When Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake would be episodic, fans were naturally apprehensive. With the release of Part 1, it seems the decision was ultimately a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s hard to deny that certain aspects of Midgar aren’t fleshed out. AVALANCHE in particular feels like a realer group than they ever have. Even the combat itself manages to capture the tension present in Midgar’s story.
That said, in stretching out six hours of story across 30 hours, Final Fantasy VII Remake ends up with some major annoyances by the endgame. By the time players hit the max Level of 50, all of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s most annoying details will be on display.
10 Cloud Isn’t That Great
Cloud is incredibly fun to use and by far the best party member against most humanoid bosses, but he’s actually not that great in the grand scheme of things. Which isn’t to say he isn’t worth using, but focusing on balance overall does mean Cloud can’t reach the same extremes as Barret from long range, Tifa from close range, and Aerith with her match.
As Cloud as the main character, most challenges are designed specifically around him, so this rarely becomes an issue in combat– but it might explain why some of the difficulty spikes can feel so extreme. When it comes down to it, Cloud can handle everything, but not well enough where he can’t consistently struggle.
9 Enemy Variety Is Lousy
Who remembers the iconic Final Fantasy VII, Wererat? Everyone’s favorite! What’s frustrating about FFVIIR’s lackluster enemy variety is the fact that there actually is good enemy variety. There are plenty of different enemy types within the game, but FFVIIR does a very poor job at creating engaging setpieces with more than two enemy types at a single time.
Now, this doesn’t hinder the combat in the grand scheme of things, but playing through the story and fighting Wererat after Wererat is an exercise in frustration. More classic monsters start appearing over the course of the game, but FFVII never quite matches the charm of the original’s enemy variety (though leaving Midgar will ideally fix this.)
8 Enemies Take Way Too Long To Respawn
Let Final Fantasy VII Remake serve as a reminder why random encounters have their place– they give players a game to play. Enemies are scattered on the overworld and inside of dungeons in FFVIIR, but once they’re dead, don’t expect to see them again anytime soon. Enemies respawn so infrequently, it’s basically impossible to reliably level off overworld encounters.
Players either need to abuse Corneo Colosseum if they want to level and upgrade their Materia, or just go with the flow of gameplay. Worse yet, when Chapter 14 opens up and lets the party explore most of Midgar in full, it becomes painfully clear how little there is to fight (and do) on the overworld.
7 Equipment Feels Like An Afterthought
Although Final Fantasy VII Remake manages to translate Materia fairly well– keeping the mechanic compelling from start to finish– the original Final Fantasy VII featured a wide array of equipment with unique properties that made Materia growth all the more compelling. Remake keeps this to an extent, but nowhere to the same level.
The fact of the matter is simply that there’s less equipment on a whole. That works for weapons since each one has its own detailed upgrade path, but armor and accessories end up feeling like comparative afterthoughts. They’re also just lacking in variety which is never fun for an RPG.
6 Side Quests Are An Exercise In Frustration
Some of the best moments in the original Final Fantasy VII come from its side quests. There’s a considerable amount of optional content, and almost all of it actually adds to the scope of the game while generally being entertaining. Final Fantasy VII Remake had the opportunity to extend that same love and care to Midgar, but unfortunately drops the ball.
Side quests amount to little more than the typical MMO nonsense– kill x enemies, find x things, go there and then here. They’re substanceless and often don’t add that much. If nothing else, doing every side quest in a chapter does result in a new scene, usually touching upon Cloud’s bond & relationship with whoever he’s currently paling around with.
5 Barret’s Barely In The Game
Final Fantasy VII Remake’s trailers had fans worried Tifa wouldn’t be in much of the game (which makes sense considering she’s not that relevant to the Midgar arc,) but she ends up getting plenty of screen time, especially during the backhalf. It’s actually Barret who ends up getting the short end of the stick in the long run.
As she’s not one of many women pining after Cloud, he isn’t allowed to have an in-depth arc alongside the “former” SOLDIER. Barret spends considerable chunks of the game absent, and it really isn’t until Chapter 17 where he gets to start spending some meaningful time with Cloud. Even then, though, Barret is by far the least developed of the core four. (Soon to be fixed in Part 2.)
4 No Party Editor
Allowing the player to customize and edit their party is basic RPG design 101. More importantly, the original Final Fantasy VII was filled with player customization options– especially when it came to party. While Cloud was locked in the lead slot most of the game, the other two slots (along with Materia) made party composition an engaging & consistent part of any playthrough.
Outside of Corneo’s Colosseum and VR Battles, there is no way to edit the party. This is especially egregious in Chapter 18 where the entire party is together before the final battle. Instead of letting the player choose who they want to take in, their final party seems to based off the characters’ hidden affection towards Cloud.
3 VR Battle Environment Are Aggressively Bland
The VR Battles themselves are great and stand out as some of the more engaging fights in the entire game, but their environments are painfully and aggressively bland. The blue holographic aesthetic is nice once or twice, but it starts to lose its luster fast. It also shines a spotlight on how bland and uninspired most battle arenas are.
The original Final Fantasy VII looks its age, but that’s not a bad thing. Aesthetically, it’s well stylized with a great color palette. Final Fantasy VII Remake opts for realism, and that means realistically depicting VR battlefields as blue. Like in real life.
2 The Story Builds To An Ending That Never Comes
Square Enix made it very clear in advance that part 1 of the Final Fantasy VII Remake would only cover Midgar. While Midgar itself is more or less the game’s prologue, there is some logic here and President Shinra himself is only the chief antagonist during portions of the game. Naturally, Part 1 should have been building up to the raid on Shinra HQ.
Which, to its credit, it does, but then it pivots hard to introduce Sephiroth at the last minute. Virtually the entire game’s buildup is thrown out the window to focus on Sephiroth far harder than the original ever did at this point in the timeline. Not helping matters is Part 1 cutting off before Kalm, resulting in an incredibly important confrontation with Sephiroth without the context that gives it meaning. Oops.
1 Bad Pacing
More than anything, it becomes painfully clear that Final Fantasy VII Remake is simply not all that well paced by the time players hit level 50. The original Final Fantasy VII is a masterclass in pacing, never wasting a single moment, whereas the remake loves nothing more than meander. To be fair, this is clearly in an attempt to flesh out Midgar, but it simply doesn’t land.
Breaking the game into chapters doesn’t help the pacing either. It should be a means of dividing the experience clearly, but some Chapters are simply too long while featuring a mess of content that fails to coalesce properly. For as smoothly as the story moves from chapter to chapter even at its worst, the gameplay itself is paced terribly.