Final Fantasy 7 Remake: A Retrospective

 Introduction:

What is a remake, really? What is an adaptation? Do artists have the license to deviate from a beloved work when adapting it into some new form? Do they have to make it the same? Is one always good, the other always bad? 

These are questions I found myself asking when reading about Final Fantasy VII Remake. Like the source material, Final Fantasy VII Remake follows a mercenary and ex-SOLDIER named Cloud, who gets swept up in a rebellion against a mega-corporation, meeting such beloved characters as Tifa Lockhart, Barret Wallace and Aerith Gainsborough. 

To call the game a remake feels inaccurate, even. A remake, for me, creates connotations of something completely different, like Demon’s Souls for the PS5, Resident Evil 2 for the PS4, or the Black Mesa mod of the original Half-Life. Something that is built with new technology from the ground-up specifically to resemble, but improve, the original. 

And...that’s not really what we got. That’s what we were told we would get, but even from the get-go, this wasn’t a “remake” like the examples I just mentioned. FF7R has the same basic story, but unlike Demon’s Souls for the PS5, Resident Evil 2 for the PS4 or Black Mesa; it’s not a meticulously-built love letter so much as a massive expansion of FF7 in every possible direction. The combat (now in real time) has newfound complexity, the characters are given more depth and emotion, Midgar feels more alive than ever, the visuals are overhauled so much they’re almost movie-levels of quality. 

It feels more accurate to call FF7R an adaptation, not a remake. And it’s not just an adaptation in small ways, like minorly improving the pacing of a 20-year old scene. No, FF7R is a bold new story that subverts expectations and makes huge, cosmic changes that have fans questioning the nature of the game’s very existence. 

So let’s dive into this. What makes FF7R more of an adaptation, what are the changes present, what do they mean, and what are some comparisons we can draw to other franchises to better understand this enigmatic game? 

Small Changes:

Now, these changes are the ones that, frankly, I don’t care about as much. These are the sort of changes that come with adapting any medium, but they don’t truly set apart FF7R as something different, fresh or bold. In fact, I think a lot of diehards saw these coming. They are:

• This game tries it’s absolute hardest to make Cloud more human and relatable. The original game’s Cloud certainly had charm and character, but he was also something of a blank slate. Fitting as FF7 marked a point where RPG protagonists started transitioning from blank slates to, well, actual fucking people. Remake moves in that latter direction, giving Cloud emotional moments with Cloud and Tifa that makes us ask ourselves “What is really going on in this guy’s head?” Cloud’s silence and neutral expression no longer feels like a vehicle for audience projection, but an actual trait in of itself, a stoic facade he tries to put up to block off his true feelings. A big part of that has to do with the visuals, which allow for the nuances of facial expression in ways that PS1 graphics couldn’t even dream of. 

• Chadley is a new character, meant to ease newer players into the magic of the game. Specifically, Chadley’s role is to essentially explain Materia and Summons. 

• There is now a new scene and mini-game where Cloud dances with the owner of the Honey Bee Inn, new character Andrea Rhodea. This doesn’t have too much of an impact on the story, but it is great meme material and great Clerith material, if you’re into that. 

• President Shinra has a more active role in the story compared to the passive presence he was in the original. 

• There are brand-new antagonists, like Roche and MOTOR. 

• Side-quests and odd jobs are now commonplace. 

• Jessie, Wedge and Biggs are given much the same treatment as Cloud, having more charm and personality than in the original. They even get some of their own side quests. 

• And so, so, so much more. 

But I’m sure you already knew about all that, so let’s dive deep into the bigger changes. 

Larger Changes:

Throughout its nearly 60 hours of runtime, FF7R slowly adds more and more details that are ambiguous in relevance and intent. Things that will make you double-take and go, “Wait, what?” These details slowly pile on top of each other, making the player nervous and forcing them to ask questions, eventually leading to a massive, world-changing and time-warping crescendo at the end. 

It begins small, with Sepiroth. Sephiroth appears much earlier than he did in the original, mocking Cloud and psychologically tormenting him. His presence adds a sense of dread to Midgar not found in the original game. 

