Avalanche’s Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie have more discernible personalities, for instance. Characters who served only as one-note supporting players are given more to do as well, and in ways that enrich the game’s sense of place. Escaping from one of Avalanche’s targets-a reactor that begins to fall apart with the team still inside-is still a desperate race against a ticking clock, and the scene’s biggest elaborations are confined to a greater sense that Cloud is within a building that’s beginning to crumble all around him. The first few hours of the game expand the original’s plot points in sensible ways. Mostly, though, the differences between Final Fantasy VII’s two versions are the result of the bizarre decision to turn what was originally the first act of a game into its own, 30-plus hour debut instalment in a larger series. Others are more drastic, introducing (without giving away some of the most surprising additions) new, coyly metatextual wrinkles to a story whose writers are, it becomes clear, well aware that Remake is a retelling of what has become a much beloved tale. For one, the war with a foreign state called Wutai is brought up more frequently, providing greater context for the fears Midgar’s residents have about the reactor bombings carried out by Avalanche and updating the context of their insurgency in ways that reflect more strongly our modern politics and culture. This isn’t to say there aren’t changes, both big and small, to the original story. All of these subjects, however cartoonishly they’re presented, remain as relevant now as they were in the late ’90s. As the plot develops, the player uncovering bits of Cloud’s backstory, his relationship with Shinra and its mythical veteran soldier Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII touches on the identity-fracturing confusion of living in an era of apocalyptic environmental collapse, seemingly unstoppable corporate power, terrorism, horrifying class disparity, and militarism. Cloud, a brooding former special forces soldier, joins up with Avalanche at the beginning of the game and ends up working with them as an insurgent for hire. As before, it tells the story of Avalanche as they work to sabotage the power company, Shinra, which maintains an authoritarian grip on Midgar’s residents by policing and supplying its populace with energy gathered in ecologically devastating reactors. Remake’s plot largely follows in the original’s footsteps. This is partially because, 23 years since its release on the PlayStation, Final Fantasy VII’s premise, characters, and atmosphere remain captivating-standing among Square Enix’s best-realized worlds and stories. Still, the aspects of Remake that avoid this problem, carefully balancing elaboration and restraint in interpreting the source material, are almost enough to make up for where the game falls flat. While many other parts of Remake are exhilarating realizations of the game’s conceptual promise, it’s sections like this-sequences where an initially exciting aesthetic or narrative beat is extended to the point of exhaustion-that best characterize the experience. It’s far from the only time the cast complains about the tasks they’ve been given. When the section is done and they can finally exit the area, Barret says he’s glad it’s over. The characters complain about how monotonous this work is. To pass this aerial labyrinth, they must traverse a twisting series of similar-looking bridges, stairways, and elevators, flipping the right switches to solve minor puzzles and fighting groups of enemies as they go. By the end of it, though, both Avalanche’s members and the player are pretty tired of the scenery. At first, the view is breathtaking and the area a novel spin on what, in the original Final Fantasy VII, was a straightforward mission. It’s never a great sign when a game’s characters seem bored with what they’re asked to do.Īt one point in Final Fantasy VII Remake, the members of Avalanche-a group of eco-terrorists that consists of a one-armed man named Barret, his bartender friend Tifa, and a mercenary called Cloud-spend about an hour navigating a maze of industrial catwalks twisting in a steel lattice high above the streets of their city home, Midgar.
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