Following my trend on playing FF7 related stuff after I finished Rebirth, I fired this one up for the first time, one I`ve been longing to play for a while now. It follows, after the success of the original FF7, the idea of expanding the lore and the universe of the game, now with a rather unique, but ultimately fun idea - a shooter game.

This game has a pretty noticeable Devil May Cry-esque to it, and Vincent Valentine, the mysterious vampire like hero from the main game, it`s a perfect pick for this kind of game. It has the visuals and the feels from Advent Children, but the tone is a little more grim and eerie, especially on the scenarios and the whole feel of the stages throughout the game.

Story-wise, the game follows the events at the end of the original FF7 and introduces a new group know as DeepGround, a secret military organization from Shinra that features genetically enhanced soldiers. Vincent learns that their ultimate goal is to call forth Omega and basically turn the planet into a crumbly rock - the story goes fine until almost till the end, when it becomes too much convaluted and unnecessary complex; it`s like they tried to do too much at the same time, and it doesn`t work that well. And also, I wished the original cast, Cloud and the crew, were a bit more important and present along the game, but I can see why they did it like this.

Talking about gameplay, this game functions as a third person shooter with a variety of weapons and materias at your disposal, but Vincent can still use his melee attacks. Although I wanted a few more weapons to be avaliable, I had a lot of fun playing with the guns you can pick from and meddle with the different combinations you can make with them. Even tho it can get a little repetitive sometimes, the levels are short so you don`t really feel bored.

I wonder if they ever gonna poke around this one, after remastering Crisis Core, and introduce it to the new FF7 universe - some of the characters introduced in this game are already present in some parts, especially in episode INTERmission. Honestly, I had a blast playing this, but this has to do with me being a huge fan of the original game, so if you`re not into the lore and all of the story, you probably not gonna like this one.

I had an urge to play more FF7 related stuff after finishing Rebirth and i picked this one up and wonder how much different it was from the original PSP game which I played way back and boy, this one is this a blast. The game already looked so good for a portable game from the 00`s, but they made it look and play even better now.

Honestly, this remaster changes very little from the story; the bulk is still there, but the voice cast has been updated to feature the same actors from the Remake sequence (and they hit the jackpot with the casting selection, dear God) and the game now is fully voiced, so it`s even better to play.

It`s in the combat that you`re gonna feel that they made a lot of changes, if you played the original version. In this remaster, the combat feels way more smoother and it is much more refined - the DMW limit`s animation doesn`t interrupt the gameplay anymore and it seems like you`re playing a whole different game now.

The graphics look and sound much better, although i ran into some tearing and slow loading textures - granted I played arguably the "worst" version, which is the Switch one, so if i had to guess, these issues won`t bother at all if you play this on PS5 or PC.

If you just got introduced to the FF7 lore and universe through the Remake and Rebirth games, this one is a must play if you liked the characters. You see so much backstory from most of the cast - Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, the Turks and especially the main protagonist, Zack Fair, which is just delightful to accompany. You still have to deal with some repetitive gameplay and awkward transitions, as this is still an old game from a portable console, but at it`s core (yeah, I just did that), this is still an amazing experience.