Then, the Whispers. As early as chapter 2, these creepy-ass Dementor things keep appearing, though their presence isn’t explained much. While they appear most often in situations that didn’t happen or played out differently in the original, they seem to linger primarily around Sephiroth and Aerith. 

Speaking of which, Aerith acts differently in this game. She’s a magnet for the Whispers, yeah, but she also knows of danger before it happens. She knows things before anyone tells her, and she cautions Cloud not to love her, seemingly aware of her own demise. Why is she acting like this? What does she know? 

These questions we might have---small at first, but lingering---come to the forefront of the story in the climax. Like in the original, the gang confronts Shinra only to find they’ve all been killed by Sephiroth. Unlike in the original, Barret is stabbed...only to be immediately healed by the Whispers. While Aerith seemed understandably creeped out by them earlier, now, they’re some kind of benevolent force, healing Barret on his deathbed.

This catapults us into a completely different climax. Tifa, Cloud, Aerith and Barret arrive in a new realm called “the End of the World.” They exterminate a Harbinger for the Whispers, only to be confronted by Sephiroth in a totally original, Advent Children-inspired boss. Cloud duels Sephiroth and rejects his cryptic offer to “defy fate.” He loses, but Sephiroth spares him. 

To top it all off, the final moments of the game reveal that none other than Zack Fair is alive and well, after all. 

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The Whispers are a sort of meta-commentary on the fans, sometimes benevolent, sometimes not, always present. Not Final Fantasy fans or Square Enix fans overall, or even just fans of Final Fantasy 7. No, they are a specific commentary on fans who wanted a remake of FF7, but wanted it exactly the same as the original. Just an upgraded version, essentially, with nothing consequential about the plot changed. 

If that sounds like an oddly specific demographic to address in your tripe-A remake, let me explain. As I’m sure you’re aware, gamers clamor for remakes of their favorite games all the time, but the history of remaking FF7 is complicated and filled with equal parts hype and disappointment. 

Square had first tested the waters on the idea in the early 2000s, when they announced a remake of FF7, 8 and 9. It was cancelled, to the mass disappointment of fans around the world. Later, Square released a tech demo for the PS3, remastering the opening of FF7 with the new HD graphics, though they denied a remake was actually happening. According to them, this was just to show off the technology of the PS3, though I can’t help but feel they were testing the waters again, just to make sure nothing had changed. 

Both times, fans clamored for a remake, and both times, a vocal subset of fans who loved the original story proclaimed that they didn’t want it changed. It was a bizarre thing to clarify; after all, it’s a remake, it shouldn’t be changing the story at all, right? 

But once the remake was announced for real, nearly 20 years later for the PS4, that vocal subset grew, for a few main reasons:

1. Reason 1: Within 20 years, Tetsuya Nomura had made waves with his reality-warping, mind-bending Kingdom Hearts narrative, and fans worried that the very same person who created FF7’s beloved cast would be the death of it. 

2. Reason 2: We’d seen the rise and fall of many studios that tried to remake games, bit off more than they can chew, and destroyed the entire project in the process. The System Shock remake was the example that hit closest to home for me, but it’s tragically common. 

3. Reason 3: There’s a lot of general anxiety anytime someone---even the original creator---returns to a work after a long absence. Look at how panned Legend of Korra, The Cursed Child and the Star Wars prequels were upon release. 

But Nomura was not oblivious to this subset of fans. In fact, he embraced them, addressing their worries with the Whispers: a Kingdom Hearts-esque reality-warping group of spirits, present in the background at all times, correcting any “deviations” from the source material. 

When Cloud and the gang destroy the Whispers in the end, it’s symbolic. Cloud is fighting against the very fans who want to chain him to the same battle with Sephiroth, and he wins. He is freed from that prison. He has the freedom to become whoever he wants. 

I understand how this might seem like a mockery to the people who genuinely wanted that authentic remake, but I don’t think it is, nor do I think this is somehow unfair to fans. I wasn’t being hyperbolic when I compared fan expectations to a prison. Many artists feel trapped in a particular work or genre after initial success with it, because they’re terrified of losing fan support, even after they’ve grown sick of a project. 

