment that is a bit of a low point in the overall adventure.

The Gold Saucer is this game's equivalent to Remake's Wall Market and while it doesn't quite hit that same note, there are some genuinely great moments that transpire here. This of course kicked off with it's uncompromising introductory sequence. They went all out on the tacky design of the Ghost Hotel. The event at the colosseum was palpably energetic. Loveless however, was the absolute highlight. In one fell swoop, this memorable stage performance convincingly brought in two elements that FF7 sadly lacked until now: an opera scene like in FF6 and a love ballad like in FF8, 9 and 10. Because this game just needs to have everything.

Dungeons in comparison to the towns are not as big of a success. They are without a doubt a good improvement over what Remake offered. They generally feel more layered, are not as overly long, and some extra traversal mechanics, light puzzles and change-up in controlled characters help to keep things more interesting throughout. Some still overstay their welcome a bit though and slightly more actual non-linearity in their designs would have been appreciated.

Tying all of these things together is one of the biggest soundtracks ever produced for a game, containing literally hundreds of tracks in a broad range of genres and styles. It wouldn´t be a Final Fantasy without excellent music and Rebirth does not disappoint. The soundtrack does not stand out as much as Remake did, simply because it builds on top of that already excellent foundation, but it´s still an all timer regardless.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a lot. No expense was spared to make this the most content rich RPG that Square Enix has produced in years, perhaps ever. It can feel bloated, the quality of side activities can be hit or miss, there are clear pacing problems and the overarching plot can spin it's wheels a lot. The sheer passion, love and dedication for this project can also be clearly felt. There is so much creativity here. It feels like a big production that had no constraints or limitations put on it. Like there was no influence from focus groups telling this team what is a good or bad idea; just let the passion flow. That's what makes this game feel so special and why it reminds people of those magical days of Squaresoft during the SNES and PS1 era. That's why i am having such a hard time letting this game go. It's the best Final Fantasy that Square has made since the PS2 days. I am incredibly excited about what they will come up with for the next game.

Fandom is such a fickle thing to handle properly. Especially for a property like Final Fantasy VII. It is not just the arguably most popular entry in one of the biggest and longest running RPG franchises in videogame history, it was a straight up phenomenon back in the nineties. For many people, this game released right in the middle of their most formative years. It shaped them. It also shaped creator Squaresoft. A watershed moment for them as a videogame production company, the Japanese RPG subgenre as a whole and even the entire industry at large. They had broken conventions; by shifting from Nintendo to Sony, from cartridge to CD-ROM, from fantasy to sci-fi, from pixels to polygons. It launched the careers of several up and coming designers, writers, producers and directors. This game, this phenomenon, blew up in such a major way that it's ripple effects and aftershocks are still being felt to this very day.

How then, as a creator, do you even begin to approach a remake project of a game with a legacy of such magnitude. It's very weight can directly be felt through the game's opening Prelude music track. This franchise means so much to so many people in all kinds of different ways. It's daunting to think about. You want to do justice to every possible moment, big and small; every single character and location, major or minor. You want to expand on all of this and present it in the highest possible fidelity that current day realtime graphics and audio can offer. The amount of time, effort and money this would cost is absolutely staggering for an adventure of this size. So they made the equally improbable and risky but only logical decision to split this project up in three distinct parts. Three fully fledged games that could stand on their own, while still intrinsically linked to eachother.

The first game in this trilogy, simply called Remake, covers what is essentially Act 1 of the overarching three or five act story. Which is challenging, as that first act only takes up about 5 hours of storytelling and gameplay in the original game, give or take; taking place in just one location. They had to stretch out one of the best paced opening acts to an RPG, so that it could stand on it's own as a fully featured 30-50 hour adventure, depending on the amount of content you decide to engage with.

So the brisk pacing of the original game is entirely sacrificed. What we get in it's place is much more world building and character moments than the original was ever able to realistically offer at the time. The location this game takes place in, the city of Midgar, is arguably one of the most iconic locations in all of videogames. It's metaphor, of the rich and privileged literally living above the poor and downtrodden, is far from subtle, but undeniably effective. The related imagery of it's construction, an impossibly large metal disc hundreds of meters above ground, robbing the people living below of literal sunlight, is strikingly oppressive. In the original we hardly ever see the looming metal plate above. In the remake it's always just a slight camera adjustment away as a constant reminder of the inhuman oppression being wrought here.

