Final Fantasy 7 Remake: 8 Things NOBODY Wants To Admit
Whisper it.
By now, many of us have finished the first five hours of Final Fantasy VII, in its 2020 guise as a AAA action-RPG/rhythm action dance-a-thon.
And, contrary to perfectly understandable fears given Final Fantasy's track record over the past two decades or so of being complete arse, it's actually good! Very good in fact.
You could even call it the best Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy X (which admittedly, is like calling herpes the best VD since syphilis. And no, that's not a Final Fantasy character, though she could be.)
But is it the glittering masterpiece so many games critics and fans have suggested? Or have they all been temporarily benighted by the relief of a six-year process to reimagine a universally beloved classic not resulting in something as catastrophic as that massage sequence in Final Fantasy X-2?
Well, they have and they haven't.
At it's best, Final Fantasy VII Remake is "a triumph" (according to our own Scott Tailford), but unfortunately, a wonderful 10 hour game is hidden within a much less fun 30 hour one.
Bathing in nostalgia has caused a Mako like affliction called 'denial', and there are some hard truths to be had.
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Note: Full spoilers within.
8. It Looks Amazing... But Only Sometimes
At its very best, Final Fantasy VII Remake's visuals shine as brightly as a thousand midday suns upon exiting a movie theatre. At their worst, it's as though you're viewing them through a window smudged by a kid's grubby hands.
The aesthetic inconsistency is another consequence of a patched-together project, with Square-Enix seemingly devoting oodles of attention and resources to eye-catching set-pieces, whilst auto-filling the bits in between.
The low-res texture issues are well noted, and they are particularly prominent in those periods of laborious downtime between the game's marquee moments. Though it's an exaggeration to say they look like something from a PS2 game, the blurry background details are definitely not something you'd expect from a multi-million dollar AAA title at the end of the PS4's lifespan.
How much the graphical inconsistencies detract from the experience is situational. Badly lip-synched NPCs tripping over each other in squint-o-vision almost seems apt during the lazily implemented side-quest scenarios. Having a standout vista of Midgar ruined by a flat cardboard cutout of the city below does not.
It's sort of like when, at school, you'd draw a fantastic picture only for the teacher to tell you to 'fill the page', resulting in a rushed, scribbled mess everywhere else. This is a theme that runs throughout Final Fantasy VII Remake.