Final Fantasy VII Remake Betrayed Us | 1997 vs. 2020

Hey everyone, thank you for continuing to engage with this video over the past year or so. With the nearby release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I just want to make it clear that my piece here is exclusively about "Remake" itself. The entire script was focused on what this entry means to me, regardless of what the outcome is of the overall trilogy. The entire point of making the video was that there's a lot of nuance to this whole debacle and that it's okay to express it without waiting another decade for this to finally end. The video is two hours specifically because I wanted to demonstrate that this is not a simple matter of, "it sucks lol." Art's not just about "Good and Bad." I acknowledge many times in the video that this game obviously has a ton of heart and talent put in, but that I'm disappointed because of some very crucial decisions pertaining to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

So, I kindly request that you do not use the hindsight of Rebirth onward against me when I was careful to only make conclusive statements about the present and not the future. There's no "gotcha" to be had because (spoiler for those who haven't finished) my stance was that it ultimately doesn't matter. The sequels cannot reverse my fundamental issues with the project's inception, and I don't intend to be a party pooper with that in mind. It'll be a great time for the overwhelming majority and I have no reason to be spiteful towards anyone for enjoying the upcoming game(s.) So if I'm not going after you... please do not go after me. Thank you.

The remake reminds me of Shenmue. Visually stunning, directed decently like a movie; but I think I've only played it twice. The OG I've played from start to finish over 10 times.

haha, so what i took away from this (excellent) video is that:
ff7 remake may as well be tokyo revengers: ff edition ;)
fuck that manga ugh

Wow I hadn't realised how terrible this "remake" was. I can't believe they just $@#%ed one of the best JRPGs of all time. They just went and @$#%ed it right in front of us.

Wouldn't it be something if they DON'T kill Aerith off when she is supposed to die in Rebirth. Like, there is a cut scene where the party realizes Aerith is supposed to die, and there is a mission to change the course of fate and save her life. Maybe that would be the purposes of the Whisperers.

I'll never understand why so many players enjoy the combat system of this remake, it's the thing I definitely hate the most in FF7R.
But I've reached same conclusion as you after playing FF7R, whatever they'll do next, I won't play it. They literally killed the hype I had for a new FF7 game.

Thanks so much for your detailed commentary on the FF7 Remake But My agreeing with some of the finer points on the story I remember not really caring that much for the indescribable aspects of the New Remakes story line I still felt intirerly Awestruck and Captivated by the whole experience of the New FF7s Remade version and am still totally enjoying it on my still very capable PS4!! Please keep up up on things that are Final Fantasy because I enjoy watching your Informative retrospective and thoughts because I definitely support it all the way😂

It's very simple really, it's yet another "modern re imagining" of a timeless classic that feels cashgrabby and soulless. If they wanted to make a remake, they should've done A REMAKE, make the same game to a T in a new engine so it looks and runs better than the original.

There's no reverence or respect for the classics in these remakes of today. The devs and corporations behind them think they can do better and guess what? they can't.

The best part about the remake is that it’s a game about the pressures of remaking a game and how the fanbois won’t let the story stray even slightly from the original plot

I guess they made this game for me then. Someone who had basic knowledge of FF7 characters but never actually played THAT game. I played FF3 and 4 on the DS. FF13. FFT on the GBA, KH1 and 2 which had the FF cast in there. I saw FF7 Advent Children. When FF7 Remake came out I was thrilled to get this beautiful game, put 100hrs in it and got that platinum trophy. A few months ago I beat FF7 Reunion and cried like a little beach when Zack died. So yeah I guess im the target. I get that Aerith and Zack being alive is a bad fanfic but these are beloved characters that I wouldn't complain to spend more time with in game. I get that people who played the original really dont like the changes to the remake but then theres Maximillion who is happy as can be to play the remakes. I'm looking forward to Rebirth, I hope I can enjoy it as much as Reunion or Remake. It kinda sucks theres this divide with the fans but guess it can't be helped.

God, the misuse of Sephiroth is insane.

