Final Fantasy 7 Remake: 9 MAJOR Changes We Can't Believe

8. That Button Pushing Sequence Is Now Its Own Game Mechanic

I have to quickly cover this, because so many parts of the Remake directly address things that pop culture or the main FF7 fandom have discussed for the past two decades.

One is Cloud firing a grappling hook to somewhat mitigate the velocity of his fall towards Aerith's church, and another is the godforsaken button-pushing minigame from the second reactor, now being even more fleshed out.

Where this sequence became memorable for all the wrong reasons in 1997, now the Remake fleshes out the "mechanic" into its own repeated minigame.

Whilst I only got to play one of these sequences, the phrasing in their tutorial prompts made it sound like multiple reactors will culminate in the same minigame.

Based around the idea of collecting keycards to affect the Airbuster boss' attacks before you fight, depending on how many components you've "redirected" using these cards, pulling levers will result in a room of unlockables before the battle itself.

How to unlock said room, though? You'll have to control Barrett and Cloud simultaneously as Tifa pulls levers that need matching. The twist is that this mechanic is also as precise - and annoying - timing-wise as the 1997 original, and is clearly a callback to something we remember so... vividly.