Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier will shut down on January 11th, 2023, Square Enix has confirmed.
This will be just over one year after the free-to-play battle royale game launched on Android and iOS in November 2021.
“Despite all our efforts to bring you regular updates with fresh and exciting content, we haven’t been able to deliver the experience that we were hoping to, and that you all deserve, so we have made the extremely tough decision to end service for Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier,” Square Enix wrote in a statement via the game’s official Twitter account.
The company adds that it will continue to provide updates for the game leading up to its closure. However, Shinra Credits, the game’s in-app currency that can be purchased with real money, have been removed from the in-game shop. Therefore, only previously purchased Shinra Credits can be used until service ends.
Square Enix attempted to make The First Soldier stand out through multiplayer combat that mixed traditional guns with character classes, spells, monsters and locations from Final Fantasy VII. That said, the battle royale market is incredibly saturated, even on mobile, due to juggernauts like Fortnite, PUBG, Apex Legends and Call of Duty.
While The First Soldier is coming to an end, the Final Fantasy VII series is pushing along at full speed. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, a remaster of the PSP prequel to the original FFVII, will launch on consoles and PC on December 13th. Additionally, Ever Crisis, a mobile retelling of the entire Final Fantasy VII series, is set to hit mobile sometime later this year. And, of course, there’s the highly anticipated sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake, titled Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which will release on PS5 sometime “next winter.”
Now, these sorts of developments aren’t exciting or, worse, are disappointing. After all, acquisitions first and foremost benefit companies, not consumers. But what’s noteworthy is that this could signal a fresh start for Eidos Montreal. That’s because the Canadian developer has been putting out great games for years now, but they’ve seemingly not garnered the attention they’ve deserved. It’s no secret that Square Enix mismanaged its Western studios, hence this recent sale to Embracer, but Eidos Montreal perhaps suffered the most. The team’s first Deus Ex title, 2011’s Deus Ex: HumanRevolution, performed well for Square Enix, but the sequel, 2016’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, did not. Plans for a third game ultimately fell through so Eidos Montreal could make Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, another game that garnered acclaim but didn’t live up to sales expectations. In the case of both Mankind Divided and Guardians, it would seem that misplaced marketing played a major role in selling the otherwise quality experiences short.
While I’m certainly happy we got Guardians, it always felt like a missed opportunity to not continue Deus Ex. Mankind Divided laid a lot of solid groundwork that a threequel could have picked up from, but even if Eidos Montreal didn’t want to continue Adam Jensen’s story, there are so many other directions the series could go in. Warren Spector’s original Deus Ex was way ahead of its time, tackling gripping political intrigue and futuristic technology while delivering an innovative and defining “immersive sim” experience. But the industry has come a long way in the 25 years since. It would be fascinating to see what a group of creatives would do with the property now, especially as technology and the social climate have changed so much. And after CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077missed the mark for many, a smaller, tighter cyberpunk game in the vein of a Deus Ex would have — and still could — feel like a breath of fresh air.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided crafted a rich futuristic world to explore.
Of course, it’s unclear exactly how Eidos Montreal or the Deus Ex property at large will fare under Embracer, but the potential is certainly there. The fact that the Canadian developer was pretty much immediately given the reins to the series, coupled with Embracer’s comments about seeing “great potential” in properties like Deus Ex, certainly gives some hope. The team said earlier this year that it has multiple projects in development, so it’s possible one of them is Deus Ex. Please, Embracer — help Deus Ex bring the series back!
Per an announcement from Embracer, the company acquired Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, Square Enix Montreal, as well as several IPs, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and “more than 50 back-catalog games.” Embracer says the companies will form its 12th operative group and will be headed by Phil Rogers.
We are happy to announce the completion of the acquisition of @CrystalDynamics, @EidosMontreal, & soon to be renamed @SquareEnixMtl! The companies will form the 12th operative group under the leadership of Phil Rogers. A warm welcome to all new colleagues.https://t.co/9t5nHktjEo
Embracer has steadily grown its gaming portfolio through various acquisitions over the years. Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal will join Deep Silver (Saints Row), Gearbox (Borderlands), Saber Interactive (Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary) and Dark Horse Comics (Hellboy).