The remake already needs a remake

They can do whatever they want with the remake. I will always have the original and i will play it until i drop. They could've avoided this by simply doing what they did with resident evil 2 remake and they choose not to. To be fair i won't expect the new generation to appreciate the original they were not there to experience it or understand. If people enjoy the remake and or thinks it's better that's fine with me it's only my opinion.

It doesn't matter in the end anyways play the remake, original, or both. I don't think the remake is horrible but in my eyes it is a betrayal and craps on the original. Either way I'm sure i will enjoy it when i get around to playing the remake. If i had to choose between the original and remake? for me it will be the original bar none every time. My opinion doesn't matter if you enjoy the remake play it and have fun after all it's just a video game.

Squaresoft fell off after 2001 and to deny this is to fully embrace the FF7 remake

"Ugh, go away, sephiroth!"

That was exactly what I was thinking! And the goddamned "vision" system, It really feels like whoever made this are regretting not leaving with the rest of Square Enix that became Monolith Soft to make Xenoblade, and failing at hiding that regret. I got so sick of hearing "hip hop de chocobo" every time I ran past, that I really wish I could turn off that music collecting "feature". It really feels like whoever's left there just doesn't have the talent or ambition, or learning capacity, or is getting paid enough, to make anything better than a walking simulator with a "kingdom hearts without jumping" battle system attached!

A million unused, redundant common materia I'll never use, yeah I totally feel that.

It does seem like the designers/writers were in a rush to blow their load as quickly as possible on this one.

I don't care if it comes out in 100 parts, I'll buy every one. I really enjoy the game and the re-imagining

I played the remake first, and I beat it under four hours, and I hated it The moment I bought the original game I fell in love,

Fuck the remake

I think the remake was great. I have the played the original many times and could recite the plot ad nauseum if needed and with mods it can be updated to more modern tastes if needed. The glaring flaw I have with the remake which you touched on is how they handled Sephiroth.
In FF7 97, he is only touched on in the Midgar section. He is a legend, almost mythical character in the background which makes the game seem more grand with its own history and mythos. With President Shinra's murder the game does this great pivot to the real crisis facing the planet where Sephiroth's power is shown through GAMEPLAY during the excellent Nibelheim flashback. Then they hit you again with his strength where after we all foolishly tried taking on a Midgar Zolom, we encounter one impaled, Sephiroth defeated one single handedly. This shows the player precisely what were dealing with and the gulf between our power and his. So when we encounter 'Him' on the Shinra ship there is genuine concern and this has been built up over tens of hours so the moment is earned.

In the Remake, he flashes up all the time just jump scaring Cloud. There's no build up, no real threat and unless you played the original games you have no idea who this odd looking silver haired man even is. They use his reputation in the broader media to justify showing him off and it comes across cheap and shallow. This to me is the biggest weakness of the remake. They made one of gaming's great villains a grinning jack in the box, poking out every now and then to give Cloud a headache. He should have been a horror character, a force of nature, think Darth Vader in Rogue One. Apart from that I think the game is very good and I like some of the characters even more than in the OG like Aerith and Tifa. Hojo had some brilliant moments as well and really comes across as a sick F%@K.

He isolated himself for days wracking his brains out trying to come up with any reason why the remake project sucks then he gave up and went with the voices in his head and this is the best he came up with time well spent.

I’m torn about this video. I loved FF7, loved FF7R, want to hear what you have to say, but will probably disagree and 2 hrs is a long time.

I have a funny story. I played Remake before the original. To be fair I still havent finished the Original. I got to the part where Cloud leaves the party and then my best friend got me Baldurs Gate 3 for my birthday so I have been playing that. However, as a new player the whispers of fate made no sense at all. When the game said that people become one with the planet I thought the whispers were those people. So those people were trying to save the planet in my head which made it more confusing when they make sure certain characters die.

So as a new player it was just confusing and easily the weakest part of the story. Comparatively this chunk of the game in the OG is a lot easier to digest and was just more fun.

I am a huge Sega fan. I love Shenmue. The idea of an ongoing story with persistent saves across multiple titles over a generation. At the time it blew my mind in the best way possible.

