Hanging out with buds, killing fate

21 August 2026

This is my second time having beaten FFVII Remake and I just really like this game a lot. I don't even have a particular ton of nostalgia for the original, but this game grows it out of you. It's done with such love and care for the old game, it feels like FFVII came alive. The characters look and sound the way you imagined they would when you played it originally, the soundtrack bigger, fuller, meeting the grandness of the story. The game makes you understand why people fell in love with it so long ago and why it holds such a singular place in Final Fantasy and gaming canon.

The characters feel basically perfect, there's a warmth to them and how they interact with each other that really makes it feel like getting the gang back together to go take on megacorps and the personification of destiny. It earns its way to that spectacular climax by building these relationships in real time, both between our main cast and with its own legacy. Because we know this story, where it goes, and who these people are already, they get to fight fate.

The combat system is also really fun, a great homage to the old system while making it more active and engaging. If there's a complaint here, it's that your party members are a bit too shitty at generating atb, although one could say maybe that's a feature to not overwhelm the player with continual play stoppages.

The game's best and worst parts are the same: every element of the original is looked at and expanded. Where the expansions are best they add additional texture to the characters. The biggest glow up here is Avalanche, the characters die in the original and there's not a lot there to make us care but here they're actually fleshed out enough to make us feel something when they die.

Then there are the sections that were expanded almost out of obligation, like parents who don't want to be seen as picking favorites. "We did so much in the sector 7 slums, we gotta add more to the train graveyard."

No, you don't.

The craziest spot for this was in the Shinra building. Right after you meet Sephiroth in Hojo's lab you're just totally side tracked by doing whatever Hojo does and it's just so pointless. We're at the most exciting, the meatiest part. Let's go! I guess they spent a lot of time on that Red XIII animation and the phs system and damn it they were going to show it off!

The brand new characters can be more hit (Roche, I found him fun and over the top) or miss (Johnny, why are you so annoying?)

For a moment I thought about going back to clean up some achievements that I was close on but eh, I just don't care. I've been really trying to care less and just do the things that spark joy and not fomo myself. As I've become an adult I think there's more of a desire to turn games into Disney World. I'm just going to ride everything here because damn it I paid for it and I may never do it again so I don't care if I'm tired or sick I'm seeing it all.

But realistically I don't look at the Steam achievements after the game is done so why go through the effort of getting that last ride on the Tea Cups if it's just going to make me vomit all over the place?