Final Fantasy 7 Remake Demo Impressions

It has been over 20 years since Final Fantasy 7 came out. It is easily the best known Final Fantasy game and brought a number of people into the series. It told a tale about loss, growth, memory, forgiveness and a lot more. It offered a diverse cast with the stoic Cloud, the humble Aerith, the mysterious Vincent or the bubbly Yuffie. This first portion of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is set to cover the events from the first Reactor attack until the team leaves Midgar. While in the original that was only the first few hours of the game, this portion of the Remake is boasting a 60 hour playtime. If this demo is any indication, they can definitely reach that benchmark of time investment. There was a lot more to the first Mako Reactor assault and setting the bomb.

The combat controls are something very different. The Stagger system from Final Fantasy 13 has been brought in to help. Cloud has 2 combat styles which he did not have in the original game. Barret has 2 kinds of attack, using either his rapid fire attacks or using his overcharge fire a number of powerful bursts to decimate most targets. The characters build up Action Points either by simply engaging in combat, or gain extra while attacking. This is what you can use to activate your Abilities, use items or magic. You can build up onto 2 for the demo, but likely over the games the characters will build up more AP to use. These changes make for good mechanics that distinguish this game from its original iteration.

The demo, when played normally, can run about an hour of your time. You have 3 “Difficulties” to play through the game as well. Setting the demo on Classic can allow for a very fast 30 minute playthrough. This has the characters automatically maneuvering in for attacks and automatically defending. The combat difficulty is set on Easy, making it a simpler affair to play through the whole of the demo. Easy Difficulty does just that, keeps things simple so you can enjoy the story more without having to worry about the minutia of combat mechanics to the same degree. You start with a lot more Potions as well. You will need to block and attack yourself. Finally, you have Normal difficulty. This has you handling all your own, managing the action abilities, magic and items. You only have 3 potions to start with. These changes make it a potential challenge to run through the demo at this difficulty. But it can also be very engaging.

Finally, I should talk about the music. Kohei Chida is the music director. He is working with the material Nobuo Uematsu provided. It has gotten changed and updated. Much of the score had been receiving this treatment over the years. It is simply here in this first part of the game that we are getting more of it put into one place. It is now in much higher fidelity and something to be enjoyed.

Playing the demo you will get a good feel for what has changed within the combat mechanics and the game itself. Both Cloud and Garret are very distinct and all information about the other characters for this section (Tifa, Aerith, and Red XIII)  handle uniquely to their style. Tifa is going to be more like a fighting character, with precision inputs. Aerith is going to fight like the healer she is. Red XIII will likely be the most agile fighter you have, for the short while he is around.

The demo is definitely worth playing to see if Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be of interest and something you enjoy. If this is a game that you have heard about in the past, and would like to see what if offered to gamers back then, this version is going to show what it was like. Final Fantasy 7 offered a gripping story, wonderful music, an amazing cast and one of the most recognizable villains of the series.