An essay about the Final Fantasy 7 Remake - three years too late.

[Didsy]

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake is categorically the best remake/reboot that I've ever played.

Spoiler warning, I will certainly be spoiling the contents of both the Original game and the Remake.

Let me first start by addressing something that I think is really important to the conversation about FF7R. I've seen a lot of dialogue online about this game. There are a lot of people that really, truly hate it. I don't know if any of those people exist in here, but I'd like to write a piece that aims to change someone's mind about their dislike for this game.
I will preface this by saying that the game is by no means perfect, but it is no where near as bad as some people make it out to be.

A lot of people take issue with the way the Remake diverges from the original game, and I think it's a very poor take, if I'm honest. For me, it's the differences which make the remake worth playing. You see, I love Final Fantasy 7. Though I have always enjoyed it, it wasn't always my favourite JRPG. The older I've gotten, the more I've come to appreciate it. I think this game is truly one of the JRPG's of all time.

For the original, I actually love the low-fidelity of the character models. It allows them to be expressive in a way that has very much been lost in a lot of games.
(I also think that abstract character visuals of pixel and early 3D RPG's also allow these games to tell much more complex and thought-provoking stories, but that's an essay for another time.)
The pre-rendered backgrounds are quite frankly, incredible. Even from the perspective of video games made today. There are 703 screen in this game. Each background contains unique assets to populate the screen. It's honestly very rare that I can identify re-used assets in the screens of Final Fantasy 7. I'm fascinated by the technical requirements used to construct and make these backgrounds work, and the composition of each screen is meticulously crafted and built for purpose - rather than creating every asset to be as modular as possible.
The compressed, midi soundtrack is also amazing, but I'm getting a little off-topic (and I haven't even mentioned my love of the equipment and battle systems).

What I'm trying to say is that there's very little in Final Fantasy 7 that I dislike. I like the chunky 3d, I like the prerendered backgrounds, I like the midi soundtrack, I like the complexity of the gameplay systems.
I don't *need* this game to be re-told to me in high-fidelity 3d with RTX. Ideally, I'd love a remix of this game to be released. Same game, same visuals. Throw in some more weapons, Materia, enemies & optional content and I'd be overjoyed.

That's where the Remake, and what people expect from it, comes in. It seems that the remake's detractors expected a like-for-like recreation of FF7 on their PS5. Same story, same mechanics, new visuals, new sound. But what they received was a remix. A core part of the plot of the game is how it differs and alters the story of the original PS1 game. The Avalanche team members survive. New characters and areas are introduced. The game and the world that exists within it is different.
And you know, I'm really happy with that. The developers didn't recreate Final Fantasy 7, because re-creating Final Fantasy 7 does not re-create the *feeling* of playing Final Fantasy 7 for the first time. Does that make sense? If you re-create a game 1-2-1, you don't feel the same as you did the first time you played it. Especially in a game with so many narrative twists.
Playing this game, I had no idea what was going to happen next - or how something was going to play out. They've successfully got me locked in to the world of Final Fantasy 7 again for the unforeseeable future, and I don't know what's going to happen. That's amazing. In not re-creating Final Fantasy 7, they've successfully re-created the feeling of Final Fantasy 7.
The developers are not disrespecting the original by making changes. They're doing the exact opposite. Re-creating the original is to supersede it. It would invalidate ever going back and playing it again.
Surely, people have got what they want out of a remake of this game? You get to explore Midgar in high-fidelity and the character writing and voice direction is leagues beyond anything than a lot of JRPG's are achieving - even from Square themselves!

Now, I want to address the concept of killing fate. The climax of the game has the characters exit the Shinra building and take a brief detour to kill a godlike concept - Fate. I don't hate this conceptually. Having a physical representation of the narrative boundaries of Final Fantasy 7 come to life as a way of attempting to maintain the canon narrative is great. They execute it fantastically throughout the game by introducing these "ghost" like creatures who help and hinder the cast, wherever it suits to maintain the canon plot.
However, what I personally dislike about this is the scale at which it is executed at the end of the 7 Remake. This fate-like being, the "Whisper Harbinger" manifests in the game as a titanic, Lovecraftian entity. It is categorically larger in scale than anything from the original Final Fantasy 7, let alone the Remake.
This does not sit too right with me, as a concept. It's difficult to rationalise the journey that these characters are taking - my suspension of disbelief is broken. I think the next game will be at odds with its self when we go from the characters dominating an abstract concept such as fate, and then see the same characters struggling to fight Cactuars.
This is an unfortunate stain on an otherwise excellent idea. Fate is abstract. It could have manifested its self as something much smaller. Alternatively, it would have been a great moment to potentially allow the player to instead fight this boss as Sephiroth, instead of the party. This would enable the player to experience how strong of a villain Sephiroth has become.

Let me compare this to the Midgar zolom. You know the famous line, "Did Sephiroth do this?". In the original, this is done masterfully. The Zolom is a strong creature. So strong, in fact, that it is implemented as a means of barring the players progress. In order to get past the Zolom, the player must capture a Chocobo in order to move quick enough to avoid it. When passing the Zolom's domain, they reach a cave entrancte featuring a similar Zolom, this time impaled on an impossibly large spike. "Did Sephiroth do this?" Cloud says in disbelief. This section is done to really emphasise the power difference between a party of six, versus their one-man nemesis. I'm struggling to imagine how this scene could rightfully play out following the Remake's cast essentially killing fate. I'm left to wonder, could the Midgar Zolom have done the same?

I can only imagine that the decision to make the fight as large as this was made in keeping with the expectation of typical JRPG tropes. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake was a big event in gaming history. This remake is a game that people have been asking for since the announcement of the PS3 (if not earlier!). As Tim Rogers put it in his Action Button review of the Remake "Final Fantasy 7 was a machine that begged us to beg it's makers to make it again". The fact that this happened was monumental, and I can only imagine that a decision was made to make the ending of this remake a big deal, as a result.

It was not a good choice, in my opinion. But this is in no way ruins the game for me. What it fumbles in concept, it regains in potential. Now that they have killed fate and allowed Avalanche to survive, I'm left to wonder; Will Aerith live? Will someone else die? - personally, I don't think so. But the very fact that this is even a question would have been unfathomable to me before playing the remake.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this. I also have a lot to say about the combat, if anyone is interested. But I'm sure you've read enough. Thanks for indulging in this video game essay, I'd like to write more.