LogFAQs > #961195463

Someone posted it in my rank-anything-FF topic, and I had to veto it because it wasn't out on Steam yet... and then it released on Epic. So, whoever you were, here are my thoughts:

• The idea of magical time ghosts who look exactly like dementors from Harry Potter who want to keep the timeline's continuity intact by doing things like stopping Hojo from spoiling late game twists and resurrecting Barret when he dies and the heroes having to defeat them so the remake can do new things is conceptually the most hilarious thing ever. Same with the penultimate boss being time ghosts summoning Cloud, Tifa, and Barret in time ghost form from the original game to fight the modern versions.
• It's really bizarre to me how the game emphasizes how heroic the heroes are to 'fight destiny' and all that, and how they're going to do a better job this time around by not letting anyone die. The game goes out of its way to show that no one dies when the plate drops, Biggs and Jessie survive, and Wedge probably survives. The only named character in the whole game who dies is President Shinra. It's such a weird decision, people being able to just die out of nowhere was part of what made the original FFVII what it was. More named characters die in that game than like the rest of the series combined. That's probably not true, but whatever.
• I am convinced that people only like the Turks and Rufus because they look cool. If Rufus looked like an actual trust fund billionaire kid would look, like a pudgy jackass in blue jeans and a polo shirt, he would have no following. I can't help but notice how the Turks no longer killed any innocent civilians, and Rufus no longer says he plans to be evil when he takes over the company. I assume this is to make their inevitable face turn make more sense.
• I thought the gameplay was very good. It's the best possible mixture of classic ATB with modern action games. A+ job there. I know people said the PC port has problems, but I only noticed a few framerate drops occasionally, and some button prompts that still said triangle instead of E.
• This is not a remake, it's a sequel. I can't imagine how this game must read if you haven't played the original. I have played the original, and there were things that still confused me. Characters act like the audience has been introduced to information already, like Sephiroth just showing up with no introduction, Cloud talking about how evil Hojo is long before Hojo is introduced, Palmer just walking into frame like we already know who this jackass is, and everyone calling Red XIII "Red" despite no one establishing that that should be his nickname. Then Zack just shows up at the end, and I have no idea what a new player would make of this garbled nonsense.
• Speaking of Red, why wasn't he playable? Such a bizarre decision. He only joins you as a guest party member when your party has two people, so there's no reason for him to not be playable.
• Speaking of Zack, I had almost no idea what was happening at the end there. He goes back to Midgar, but it's another timeline? But then in the DLC, it looks like it's the remake timeline after all?
• I was shocked how many things from the original that I thought would be cut showed up. The crossdressing sequence, the squatting minigame, and lots of weird pointless things like the computer that makes a gatling gun shoot you for no reason. Although, it can't be emphasized enough how much padding this game has. I guess that's how you stretch a 5 hour game into a 30 hour game, but sequences that took one minute in the original now take twenty minutes or more. I've never seen a game with more padding than this.
• The Yuffie DLC's final boss is maybe the worst thing I've ever seen in any of these games. It's shockingly terrible. I can tell he's from some awful FFVII spinoff I haven't played, Dirge of Cerberus or whatever, because he shows up with no introduction like you're supposed to already know him. He's what I'm going to call both too edgy to be funny and a terribly-designed final boss. And why was her ally not playable? Unlike Red, he even has stats and abilities, so I have zero idea why he's not selectable.
• Best moment of the game was Cait Sith showing up, falling to his knees, and pounding his fists on the ground. Again, I have no idea what someone new to the series, who thought this was a remake and not a sequel, would think. It's been like twenty years, and I still don't know how much control Reeve actually has over Cait Sith.