#Final fantasy vii remake reviews full

WeвЂ™re given more time to see him being tender with his daughter Marlene in the remake and, while many of us may have rolled our eyes at his angry lectures about the fate of the planet before, itвЂ™s now much easier to relate to his righteous outrage at a company that is aggressively pushing the world into an ecological crisis from which it canвЂ™t recover. That stereotype didnвЂ™t entirely define Barret then, and it certainly doesnвЂ™t now. Square Enix was overly fond of this character type at the time: See also AyaвЂ™s partner Daniel from the 1998 game Parasite Eve. Barret always felt like a clunky stereotype, with his tendency for furious outbursts and confrontational language, even in 1997.

ThereвЂ™s Barret, the head of CloudвЂ™s Avalanche cell. He too often ends up feeling like a blank slate, a stand-in for a general вЂњheroвЂќ character, but thankfully heвЂ™s surrounded by much more expressive characters who pick up most of the slack.

#Final fantasy vii remake reviews full

And while the original game got to take Cloud through his full journey as a character, Remake is stuck with the Cloud we know at the beginning of that journey. He needs to be emotionally distant, because his unavailability is a crucial part of his character arc, but he also has to hold our attention as the central figure of the narrative. HeвЂ™s just there for the money.Д¬loudвЂ™s characterization here is tricky, and only partially successful. But Cloud is non-ideological, at least at first. Cloud falls in with a group called Avalanche - who are either brave resistance fighters or cowardly eco-terrorists, depending on who you ask - to prevent the Shinra Electric Power Company from sucking the planet dry of an important natural resource called mako. You primarily play as Cloud Strife, a reticent mercenary with spiky hair and a mysterious past. And, though itвЂ™s embellished with several new narrative detours, the broad strokes of the story are mostly the same. The rest of Final Fantasy 7вЂ™s story will be told in future games. Remake takes the first six hours or so of the original game - the part that takes place entirely in the stratified, metal city of Midgar - and expands them into a roughly 40-hour narrative. One of the most remarkable things about Remake is that, despite expanding the original gameвЂ™s opening sections many times over, it still feels extremely faithful to the original. You may see the original as a timeless masterwork or a dated relic, and the lens through which you view this second chance to get it вЂњrightвЂќ will depend on what you think was вЂњwrongвЂќ about the game in the first place. So what happens when those technical limitations are gone, replaced with 23 years of progress?ДЇinal Fantasy 7 Remake happens, but how you feel about Square EnixвЂ™s effort to remake Final Fantasy 7 today - greatly expanded and unhindered by the technology of yesteryear - may say more about your feelings on technology and nostalgia than the game itself. The hardware was powerful for its time, but the team already wanted - and probably needed - more. ItвЂ™s that tension that still makes the original game one of the most interesting experiences of its era. The technology was still being developed. The vision, and the scope, of an epic was always there.

Playing the original release of Final Fantasy 7 in 2020 reveals a game with the energy of someone trying to create a blockbuster with the resources of a high school play. IвЂ™ve always seen beauty in the parts that fall short, the moments where you can sense the developersвЂ™ vision of what the game could be hitting the edges of what was possible at the time. I can see what Final Fantasy 7 was meant to be when I replay the original, not despite the blocky character models and the awkwardly inserted pre-rendered interludes and backgrounds, but because of them. 1997вЂ™s Final Fantasy 7 was always audacious, a game ahead of its time.