Overall, better than I thought it would be. After playing Crisis Core, I came into this with extremely low expectations. Having played the original FFVII a couple times and hearing all the squawking about this game for years, I was at least interested to see how it would play out. We got about 3 hints total that someone might have recognized Cloud's iconic sword which does not seem to mesh very well with Crisis Core. It was pretty enjoyable except the ending which seemed like it was trying to make a statement about itself, which I found very off-putting and bizarre. There's about 4 chapters out of 18 where you can kind of breathe and run around. The minigames were mostly tedious, but at least there is a break between all the big scenes and spectacle which is radically different from the original. The English voices were surprisingly good, Aerith's was probably the weak link, with Barret stealing almost every scene he was in. Given that Midgar is like 15% (if I'm being generous) of the original game, I'm very interested to see how far they get in Rebirth. Maybe they're going to overload the 3rd game, but at this pace, I don't really see how they're going to get through it without making some cuts. And the time ghosts were dumb and annoying as well as how they implemented the chapter select and DLC. FF team have lost their minds. Still, not bad overall. I do question why they would make a Remake of a game that practically requires you to have played the original to catch on to their shenanigans.

On my 2nd playthrough on Hard, I decided to take the stairs in Shinra HQ. Whatever you do, do not ever take the stairs. You have been warned.

Overall, better than I thought it would be. After playing Crisis Core, I came into this with extremely low expectations. Having played the original FFVII a couple times and hearing all the squawking about this game for years, I was at least interested to see how it would play out. We got about 3 hints total that someone might have recognized Cloud's iconic sword which does not seem to mesh very well with Crisis Core. It was pretty enjoyable except the ending which seemed like it was trying to make a statement about itself, which I found very off-putting and bizarre. There's about 4 chapters out of 18 where you can kind of breathe and run around. The minigames were mostly tedious, but at least there is a break between all the big scenes and spectacle which is radically different from the original. The English voices were surprisingly good, Aerith's was probably the weak link, with Barret stealing almost every scene he was in. Given that Midgar is like 15% (if I'm being generous) of the original game, I'm very interested to see how far they get in Rebirth. Maybe they're going to overload the 3rd game, but at this pace, I don't really see how they're going to get through it without making some cuts. And the time ghosts were dumb and annoying as well as how they implemented the chapter select and DLC. FF team have lost their minds. Still, not bad overall. I do question why they would make a Remake of a game that practically requires you to have played the original to catch on to their shenanigans. On my 2nd playthrough on Hard, I decided to take the stairs in Shinra HQ. Whatever you do, do not ever take the stairs. You have been warned.