We get to fully experience life in the slums in visually detailed fashion and through a plethora of spoken lines from it's inhabitants. Several sectors, as they are inhumanely called, are visited throughout the game. Both the beautiful and ugly parts of society are brought to bare. The same is true for the brief trips to the top of the plate. More than the original game already did, we get to experience all facets of humanity. Greed and generosity, hate and love, indifference and compassion, cowardice and courage, shame and pride; it's all here. The often melancholic music only serves to further strengthen these feelings with beautifully realised compositions and rearrangements that do full justice to Nobuo Uematsu's classic original score, while creatively adding to it as well. This is one of the greatest soundtracks ever made, based on one of the greatest soundtracks ever made.

Nowhere is the humanity of this oppressed world brought to the forefront as much as through the central cast of colorful characters. This cast is at least as important as the world itself and they all mean so much to the fans. Back in the day, you had to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself. Dialogue was relatively brief, voices were absent, faces didn't show emotion and general animations were limited. It's quite the achievement in itself then, that despite these technical limitations, people still connected deeply to these characters and genuinely cared for their wellbeing.

It was therefore so easy to drop the ball here. Yet, this game didn't. In fact, these characters have never felt so alive and complete before; as lovingly animated and voice acted as they are. All of them fitting the characterizations of the originals so effectively, while adding on to it even further. It's a combination of good writing, solid acting, timeless design and heartfelt musical themes that manage to stick with you. Certain side characters, particularly the supporting members of the Avalanche eco-terrorist group which you are a part of, are now fully fleshed out as well, and you come to care for them about as much as the central cast.

All of these characters have their own particular qualities and flaws, convictions and doubts. They sometimes question their own actions and those of others. It's an effective lens through which to reflect on the enterprise you partake in: blowing up reactors which are sucking the planet dry of it's literal life energy, so they can offer the general populace a life of comfort and prosperity. The game does not shy away from showing you the collatoral of these bombings on innocent lives and the characters themselves will show doubts about it too. Yet, the stakes are incredibly high, Shinra -the company responsible for these reactors- is nothing short of a suffocating fascist government and nobody else is seemingly doing anything about the whole situation. So it's all justified, right?

The big bad of Final Fantasy VII is not Shinra though. It's a deceptive storytelling trick the original game manages to pull off effectively, by only revealing near the end of the first act that it's possibly not Shinra, but this fallen war hero called Sephiroth we should all be primarily worrying about. This is where Remake falls short of the original game. Sephiroth as the prospective antagonist is introduced much earlier this time around; manipulating protagonist Cloud immediately following the opening bombing mission. It's great for longtime fans, but might be confusing to new players. For most of the game, we don't really get to know exactly what Sephiroth's motivations and goals are and why we should hate him. The build up to one of the most iconic villains in videogame history was expertly handled in the original, but due to the constraints of just covering the first act, this build up is now compromised.

Similarly, the praiseworthy pacing of the original game is compromised too. All the extra world building and character moments are very much appreciated. That being said, a lot of it is offered through numerous lengthy, linear sections that tend to overstay their welcome a bit, particularly Hojo's Lab near the end; a stand in for the traditional final dungeon that entirely kills the forward momentum of the plot. Traversal through these sections isn't overly exciting once the beauty of the accompanying vistas and music wears off. The other half of this game exists of open areas in which you partake in optional sidequests. With the exception of the wonderfully whimsical Wall Market, these sidequests are a bit dull and forgettable most of the time and don't offer all that much in terms of gameplay or story.

That being said, this game definitely offers some truly memorable moments that impress and stick with you. There's the exciting opening bombing mission and your sobering confrontation with it's immediate aftermath; the first time you set foot in the slums and visit Seventh Heaven; the charming side mission with the supporting Avalanche crew to the top of the plate; the tense build up and subsequent exciting battle against the Airbuster; your first proper meet-up with Aerith and subsequent visiting of her house; everything that goes down in the aforementioned Wall Market; the falling of the Sector 7 plate and it's aftermath; exploring Shinra HQ and it's museum; fighting Jenova for the first time; the entire escape sequence juggling multiple perspectives at once. It's all greatly directed stuff.