Moreover, it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, Embracer does with the new IP. Fans were quick to reply to Embracer’s tweet about the acquisition asking for a new Tomb Raider game. Hopefully, the acquisition works out well for the Canadian studios involved.
Through this agreement, Square Enix would give up iconic properties like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief, and focus more on its Japanese portfolio. In a recent GamesIndustry.biz interview, Eidos Montreal founder Stephane D’Astous mentioned that none of this was a shock to him, given that, based on his experiences, Square Enix had been mismanaging its Western studios for years. There’s since been a lot of talk about what will happen with the publisher, especially as more and more companies look to be acquired.
But if you ask me, the biggest casualty of Square Enix’s Western business isn’t Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, or any of the other IPs it’s confirmed to be forking over to Embracer. No, that would be Sleeping Dogs, the 2012 open-world action-adventure game from Vancouver’s United Front Games.
Amid all of this Square Enix news and Sleeping Dogs‘ 10th anniversary on August 14th, I’ve found myself reflecting on the game. Sure, it might have been one of many Western titles that Square Enix considered a commercial disappointment due to, by its own admission, “exceedingly high” expectations. But it was a real gem, and it’s a damn shame that we never got a proper sequel and, worse still, that United Front sadly ended up shuttering a few years later. Because after replaying Sleeping Dogs over the past week or so, I’ve come to appreciate it even more than I did the first time around. In several ways, it holds up remarkably well, even among the litany of other open-world games since. Simply put, it deserved better, and here’s why.
A standout story
Like a lot of games, Sleeping Dogs is heavily inspired by Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series, particularly with its open-world crime-centric premise. In fact, it even started out as an entry in Activision’s GTA-esque True Crime series before moving over to Square Enix. But a big part of what distinguishes Sleeping Dogs, even 10 years later, is how it approaches that sandbox framework. While many GTA-likes — including, even, Rockstar’s own Red Dead series — are all about straight-up criminals, Sleeping Dogs follows an undercover cop named Wei Shen as he infiltrates the Triad in contemporary Hong Kong. Structurally, the game is divided between missions for both the police and Triad, with Wei finding himself torn between the opposing worlds.
While we’ve seen similar stories in Hong Kong films like Infernal Affairs, from which United Front openly drew inspiration, it still feels novel in the gaming space, especially in the open-world genre. The core conflict of Wei struggling to balance conflicting loyalties — and, through that, discover his own identity — is genuinely fascinating. All told, Wei proves to be a compelling morally grey character — not an outright criminal like most Rockstar protagonists, but also not exactly the hero we see in many other games.
Making things further distinct is the voice cast, which is both predominantly Asian and absolutely stacked. We’re talking the likes of The Good Doctor‘s Will Yun Lee (Wei), Michael Clayton‘s Tom Wilkinson (Superintendent Thomas Pendrew), The Farewell‘s Tzi Ma (gang leader Henry “Big Smile” Lee), Kill Bill‘s Lucy Liu (singer Vivienne Lu) and, even, La La Land‘s Emma Stone as Wei’s girlfriend Amanda. Admittedly, some are underused (like Amanda, who feels like a glorified cameo after appearing only in two brief missions), but overall, the performances are solid and the characters quite likable and interesting, especially throughout all of the story’s entertaining twists and turns. (Special shoutout to Wei’s childhood friend Jackie, voiced by Vancouver’s Edison Chen, who’s such a lovable bro.)
Kicking ass and taking names
It would have been enough to just use the cop/Triad story to fuel the narrative, but United Front also cleverly weaves that setup into Sleeping Dogs‘ core gameplay systems. As mentioned, Wei takes on missions for both factions, and each is given its own RPG-lite progression path and rewards. For example, Triad XP is awarded for carrying out more violent actions, while you net Police XP for minimizing property damage and completing cop side missions. With these points, you can unlock Triad skills (focused around hand-to-hand combat) and Police skills (emphasizing navigation), respectively, while a third, morally neutral combo-centric skill tree is tied to a sidequest involving Wei’s martial arts school. This all creates an intriguing tug-of-war dynamic to progression that might encourage you to play a little bit differently, be that mid-mission or even to take on some of the police-related side activities. It’s also just a neat spin on the traditional sort of morality system we’ve seen in games, where your character’s alignment is represented with “good and bad” bars.