Remember, the people who worked on FF7 have had their entire careers defined by it. FF7 was a landmark in not just RPGs, but video games in general. The success of that game propelled Nomura into the stratosphere, and established trends that have influenced every FF game since then. Essentially, all of Square Enix---but especially Nomura---has been living in the shadow of that landmark game. And they’ve been retelling it over and over and over again: tech demos, animated movies, prequel games, spin-off games, crossover fighting games, even short stories. 

They’ve been given some room to break away from FF7’s conventions; Dissidia Final Fantasy NT portrays Cloud as happier and unchained by his trauma, for one. But I think it’s well overdue for them to start telling bold, brand-new stories, and it starts with Sephiroth and Aerith. 

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Sephiroth and Aerith have had an...unusual history, both in Final Fantasy’s story, and in the behind-the-scenes development. They began as siblings in the original, then lovers, then strangers. But no matter the story Tetsuya Nomura envisioned, they were always going to be two of the most important people in Cloud’s life. 

Now, Aerith and Sephiroth have an interesting connection: both seem to be holdovers from the original timeline of FF7. I don’t know how, but they have knowledge of that timeline, and they know their ultimate fates. Aerith knows that she dies, and Sephiroth knows that he’ll kill one of the only people Cloud ever loved. That’s why Aerith cautions Cloud not to love her, and that’s why Sephiroth tells Cloud “Seven seconds,” a reference to how long Aerith appeared on-screen in the original cinematic before she was impaled. 

That’s why the Whispers hang around them so much, and why Aerith’s first scene has her getting grabbed by one. Aerith and Sephiroth are living anomalies, holdovers from a forgotten time, and the Whispers view them as “mistakes” and “deviations” that need to be corrected. 

Comparisons to TLJ: 

Like I said, I can understand how this might sting, especially because so much marketing was built around the idea that this game is an authentic remake. For fuck’s sake, it’s literally called Final Fantasy 7 Remake. 

Stories like this inherently sting, because they subvert fan expectations, and, well, we’re the fans in question. Furthermore, I’d say there’s a difference between subverting “general expectations” and subverting “fan expectations.”

• Subverting general expectations takes ideas that we’re familiar with in a particular genre (or even storytelling overall) and flips them, but not in a way that’s meant to bamboozle anyone. Stories with bittersweet endings where the hero loses are a great example, like Avengers Infinity War. That isn’t targeting anyone in particular, because everyone thinks the hero wins, so showing a story where that doesn’t happen feels bold and brave, and since it’s not targeted we have an easier time accepting it. 

• But subverting fan expectations feel more personal. These are stories that mess with the heads of a particular subset of fans (vocal or otherwise) by setting up one scenario and doing something entirely different. 

Final Fantasy 7 Remake falls in the latter category, and in many ways, it makes it The Last Jedi of gaming. 

Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi has gone down as one of the most controversial, divisive movies in...well, any genre of cinema. It’s certainly the most controversial movie of its series. And a big part of that was that it subverted expectations: not general ideas common in all stories, but very, very specific bodies of thought emerging in just its fandom. 

• For instance, some people believed that Kylo Ren would stay a villain till the end. Others believed that he would redeem himself. Both groups came away feeling cheated by the outcome. 

• A lot of people felt that Rey and Finn, or Poe and Finn, were set up as love interests in the previous movie, and were disappointed when that didn’t happen.

 

• We all thought that Luke was going to be Rey’s Yoda: a wise, funny mentor figure who taught her the Force, instead of a burnt-out PTSD-ridden shut-in. 

• And, most of all, everyone and their mother thought that Rey was either a Kenobi or a Skywalker, and neither of those things happened. 

I think The Last Jedi acts as something of a microcosm for subverting expectations. Take Amilyn Holdo: we’re led to think of this woman as a power-hungry traitor using Leia’s absence to seize power. Her talking down to and shaming Poe---a fan-favorite---makes it personal for those in the audience, and it convinces us that she must be a traitor after all! 

