Synopsis

In the gigantic industrial city of Midgar, the Shinra Electric Power Company exploits mako, an energy source extracted directly from the planet. In response to this exploitation, the resistance group Avalanche carries out a series of operations against the reactors that power the city.

A former member of the elite SOLDIER unit turned mercenary, Cloud Strife agrees to take part in a mission led by Barret Wallace and his group against Mako Reactor 1. What was supposed to be a simple contract gradually draws Cloud into a much larger conflict between Avalanche and Shinra.

Along the way, Cloud reunites with Tifa Lockhart, meets the flower seller Aerith Gainsborough and begins to be haunted by visions connected to Sephiroth, a legendary warrior he believed belonged to the past. The struggle for Midgar thus becomes the beginning of a story in which Cloud's memories, the fate of the planet and the traces of an old enemy begin to converge.

Overview

Some remakes restore an old game, while others use the original as a starting point. Final Fantasy VII Remake clearly belongs to the second category. Square Enix does not attempt to mechanically reproduce the 1997 RPG with more polygons: the studio takes a relatively short portion of the original adventure, Midgar, and expands it into a full game.

This decision profoundly changes the way the city is perceived. Reactors, slums, residential districts, railway infrastructure and Shinra buildings are no longer just a handful of environments crossed in a few hours. Midgar becomes a genuine living space, vertically divided between those who live on the plates and those who exist beneath their shadow. The contrast between spectacular technology and social exploitation, already present in 1997, therefore gains much stronger physical weight.

The combat system represents the other major transformation. Cloud and his companions move, attack, block and dodge directly in real time, but traditional RPG commands do not disappear. The ATB gauge still allows the use of abilities, spells and items, while slowing down the action gives the player time to switch characters and organize their decisions.

This hybrid approach works because every member of the party follows a different logic. Cloud alternates between mobility and counterattacks, Barret fights effectively at range, Tifa builds rapid combinations and Aerith relies more heavily on magic. Switching characters therefore becomes a natural part of combat rather than simply an optional feature.

But Remake reserves its most important transformation for its relationship with the original story. As the adventure progresses, the question gradually stops being merely “how will Square Enix recreate this scene?” and becomes “does this scene still have to happen in exactly the same way?” The word Remake then begins to mean something far more ambiguous than a graphical reconstruction.

Key takeaways

  • Midgar becomes an entire game. A section that only formed the beginning of Final Fantasy VII in 1997 is greatly expanded with new locations, characters, scenes and storylines.
  • Combat merges action with traditional RPG systems. Attacks happen in real time, but ATB gauges, abilities, materia, spells and character switching preserve a strong tactical dimension.
  • Every character has a genuine mechanical identity. Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Aerith do not simply play with different statistics: their range, rhythm and abilities directly change how battles are approached.
  • Midgar gains real social depth. The remake develops life beneath the plates, the consequences of Shinra's domination and the people caught between resistance, exploitation and everyday survival.
  • Faithfulness to the 1997 game is not absolute. Final Fantasy VII Remake recreates many iconic scenes but also introduces new elements that gradually transform the very nature of the project.

PANACHES review

Final Fantasy VII Remake probably had one of the least comfortable missions a development team could be given: remake a game whose every memory is treated by part of its audience like a museum piece. Change too little and the result would be an expensive restoration. Change too much and the question would immediately arise: why still call it Final Fantasy VII?

Square Enix ultimately chooses to live inside that tension.

The result works first because Midgar deserved to be expanded. In 1997, the city already had an extraordinary identity, but much of its power came from what imagination had to fill in between a handful of pre-rendered screens. Remake gives physical volume to that intuition. We understand better how people move through the city, how districts exist beneath the plates and, above all, what it really means to live literally underneath the city of the privileged.

This expansion works particularly well with the characters. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge finally have enough time to exist as more than secondary silhouettes. Barret retains his explosive energy but quickly gains nuance. Tifa is no longer defined only by her connection to Cloud's past. Aerith can be funny, strange, lighthearted and unsettling within the same conversation.

Cloud may benefit even more from this additional time. His deliberately cold behavior becomes almost comic when he encounters people who refuse to respect the distance he tries to maintain. Behind the extremely self-assured former SOLDIER, someone far less stable than the image he projects gradually begins to appear.

Combat is probably the best proof that modernization does not require erasing what existed before. Remake could easily have become a conventional action RPG in which statistics merely decorate the dodges and combos. Instead, it preserves a genuine need to think about weaknesses, materia, ATB gauges and party composition. Some encounters almost become tactical puzzles played in real time.

Not everything about Midgar's expansion is equally elegant, however. When a few hours from an old game have to support an adventure lasting several dozen hours, the stretching sometimes becomes visible. Some side quests remain forgettable, certain sections slow the pacing artificially and a few areas feel as though Square Enix primarily wanted to add several extra kilometers between two important events.

This weakness almost mirrors the project's greatest strength: Remake wants to give more space to everything. Sometimes that space allows a character or district to finally come alive. Sometimes it simply feels like padding.

And then the game gradually stops asking its source material for permission.

That is where Final Fantasy VII Remake becomes genuinely interesting. The project's best idea may not be remaking Final Fantasy VII, but turning our knowledge of the original game into narrative material. Players who know what is supposed to happen become sensitive to every shift, every anomaly, every possibility that memory may no longer be a guarantee.

That decision is inevitably controversial. It sometimes complicates moments that once worked precisely because of their simplicity, and it opens questions that this first installment obviously cannot answer on its own. But it also gives the project a reason to exist beyond nostalgia.

Final Fantasy VII Remake does not replace the 1997 game. It enters into a dialogue with it. And it is precisely because the original remains there, intact in our memories or still available on our machines, that Square Enix can afford to start disobeying it.

Good to know

  • Final Fantasy VII Remake was released on April 10, 2020 for PlayStation 4. It is the first installment in the modern reinterpretation project of Final Fantasy VII.
  • The game revisits and expands the portion of the original set in Midgar, up to the party's departure from the city, while introducing new characters, scenes and narrative elements.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade was released on PlayStation 5 on June 10, 2021. This version notably improves graphics and performance and accompanies the arrival of the additional episode FF7R EPISODE INTERmission.
  • FF7R EPISODE INTERmission stars Yuffie Kisaragi in a parallel adventure set in Midgar and introduces new characters as well as several additional mechanics.
  • The PC version of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade arrived on the Epic Games Store on December 16, 2021, followed by Steam on June 17, 2022.
  • On January 22, 2026, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade was also released for Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. The Switch 2 version is not listed in the plateformes field because the current PANACHES taxonomy does not yet include a nintendo-switch-2 value.
  • The game uses Unreal Engine 4. Square Enix notably developed the PS4 version from UE4.18 before adapting and extending that foundation for Intergrade.
  • At The Game Awards 2020, Final Fantasy VII Remake won Best Role Playing and Best Score and Music.
  • In 2023, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake had surpassed 7 million units shipped and digitally sold worldwide.
  • SensCritique currently displays an average score of 7.5/10.