Of course, those even somewhat familiar with Sleeping Dogs know that it also stands out from the pack through its focus on melee combat. In fact, you go several hours before even getting to fire a gun, a stark contrast to many other games which begin with an explosive firefight. It’s a welcome level of restraint from United Front, and it makes the later gun-focused setpieces and Max Payne-style bullet time feel just a bit more special and earned. Leading up to that, though, you’ll be doing a lot of punching and kicking.
Remember the Batman: Arkham games? Sleeping Dogs draws heavily from those, especially through its single-tap timed counter system. And hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! But Wei can also perform deadly environmental takedowns, which predate a similar mechanic in 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight and are, of course, more brutal than The Dark Knight’s non-lethal methods. Grappling a guy and then shoving him headfirst into a meat grinder or aquarium, then picking up the knife or giant fish that fell out of that mess to attack his buddies never gets old. In other instances, you’ll be thrown into chase sequences — either you pursuing a suspect or, in some cases, the cops coming after you — which further diversify the moment-to-moment gameplay.
Credit must also be given to United Front for its recreation of Hong Kong. With Rockstar games, imitators like Mafia and Saints Row or even superhero adventures like Marvel’s Spider-Manall being set in various parts of America (or, in the case of Arkham, the fictional American city of Gotham), Sleeping Dogs‘ Asian setting feels even more exceptional. It’s a richly crafted, dense and geographically diverse locale whose high-rise skyscrapers nicely contrast with smaller suburbs and packed market districts. The activities you can take on within the city are also enjoyable, particularly karaoke; hearing badass Wei sing “I Ran (So Far Away)” by A Flock of Seagulls has fondly stuck with me over the past decade. You’ll also find quirky civilian sidequests also reward you with Face (affecting your ability to purchase rarer items, get discounts and more), and they’re just silly fun in their own right, like crashing a woman’s car in the water to help her claim its insurance.
A great foundation
Of course, Sleeping Dogs is not a perfect game. The aforementioned skill tree system is painfully basic and linear, so there’s no way to branch out and fine-tune Wei’s progression. The melee combat, while certainly engaging on the whole, is rather simple and lacks the fluidity of something like Arkham. That’s to say nothing of the sometimes tedious nature of navigating the open-world, as the game bafflingly lacks a fast travel system, and the only solution is to chase down a cab and pay it to instantly bring you to a destination. The marker-filled map also certainly feels somewhat dated in a post-Breath of the Wildand –Elden Ring world.
But these issues just make it all the more disappointing that we’ve never gotten any sort of proper sequel to Sleeping Dogs. United Front laid such a strong groundwork with many good ideas that it’s easy to see how a follow-up could have meaningfully built on it, Uncharted 2- or Assassin’s Creed 2-style. What’s even more saddening is that United Front was, in fact, in early production in 2013 on a since-scrapped sequel. In a November 2016 Vice feature, we learned that Sleeping Dogs 2 would have centred around Wei and a “conflicted, corrupt partner” named Henry Fang as they tackled China’s Pearl River Megacity. Players would have had the ability to arrest any NPC and follow a branching storyline that offers different sides to missions depending on whether you used Wei or Henry. United Front also proposed a “cloud-based” system that would let players use a mobile device to further influence what would happen in-game, such as by summoning a police helicopter. Players would also be able to affect other people’s games by collectively working together to tackle crime, which sounds not similar in spirit the brilliant community-focused asynchronous multiplayer elements of 2019’s Death Stranding.
Everything that could have been improved from the original game, coupled with United Front’s early ideas for new features and mechanics? There’s just so much potential, and it’s heartbreaking that it hasn’t ever been realized. And considering how much technology has developed, it’s easy to imagine how these concepts could, in theory, be better realized today, two console generations later. Instead, all we’ve gotten since besides a remaster is a weird MMO spin-off called Triad Warswhich was cancelled in 2015 in the beta stages after United Front correctly realized that it wasn’t what players wanted out of a Sleeping Dogs successor.
