One of my favourite game franchise is coming on April 10th 2020. It is the Final Fantasy VII that came out in 1997. Before you get confused; no, the one coming on the 10th of April 2020 is not the original pixelated 8 bit thing that is the Final Fantasy VII of 1997. Rather, it is the remade version: re-imagined with new modern graphics, and new gameplay mechanics.
The Demo dropped on the 2nd of March 2020 and we downloaded it the very next day. The demo only gave us 20 minutes in gameplay. The demo only gave us the very first mission of the game. If you have not played Final Fantasy VII yet, I am not going to spoil it for you.
Before I go on about the game though, keep in mind that this is not a full review of the game, so you might not want to treat it as one. Keep in mind also that I only had a brief 20 minutes with the game, not 20 hours. While I cannot comment on the entirety of the game then, I can only come up with its first impression. That is what you are going to treat it as; first impression.
Visuals
First of all, you cannot compare graphics today to graphics over 20 years ago. You can, however, compare it with other modern games. You can compare it to the modern Final Fantasy XV.
On initial visual inspection, it looks like both of the games use the same graphics engine. That is not to say that it is a bad thing though. Final Fantasy XV is a gorgeous game, same goes to Final Fantasy VII Remake.
While Final Fantasy XV focuses on bright colours, with complex colour schemes, and plenty of complex textures, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a stark contrast to that. Final Fantasy VII Remake focuses on hard, flat surfaces. At least on the demo itself, you see plenty of metallic environments. Cloud’s big sword is a big metal surface anyway.
The colour tones are more flat compared to plenty of modern games understandably. While that might mean that the engine should easily cope with it, there are plenty of details still within the surfaces projected on the screen. The character models are plenty more complex than you can ever imagine Final Fantasy VII characters can be.
So far in the demo, we only saw Barret, Cloud, Aries, and a few supporting characters. Those characters really come alive with the remake. To think that 23 years ago, we only managed to see miniaturised character models unless you go into the turn based battle. Overall, that is a great experience, impressive at first impressions.
Gameplay
We spoke about turn based gameplay previously. That is the biggest difference between this new remake and the original game from 1997. Because of more complex processing power, battle is now in real-time like Final Fantasy XV. While that is the case, there are major differences in terms of look and feel though.
The battle mechanics does not change that much from XV to VII Remake. They are both real-time and in Classic mode, Final Fantasy VII is a button masher game that looks good. It does not feel as messy and as complex as Final Fantasy XV though. That could also be because I was playing it in Classic Mode. Still, real-time melee battles can be quite jarring especially when you have no sense of control on your right joystick. It can get quite harrowing and frustrating in any other mode that Classic Mode.
Still, all the right visual cues are there. The other overlay graphics that tells you your health, MP, your action options, and others do help with the nostalgic feel of the game. They use the exact same colour palettes here. The also use the same sort of fonts in different sizes and sort of the same placements on your screen. Played out on a big screen though, I wish that those information HUD was slightly bigger.
The controls feels as simple as it can be though. That also means that you get to enjoy the gameplay more than you think. You also get to play the game more than getting frustrated over the controls, that is nice. The only difference with Final Fantasy VII from 1997, is that you can manipulate your camera angles on your own now. No more fixed camera angle from the late 90s to mid 2000s.
Is It Worth MYR 243?
I guess? To be fair, I am a cheapskate. I tend to buy games only during massive sales. The last game that I bought at full price was Death Stranding, that is after thinking about it hard for three whole days.
This is one of those games that actually shaped my childhood though. It is, I think, also the game that got me into gaming. The Final Fantasy VII from 1997 was my favourite Final Fantasy game. It was not my first, that has to go to the Final Fantasy VIII.
The Remake demo has brought back plenty of memories of that old PlayStation that I shared with my brother. It introduced a whole facet of world to me and I wanted to get lost in that world. The Remake, although just a demo, brought back some of those memories.
In that sense then, the heart that so loves the Final Fantasy VII really wants to spend that MYR 243 on this game; a physical copy with the disc and everything. My logical mind though disagrees. Logically, the gameplay is nothing new. While it looks good, there are plenty of games that might be better in terms of enjoyment out there too. Take the Star Wars: Fallen Jedi game for example. Logically then, it might be better for me to wait for the game to drop in price before spending my hard earned money on it.
In truth then, I really cannot tell you whether or not to buy it. 20 minutes, to be very honest, is too short to judge a game. MYR 243 is not a small amount of money for a game, really. If you are feeling nostalgic and you have that much extra money to play with, I say; go ahead. If not, maybe you want to hold it off first. For me? This is the third time I’m asking myself; “am I willing to spend MYR 243 on a game?” I still do not know the answer to that.
