Final Fantasy VII Remake was one of the most anticipated games in history and it delivered brilliantly. It was the shot in the arm the franchise needed, as over the years critics and fans alike started to sour a bit on it. Final Fantasy VII is one of the most beloved games of all time and it would have been easy for Square Enix to fail at it but the fact that they made something so great is a triumph.
With the Intergrade DLC coming and with speculation over Part 2 at a high pitch, fans are looking at the differences between Remake and the original, weighing them all over again to see how future installments will be different from what came before.
10 Great Change: The Graphics Are Amazing
There's no way to compare PS1 era graphics to what is possible today. While FFVII's graphics represented a radical shift in the industry at the time and still have their strong suits in weird ways, there's no way they can compare to what modern hardware can do.
One of the things that makes FFVIIR so great is the enhanced graphic fidelity and what it allowed the devs to do, vis-a-vis the emotional beats of the story. Everything looked so good and one of the reasons the game was so effective was that the graphics were able to sell everything onscreen expertly.
9 Not So Great Change: The Summons Are Pretty Bad
Summons are a venerable part of the Final Fantasy franchise even if the summoning animations in later games can get a little annoying. However, there's nothing like hitting a big damage summon against a boss and winning the day for the party. However, the Summons in FFVIIR aren't great. They work but there's nothing spectacular about them.
The weird thing is for some of them, the lengths the player goes through to get them are pretty extreme and they're just kind of alright. It doesn't bode well for future installments, since FFVII contained one of the most iconic and useful Summons in franchise history- Knights of the Round.
8 Great Change: Getting To Know Avalanche
In FFVII, Avalanche, beyond Tifa and Barret, was just sort of there. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie were just background characters who'd get a funny line in occasionally. Other than that, they were just one-dimensional and were barely characters. FFVIIR changed all of that and it was well worth it.
The game expanded upon them and they seemed like actual people, ones with likes and dislikes, and the player developed an actual relationship with them. Jessie especially got fleshed out and in the hearts of some fans wrested best girl honors from Tifa or Aerith. This was a great change that made the game better as a whole.
7 Not So Great Change: Most Magic Didn't Matter
Magic is one of the most clutch abilities in Final Fantasy. Magic using characters depended on it in battle, as their physical attacks were pretty weak and its curative spells kept the party going. However, in FFVIIR it's entirely possible to go through the vast majority of the game without ever having to use any offensive magic whatsoever.
While it's not exactly useless- the spells do a lot of damage- they aren't particularly needed either. Even Aerith, who in the original was basically useless unless she was using magic to attack, doesn't really need it to make a dent in enemies. While curative spells are still important, the game could have completely left out offensive magic and no one would miss it.
6 Great Change: It Builds The Love Triangle More Than The Original
The love triangle between Tifa, Aerith, and Cloud was always a part of FFVII but there were definitely times that it didn't feel very important. The original game focused more on story beats than character beats and this worked against making the love triangle, beyond the player just kind of choosing who they liked more arbitrarily.
FFVIIR allowed players to spend more time with Tifa and Aerith on their own, getting to know them, and expanding on each one's relationship with Cloud. This is just a plain better way to do things and makes the arguments about which one is the best girl that much better, since players actually know and interact more with each.
5 Not So Great Change: The Linear Nature Of The Narrative Hurts Replay Value
This isn't entirely the game's fault; FFVII was an entire game with a whole world to explore while Remake just has Midgar. While it does a lot to expand on the city and its denizens, even humanizing some of Shinra's minions, it's still not a huge place for players to explore. With the way the story moves things along, going back to old sections of the game is often impossible.
While one can definitely play it from the beginning again or go back to previous chapters to get what they missed, there's no real sense of discovery to the game like there was in the original. Players had saves with hundreds of hours on the original as they went back and explored the world, discovering everything they could. That's just not possible with Remake, even with the trophy system to pad things out.
4 Great Change: The Combat System Brought The Game Into The Modern Age
As much as fans love the turn-based combat of older FF games, it's not exactly tenable in a modern RPG environment. Square Enix has gone through growing pains with its combat systems, trying to find a happy medium between the strategy of turned-based combat and the more fast-paced style that modern RPGs use.
FFVIIR is able to incorporate the control of turn-based combat and the more frenetic pace of newer RPGs expertly, giving players control when they need it without slowing things down too much. On top of that, party AI is pretty good, with the other party members actually helping out even when they aren't under player control.
3 Not So Great Change: The Game Overused Sephiroth
Sephiroth is one of the FF franchise's most iconic villains and one of the most recognizable characters in gaming. In the original, Sephiroth was referenced in the Midgar sections of the game but never seen, which made his eventual reveal that much more effective- by the time the player met him, he seemed like a nigh-unstoppable force of nature.
Sephiroth was all over FFVIIR and it felt kind of weird, especially for older fans. There was pretty much no chance that he wouldn't show up in the game but it felt like it used him too much and having him as the final boss also felt weird.
2 Great Change: It Expanded The Midgar Sequence Expertly
Focusing the entire game in Midgar was a bold choice in a lot of ways; while it presented a great stopping point for the game, it wasn't that long of a section. Fans were understandably afraid that the game would feel padded but for the most part, FFVIIR was able to expand the stories in Midgar and this made all the difference.
There's a difference between expanding and stretching- expanding adds to the lore whereas stretching just makes everything seem thin. FFVIIR felt expanded- the lore was richer and made more sense because of the extra time spent on it and the game's story rarely felt stretched.
1 Not So Great Change: Some Of The Sidequests Felt Like Filler
In the original FFVII, there weren't a whole lot of sidequests in Midgar. It was basically the tutorial section of the game, where players mastered the game's systems before heading out into the wider world. While FFVIIR did a great job of expanding the story that felt organic, it couldn't do the same thing with the gameplay and had to pad the run time with entire chapters of sidequests.
While there was some good character development in these chapters, the sidequests themselves felt like they were there just to pad things out and didn't have much bearing on the plot beyond EXP and gil.