Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4) review "Disclaimer: Rob did not actually have this dream."

I had one hell of a crazy dream last night. I was playing the original Final Fantasy, only it was a remake of that classic. Not one of the typical remakes of this game, where the graphics get spruced up a bit and a few "quality of life" improvements are made. I was dreaming about a complete re-do of the game for modern systems. Not only that, but the game was divided into installments with the one I was playing only covering the early stages of the game and ending after I obtained the boat.

Obviously, to craft a full-length game out of the first couple hours of the original's duration, Square Enix had to make a few additions. The area where play starts now contains more than a castle, its adjoining town and the nearby temple dedicated to evil, with other towns and NPCs added to demand my attention. After knocking Garland down and gaining access to the next land, I had more to do than talk to the blind witch who wants her crystal back and beat down pirates. Might as well add another town or two and a few more dungeons to keep me busy! And since it'd be a bit anticlimactic to end a game beating up on some weak pirates, things concluded with a tacked-on battle against Chaos to serve as a set-up for the second game!

But it was only a dream. Nothing like that would actually happen in reality, would it?

Well, maybe. After all, Square Enix is doing that exact same thing with Final Fantasy VII and after playing its first chapter, creatively named Final Fantasy VII Remake, I would not be shocked at anything they decided. The concept of remaking it isn't a surprise — after all, it was a super-popular game that was technologically mind-blowing for its time, but goofy-looking and primitive by today's standards. But this…is just bizarre.

Remake isn't a remake of the entire game. Instead, it carries players through the city of Midgar and ends when Cloud and company escape that place. An entire 40 hour (give or take) game taking place in a city that only took a few hours to explore and escape in the original.

How is this accomplished? Part of it is through fleshing out side characters. Avalanche operatives Jessie, Biggs and Wedge no longer are stuck in the background, while Shinra employees like Heidegger and the Turks have larger presences, as well. You also get to more throughly explore the Midgar slums, with multiple districts providing side quests that can be completed for often-lucrative rewards. And, in a very nice touch, after that ugly little moment where Shinra drops a large plate on top of one district of the slums in an attempt to wipe out Avalanche, you'll spend a lot of time dealing with its after-effects. The utter destruction caused and the reactions of random NPCs do a lot to display just how horrific that act was.

The other part? Extensive padding, baby! Take the second Mako reactor dungeon you do in the early stages of the original game. There, it's a pretty simple process to get to that place. Here, you're forced out of the train taking you there due to Shinra catching wind of your plans and, to reach it, you'll go through two additional dungeons. You'll also make an additional trip to the sewers under Don Corneo's place and there happens to be a hidden Shinra laboratory hidden directly under the Sector 7 Slums that Avalanche calls home.

While these areas can be fun to travel through, it's easy to make an argument they add very little to the game's story. Much like some of the new characters introduced in Remake. Such awesome presences as Roche, a motorcycle-loving Shinra combatant who challenges Cloud a couple times in an early-game chapter and loves the experience so much that he…promptly disappears from the plot afterwards. And no one can forget Leslie, the erstwhile enforcer of Don Corneo who has a small plot arc that ends with our heroes needing to bail him out after he totally gets schooled by an obese, cowardly crime lord. That last sentence was sarcasm — I only remembered him for the purpose of mocking him. Now that this paragraph has been written, he's been erased from my memories.

Now, to awkwardly segue into positive thoughts, I will say that I enjoyed the more action-oriented combat in this game. Each character that you can control has their own style of fighting. Barret's various gun-arms and Aerith's magic-infused staff allow them to attack from a distance. Tifa can assault foes with quick strikes, while Cloud swings really big swords and can switch to a more defensive stance that allows him to parry blows and issue counterattacks.

Each character also gets a number of weapons that can be leveled up to improve their stats and obtain additional Materia slots. Those weapons can affect how you control those characters, as well, as some are better-suited to physical combat and some are more useful to a player who likes to load up on various Materia and blast foes with all sorts of spells. Knowing what character and/or style of fighting to use on assorted enemies is crucial, as some can be quickly staggered by certain attacks, allowing you to utterly bludgeon their helpless selves for a short period of time.

By attacking, you'll fill up a bar, allowing you the use of special attacks, spells and items, meaning you'll have to be at least somewhat aggressive if you want to regularly do anything other than basic attacks. This can definitely make battles more intense and stressful, as it's easy to find yourself near death, but in a position where you have to put your life on the line in order to build up the bar enough to be able to use a potion or cast a health-restoring spell.

And if you're looking for a nostalgia fix, Remake is all about that. You'll get to see all the familiar sights and faces of the original game, but looking so, so much better. This game is utterly beautiful and it does a good job of taking every memorable moment of those early hours of the original and doing them justice. And, like I mentioned with Shinra's dropping of the plate, this game often makes those moments stand out more. Just ignore minor details like the early-bird cameo of Cait Sith when that is happening. Nothing quite ruins a super serious moment like watching a giant stuffed animal gazing upon the destruction with a distraught expression…

The thing is, take away the feelings of nostalgia and all you have is a beautiful game that's generally fun to play, but ultimately nothing I'd describe as memorable. Remake is the definition of linear. On one hand, that's understandable — after all, your jaunt through Midgar in the original was linear and things started to gradually open up after leaving the city. On the other hand, when I'm playing a role-playing game, I prefer to not feel like I'm being railroaded from one place to the next with no say whatsoever in what I'm doing. Hell, there were multiple times when I'd try to walk one way, only to have another character chastise me for having the audacity to attempt venturing off the path imposed upon me.

I thought Remake was a beautiful game. I enjoyed its combat. I loved the trip down memory lane it provided. I really dug its potential to deviate from the original's plot, as there was some major stuff concerning our heroes attempting to take the future into their own hands instead of following the destiny that's been ordained for them — something that in a future installment has the potential to cause all the "What if Aerith wasn't killed?" fan fiction writers of the late 1990s to have their heads explode from sheer ecstasy. But this game just didn't completely click with me. Maybe it was its linear nature, maybe it was the blatant padding necessary to turn the beginning of a game into a full-length offering. Maybe it was the total self-indulgence of this concept and how it feels like a bizarre combination of a love letter to fans and a cynical cash-grab. Regardless of how the original has aged, it will always be considered a classic. As for this beginning chapter of its remake, it seems more likely to be considered a curiosity decades down the road.

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (May 05, 2023) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.