But the vision needed money and development and Sega was dying. The experience condensed to two games and the story left on a ridiculous cliffhanger ending.

Eventually we got Shenmue 3. And it fell between two stools. Not strong enough as a modern game and too far away from a true Shenmue experience. I actually liked the game for what it was. But it didn't finish the story... I waited for a long time to be disappointed.

So, at the time, the idea that FFVII Remake might be across multiple games. It just frustrated me.

I'm a huge FFVII fan. It helped me, it changed my view of video games forever. I fell in love with a genre. I felt emotions in a videogame. I laughed, I cheered, I cried.

When I eventually played FFVII Remake demo. I was frustrated. Turn based combat or die.

When I eventually played the game proper. And I saw the slums, the upper plates, the movement, the graphics, the interaction with NPC's... I wept, like a fool, I wept. Tears of happiness streaming down my dumb face. I was in a world that shaped my life in a way I never thought I'd experience in my lifetime.

And then. I connected with characters, I appreciated the extra scenes and didn't like the side quests so much. And then I liked the extra fleshed out story beats. I didn't like chapters. I liked new materia. I like some of the weapon ideas. And then... Aerith. And her interactions with Cloud especially. Took my breath away. I whispered their dialogue and their responses. I was. In. The. Game

I didn't care about the over familiarity the characters shared. Because it's a story that's already been told.

And then...

Damn those ghost things. WHAT ARE THE GHOST THINGS DOING?! Why are they making changes?

I AM A RIGID PLANT I CANNOT ACCEPT CHANGE!

And then I made a decision...

Let it go. Let them give us a new spin. Let's see if they can crack my decades old cynicism.

I'm ready and open for them to show me more about Roach. About Gold Saucer. About Midgar Zolom. About Sephiroths journey. About those stupid story screwing ghost things. And Aerith... And Cloud... And everything else.

I'm invested now. I'm ready. I'm 41 but I'm a stupid teenager again. I'm actually expressing excitement and giddy feelings for Rebirth.

My wife thinks I'm a lunatic. My two boys think I'm hilarious. My work colleagues think it's a mid life crisis.

So I'm ready Squeenix. Entertain me... And your fans. And the folks that think you made a big mistake. And folks that have dissected Remake and think it's a mess.

And if you screw this up. We'll never, ever forgive you...

I wasn't impressed with remake, I personally wanted a faithful remake with turn based battle.

Regarding your criticism of the grappling hook not being reused, my own limited research shows that they're generally single use because of how the hook gets propelled in the first place. So Cloud tossing it aside actually makes sense.

It betrayed us because it showed how garbage the original was

Been a while since I played but I feel they tried to do too much and the story was all over the place. Sephiroth was also revealed way too early.

Square Enix is too big. Too many clucking chickens. Creativity and good storytelling can very rarely survive this environment. It happens in every medium. Music, film, video games, etc. I'm not against business people, but they need to stay as far away from the vision of any creative project as humanly possible.

FFVII the feminist remake.

I'm whatever about the story, they could have turned cloud into a chihuahua and made aerith a goth guitarist for all I care. I'm a Devil May Cry gamer, I couldn't give a rat's ass about a game's story.

What's wrong with the remake is that it's fucking boring. The gameplay is boring, the EXTENSIVE walking simulator sections are boring, the forced minigames are boring and the worst thing an action game can be is boring. There is so much time the game rips control away from you so you can scoot through a tight space or balance on a beam or walk slowly. I don't want to play a game where I have to spend 75% of it not engaging with the core gameplay loop, and the gameplay loop isn't even good to begin with. Mash square until I have to swap control to a different party member to mash square? Occasionally navigating a menu to do a special move before I go back to mashing square? Amazing.

What's the point of making an action game where you aren't in the action for most of it and most of the action amounts to a single button you press repeatedly? LoZ Windwaker had a more complex combat system and that game came out TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO. If you aren't going to put in the legwork to make your action game compelling enough where you would want to fill it to the brim with combat encounters and keep the non-combat sections to a minimum, then don't make a fucking action game. "Oh turn-based combat is boring and gamers won't want to play it," BALDURS GATE 3! To go even further, Darkest Dungeon and Undertale came out in 2015 when FF7R was revealed.

