Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade review, by a neophyte allergic to J-RPGs

What language should be used to speak of a legend? Bowing would be appropriate. Adopting a solemn tone seems to be the minimum. Only, Final Fantasy VII Doesn't mean anything in particular to me. If not one more entry in the thick catalog of Square Enix. However, I must admit that I followed with interest the release of his remake, last year. And now that it's optimized for the PlayStation 5, I've finally taken the plunge to find out, finally, what they're all about, the legends.

View PriceRead ConclusionFinal Fantasy VII Remake INTERgrade

Accessible, even to newcomers
A rare sense of staging
Exhilarating fights
A soundtrack that haunts you

There is no encyclopedia to fully understand all the issues
Some really dated textures
Lots of back and forth in the same environments
Uninteresting side quests as possible

But it was not without fear that I slipped the Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade disc into my console. What if I passed by? What if Square had only made its game to satisfy noisy fans, who are crying out for their favorite game to be dusted off? Will I find my account there, I who had only played Final Fantasy IX seriously?

Might as well write it: I didn't expect to like Final Fantasy VII Remake. Needless to say, the slap was all the more violent.

I was not only seduced by the adventure, blown away by the gameplay and amazed by its artistic direction. But the very ambition of the project, when you think about it, is dizzying. Remember that we are talking about a game that celebrated its 24th anniversary this year, and whose remake will ultimately be divided into three separate acts/games.

As the title of this review says, this is not a proper test of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Virgile has already done this very well when the game was released; and Kevin added the right stuff regarding interMISSION, the newly released PS5 exclusive DLC. This is an observation of a game by someone who was convinced that it was not for him. And who hopes that his words will also resonate with some readers, demotivated by the legacy of this founding game.

Rekindle the flame

Reminder of the forces present. In Final Fantasy VII Remake, we only explore Midgar. The city-world which served, in the original, as a prologue, is here stretched as a backdrop over more than 30 hours. Risk ? Certainly. All the more so for someone who has no particular affection for the source material, and who could remain oblivious to the fan service. For a neophyte, this news also sounded like the promise of shameless filler. Not engaging for a penny.

Finally, thanks to the SSD of the PS5 at least, we don't really have time to procrastinate before the launch of its first part. In just a few seconds, we are projected in medias res into the most ambitious project of the eco-terrorist group Avalanche: the destruction of the Mako reactor n°1. Because you see Shinra, an omnipotent industrial-military-political organization, does not bother to know if the massive pumping of the vital energy of the planet (Mako) risks leading humanity to its loss. As the poet said: money=money.

Cloud Strife, a former elite Shinra soldier turned mercenary, accompanies the troupe in their misdeeds; less motivated by their ecological ideals than by the very full purse promised to them once the mission has been accomplished.

An introduction that fans know by heart (this arrival by train that has become cult), and which does not leave the newcomer indifferent. Especially since he is quickly introduced to one of the main assets of the game: its combat system.

sword war

Out of fashion, turn-based? A certain Persona could object to this observation. In any case, Square Enix has chosen hybridization for Final Fantasy VII Remake, and the feedback on this has been rather unanimous.

Frontal, the clashes are no less tactical. At the controls of Cloud, we strike great sword blows by hammering the square key of his pad. Attacks that gradually increase the gauge of ATB (Active Time Battle), which allows you to choose to use an object, cast a spell or trigger a special skill.

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The fights are systematically exhilarating, especially against bosses.

To thicken the system, and not to deny all of its heritage, Square Enix also allows you to direct the other characters who accompany you (never more than 3 simultaneously). By pressing one or the other of the triggers, time is slowed down in order to take a step back on the battlefield and organize your assaults. Barrett, leader of the band armed to the teeth, will focus his fire on this turret inaccessible to our protagonist infantryman. Tifa, an agile boxer, will put pressure on one of the minions who prevent Cloud from casting his fire spell, to which this mini-boss is sensitive. A sensitivity which gradually increases his fragility gauge and which, once filled to the maximum, stuns him for a few seconds and increases the damage he suffers.

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The fight choreography is amazing.

The whole is obviously sublimated by removed choreographies, and a pyrotechnics which, already impressive on PlayStation 4, reaches new tops on the last console of Sony. Especially since this time we can enjoy it at 60 frames per second. A must.

Let's not forget, too, the possibility (against bosses) of summoning Espers. Impressive mythological creatures that fight alongside us and whose overpowered abilities we can take advantage of for a few moments. Another good opportunity for the Square Enix game to impress us.

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Summons are always awesome

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Ramuh, introduced with the interMISSION DLC, is devastating.

A new family

I stayed away from Japanese video games for a long time. Out of sensitivity, first, but also out of caution, as cultural divisions are so important. This was one of the other barriers I had to overcome to fully appreciate the Final Fantasy VII Remake experience.

Without any judgment, I have long felt that the writing of the J-RPGs that reached us, Westerners, was sewn with white thread. That she was very Manichean, and that her characters were stereotyped. Prejudices that I have, it must be said, only partially lifted by discovering the Square Enix game. But which, surprisingly, did not slow down my discovery at all.

