Final Fantasy VII Remake – Five Years On

It’s hard to believe that five years have already passed since the international release of Final Fantasy VII Remake. In honour of this, I thought I’d do a look into what Remake and Final Fantasy VII mean to me, and I’m sure, so many others. But first, let’s go back to the beginning.

No one can doubt that Final Fantasy VII was the game that launched Square Enix (then Squaresoft) into the international spotlight, and truthfully, it was the first Final Fantasy game I fell in love with. Of course, I have a soft spot for the first one I played all the way through, Final Fantasy X, but it was Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children that truly got me invested in the franchise. My first foray into meeting Cloud Strife wasn’t in Advent Children, however: it was upon playing Kingdom Hearts at my friend’s house, seeing the mysterious figure on his search for Sephiroth. I wanted to know more, and as it was 2005 – the perfect time to. After all, Advent Children had just come out, and Cloud was returning in Kingdom Hearts II, so I knew I needed to know more about the character.

But, while this celebrates the fifth anniversary of Final Fantasy VII Remake, I can’t talk about it without first discussing the major hit that was the original version. After all, it was such a phenomenal game that I became obsessed with it eight years after the initial release. Although this was due to the power of the amount of marketing that went into The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Without Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts, I wonder whether Final Fantasy VII would still have the same impact as if it were just a standalone.

Due to the Compilation titles, the fandom was still plenty awake. Yes, there are a host of Final Fantasy games without spin-offs that continue to thrive, but how many could attract the attention of a pre-adolescent in the 2000s? Due to this, I was watching compilations of videos, watching Advent Children in numerous parts on YouTube, and joining my brother in playing Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. I constantly wanted to know more, so I hunted through different wikis, all so I could understand the hype surrounding the game. It wasn’t until 2007 — when my brother finally bought me a copy for my twelfth birthday — that I really began to understand the emotional depth and themes of life and environmentalism.

 

So, by the time Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core was released on the PlayStation Portable — the title that made me want to buy a PSP — I was struck by how distraught I was by Zack’s story. It also helped that I was a huge fan of hunting down all videos about the secret Dirge of Cerberus ending, as I needed to know who Genesis was. It wasn’t until Crisis Core expanded upon it and introduced more characters, that I wondered whether they were building up to something more. The world was so vast, and yet, all of this was added post-release of the original iteration. It meant that I had so much prime fanfiction material to go through to satiate me, but there was a part of me that dreamed of a remake or remaster that would touch upon it.

Of course, the Compilation did have flaws, and as it was made throughout the decade, it wasn’t the most cohesive. In fact, it was thought by many fans of Final Fantasy that VII was being treated as a bit of a cash cow… a cash cow I was happily throwing my meagre savings from birthdays and Christmases at. The idea of a remake or a remaster was something many fans were dreaming of after seeing the graphics (and story) of Crisis Core, and maybe there could be a chance when they released the Final Fantasy VII tech demo in 2005. Looking back, the tech demo doesn’t hold a light to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of Remake and Rebirth, respectively, but I remember how everyone was suddenly holding their breath. It felt like it was finally happening.

More time passed between games, and everyone was waiting. Not that I was only playing VII. By then, I was growing fonder of some of the other entries in the series, notably, I loved Final Fantasy XII, tried Final Fantasy XIII (of which I’ll be giving another go soon on Steam, as I previously tried it on the Xbox 360) and had a ridiculous time streaming Final Fantasy XV with a friend of mine on his Twitch channel. It was reaching a point that I was joining fans in looking at VII in a nostalgic manner, but then it finally happened. It was 2015, and I was only starting university, and soon, I was being thrown back into my state of childlike wonder. Watching E3, I’m pretty sure I screamed when they announced Remake that year, and I needed to know everything.

Knowing that Remake was coming out, I bought a PlayStation 4 not long after the announcement. I knew that I’d be needing it, and when they stated that it would be in parts, it was met with some trepidation, and I still remember how they said all the parts would be released on PlayStation 4 — you know, like liars — but that’s neither here nor there. No, the moment they announced pre-orders would go live, I didn’t hesitate. In my joy and excitement, and admittedly, sheer impulsivity, I pre-ordered the First Class Edition from Square Enix, of which my friends were like “Bex. Why?” (a note: I still don’t regret that, as my Cloud figure is still pride of place next to my TV, but if my brother asked, I definitely didn’t pre-order the most expensive edition while saving up for a Master’s degree).

