We traveled to Midgar in advance for three hours to check out the Final Fantasy VII Remake news. The legend returns next April.
There have been few obstacles that Final Fantasy VII Remake has encountered along the way. Since its official revelation at that Sony conference during E3 2015, the new version of Cloud went through several stages that have taken it back home; of the initial hand of Cyberconnect2 to become an integral development of the internal studies of Square Enix.
But the reality is that we are on March 2, that is, just over a month to find the return of the myth, the legend that marked the players of the original PlayStation. What has happened since then? How do you feel at the controls? In FreeGameTips, we have spent three hours in front of him, a small advance from its beginnings to a little more advanced history. We have already felt Midgar.
Background: Midgar, 23 years later
The presentation by Yoshinori Kitase and Naoki Hamaguchi, producer and co-director of the project, respectively, was marked by phrases full of firmness. "We wanted to go beyond a simple remastering: make Final Fantasy VII Remake the ultimate ARPG," they say. Because this "full remake", as they call it, goes through a first chapter focused on "experiencing Midgar." No more no less.
During the development process, they were clear that they wanted to deepen the world of Final Fantasy VII, "reimagine it" completely with the city as the main focus of the experience. This new updated version of Midgar and its surroundings is divided into three keys: dark, steampunk and varied. Nothing would be the same if it did not maintain the visual fidelity of the 1997 funds.
Producing a large-scale remake required a technological leap that allowed the 3D surroundings of the city and its surroundings to be built in detail. Although it makes use of Unreal Engine 4, the team has customized it to the extreme to incorporate its own tools. This translates into improvements in lighting, rendering, particle system and other elements.
One of the curiosities among the technical scenes is the inclusion of a system of facial animations that generates the movements of the face depending on the language of the dubbing chosen. They are no longer chosen previously, but at any time the game consistently adapts the gestures. On the other hand, the “dynamic sound system” is an algorithm that takes the primary musical pieces of each room and mixes them with other themes, varying their rhythm and intensity depending on the moment.
That care for the packaging, for what is beyond our control, makes us spectators of a whole visual bulwark, at least in the PlayStation 4 Pro version. The solidity of its image rate per second surprises with the stress that There is usually on screen. Moments such as invocations put on the screen a large number of effects and particles, all without moving the target marked an apex. The production values are very high.
One of lime, another of sand
The demonstration we could access corresponded to several sections of the main plot. All the beginning until the arrival to the train (chapters 1 and 2), the complete section of the reactor of Sector 5 (chapter 7) and the fight against Aps (chapter 10). A small tour that, to our liking, focused too much on combat and not so much on the full offer. We do not know what it is like to walk in the areas of free exploration, its secondary content. Maybe they weren't the best sections chosen.
We say it above all for the repetition of the level design. Both reactors follow a structure that is too similar, even linear to excess. We can understand it from the first measures of the game (which we left at level 10), but not from the second part of the day. The Sector 5 reactor is a succession of corridors through waves of enemies. That role of "dungeon" collides with the lack of alternative elements. Even the exploration is practically non-existent. We expected that the complexity of the scenarios would have, at least, a touch that would force to discover new areas within the routes already known. Even the Final Fantasy XV dungeons flirted with it, although the reward was the topic of the chest.
The bittersweet of its development contrasts, in part, with combat. After the Noctis adventure, Square Enix wanted to continue evolving its ARPG structure. The shift from shifts to fast and excessive action collides, but once you are at the controls it catches you from the first minute. It catches you by the precise way of flowing around the members of the action. At the beginning, when we drive to Cloud, the fight is based solely on an exchange of low blows, enough to load the BTC bar and be able to assess a special skill.
However, it is when new characters are added when the possibilities multiply. Jumping from Cloud to Barret is playing with completely different styles. With the second you must look for the distances, deal basic blows while loading the skill bar and the heavy attack. Tifa, on the other hand, prefers the power of his fists. It is with Barret the most fun character to control. Although it may seem similar to the damage caused by Cloud, the speed of its movements makes it a vital character to kill groups of enemies. In the last place we were able to control Aerith during a small stretch. His staff makes her a sorceress focused on safeguarding the rest of the group, either with cures or by altering the rival's status.
We don't know how it will be once we improve the characters. We miss a little more elaboration in the combos, that not everything can be solved by “crushing a button”, which is the feeling that gave us a good part of the sections. On rare occasions we had to make use of the blockade, since evasion is quite effective because of the range of movement it covers. Not only do we blame it on the system itself, but on the constant feeling that we are always above the opposite level. Of course, we must recognize him having focused on offering progress in which at no time we take control. All transitions in and out of fights are in real time. At the end, the summary appears on the left side of the screen while we continue on our way. Zero pause
Final Fantasy VII Remake works better in any of its basic difficulty modes (easy or normal) than in the classic mode. As a complaint, the company introduced a system in which they wanted to move part of the sensations of the shift mode from a modern perspective. The "tactical pause" allowed us to choose actions from the combat menu while time slowed down. The control of the characters was momentarily taken from us so that they themselves attacked on their own, having to intervene justly.
The reality is that this mode remains, instead of adding. Each character has two control selections: one offensive and one more conservative. Although at any time we can take the reins of combat, the character will obey the orders of his selection automatically. The issue is that the character fights worse if you don't handle it. Leave the enemy more room to fight back, their movements are slow and clumsy … in the end you spend most of the time forcing the attacks to play it as intended. Or what is the same: making time until the invocation or limit blow of turn.
A month for the return of the myth
Despite the rough edges and the unknowns about what we did not see, it is unquestionable that when you play Final Fantasy VII Remake you feel that you are facing a giant project. Unstable in the visual, it remains to be seen what the exploration zones will be, the total length of the chapters and how much plot freedoms will be taken. From what we saw, certain scenes are reinterpreted … so far we can read.
Final Fantasy VII Remake will arrive on April 10 on PS4. The legend returns in its most updated version.
