Final Fantasy VII originally came out in 1997 and was regarded as one of the most ambitious and engrossing JRPGs to ever come to market. The original game on the Sony Playstation was three disks in length, the largest game at the time to ever come to the platform.
In the original Final Fantasy VII, you play as Cloud Strife as he comes to grips with what’s happened to him at the hands of the Shinra Corporation. A company that is determined to drain the life force from the planet. It’s now up to Cloud and the friends he meets along the way to take back the planet and save it from Shinra.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (FFVIIRI) takes the original story of Final Fantasy VII and expands it exponentially. This first game in the remake trilogy has you playing about eighty hours of gameplay from start to finish. Along the way you will complete missions for those in the slums, meet new people that will aid you in your quest to save the planet, and dive deeper into the lore and story than you ever could playing the original.
FFVIIRI blends the elements of Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII ( a game that I really won’t go into detail here, just know that it is in the FFVII story-line; started out on the PSP and has been recently remade and brought to modern platforms) and Final Fantasy VII to make one really good experience. As you walk around the areas you explore, you will be in a 3rd person perspective, able to talk to people, purchase weapons and items from shops, explore your surroundings and even could find hidden items and money while exploring. As you get quests from people, you can talk to other NPCs for information, or take on additional quests weather those be side quests or part of the current main quest you’re on.
Just like with the original release, you have weapons, armor, accessories, and materias you can equip to help aid you in battles you encounter. Where this game takes elements from Crisis Core comes with the battle sequences, as unlike the original game, this game has you encountering enemies in real time that are just walking around the environment as you do. When they see you, they can and most likely will engage you in battle and when this happens, you have a set area to fight in.
The battle ends when you have defeated all of the enemies, and one cool thing about battles is that you can play them either as turn based battles, much in the same way most Final Fantasy games as well as the original handled the battles in those games. Or you can play them as real time battles where you control the characters in real time, constantly. As much as I have enjoyed the original game, I prefer the real time battle system for this game. I like being able to swap between party members at will instead of waiting to take turns, and I like having to try and actively dodge enemy attacks.
There are a few elements that FFVIIRI adds over the original release of FFVIIR on PS4. Those are the enhanced graphics that the PC and PS5 offers with the superior hardware over the PS4, and the addition of a side story that tells the story of Yuffie. Now I am calling it a side story, but what it’s officially being called is the FFVIIR Episode INTERmission, featuring Yuffie. I am calling it a side story because that’s really what it is, it’s a side story that really works to flesh out the story behind Yuffie, one of the characters Cloud meets on his journey to save the planet. Though I do consider it a side story, it feels rather different than the base game.
This side story has you playing as Yuffie with a more action orientated feel to the game. You have a lot more exploring, platforming, and puzzle solving than the based game has. It almost makes it feel like a genre jump from RPG to action adventure. Though despite the slight departure, it still retains everything else that makes FFVIIRI a great game.
I briefly touched on FFVIIRI having graphical improvements with this release, and this is true. You can get up to 120FPS, with amazing graphic fidelity that far surpasses that of the PS4 original release.
Playing this game on my mini PC, I am not able to take full advantage of the performance enhancements, but that’s not to say it doesn’t still look really good. I am getting about 35-40FPS with some dips down to about 30 most of the time. Despite the lower frame-rate than possibly even that of the PS4, this game still looks much better graphically on my PC. The environmental affects like fog, steam, character models, and overall environment just look so much better playing it on PC versus PS4.
You can really tell that they put a lot of time and effort to justify the double dip. Not only did they drastically improve the way the game looks and performs, but added the side story that just really adds to the over all experiences and really pushes this to be the definitive way to experience FFVIIR.
The Final Fantasy series has been known to have some of the most impressive and iconic music in the world of video games. FFVIIRI definitely lives up to the series expectations. Now it hasn’t changed the music of the original, but it feels more enhanced. Like they went through and tweaked it to sound even better than it originally did on the PS4 with the first release of FFVIIR. The music hits harder, NPC conversations sound crisper and more defined, making them much easier to understand. Explosions are louder, things like footsteps and environmental sounds also sound clearer and more defined. Just like was done with the graphics, they went and took the audio and made it clear why this is the definitive means to play FFVIIR.
When I first heard that Final Fantasy VII was going to be remade and broken up into three separate games, I was very critical of this and felt like it may have been just a cheap cash grab. But at the same time I felt this way and had my reservations, a part of me was excited to see what they were going to do with such and iconic game.
I bought FFVIIR for PS4 and immediately felt nostalgic and excited the moment I started it. Everything felt fresh and new, but at the same time cozy and familiar. They managed to take such a great game and made it even better. As fun as this game was to play on the PS4, it was when I came to learn that the next installment wouldn’t be releasing on the PS4 that I stopped playing it. The nostalgia and excitement faded. Why was I going to work to finish a part of the game when I couldn’t continue the game to completion?
Well that’s where FFVIIRI comes in. Now we have this awesome game with quality of life improvements and additional content on PC. I can finally dive back into this game and actually complete it while I wait for the second half to come to PC.
I said all of that to explain the following statement. Regardless if you’re a fan of the original release, stopped playing the remake on PS4 because you couldn’t play the game in it’s entirety, or you have been waiting to jump in, do yourself a favor and pick up FFVIIRI. This really is the best way to play such a re-imagined take on a classic RPG.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.