But, as it turns out, that’s not the case at all. She was Leia’s friend and confidante, and Leia agreed with everything that happened under her control. Hell, she remained loyal to the Resistance until the end, sacrificing herself to take down the Supremacy ship. Rian Johnson gives us a moment to evaluate whether we thought she was the traitor because she acted like one, or whether we thought she was the traitor because she talked badly about Poe. 

To many fans, it felt like a slap in the face; our emotions were toyed with, and to this day, people debate about whether she was in the right or wrong. That is the power of subverting expectations. 

In many ways, that’s what FF7R does. The original FF7 was a game-changer, showing us a new type of storytelling in games we never could have dreamed of. There are entire relationships made out of this game. We hold it close to our hearts, so when Nomura changes it, it feels personal. 

But it’s not. I stand by what I said earlier: fan expectations can be a prison, and artists deserve a chance to stretch their wings and soar to new heights. This isn’t about you, per say, it’s about the creator behind the works you enjoy so much. They deserve a chance to grow and change. They deserve a chance to try something new. 

Comparisons to Comics:

If I had to compare the FF7R controversy to something else, I would also compare it to the adaptations of comic books. 

This is why I felt the need to redefine the game as more of an “adaptation” earlier in this video. I very much hold FF7R in the same category that I do something like, say, Matt Reeves’ The Batman or the MCU Spider-Man movies: it’s using characters we love to tell a fundamentally different story, with its own twists, turns and ideas. 

With each new reboot of a classic superhero icon, there are always people who think it’s “gone too far” in changing the source material. People don’t always evaluate the changes based on their merit in the story, a lot of them evaluate changes in adaptations simply by virtue of being changes. 

And I’m not above this myself! I judge adaptations based on the source material all the time. I got frustrated seeing Tony Stark appear in Spider-Man Homecoming, I got annoyed with Batman killing in Batman vs Superman, and I fear for the changes Marvel will make when they adapt the X-Men to the MCU. 

But I think we, as fans, owe it to creators to be better than that. We shouldn’t judge all changes in an adaptation as being automatically bad, we should evaluate them objectively as writing decisions. And we should do the same for Tetsuya Nomura and his FF7 Remake. 

And, in a way, Nomura has already done something interesting. Unlike the other examples I mentioned, by connecting Sephiroth and Aerith to the original timeline, he’s openly acknowledging that the old and new FF7 are connected. He’s not changing things for the sake of changing them, there’s a grander ambition and a new story on a multiversal scale he wants to tell. 

What’s Next?

As I see it, there are a few directions the remakes might go. I might even be so bold as to say they’ll “probably” go here. 

I think it’s a safe bet to say that we haven’t heard the last about the original timeline. Sephiroth wouldn’t talk about “altering fate” if he meant nothing by it, especially now that the Whispers are destroyed and Cloud is no longer chained to his old life. The story will change in bigger ways, and we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. 

The second idea I have comes from the Yuffie DLC, which features DEEPGROUND. Combined with Zack being alive, it seems like a safe bet to say that more Compilation of FF7 material will be brought into the new story. 

It’s also possible that Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barrit will journey back to the original setting in some way. I’m still unclear on if Remake is set in a parallel universe, or if it’s some kind of splinter timeline created by time travel, but either way, I think some kind of journey there is a safe bet. Like I said above multiple times, we have not seen the end of the Aerith and Sephiroth connection. There is more to their story, and there will be some kind of explanation (no matter how vague or Nomura-ish) that explains why and how they are here, and that explanation could provide a way for Cloud to go back to the original game. 

Which brings me to my final possibility. Aerith’s death in the original game shocked everybody because of how unexpected it was. But now, we all know it, and the unexpected has become the expected. I think the next truly shocking thing that Nomura could do would actually be to keep Aerith alive (maybe having someone else die instead?) and explore the implications of her survival. (This would probably be one of the few changes that die-hard FF7 fans would praise, rather than condemn.) 

No matter what they decide to do, I’m excited. FF7R blew me away and knocked my socks off. I’ve never had my preconceptions about a story be so incredibly wrong, and I can’t wait to see what Nomura does now that he’s freed himself from the shackles of conformity and continuity. 

My name is Jonathan, and thank you for reading.