Final Fantasy VII Remake
is a 2020 action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. It is the first in a planned series of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. Set in the dystopian cyberpunk metropolis of Midgar, it puts players in the role of a mercenary named Cloud Strife. He joins AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorist group trying to stop the powerful megacorporation Shinra from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. The gameplay combines real-time action with strategic and role-playing elements.
Remake was announced in 2015 following years of speculation. Several key staff members returned, including character designer Tetsuya Nomura as director and main character designer, director Yoshinori Kitase as a producer, scenario writer Kazushige Nojima as scenario, event planner Motomu Toriyama as co-director/scenario design, and composer Nobuo Uematsu returning to compose the main theme of the game, along with the additional staff. The staff redesigned the characters to balance realism and stylization. While the veteran Japanese Final Fantasy VII voice cast returned for the new installment, the English cast was recast.
The game was released for the PlayStation 4 on April 10, 2020. It received positive reviews, with praise for its graphics, gameplay, narrative, and music. Critics applauded how faithful the story and lore was to the original game from 1997 while expanding on it. The updated battle system was praised for its strategic elements and visual flourishes. However, reception was more mixed toward the game's linearity and the repetitive nature of its sidequests. Final Fantasy VII Remake was a financial success and has become one of the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 games, selling over 3.5 million copies within the first three days.
A sequel is in development.
Premise
Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first in a planned series of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. It covers the first section of the original game, set in the metropolis Midgar; Tim Rogers of Action Button estimated that Remake covers approximately 30% of the original game's story.Players control Cloud Strife, a former Shinra soldier turned mercenary who joins the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE to fight the Shinra Corporation, who have been draining the planet's life energy. Every element has been remade, using real-time polygonal graphics as opposed to the pre-rendered environments of the original. The story includes major expansions to character development and some notable plot additions.
Exploration and battle mechanics both take place in real-time, like Final Fantasy XV. The game features an altered "Active Time Battle" system from the original, which gradually fills up slowly, or can fill faster with attacks. Once it is filled, the player can halt the action and use special abilities such as magic, items, and special moves. The player can assign these special abilities to shortcut buttons, allowing them to play in real-time without pausing. Each special ability uses up a segment of the ATB bar. The player can switch between party members at any time during battle. Each party member has their own individual skills, such as Cloud's close-quarters melee attacks and Barret's long-range distance attacks. Players are able to use magic and summons of large creatures, and a Limit Break gauge allows characters to perform more powerful attacks once charged. While the game has more real-time elements, strategic elements still remain, such as selecting weapons and magic for each character to wield.
Despite being marketed as a remake, the narrative has multiple changes from the original game, such as Barret being attacked by the antagonist Sephiroth and saved by a Whisper. Sephiroth appears during the Midgar scenario despite not being properly introduced until a flashback Cloud experiences. Vice noted that Cloud sees the future of Aerith in the original 1997 game, leaving her fate unknown to returning fans. Yoshinori Kitase refrained from explaining the reason for the changes from the narrative, claiming "I want to let you know is that all of the lore from the works created after the original game, the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7, that's all very much in the base of the canon for the remake, and going forward it will be too."
Plot
is a former member of SOLDIER, the elite warriors of the Shinra Electric Power Company. Shinra uses mako, the Planet's spiritual energy, harvested by massive reactors, to power the metropolis of Midgar and develop cutting-edge technology. Disillusioned with Shinra, and at the request of his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart, Cloud takes a mercenary job for Avalanche, an eco-terrorist organization, led by Barret Wallace. Barret believes excessive mako harvesting harms the planet, leading a bombing attack on a mako reactor. In the aftermath, Cloud is haunted by memories of Sephiroth, an enigmatic former SOLDIER member, and meets the florist Aerith Gainsborough. Cloud goes missing in action in the next attack. Cloud meets Aerith again and protects her from Shinra forces. After they reunite with Tifa, the trio learns that Shinra plans to collapse a piece of the "plate" onto the Sector 7 slums. Avalanche fails to stop Shinra's plan, and the plate falls. Aerith helps most of the population and Barret's daughter Marlene evacuate in time, but is captured by Shinra.Cloud, Tifa, and Barret infiltrate Shinra headquarters and rescue Aerith from being used as an experiment by Shinra scientist Hojo. She reveals that she is the last descendant of the Cetra, a near-extinct precursor race who resided in a "Promised Land", which Shinra covets for its boundless mako reserves. The group meets a talking wolf-like creature called Red XIII, who explains that the strange ghost-like entities the group has encountered are called Whispers. They exist to ensure that the course of destiny is not altered, by correcting any deviations from this course. Meanwhile, Sephiroth infiltrates Shinra and steals a mysterious entity known as "Jenova", connected to the extinction of the Cetra.
In a confrontation at the top of Shinra headquarters, Sephiroth murders the president of Shinra. His son Rufus assumes control of the company and fights Cloud, but is defeated. Cloud and his allies flee the scene via the Midgar Expressway, but find Sephiroth waiting for them at the end. After defeating Whisper Harbinger, an entity formed by an amalgam of Whispers, Cloud's group battles Sephiroth. Sephiroth separates Cloud from the group, asking him to join him and defy fate. Cloud refuses and fights Sephiroth, but is defeated, although Sephiroth spares him before departing. Meanwhile, as Cloud's group leaves Midgar to stop Sephiroth, in a presumed alternate timeline, SOLDIER Zack Fair is seen defeating an army of Shinra forces and departing with a comatose Cloud.
Development
Background
Final Fantasy VII was developed by Square for the PlayStation console and released in 1997. Its staff included producer and series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, director and co-writer Yoshinori Kitase, artist Yusuke Naora, character designer Tetsuya Nomura, and writer Kazushige Nojima. The game was a critical and commercial success, and established the Final Fantasy series as a major franchise. It was expanded through the multimedia project Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, comprising additional games, films, and other media.In the early 2000s, Square announced a remake for PlayStation 2 alongside Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX, but nothing further was heard of the project. It was abandoned because of the increased challenge of developing on new hardware and would have necessitated cutting content. The staff were preoccupied with developing Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels, and Remake would have been an equally large or larger project hard to undertake at the same time. Once the XIII series ended, the team was free to pursue other projects. Kitase claims that since the XIII, he had been asked multiple times about developing this game. Co-director Naoki Hamaguchi was the originally a fan of the game so he was glad about his inclusion into the core development team.
Demand for a remake grew following a PlayStation 3 tech demo at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo, showcasing the opening of Final Fantasy VII with Square's new Crystal Tools engine. Further demand came during the game's impending tenth anniversary in 2007. On both occasions, Square denied that any remake was in development, for reasons including their focus on new games, the necessity to cut elements to make a remake manageable, the difficulty of developing for modern hardware, and the amount of development time it would require.
The Remake project began when Final Fantasy producer Shinji Hashimoto broached the subject to Kitase, Nojima, and Nomura. All three were reaching a stage of life that they defined as "that age": all felt that if they waited much longer, they might not be alive to or would be too old to develop a remake, and passing the project on to a new generation did not feel right. Another reason for developing the remake was that Square Enix was creating a growing library of PlayStation 4 titles, and the team hoped to increase the console's popularity. Nomura was appointed as director much to his own surprise when it was decided to create the remake but he was busy with the making of the video game Kingdom Hearts III at that time.
Design
The game entered full production by late 2015, led by Business Division 1, an internal production team within Square Enix. While Nomura was involved with the project from the start, he only discovered he was the director after seeing himself credited in an internal company presentation video, as he had expected Kitase to fill the role. Nomura filled the role director for both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III concurrently. Another project leader was Naoki Hamaguchi, who had previously served as a programmer for and project lead for Mobius Final Fantasy. Square Enix approached developing Remake at the same level as a main numbered entry in the Final Fantasy series.While the team had the option of simply remastering Final Fantasy VII with better graphics as many fans had requested, they noted that its graphics and many of its mechanics had become dated by modern standards. With this in mind, they decided to do a full remake, rebuilding the game systems to suit contemporary tastes and using current gaming technology to recreate the world. An overarching goal of the project was to make the game feel both "new and nostalgic" for players of the original game while exemplifying the idea of Final Fantasy VII for new players. This decision led to the creation of Remake action-based battle system, which draws from that action-based style of Dissidia Final Fantasy. Teruki Endo, who had previously worked on Monster Hunter World, served as battle director. The team aimed to retain all of the gameplay mechanics popular in the original game, including Active Time Battle, while merging them with the action-based system.
Rather than using the character models and graphical style of Advent Children, which by that point had been developed using ten-year-old technology, the team decided to create new designs and models for characters: Nomura wished to balance the realism of Advent Children with cartoon stylization. Nomura was in charge of the revamped main character designs, while designer Roberto Ferrari was in charge of designs for secondary characters. Character modeling was supervised by Visual Works, Square Enix's CGI development branch. Cloud Strife's initial redesign for Final Fantasy VII Remake departed more dramatically from the original's, but was later altered to more closely resemble Nomura's original concept. Tifa Lockhart's original appearance was changed to make her look more realistic as members from the staff realized her design would not fit fight scenes.
Instead of creating a new engine, Square Enix licensed Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 to develop the game, with Square Enix and Epic Games Japan working together to optimize the engine for Remake. The team received technical assistance from the developers of Kingdom Hearts III, as the latter game was developed using the same engine. The game's lighting is augmented with the lighting engine Enlighten. To help with the action gameplay and video quality, Square Enix originally partnered with video game developer CyberConnect2, with the two companies keeping in close contact due to different development styles.
In 2017, the game's development focus shifted from being developed with external partners to being a primarily internal project. One of the most significant changes was the fact that the game was planned as a multi-game release: according to Kitase, this was because trying to fit the game onto a single release would entail cutting large parts of the game, which went against the team's vision. By splitting the game into multiple parts, the team could give players more substantial access to areas in the game, such as within the city of Midgar, which was mostly inaccessible in the original. Each game is planned to be on a similar scale to Final Fantasy XIII. The first part focuses on the city of Midgar due to its iconic status among the Final Fantasy community.
Scenario
While developing the scenario, the team needed to work carefully, so the game did not appear too nostalgic. They needed to make decisions about what could be carried over from the original and what needed adjustment due to changes in social norms since the original's release. Despite there already being a story in place, which greatly simplified production on some fronts, Nojima was brought back in to create new story material. The scenario for the first part was completed in December 2015, covering the beginning of the game to the escape from Midgar. Kitase observed that despite 23 years passing since the original game was released, the themes of economic inequality, corporate monopoly, and environmentalism were still relevant to the current day. Nomura expressed regret that other areas of Midgar, such as the upper plate, were inaccessible in the original game and wanted to address that in Remake in order to give players a better sense of the city and its culture. The roles of previously minor characters were also expanded for this purpose.The main characters were adjusted in various ways for Remake. Rather than the "cool and collected" Cloud as seen in other games, Remake depicts his apathetic attitude as a façade to mask his insecurities. Nojima wanted to convey that his standoffishness could be seen as lame. Cloud's initial redesign for Remake departed more dramatically from the original's, but was later altered to more closely resemble Nomura's design. Tifa's desire for revenge against Shinra is complicated by her reluctance to enact violence. Barret's passion and charisma rallies other characters to follow his lead. Nojima worked hard to make the interactions between these three natural. It was important to Hamaguchi to include a scene wherein Cloud has an intimate conversation with one of his teammates based on the player's choices in homage to the "date" scene from the original game. The development team avoided playing favorites between Tifa and Aerith, treating them both as main heroes. In addition to returning characters, the team decided to expand the role of minor characters and write new characters. Cloud's interactions with AVALANCHE members Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie further his character development and deepen the world of the story. Sephiroth was initially intended to be a looming presence, inspired by the shark in Jaws, to mirror his role in this section of the original game. However, Hamaguchi pitched an alternate ending in which Cloud faces off with Sephiroth, which led to him appearing more and more in the remake. Kitase reasoned that the original's Jaws-like approach would be ineffective because even new players were too familiar with the character.
The game is fully voiced, with the original plan being for the voice actors from the CGI film to reprise their roles. Ultimately, the English characters were recast for Remake. According to Kitase, choosing a new generation of voices for the characters was part of the game's rebirth as Remake. The Japanese voice actors remained the same with Takahiro Sakurai being surprised by this younger take on Cloud, having not voiced in the original PlayStation video game. For the English dub, Cody Christian commented on replacing Steve Burton voicing Cloud, stating, "Steve, you paved the way. You made this character what it is and have contributed in shaping a legacy" and thus wanted to not let Burton down with his take on the character. John Eric Bentley voiced Barret, a character he admired when he played the 1997 game. He felt his familiarity with the original work improved his performance, aided by the translators who explained the context for his scenes. He wanted his portrayal of Barret to be multifaceted and serve as a positive example of Black representation in games. Briana White studied Maaya Sakamoto's acting in order to appeal to fans. Meanwhile, Britt Baron had little knowledge of Tifa when being cast but grew to like her character. Other prominent actors include Erica Lindbeck and Gideon Emery. The game employs an algorithm to adjust characters' facial motions while speaking in order to automatically match lip syncing and emotion in every language.
