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

I got a PS5 in March of 2021 and bought the PS4 version of Final Fantasy 7 after they announced the upgrade for FF7 coming to PS5 in the summer. I didn’t play FF7 until we were in between moving houses and had to live with my wife’s parents for a few months. They didn’t have the internet at their home so I was able to spend a lot more time playing games offline. This opened up the opportunity for me to play FF7 finally. This game is a very interesting one for sure. I have never played the original game so I went in somewhat blind to the story and characters. The character design in this game is phenomenal. My wife who is very not interested in a lot of video games was amazed at how the characters looked and seemed like real people. Obviously, they have their anime/JRPG designs at heart but they still looked and felt like real people in a lot of ways. Branching off of character design the thing that I love the most about this game was the story, the characters, and the way I felt connected to what was happening. I felt like I was a part of the story and my emotions were actually impacted by what happened as the story progressed. I was able to make connections with the characters that not a lot of games present the opportunity to do. Some parts were cheesy and I don’t think that really tampers with the experience it more so adds to the charm of the game. I am not an avid JRPG player so I spent about the first 10-15 hours of the game playing it like any normal action RPG. I was struggling in many of the combat sections. I was so confused for much of the time until I had a friend tell me about certain weapon types and the abilities that were better for types of scenarios. That opened up the game’s combat parts a lot more for me and I really enjoyed it a lot. This game almost perfectly blends the combat of hack and slash ARPG type games with the strategy and turn-based combat of a JRPG and I really liked that a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent playing this game and can’t wait to finally get a part 2 and 3 eventually.