Final Fantasy VII Remake has been tested at Madrid Games Week. These are our impressions of the Square Enix title.
Final Fantasy VII Remake has been tested in a demo at Madrid Games Week 2019, in one of the gaming stalls offered by the fair and possibly one of the most visited. We advise that as usual, these demos represent a very small and very guided part of what the final product is. It is very possible that during the rest of the game what we have written in these lines will not be reflected.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Impressions
Perhaps making a remake of one of the games that has most marked the entire video game industry internationally is one of the most risky jobs that have ever been done. His story, although it may not seem like it, had a strong anti-capitalist charge because the characters we control are ecoterrorists against the system and such blatant things do not sit well with various sectors of the public. From the outset we know that this is going to change little because the story was already sweetened enough for it not to be so blatant. Now we go to the second important point: combat.
We saw it in the E3: a curious mix between action and turns. At any time you can attack normal to lower the life of the enemies, and over time the action bar is filled to execute skills and magic. A hybrid system that at first looks confusing but then is almost natural. It grants a certain strategy such as keeping action bars to execute stronger attacks, knowing how to position yourself well ...
It is especially noticeable in the only boss of the demo, the famous armored scorpion that has several phases and there it shows us the importance of switching between Cloud and Barret since the latter has ranged attacks; and to use magic attacks to do more damage. We wonder if the rest of the bosses of the game, both in its first episode and the rest, will have the same schemes and will take advantage of the combat system in this way.
These are small details that make the combat system enjoyable during the relatively short duration of this demo of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The problem with these demos is that they have little content to make a real assessment ... But for now the initial impression of the fight is positive and we see ourselves playing it at higher levels and getting better strategies as the game progresses. We have no doubts that this title knows what it does and takes care of the nostalgia factor of those who played in its day in detail and knows that people have been waiting for this remake even years after Square Enix has thought about doing it.
But if there are negative aspects to be taken out ... Apart from the aforementioned factor that if you jump in the controls are a mess because you do not know what all the buttons do, there is the camera. In the original title this was not a problem because the game used pre-rendered images as backgrounds and the characters walked on it respecting certain collisions and in combat it was a separate open stage and the camera was alone. Here they have tried to capture exactly those narrow levels and narrow corridors ... But the camera has problems to position itself and even to handle as it does not have space to put itself in a place that allows to see the action, both exploring and in some moments of combat. We assume that it is a mistake that can be allowed with a demo of a game that will be released in at least six more months.
Finally, there is the question of the episodic format they have. We know that the first delivery will take place entirely in Midgar, which is left the vast majority of the game. In their favor they say that they will include as much content as a current generation game and they have included things that in their day they could not. It really is a very ambitious remake that fulfills everything that a remake is asked to do: respect the work, add new features, and change things only if they are necessary.
The big question: the episodic format
But the episodic format throws us many doubts. One of his problems is going to be pitching rhythm. The game was announced at E3 2015 announcing Tetsuya Nomura as director without him knowing that he was in charge of the project and for two years CyberConnect2 was developing it but in May 2017 the project was restructured and restarted to have it more controlled and that get out faster. Now the first episode will come out three years later at a novelty price. What will the rest of the episodes be like? Will it take so long to get them out? Will they cost that much? We liked this remake, even being personally somewhat detractors of the original title; But we have many doubts about the business model. Perhaps Square Enix has gotten into a bigger project than you imagined.
We don't think they will blow the fans off by canceling the project. It is too big one and to do so would be negative publicity that would take a whole generation or two to erase and they have enough with not having met the expectations of Final Fantasy VII. But it is inevitable to think that there will be problems in development with a project as large as it is to make an RPG in high definition that in its day used many tricks to make it look bigger than it really is. Above one with as much popularity as Final Fantasy VII. We are talking about the JRPG that showed a new generation of gamers and around the world what the genre is in itself and with production values never seen before. Maybe making it episodic is just a lesser evil, but we see the last episode coming out at the end of the life of PlayStation 5 and taking advantage of that will let us install only the parts we want to save space.
Other games that we have tested at Madrid Games Week