Music
The game's soundtrack consists primarily of arrangements of pieces Nobuo Uematsu wrote for the original Final Fantasy VII, with new tracks by Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki and several others. Uematsu contributed one new track: the theme song for the game, "Hollow". It was the first time Uematsu and Kitase had worked together since Final Fantasy X, with Kitase initially believing Uematsu would refuse as he had long since left Square Enix and found success as an independent composer. Nomura intended "Hollow" to reflect Cloud's state of mind; he wanted it to be a rock song with male vocals and an image of "rain". It was performed by Yosh Morita, the vocalist for Survive Said the Prophet. Hamauzu also expressed honor in doing the music alongside Uematsu, as the original game was his first exposure to the series. Suzuki stated that the themes for Wall Market, Honeybee Inn, and Midgar Highway were among his favorite contributions.Remake employs adaptive music in its gameplay wherein multiple arrangements of a particular track are played simultaneously, which fade in and out with the player's actions, such as entering or exiting a battle. Arrangements also shift within a battle depending on the emotions the developers wanted players to experience from moment to moment. Because cutscenes in Remake have voiced dialogue, the sound team needed to rearrange some tracks to accommodate this change but they were careful to preserve the original melodies.
Release
Rumors of a Final Fantasy VII remake appeared in 2014. It was announced at the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo during the PlayStation conference, and received a standing ovation. Visual Works created the announcement trailer. Square Enix's stock prices rose to their highest rating since November 2008, and the YouTube release of the reveal trailer garnered over 10 million views in the following two weeks. The game was next showcased at the 2015 PlayStation Experience, demonstrating cutscenes and gameplay from the opening sequence.During the Final Fantasy 30th anniversary opening ceremony event hosted by Square Enix in Tokyo on January 31, 2017 — the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII— the game's first piece of CGI key art was unveiled, along with announcements for a collaboration event with Mobius Final Fantasy. On February 18, Nomura revealed two screenshots, showing off the updated HUD. Due to its lack of footage since 2015, switch to internal development, and other projects Nomura was involved in, there were concerns about the status of the project. Speaking following E3 2018, Nomura stated that the game was in development, with his full attention shifted to it when Kingdom Hearts III was completed.
After years without substantial footage, a teaser trailer was shown during PlayStation's May 2019 State of Play broadcast. Kitase announced that the team had wanted to "try something new" on the State of Play broadcast by showing the trailer. The release date, March 3, 2020, was revealed the following month in a second teaser trailer during an orchestral concert dedicated to the music of Final Fantasy VII in Los Angeles. Further release details were announced at the company's E3 2019 press conference, including different editions of Remake. Kitase later clarified at the event that Square Enix had yet to determine the number of games in the Remake series, adding that they were in the process of planning the second installment.
An extended gameplay showcase and demo was playable at E3 2019, demonstrating parts of the opening mission, including some of the exploration, combat system, and first boss battle. The playable demo has received a positive reception in early previews, with praise towards the graphics, gameplay and combat system. At E3 2019, it won three awards at the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show, Best Console Game, and Best Role-Playing Game, as well as the best looking Unreal Engine game at E3 2019. Extended footage of the demo, as well as an additional trailer, was featured at the 2019 Tokyo Game Show. In December 2019, it was announced that the game would be a timed PlayStation 4 exclusive until 2021, with no further details about its release on other platforms. In January 2020, the team decided to push the release date back from March 3 to April 10, 2020. A demo was released on the PlayStation Store on March 2, 2020, covering the first chapter.
On March 30, 2020, Square Enix announced that Europe and Australia would receive physical copies of Final Fantasy VII Remake early, due to growing concerns of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on distribution. This did not apply to downloads, as they were not directly affected by the global supply chain. Artwork of Cloud was used on buildings in Los Angeles to promote the game.