Further complicating matters: we don’t even officially know who owns Sleeping Dogs right now. When the Embracer news came out, Square Enix was asked if Sleeping Dogs was one of the unnamed IPs that it was selling, but no answer was apparently given. Regardless, it would be wonderful if some studio could take on Sleeping Dogs — if not one affiliated with Square Enix or Embracer, then even an external team for a spiritual successor. Considering GTA has such a massive gap in between releases, the market seems all the more prime to welcome a new Sleeping Dogs.
Replaying Sleeping Dogs and it is AWESOME. Someone should make that movie…
Because man, what United Front created in 2012 was pretty special. There’s a reason you see so many people on Twitter share positive anecdotes about discovering or replaying Sleeping Dogs. There’s a reason people quickly wondered what the Embracer deal meant for the game. And there’s a reason why major stars like Donnie Yen and Canada’s own Simu Liu have expressed interest in adapting it into a movie, suggesting a potentially larger audience for the property.
Who knows what, if anything, lies in store for Wei Shen and Sleeping Dogs, but one thing’s for sure — it would be a true crime not to revisit them.
Sleeping Dogs: DefinitiveEdition, a remastered version of the original 2012 game with all post-release downloadable content, is currently available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Mac.
Square Enix has confirmed that Avatar: Generations, a new Android and iOS game based on Nickelodeon’s beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender series, will soft launch in Canada, Denmark, South Africa and Sweden sometime later this month.
Access will expand to additional countries and territories “in the months following,” according to Square Enix.
Developed by Square Enix London Mobile in partnership with Vancouver’s Navigator Games (Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast), Avatar: Generations is a free-to-play turn-based RPG in which players control fan-favourite characters like Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko and Iroh. At launch, the game’s first chapter will retell the events of The Last Airbender, with future expansions adding new stories and characters, including Avatar Kyoshi, Korra and Roku.
Players will be able to upgrade and customize characters while experiencing “fan-favorite locations, stories, and events in an open world, as well as brand new stories that expand the universe.”
The final chapter of Square Enix and Disney’s Kingdom Hearts DarkRoad will release on August 26th.
The announcement was made during a previously recorded Kingdom Hearts 20th-anniversary presentation that was released on August 8th. The final chapter will be released via a free update to the Dark Road mobile game.
Experience the Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary event. #KH20th
Watch snippets of KH music performed by an orchestra, interviews with Tetsuya Nomura, Ichiro Hazama, a message from Hikaru Utada, and the release date of the final chapter of KH Dark Road: https://t.co/j4Gvb2snr5pic.twitter.com/qNyCCq9uuV
Dark Road is a particularly notable Kingdom Hearts game in that it tells the backstory of Xehanort, the villain of the action-RPG series. It first debuted on Android and iOS in June 2020 as a rebrand of a previous Kingdom Hearts mobile game, Union X [Cross]. While Dark Road‘s online features are shutting down with the release of this final chapter, all of the story content will remain accessible.
Another Kingdom Hearts mobile prequel game, Missing Link, is also in the works for mobile. A closed beta is set to launch later this year, while the full game will feature connections to the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X/S title, Kingdom Hearts 4. An official release window for either game has yet to be confirmed.
That’s a question I’ve been mulling over ever since Square Enix posed it to the world. After all, it’s the 25th anniversary of the iconic Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) — what better time to reflect on my all-time favourite game?
— FINAL FANTASY VII (@finalfantasyvii) July 7, 2022
On a surface level, it’s easy to see why Final Fantasy VII is so (rightfully) revered. It was a technical marvel upon its release in 1997, offering grand full motion video and 3D computer graphics that no prior game — Final Fantasy or otherwise — had featured. It told a deep, emotionally-charged narrative with themes of climate change, class warfare and mental illness that grow further relevant every day. It offered robust RPG mechanics in the form of a Materia system that let you intricately fine-tune each of your character’s abilities and specs. It features one of the all-time great gaming soundtracks, courtesy of legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu. It almost single-handedly sold the original PlayStation and helped popularize JRPGs — a then-niche genre — in the West.
But above all else, I cherish Final Fantasy VII because it helped me findmyself. As they say, all good things come in threes, and so fittingly, the lessons I’ve learned from this game have been imparted upon me in three key periods of my life. What does Final Fantasy VII mean to me? Well, everything.
A journey of self-acceptance
At this point, most gamers probably have an idea of what FFVII is about, but here’s a brief synopsis for the uninitiated. