It feels like I am finally getting to do that here. To explore beyond the edges of the frame. As a kid, I always imagined what it would be like it actually walk around this world. Every new setting is stunningly realised, yet still comfortingly familiar with the use of key landmarks to make old fans feel at home while still giving us something exciting and new around them. There are other major changes made in this section which will be avoided for fear of spoiling the surprise for others, but the idea of taking a moment from the original game and expanding on it in logical ways that deepen your emotional experience with them persists throughout the game.īeloved, familiar locations have been reimagined as vast spaces teeming with life.
Citizens are seen cowering in fear, you overhear their conversations, Shinra soldiers are on full patrol as they search for the perpetrators.
This previously simple journey from one end of a pre-rendered screen to another has been expanded to a fully-fledged chapter of its own, the once peaceful and relatively sparse streets of Midgar are alive with activity as the Mako reactor explosion spreads devastation across the sector. This mission thoroughly introduces players to the combat system, which we will touch on in time, but predominantly this stretch of the game serves to introduce the newcomers to the world and these characters while also easing in the lifelong fans before the game begins dropping massive, shocking changes to the story.Īs soon as this mission is over and Cloud is tasked with making his way back to the Sector 7 slums, the true scope and ambition of Final Fantasy VII Remake are made clear. The mission that follows plays out very similarly in structure to the original, only with extra scope, the entire reactor map is undoubtedly bigger than the entire original game combined.
The fans who are waited most of their lives for this moment will know how special this felt., within minutes it is clear that Square Enix has no intention of letting us down. The stunning cinematic intro brings us back to Midgar with a level of detail we could have only imagined back in 1997, beautifully recreating the iconic opening of the original.