4/5 ★ – JaredJDub's review of Final Fantasy VII Remake.

This game is fantastic. I love how they took a game from my childhood and really made it into its own thing. I personally still prefer the old combat system, but this new system works well. I wouldn't necessarily say it's an absolute masterpiece, but it is still a fantastic game nonetheless. First, lets talk visuals. The game is obviously beautiful with its environment, but what I like about it is the emotional impact it had on me. The emotional appeal wasn't there in the original as much as it is here. When you're walking around the slums, you can get an idea of how these people are living, and you can see what kind of place they're living in and it just hits different on an emotional level, where you can practically feel the struggle these people may have day to day. Facial expressions, personality, etc. all gets conveyed much better with these graphics as opposed to the blocky mountain of polygons the original had. The music and sound design was great too. Remixing some of the original tracks and adding in some of their own, fantastic. I also really liked how you could buy/take records and play them at different locations. The sound paired with the visuals beautifully. The game play itself was really great too, though it's why I'm not giving the game 5 stars. If I could customize the controls, that'd be FANTASTIC. But I can't, and apparently I'm in the minority, but I hated the controls. To me, they were insanely un-intuitive and I honestly had a hard time with them. "Git gud" and getting used to them (I'm still not really, tbh) was the only way I could actually beat anything in the game. I feel like there's something wrong by having the X button be something that slows down combat, and not execute an action. That and R1 was to guard, R3 was to lock on enemies, and the right stick was to switch enemies, and I just felt weird about it all. I would have rather allowed X to be my main attack, square to guard, and R1/L1 to lock on, and triangle to pull up the ATB menu. Maybe use L1 or L2 to change modes for cloud and do the other abilities for other characters. Like I said, I'm in the minority because most reviews say how fluid the battles were...and I had the opposite experience. Still though, the controls aren't enough for me to dislike the game, and I still pleasantly enjoyed myself, which is why I'm giving it a 4/5.