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Spending 30 hours with the same characters creates bonds.

If the villains of the story are easily identifiable, I appreciated that the scenario dwells on the moods of the members of Avalanche who, casually, do not do good around them, even if their quest is noble. The fallout from the explosion of reactor no. 1 is only the most glaring illustration of this.

But what I remember even more is the cinematography of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The staging of interactions; the representation of the woven links. It can really be very little. From Aerith's failed attempts to smash a high five to a Cloud still scarred from his years in the military, to an unstoppable Barrett in his rant against Shinra, whom he blames for absolutely every evil in the universe.

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It's inevitable, we end up getting attached. Even – and this is new to this remake – to Biggs, Wedge and Jessie who, if I've done my homework correctly, only play a totally anecdotal role in the original game. And what about Yuffie, also a subordinate in the 1997 game and who, in Episode interMISSION, the DLC for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, literally bursts the screen with her candor and exuberance.

Problem for novices: Final Fantasy VII Remake produces very little effort to resituate the stakes of its scenario and explain its universe to you. An encyclopedia, in fact entirely textual and accessible in the menus, would have been welcome to prevent the Boeotian player from getting lost on wikis once the game is finished, and from slaloming between possible spoilers from those who already know what will happen next.

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Hello handsome.

The charm of the old

But far be it from me to pass off Final Fantasy VII Remake as the pinnacle of contemporary role-playing. In its form, the Square Enix remake is probably one of the strangest titles I've had the chance to try in recent years. Almost irreproachable in its animations, its staging and its gameplay, it suffers from significant contrasts which, at times, seriously pull it down.

First of all there are these strange textures, in low definition, which denote in a triple A of this scale. Then, this astonishing rigidity in movement (climbing or even stooping requires you to take exactly the passage provided for this purpose), further weighed down by the fairly limited number of environments that we will visit during the 35 hours of play. Worse ! you will even sometimes return to the same places several times. Whether it's to complete one of the few FedEx (side) quests or simply because the storyline needs you to go through that decrepit tunnel a third time for some obscure reason. A redundancy which, for any other game, would have simply made me let go of the controller. But not here. For what reasons ?

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FFVII Remake is an extreme control game. Surprising, when you're used to open-world RPGs.

There's an old-fashioned charm about Final Fantasy VII Remake. Something intimate, dare I say. If it wears the golds of the latest generation games, its background and to a lesser extent its shape inevitably remind me of the games I enjoyed as a child. Admittedly, I don't have the affect of the original FFVII, but I have gone through my share of Pokémon, Golden Sun, Baten Kaitos and other Tales of Symphonia. All that to say that, any remake that it is, even in 2021, Final Fantasy VII Remake is evocative of a certain school of game design. And that, I probably didn't know, but I had missed this school.

This is due to this purity in the expression of emotions. This little exaggerated side of the interpretations. To the emphasis that is sometimes placed on events that did not require so much. Obviously, the masterful soundtrack composed by Nobuo Uematsu also has something to do with it, as it borders on the divine and accompanies, at every moment, the adventures of our characters. In all, more than 10 hours of music was re-orchestrated for the Final Fantasy VII Remake couple and its interMISSION DLC. And needless to say, it serves both to lighten the atmosphere in moments of pure delirium (the entire Wall Market sequence) and to create a suffocating crescendo over the entire last quarter of the adventure (chapter 18, engraved forever in my memory).

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The whole Wall Market sequence is memorable.

The comfort of uncertainty

At the risk of repeating myself: I don't know anything about Final Fantasy VII or its scriptwriting issues. I have no idea where Square Enix will take me with Parts 2 and 3 of its remake. Especially since, if I have correctly analyzed the reaction of some of my esteemed colleagues, the game is very amused by the destination it will actually take.

Because, you may not know it, but the scenario of this redesign obviously allows itself great liberties with its source material. To the point that the term remake is sometimes considered an understatement. Suffice it to say, there is something deeply intriguing about seeing enthusiasts marveling at the direction Square Enix is taking. Even for a newbie.

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From memory, my last epiphany dates back to 2015 when, discovering Bloodborne, I finally understood what all these people were finding at From Software. Final Fantasy VII Remake left me in the same state of shock. As prohibited in front of the report of all that I could miss before.

So yes, I am with you now. You who, since the end of the 2000s already, have been calling for a new setting for one of the most important games in the young history of our medium. I may not have exhaled the same relief as you when discovering that the result lived up to expectations, but I fell in love nonetheless. And I long for the stages to come. Future trailers to dissect; obvious disappointments in getting confirmation that FFVII Remake — Part 2 probably won't be released until 2024, or after. I signed for the total. For good and for bad. And somewhere, I think I needed that. I just ignored it.

Final Fantasy VII Remake INTERgrade

No reason to be intimidated if you've never touched the original episode: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is a great gateway into this cult J-RPG. Accessible, while delivering challenging gameplay, it blew us away for its epic momentum and explosive cinematography.