If you play video games—or at least did so 17 years ago—then you've probably heard about this big news. After years of waiting, hoping, and pleading, video game developer Square Enix has finally granted the public probably its biggest wish: Final Fantasy VII Remake is finally here, and the first trailer looks absolutely stunning.
First released in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was a huge commercial and critical success and is arguably the most popular entry in the iconic game series. It's a hugely important video game in every sense of the word - for its plot, extensive original score, art direction, gameplay, surprising emotional rapport it builds with players, and, of course, rawness of entertainment.
Even though fans have been clamoring for this for years - there are few things on the Final Fantasy wish list more cliche than a complete remake of Final Fantasy VII , complete with stunning modern HD graphics — still doesn’t feel real. The original version of the game debuted on the Sony PlayStation, and now we have the PlayStation 4. Frankly, as someone who spent a lot of time playing the original as a teenager, I'm not a little giddy at the trailer. First time viewing.
It's an unprecedented concept, at least to my knowledge - a complete remake of this size and scale for a game released three generations ago. In that sense, it does feel like this must be the result of all these years of clamoring. I could try to summarize some important details about the game itself, but I'd be woefully inadequate. The original took about 40 hours to complete, and it contains some pretty big spoilers after all.
Therefore, it can be said that this is an incredible work of fiction in the history of video games and it definitely deserves the highest treatment. There is no doubt that the difference in fidelity will be huge. Perhaps the biggest reason this is so exciting is that the original game, the first Final Fantasy to use polygonal character models, generally looked pretty bad. Take a look at the differences between some similar settings in the original and the remastered version - even though the new content isn't gameplay footage, the contrast is striking.
Or, how about this?
Undoubtedly, the biggest problem with the original was the characters - and to really drive home the point, here's a before-and-after of Final Fantasy 7 's protagonist Cloud, all from behind.
A picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it? In short, Final Fantasy VII is a masterpiece that was released long before it really deserved to be released. The technology was used to tell stories, but was far from perfect to convey as much feeling and environment. But now, it seems to be back in full force with stunning visual power.
In short, it's not hard to understand why people are so fascinated by it. Unfortunately, it's unclear when the remake will hit store shelves - 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the original's release.
Image: PlayStation/YouTube (4); Stanford Funk/YouTube (3)