Tying all this together is not just exploration and traversal. There's combat to be had, lots of combat. Arguably more than in the original game. Probably the biggest risk taken in terms of gameplay design, is the move away from the dynamic turn-based nature of the ATB combat system in the original and replacing it with an entirely unique action-turn based hybrid system. You no longer transition into a seperate battle screen, it all takes place right then and there in the environment; the music dynamically transitioning between the regular traversal music to an exciting battle rendition of the same song in such a smooth way that it always manages to impress. It's the single best realised gameplay feature of Remake and the one thing you want to keep coming back for.

It's nothing short of amazing what they managed to achieve here. All the neccessary tactics from the original ATB system are still in place, further enhanced by real-time action combat and everything that entails. So you not only issue commands to your crew, you also block, dodge and perform simple combos, all the while switching between the three members of your party. It feels surprisingly tight to control and the slowdown that occurs while you bring up the command menu is always appreciated, both in terms of visuals and as a moment of levity and respite from the intense action on screen.

All the party members have their own control scheme and way to play, emphasizing their individual roles. More than in the original, these different characters feel completely distinct from eachother. Cloud is a good multirole fighter, Barret is a great tank that attacks from range, Tifa is quick on her feet and builds ATB bars and stagger quickly, while Aerith is vulnerable but able to deal a great amount of ranged damage. The overall balance and synergy on display here is simply praiseworthy.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, it's the boss battles where the combat system truly shines. Every boss feels like a proper set piece, not just in terms of audiovisual presentation, but especially in terms of gameplay. You really need to stay on top of it all to come out victorious. Doubly so in Hard Mode, which unlocks after beating the game for the first time. This mode takes away the use of items, doesn't let you recover precious MP at rest spots and adds extra attacks and patterns to every boss. It's where the best parts of the combat show themselves.

Unlike the combat, the way you build out your characters has hardly changed from the original. It's the same Materia system from before and why wouldn't it be? It's a timeless system with which to strategize and shape the party to your liking, adapting to different situations as you go.

Equally, the general equipment system has not changed much. They kept it simple, so all you equip are a weapon, one piece of armor (if you can even call it that) and one accessory. Unlike the original, none of the weapons you obtain ever become obsolete. They not only offer you new abilities to learn, they also level up alongside your characters, offering further build opportunities on top of the materia slotting. This also means that Cloud's iconic Buster Sword remains relevant throughout the adventure, which fans are sure to appreciate. It's a solid change-up that doesn't overcomplicate things, although the customization screen for these weapons could certainly have been a bit more snappy.

Overall, possible materia and equipment builds can never become as crazy and creative as the original eventually is able to offer, but we're of course only on the first act of a bigger story here. There is much more to come down the line, well after this game's initial release.

Which remains the biggest challenge for this game's development. The story is not done after finishing this game. There are two more games coming up. Despite this, the developers did feel the need to round this off as it's own self-contained adventure. This leads to a big otherworldly showdown with Sephiroth at the very end that feels out of place. Equally, the so called whispers, literal arbiters of fate that occasionally appear to steer the party in the same plot direction as the original game -representing the most purist and protective of fans- feels like a curious and intriguing addition at best and a forced way to overcomplicate the general plot at worst.

How these specific changes and additions will shake out, remains to be seen. There is potential here for new, exciting surprises to come along in the following two games that could delight longtime fans; making them feel emotions comparable to their first time playing the original game back in the day. Emotions which would not neccessarily be there in equal measure if the entire plot plays out in the exact same way as before. Equally though, they could end up not adding anything of substance and feel entirely superfluous to what was already a really solid story to begin with. For the time being, we can only measure this specific game on it's own merits.

Those merits are largely predicated by that fickle fandom. The people who, like me, grew up with the original classic and have so many specific emotions and memories attached to it. In respecting those very emotions and memories by delivering an experience that does them justice, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a resounding success. The world, characters and music have never shone as brightly before, the materia system is still here in all it's mechanical glory and the combat convinces by arguably being the best of it's kind. In that sense, newcomers should equally be able to appreciate what this game has on offer. Both general plot and pacing do fall short and it's side content can be a bore. It's a very solid foundation that the development team will hopefully be able to build on properly, so they can truly spread their wings for the more open structured sequels.