FINAL FANTASY XIV
A breath of fresh Mako revives the beloved Final Fantasy
This is a fantasy you can believe in. It’s as if the PS1 original was a blueprint, a top-down view of a beautiful flower garden, and only now do we get bootson-the-ground to take in the detail that was there. Startlingly detailed, Final Fantasy VII Remake is an astounding achievement.
The title might be Final Fantasy VII Remake, but to be Materia-crystal clear, it only covers the Midgar portion of the original game. Make no mistake, though, events have been expanded and given extra depth to the point where it legitimately feels like a full adventure in its own right, and it draws to a natural close. Every fan-favourite character and scene has been done justice, and there’s plenty new to delight at.
BUSTING SWORDS
Mixing the original FFVII’s ATB system with action combat has resulted in one of the most exhilarating fighting systems in the series. Party members can unleash basic attacks with r or use their unique abilities with w – for Cloud this is the heavy-hitting Punisher mode in which the block button becomes a parry stance; for Aerith it’s a charged magic attack. As you chip away, you charge up each character’s ATB meter (used to unleash powerful abilities, spells, or employ items like potions), and you put pressure on each enemy. Once their pressure meter is capped out they fall to the ground, staggered, giving you time to deal heavy damage.
Taking advantage of enemy weaknesses helps build pressure, as does using certain weapon abilities. Rather than simply finding new ‘most powerful’ weapons, this time every weapon
stands on its own, with an individual upgrade path of stat buffs and special abilities. Upgrades can be cheaply reset, plus spent upgrade points (SP) aren’t weapon-specific – if Cloud has 100 SP, that’s 100 SP for his Buster Sword, plus 100 for any other pointies in his collection. Each weapon has a unique ability, which can be used with other weapons once you’ve maxed out its proficiency.
You can mash through regular enemies blindly, but as things toughen up you need to tighten up your strategy. Materia is key to this. These magical orbs are attached to slots on weapons and armour and dictate extra skills for your party – spells, stat buffs, abilities, summons, you name it. There’s a huge number of them, and a lot of ways to use them to get the most out of your party members. Barrier spells can help your tank, Elemental Materia can add magical oomph to your basic attacks, and they can open up skills like dodge attacks or special party-wide heals.
There are always more Materia than slots, so you’re constantly thinking about how to spec each character. As you use them, Materia level up, but it’s easy to swap them between characters if you want to try a fresh approach. This gets put to the test in the boss fights, which are spectacular. But while they demand you use your RPG noggin, they rarely get too frustrating. Plus, with the ability to restart from just before a battle if you die
(with time to adjust your equipment), you can jump right back into the fray.
FRESHLY PLATED
You get your first taste of how things have been expanded in the second chapter, after ex-Shinra super-soldier Cloud has helped eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE blow up one of Midgar’s Mako reactors. The oppressive Shinra Electric Power Company rules over the city, its reactors literally draining the planet’s energy, and it’s your job to stop it, uncovering a wider conspiracy as you do. For some reason, the explosion is bigger than
AVALANCHE anticipates, causing devastation for the people living on the nearby topside plate (in this tiered city, the poor are relegated to underplate slums).
As you make your way to the train station to escape, you pick your way through the rubble past distraught citizens. There’s a tangible sense of how your actions affect regular people. Eventually your escape escalates to fights with security through the streets, and the mysterious Sephiroth is teased earlier than you might expect, accompanied by strange black-cloaked spirits. Brand-new mysteries present themselves, and you can’t help wondering just how differently some events might play out.
Whether you’re experiencing twists on what you know or new story beats entirely, every petal in this garden feels completely natural. As large as the game may be it’s never anything but engaging, a tight and pacy adventure filled with
“THERE’S A TANGIBLE SENSE OF HOW YOUR ACTIONS AFFECT REGULAR PEOPLE.”
heart and character. Newcomers and fans alike will be clinging to their DualShocks desperate to see what will happen next.
CITY SLICKER
Final Fantasy VII Remake is not an open world game; instead you’re moved from area to area as you follow the story. A few chapters open up a bit more, giving you time to undertake side-quests. Some of these feel meatier than others, but even the most basic give worthwhile rewards – new weapons or extra scenes that reveal more about key characters or a little about the sort of people who live in the heavilyindustrialised Midgar.
All the environments are urban but there’s plenty to distinguish one from another, from creepy biology labs to haunted train graveyards. Even the settlements feel distinct. Just take a stroll and you’ll quickly lose yourself in places like the adult entertainment district of Wall Market, eavesdropping on conversations about story events. Midgar always feels alive.
The adventure feels long, at least partly thanks to the fact you interact with it on such a realistic scale. While many plot threads wrap up neatly, more are set out, leading off to future entries in the ‘Remake Project’. What’s here feels complete but, as one character tells us, “that which lies ahead does not yet exist”. The way Final Fantasy has been made to bloom again in Remake gives us hope for the future of the entire series, and as for the possibility of a follow up to this entry, we’ve played enough to want to see those sequel flowers bloom.
VERDICT
This is a jaw-dropping success, grafting new life onto an epic adventure, with action-packed combat that still oozes strategy. FFVII has redefined the genre once again. Oscar Taylor-Kent