First Impressions: Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Because Intergrade is Out)
I started playing the Final Fantasy 7 Remake back in November when I first bought it, but I stopped when I heard there was going to be a free upgrade to the then newly announced PS5 version, Intergrade, which is out today. The main caveat is that it comes with an additional chapter where you play as Yuffie, the Resident Material Thief and Ninja. I haven’t played it because it takes place after the main story and I haven’t finished that yet. Instead, I’m going to go over my experiences with it thus far and how it shakes out as someone who never played the original version of FF7.
You play as Cloud Strife, a former SOLDIER 1st Class from the Shinra Electric Power Company turned mercenary (corporations with their own private army? Perish the thought…), whose latest job is helping the Ecoterrorist group AVALANCHE take out some reactors (also, in this take of the story, it’s implied they are being backed by the nation of Wutai and used as a proxy group as revenge against Shinra for what they did to them in a war years before the story started, which is a fucking interesting implication). From there follows a version of 7’s story that, based on my own playtime of the game’s first four chapters, follows the same basic plot beats of the Midgar section of Disc 1 of the original game, but is contextualized differently and expanded upon. Speaking as someone who’s largely familiar with Final Fantasy 7 through Pop-Cultural Osmosis, this expansion and playing with the story is hands down the game’s biggest strength. It allows the creators to reframe and add to the events as they unfold and what I’ve seen, has been interesting, to say the least. It also serves to show me why the audience fell in love with these characters. Aerith in particular is a snarky little shitgoblin and I love her.
The biggest change aside from the aforementioned story re-interpretation would have to be the gameplay. FF7R swaps out the original’s turned-based combat for a Kingdom Hearts-inspired real-time combat system (hell, I think the lead combat designer for Kingdom Hearts 2 worked on this system, so it would track) with the Active Time Battle component serving as cooldowns and stocks for your big-time abilities. Between Cloud’s massive sword swings, Barrett’s More Dakka approach, Tifa’s hard-hitting martial arts, and Aerith Potent As Fuck Magic, you have four distinctly different characters who all have their own abilities and approaches to combat that are all So. Goddamn. Satisfying. This with the level of customization that Materia (basically slottable gems you can put into your equipment) and different weapons that can be leveled up for each character all adds up to, in my opinion at least, the best real-time combat system in a Final Fantasy game I’ve ever played. At least until Final Fantasy XVI and its Devil May Cry lookin’-ass combat comes along.
Lastly, I wanna talk about the music because Sweet Christmas, the soundtrack in this game slaps. And a huge part of it slapping as hard as it does is because of the amount of sheer variety in the choices of music in the game. And they all sound like in-universe takes on these songs, which also makes the world feel like a lived-in place. How varied are we talking? There are both Electronic and Trap remixes of the Chocobo theme. And without going into too much depth as to why I think this, but I listened ahead and the Remake’s take on One-Winged Angel is absolutely terrifying. As it should be.
Overall, I would say that my experience with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake has been great so far. Much like with my experiences with the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 when I played those earlier this year, it serves as a great place for new players to experience a different take on Final Fantasy 7 that has all of the Triple-A Bells and Whistles but is different enough from the original version of the game that it can stand on its own two feet. I’m definitely going back to this to give it the time it deserves.
