chloe
It’s here everyone, the Final Fantasy VII Remake is here! It’s out in the world and we’ve been devouring and loving it!
Since we are really liking the story and playing through these familiar yet new environments, we thought we’d put together a list of five reasons we’ve been loving it!
1) The Graphics
If you’ve dived into the original Final Fantasy VII from the original PlayStation, you’ll know that now, the graphics don’t look the best. The game was made and released back in 1997 when the technology definitely was not as advanced as it is now so the graphics left something to be desired. But, the graphics in the Final Fantasy VII Remake are so remarkably stunning that we love seeing all of these places and characters and the incredible graphics used.
The details in all of these places that we know so well are just incredible. From simple things such as the lights of Wall market’s night scene to actually having stray cats running around Sector 7. What they have done with the graphics is something truly special. One of our favourite locations is Aerith’s house. It looks absolutely stunning with all of the water graphics and the beautiful flowers, we feel so blessed to be in an era where these places from our childhoods really feel like they’re coming to life!
2) The Characters
When the Final Fantasy VII Remake was first announced back in 2015, there was immediately a lot of speculation about who would be voicing the characters we love so much. Because of the likes of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children and the Kingdom Hearts series where some of the characters appear, a lot of people had an idea in their minds about who they wanted to voice these characters but we were surprised with a brand new cast!
From the first trailer released in May 2019, people were already loving the new cast of voices and as more trailers and content was released, the more people fell in love.
These characters are so familiar and special to so many people, it was so important that they managed to get the characterization and design right as well as adding some new quirks and relationships within them. An example of this is the beautiful friendships we see developing between Cloud and all of Avalanche as well as a fan favorite being our new friendship between Tifa and Aerith.
All of these characters are so iconic not just to Final Fantasy fans but generally in gaming, a lot of people know these characters, and we are pleased with what they’ve done with them.
3) Expansion of the Story
The FFVII Remake is being split into a number of parts but it hasn’t been confirmed how many yet which means that the story has so much room to be expanded on. For example, the first part focuses on the Midgar section of the game, which in the original was about six hours and now it’s been expanded into a four-hour piece of media! It gives us so much more time to get into the characters that we didn’t spend much time with, in the original. It gives the story so many more layers and gives us many more side quests to delve into.
The beauty of being able to expand this story is truly in the character relationships and how much we get to see them develop and create these friendships we didn’t see much of in the first game. But, also the fact that it gives so many of the stories more context than we’ve ever had before, as well as just being able to enjoy our favourite parts for longer. A great example of this is the Wall Market. The Wall Market scenes in the original game are some of the most iconic scenes in the entirety of Final Fantasy games and now we got to spend so much more time exploring Wall Market and being able to do our favourite things like the squat challenges, Cloud in the dress, the list goes on.
4) The Combat
An issue we hear a lot about classic JRPG games is that people don’t really like the turn-based battle system which, whilst we do love it, we can see why people don’t. Well, if you are one of them, we have some great news. The remake does not have a turn-based system!
The new game uses a real-time battle combat system which means there is no taking it in turns anymore, you can just go in with your spells or just slash at the enemies. You have a command menu that temporarily slows down the battle whilst you are making your choices on how to attack next. This is a great system for people who do not like the turn-based battle system and want to just jump in with everything they have. It’s a new, fun way to play Final Fantasy VII that can appeal to the masses who were put off by the original battle system.
But, if you are an active lover of the turn-based battle system, why not play the entire game on classic mode? It’s not exactly the same but allows the new and old fans alike to play the game in whichever way they want to!
5) New Fans
We think the best thing about the remake is that there are new fans across the world picking up their first Final Fantasy game. Where Final Fantasy is one of the most popular gaming series ever, there are obviously people out there who have never picked up one of the Final Fantasy game and the remake is encouraging new players to give it a go!
In the first three days of release, the game sold over 3.5 million copies! This means that old and new fans have been buying and enjoying the game which we think is the most special part about this remake. So many of us can now enjoy a game that has been cherished for the past twenty-three years.
So, from all of us here, we hope that you are enjoying the remake whether you are a classic fan or a new one!
Please let us know what you thought of the game by tweeting us @Fuzzable!