I can't believe they gave Nomura ANOTHER game to direct. Bury this man's career, he is a blight on the gaming sphere. What's worse is that the combat director for Monster Hunter World made this abomination of a battle system. Talk about a titan's fall.

It was pretty good. Can't wait for part 2. At least it wasn't kh3.

What a two-hour piece of whiny crap.

Sorry to say but if you would have informed you before buying the game, Square said even before the release (i think when they droppend the first trailer) that the game will be a 3 parter so be aware that "Rebirth" will not be the rest of the story.
Is that a good thing?? Well, probably not because the game will be split over at least 2 console generations and actually Square already tried this "multi game / media" formula and one time (Fabula nova Crystalis), it didn't get very far, the second (FFX/2) and the last time (FF13 1-3) was both on the middle range.
Personally, i am not really impressed with the remake and sure will not buy a PS5 just to play rebirth so if i will play them (all 3) it will be in some years, back to back on pc.

By the way, there bit and piece left in the PS1 game that show clearly that the story was much different (yes, example text for Aerith on CD3).

I played about 3 hours of the remake, and I never went back. Just did not like the new combat system

Played the game, enjoyed the combat, but not the story. If they finish then maybe I will rate it better but until then not so much. I am not really counting on that as I hoe this does not become anothe FFXV

I deleted a downloaded this game four times it was such a drag to get through, after a while I was just started skipping cut scenes just to get to the ending . A few fights then walking simulator it’s ass they should have actually just remade the game instead of this slop

after watching this I'm glad I dropped off after Wall Market. Seeing the ending myself would've made me so mad lol

The beginning section right until the whispers and sepiroth show up was a great experience. Just imagine if they kept the original story and just remade that. Man what a great game this could've been.

I remember the first time when whispers appeared or when they changed something I screamed out at the top of my lungs "NOOOOO!!!!!WHY???!?!?!?! DON'T DO THIS!!! DON'T RUIN THIS FOR ME!!!!!

I played the original like 5 times and I can't make myself play this game for the second time. Just too much filler to make the game longer and too much bullshit with wispers.

The original was 9.5/10 for me, but the remake is like 6/10.

Well tbh I was sure it wont be a remake of Final Fantasy VII I wanted already at the end of bombing mission.
When it turns out that it was not Jessie bomb that blew up the reactor. It cheapend that part, suddenly it lost its gravity. There was no moral gray ground here, you wont ever think if fighting bad people can excuse doing terrible things. As story goes it is just a husk of once a great game, but I dont care anymore. I dont expect this game series will move me like the Original could, its just not the same caliber. But I will buy Rebirth just for this awesome imo battle system. Its a bit silly to say that I play FF7 not for the story but for battle system and adio-visuals. But here we are. I think without Sakaguichi guidence it never had a chance to come even near OG game.

When the director of a game that is used by many as the example of great storytelling thru gameplay is talking about changing it and feeling “imprisoned” then you know it’s gonna be a hell of a shitshow.

All I hear and read is a bunch of people complaining about something they don't understand and want a pure 1 to1 remake, which by the, this would have been a 10 disc game right of the rip. As someone who loves the original, if this was a 1 to 1 copy, I most likely would have been bored half way and not finish it because guess what, I played it already, it just looks better.

i never got around to playing this and this video makes me glad. after wstching this reimagining doesn't even sound right, it's more like a badly done sequel.
it reminds me of terminator genisys. that movie starts out like the amazing original and turns into something completely different and ridiculous because the main characters were given knowledge they didn't possess in the original.

Bedankt

The original is easily one of my top 3 games of all time and I preordered it. I preordered the remake too and didn't even finish it. Square is dead to me.

Imo it shouldn't be a copy of the original because then what's the point? I never played the original admittedly, but I had a blast playing this one.

I thought this game isnt a remake but a continuou