Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsWell worth the wait...
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2022
I really appreciate that FF7R isn't overly bogged down with trying to be a note-for-note remake of the original game. I say that as someone who still owns their original copy of the game for the PS1 and would not part with it despite no longer owning a PS1 to play it on.
I love the new story elements and can't wait for it to continue. The combat is fun, although I sometimes longed for the older style, I can't dispute that the new style got my heart pumping and won me over before the end. The music is so good that I had to buy the soundtrack. Between the high dose of memberberries from familiar tracks to the shifting themes of the battle music (not to mention those boss fights... one word: J-E-N-O-V-A) I loved nearly all of it.
Above all, the characters being fully voiced and well animated (along with everything else) made this a game I'd rank alongside Witcher 3. Some people may not like meandering around the slums with Aerith but I loved every minute of it. But I say that as someone who played the original game when I was younger, so I have an attachment to that character in particular that made every moment mean something more. I would not suggest that someone new to the story of FF7 would get the same thing out of the story of those character interactions. I would, however, suggest that anyone into story-driven RPGs give it a shot and hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
In the end, FF7R was the first game I had to own and play on the PS5 (I waited for it to come out on PC and lucked out on getting a PS5 mere weeks before it was released on PC - go figure) and in another 25 years, I may not have the PS5 but I'll still have my copy of FF7R for it.
