Final Fantasy VII Remake Wants to Know Its Own History

Released in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was a landmark game of its era, making waves across its own series, genre, and the entire medium. Over the years, fans turned that love into hopes for a remake or some kind of revisitation. Those hopes seemed to bear fruit in 2015, when Square Enix revealed at E3 that a remake was happening! After the initial excitement, fans waited…

…And kept waiting for years, wondering where it was as veteran developer Tetsuya Nomura worked on other projects like Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III. After trailer after trailer and a very good demo, Final Fantasy VII Remake finally released on April 10, 2020 for PlayStation 4, the first of a multi-game saga. It was a title that came at just the right time: the PS4’s big two first-party games, The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima, weren’t due until the summer, and the then-early COVID-19 pandemic made staying at home to play video games a valid activity. Add onto that the interest in seeing how Nomura and other alums from the original game would re-develop the title that helped make (and in some cases, completely define) their careers in the industry, and it’s no wonder it was a critcal and commercial darling.

The term “remake” carries a strong negative connotation in the film space, but in games, it’s slightly more complicated. Ports and remasters have been a part of the medium since forever, and everyone knows what that entails. A remake is another matter entirely and varies from game to game. When the first two Halo games were remade, players could toggle between its original graphics or a modern version at the push of a button, and both came with suplemental material that helped set up future titles. Capcom’s Resident Evil remakes feature modernized gameplay and updated plot elements, while the Dead Space remake’s biggest change was giving a voice to Isaac Clarke, who didn’t speak until the second game.

Final Fantasy VII Remake both is and isn’t what its title suggests. Underneath the skin of the original VII is the DNA of then-recent Final Fantasy games Nomura contributed to in some fashion. From Final Fantasy XV, the remake takes real-time combat, allowing players to freely switch between three party members—occasionally reducing the size to just one or two characters—while hearkening back to the original VII’s turn-based nature by slowing down time so players can queue up specific attacks or take potions. Structurally, it borrows from the XIII trilogy, which was derided for taking players down a linear path. Remake is similarly straightforward most of the time: its two hub areas are big, but not that big, and you can only do specific actions like jump or enter specific areas when prompted. Such linearity was noted at the time, but that was nearly drowned out by how good the combat felt and older players’ affection for playing through a prettied up version of Midgar on modern hardware.

By far, Remake’s biggest changes came to its narrative. At first, it was small things like introducing main baddie Sephiroth much earlier than in the original game, or fleshing out supporting cast members Jessie and Biggs. Over time, those tweaks extended to the introduction of wholly new characters like Roche or beefing up the original’s early section in Midgar into its own beginning, middle, and end to help justify the transformation into what’s likely a trilogy. To quote Austin Walker during Waypoint’s podcast on Remake, several conversations in the original game were effectively turned into boss fights or minigames for its modern day incarnation, which can feel like padding in its worst moments. (2024’s Final Fantasy Rebirth is especially guilty of this, given its many minigames and expansive open-world areas.)

Oh right, there’s also another big story change: Final Fantasy VII Remake is about the legacy of Final Fantasy VII. It frequently teases the player with characters or events diverging from the source material, resulting in ominous ghosts called Whispers working to put things back on track. Usually, this amounts to saving or killing someone that didn’t die where they were meant to, occasiaonally sticking around to make sure the job’s done before vanishing again. For characters in the know about how this all shakes out, like Aerith and Sephiroth, the Whispers can be used to their own ends. In these beings exists the potential to tell the original story and keep everything as is or break off into new, uncharted territory. Maybe some of the same ground is tread, but the endpoint could be different for VII’s cast, who all become increasingly aware they’re being manipulated to one degree or another.

With much of the original game’s talent at the helm, it may have been inevitable that Remake would directly explore the importance of its own source material. Still, the way it does this makes all the difference, since this entire enterprise from Nomura and Square Enix includes bringing in parts or elements from spinoffs like Crisis Core, plus the feature film Advent Children. Its entire scope is at once exciting and potentially exhausting, depending on how things conclude in the unannounced third installment. 2024’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth had it both ways, leaving players uncertain just how much would really change when it paradoxically recreated Aerith’s death and gave some she may live on in another timeline only visible to the ever-traumatized Cloud. (Plus, his work husband Zack, who died prior to the original events of VII, is alive in Rebirth, briefly teaming up with Cloud against Sephiroth before he returns to his own alternate timeline.)

What is the Final Fantasy VII remake saga? The answer is, seemingly, something for everyone: a way for longtime fans to relive the original as it’s simultaneously expanding, tweaking, or in conversation with parts of that earlier product. Newcomers get to play a series of slick action-RPGs that could guide them to other Final Fantasy games, or even just a simple remaster of the original. (Like EA with Dead Space, Square Enix thankfully doesn’t want these remakes to wholly erase the OG Final Fantasy VII.) The developers are treating it as a way to reflect on one of the biggest games of their careers, and for the characters? We’ll have to wait for whenever Part 3 comes to find out.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.