Final Fantasy VII Remake: What I Loved and Hated

Last night I finally finished the Final Fantasy VII Remake, and as I've gone through the game, certain things lingered in my mind about what I loved and hated about the new adaptation. Fair warning, I'm about to get into spoilers for everything Final Fantasy VII, including the original, prequels, and sequels. You've been warned.

Background

First a little background on myself and my history with Final Fantasy VII. I first played this when I was 15, and by the end of the game I loved it. By now, everyone knows that Aerith dies by the hands of Sephiroth, and if you've seen the sequel movie you know that it has a huge impact on Cloud. That's the most talked about thing in the series, so that secret's out. But the actual big secret not many people talk about, which is great. It's the part of the game's story that I like the most. Cloud's journey to self discovery had a huge impact on myself and his relationships with the other characters.

Coming into the remake, I was hoping for more context, background, and details of the overall story and characters. In a world where we have remakes like Shadow of  the Colossus, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and Resident Evil 2; I had high expectations for Final Fantasy VII Remake.

What I Loved

First things first, I loved the additional context that the game provides throughout the 36-plus hour adventure. Getting to actually see what Cloud sees when he gets those migraines provides a lot more perspective into his actions throughout the game. Walking the streets of Midgar after the reactor destruction gives some weight to the actions taken. Seeing the hundreds of people around the slums really gives a sense of scale to what the original showed as maybe a few handful of people. And the new Wall Market scenario is no longer cringe-worthy. Going on a mission with Jessie to fetch the materials for the bomb gave a deeper understanding of her background. Seeing the clones of Sephiroth transform back to their original selves; the cloaked number people.

In the original, when you got a new weapon, it typically was more powerful than the weapon you had. The only reason to keep your weapon was when it actually had more materia slots. That's the only case I could think of when you'd want to keep it. Typically you'd sell it off, never again using that Buster sword seen in so many screenshots. But now, you can upgrade your weapons and never have to give them up. You can pick and choose the weapons you want to use based on their characteristics.

Along with the weapons come special abilities and the battle system. The new battle system is the best way to incorporate a modern take on the original's active time battle system. Most battles required me to switch or manage my characters to make the most use out of them and end battles quickly. Often you could smash your way through with just Cloud, but really getting through those battles quickly required utilizing everyone in the party.

Those Meh Things

The writers of the remake decided to make many changes. As mentioned above, a lot of these changes I loved as they added a lot of context to what happened in the original. Giving a whole new perspective and understanding. However, a lot of these changes also seemed to be a waste of time and really didn't add much. Roche is the perfect example of this. During the mission with Jessie, Roche acts as both an enemy and ally. He appears for one chapter and disappears, never to be spoken of again. This didn't add anything to the plot of the remake, but was just filler.

That's the major meh of the game. All the filler. You eventually follow a Don Corneo henchman, Leslie, into the sewers. A monster takes his bag with his precious item, and now you go on a 30 - 45 minute chase in the sewers to capture defeat this monster and get his item back. Again, this character is introduced with a subtle backstory, but this is completely useless in the whole scheme of the FF7 story. We waste an hour with this character who does not have any impact to the overall plot.

Most these activities are given context to characters that don't matter. These parts of the story I found pretty meh. More of a waste of time in the grand scheme of things to pad the game's runtime. Another such example was the Train Graveyard scenes with the ghosts. They didn't necessarily detract from the story, but they didn't enhance it either.

Things I Hated

Going into the remake, we knew it was just the first part of the overall game and it would take place up to the end of Midgar. A lot of things were changed, which I either loved or made little difference. But there are things that really had me worried at first: the whispers specifically. At first, I thought they were going to provide context to what Aerith sees, similar to how we can get context of Cloud's migraines. But they began intervening, causing Jessie to injure herself and have Cloud and Tifa join the fight.

The biggest problem I have with the general Whisper concept is that they didn't need to exist in the first place. I came into this game thinking it would be a remake of the original. A retelling of the story by providing more context, better graphics, modern gameplay, etc. I was waiting for this game instead of replaying the ugly, outdated original. The example with Jessie. The writers could have kept Cloud and Tifa in the fight without having to have them disagree and the Whispers interfere to force the change in story back to the original. At first, this was a meh situation.

But then we get to the point where Cloud actually talks to Hojo, which did not happen in the original until much later in the game. The Whispers interfere to make sure they end their conversation and not spoil the secret. The crew actually see Sephiroth's clone kill the President of Shinra, and it kills Barret. The Whispers interfere and bring him back to life. Wedge survives the collapse of Sector 7. The Whispers later interfere in some mysterious way towards the end to ensure that he dies? That part is unclear.

I understand what the writers are saying: the meta-narrative. The writers are trying to keep the story in line with our expectations, but they just need to break from those constraints. I get it. But don't do the multi-verse.

The ending essentially introduces a multi-verse into Final Fantasy VII. This is the part I hated most. I fear the direction this series is going to go, knowing that the writers love to complicate stories unnecessarily. In regards to this specific game, the ending doesn't detract or add to anything. However, it does have huge implications to future entries. Don't get me wrong. I'm for changes to improve the story, but alternate timelines never go well.

I suspect Sephiroth from one of these universes helped Cloud and crew defeat Destiny so that he may actually have a chance at succeeding. I'm going to take a guess as to what's going to happen. In the new universe where Zack survives and Cloud and crew are separated, Sephiroth will become a god. Here Zack will cross dimensions and take the help of this crew to stop all Sephiroths across all universes. This is the kind of shit I worry the creators of King Hearts will introduce.

Conclusion

What once was something known, is now completely up in the air. What was once something I was going to buy and play no matter what, is now a wait and see. I'm no longer sold on the rest of the series and will be taking a back seat until there's feedback on the story. A simple story with more details are all that's needed, but instead we're probably going to get a messy, convoluted version of Final Fantasy VII, which for me is not good.

I'm stuck with the original's ugly, outdated game in order to enjoy the original story, and I can't rely on the remake to experience that story with a fresh coat of paint. The remake series is actually a complicated sequel to Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.