Reception
Final Fantasy VII Remake received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic, with critics praising its truthfulness to the original game. Tamoor Hussain of GameSpot states that, while Remake is only the initial entry in a full reimagining of the original game, "It is rich in details that were previously unexplored, realizes new storytelling ambitions with confidence, and presents fresh perspectives that feel both meaningful and essential." He summarizes that it "tells a smaller, more personal Final Fantasy 7 tale and marries it with a smart mashup of action and RPG gameplay to deliver a must-play experience." Tom Marks of IGN calls the game a "complete reinvention", praising the combat system. Nahila Bonfiglio of The Daily Dot regarded it as one of the best games of 2020 based on multiple aspects that would appeal to the audience. EGM claimed the game was captivating like the original. Eurogamer also highly acclaimed the remake to the point of finding it superior than the original title.The narrative was praised for the characters provided and their arcs. IGN called its "story fleshed out with real emotional arcs", praising its nostalgic feel, but criticized the game for having "filler" and sometimes convoluted new plot points and side missions. He stated that "Final Fantasy VII Remakes dull filler and convoluted additions can cause it to stumble, but it still breathes exciting new life into a classic while standing as a great RPG all its own." Shack News acclaimed the storytelling provided by the remake is one of the strongest points ever achieved by the company. Despite noting his antisocial attitudes in the remake, IGN and GameSpot commented that Cloud is the character who has the most notable arc in Remake, with Cody Christian's performance helping to improve his appeal. His interactions with the cast and the expansion of the minor characters from Avalanche was also well received by Easy Allies. The idea that there are four characters with Sephiroth's name led VG247 to note the remake still had its own mysteries that original players would not understand while the title. Destructoid agreed in regards to the cast, most notably Aerith, due to how fun is her characterization. The handling of the city Midgar was praised by Game Informer due to its themes provided by the company Shinra and the poor status of civilians while expanding on the lore of the original game. EGMNOW praised the themes of ecoterrorism and war and the city of Midgar had in the storyline while also exploring the Avalanche's characters. The reviewer also felt the antagonist Sephiroth was more menacing in Remake due to his constant threats towards Cloud. Eurogamer found the new narrative elements of the title to be explored, but was unsure whether or not these changes were made for the best or for the worst.
Critical response to the combat has been positive due to elements of strategy and distinctive fighting style between the playable characters such as Cloud who wields a sword in contrast to Barret's distanced fighting among others. Destructoid also praised the gameplay as, rather than relying on nostalgia mechanics, Square instead use a new fighting form. GameSpot praised the evolution of the gameplay mechanics originally presented in the 1997 game and by adding new elements not seen in the original installment. The combat was also praised by GamesRadar due to each character relying on strategy due to each enemy having a weakness and the variety each character can have thanks to their unique traits. RPGamer praised both the returning use of Materia items to create magic attacks as well as the addition of upgradeable weapons in order to let players decide which items want they want to use. Similar to the usage of the word filler, RPGamer felt that Remake relied on padding to expand on the areas of the game which are still linear for the genre. Game Informer agreed as besides Cloud initially being the only playable character, Tifa can also be controlled and execute her own techniques while also acclaiming the usage between strategy and style.
GamesRadar criticized some of the sidequests provided by the game which were felt as lackluster. While also addressing Midgar as a linear setting, the fact that the players can interact with citizens was praised by Game Informer. EGM criticized how the navigation of some quests take too much padding, citing an example where the player has to constantly change the playable characters to open multiple doors in the Shinra HQs. Easy Allies felt that despite the linear style, the reviewers finished the game in a total of 38 hours and there was still plenty of quests left to conclude. Shack News said that despite the linear nature of the game, he appreciated the warnings the game gives to the players when they are about to move on with the main quest and can still do sidequest instead. The Daily Dot adds that it is matched by "the exquisite level design with seamless mechanics, addicting gameplay and rousing battles"
Sales
The game shipped and sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide within three days. This made it one of the biggest launches for a PlayStation4 game and the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive, surpassing the launch sales of Marvel's Spider-Man and God of War.In Japan, Final Fantasy VII Remake was the best-selling retail game during its first week of release, selling 702,853 physical copies in its first weekend, with the game sold out in many stores. Including digital copies, it exceeded 1million sales in Japan within three days of release.
In North America, Remake was the top-selling game of April 2020 and the third best-selling game of 2020 to date, behind ' and '. It became the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title in the franchise's history, surpassing the launch record previously set by Final Fantasy XV, and was the most downloaded PlayStation 4 game of April 2020 in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, the game debuted at the top of the weekly sales chart, selling an estimated 60,000 physical copies in its first weekend. German trade association :de:GAME|GAME announced that it took Final Fantasy VII Remake only a few days to sell more than 100,000 units within Germany, for which it won a Gold Sales Award. It was the fourth most downloaded PlayStation 4 game of April 2020 in Europe.