Once I started playing Remake, I understood why they put it in parts. While the first of the Remake trilogy isn’t the longest, it had a depth of story that just wasn’t there in the original. After all — and I’m noting this from the book: 500 Years Later - An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII — there were some issues when Square first realised the controversy surrounding the translation and context of the original international release. For example, let’s talk about Barret Wallace. Barret is the leader of AVALANCHE, and in the 1997 version, he was regularly compared to the actor/wrestler, Mr T. Many characters ended up changing Barret’s name to his, and he ended up being viewed in a stereotypical light. It meant that the depth he did have, notably, the loss of his friend Dyne and the adoption of his young daughter, Marlene, weren’t treated with the level of sensitivity that the Remake trilogy did.

In Remake, Barret is the leader of a splinter cell in AVALANCHE, which is already a major organisation that he ends up joining. With the addition of a great voice performance by John Eric Bentley, who wanted to add more insight into his character due to being a massive fan already, it meant that his story resonated more. The story was also helped by adding more roles for the other AVALANCHE members who he was already friends with: Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. In the 1997 release, they were minor characters who appeared for a few hours before dying. In Remake, I was distraught knowing what would happen to them, as I knew that once the Plate fell, we wouldn’t get to see them anymore. We saw why they joined, we saw Barret’s relationship with them, and how emotional he grew when he saw their bodies. Seeing the more emotional role of the AVALANCHE leader just made me love his narrative arc even more, and I now class Barret as one of my favourite characters in the franchise.

But, let me just return to another controversy regarding representation. Many fans were already familiar with the brothel: The Honeybee Inn. To get the required materials for Cloud to appear in his dress and get into Don Corneo’s mansion, he needs to get into the brothel and find some items. So, he goes into a hexagonal room to find six doors to choose from, and in one of these doors… is the Group room. Cloud is then introduced to a group of significantly buff men, who bring Cloud into a hot tub, and they all jump into a hot tub with him and it’s implied that they have sex. It’s… honestly really uncomfortable seeing that scene in the original, especially as one of the NPCs even says he’s twice Cloud’s age. Then, he gets some Bikini Briefs as a reward. So, everyone wondered how they were going to treat the Honeybee Inn, as Cloud in a dress is one of the key elements of getting Tifa away from Don Corneo.

I was already aware of gay characters being presented as a joke in Japan, and I was admittedly worried, especially as I was aware of the problems surrounding representation in Persona 5. For those unaware, Ryuji is constantly being swept away by a pair of flamboyant men, and it’s treated as a joke. Considering this was happening in a mainstream game, I wasn’t sure how Square Enix would present the characters in the Honeybee Inn, but thankfully, the Remake’s version was nowhere near as terrible as the original. Instead, the Honeybee Inn is a nightclub run by one Andrea Rhodea, who runs the club and scouts for bridal candidates for the Don. Upon meeting Cloud and Aerith, he gets Cloud to dance at the club — a fun minigame with a banging song that was just so incredibly catchy — and he’s not portrayed in a stereotypical way. Andrea is fashionable and cares about training his body and mind, and he clearly knows how to make Cloud look good.

The fact that Andrea and Madam M, who works with Andrea to approve bridal auditions for Don Corneo, have such depth to them compared to the NPCs in the 1997 meant that the supporting characters got more of a spotlight. Remake forces you to care about Midgar and the people in it. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie all have more depth to their characters, so if you go to a game convention, it’s likely that you’ll end up seeing someone cosplay as one of the NPCs as well as the main cast. So, if you leave Final Fantasy VII Remake without an emotional crisis and then deep confusion, then clearly, the game didn’t work for you.

There was a reason that when the game shipped earlier (of course, in my case, later, which drove me up the wall as it was lockdown) in European and Australian countries, Nomura and the other developers implored fans not to spoil it. Even though we knew we weren’t getting past Midgar, there was something there that we wouldn’t know until the end. Once we got there, I was delighted that I managed to avoid spoilers. While some fans wanted a truly accurate remake, I’m glad that Remake has done its own spin of things. Having only been a toddler when VII came out, I was able to join in with my friends in discussing what we thought would happen next. It made me glad to be a part of the community, although I'm still avoiding the shipping wars.

When it comes to Remake, the only downside I can consider is that it brought back the Cloud/Aerith or Cloud/Tifa wars. While I enjoy a good fanfic for either of these relationships, I have to admit that I was glad not to have lived through The First Shipping Wars. Outside of that, I’ve enjoyed seeing how many theories are around for Final Fantasy VII Remake, and then the same thing again when Rebirth came out.

Now that it’s been five years and we’re two games in, I’m glad that they put Remake as part of a trilogy. There’s still so much story left to cover, and I just don’t know what will happen next. Although, I’m hoping that I don’t have to fight a Kingdom Hearts-like boss fight again. Honestly, the Whisper Harbinger brought back memories of the wrong game. I’m not mad about it, but I still find it hilarious.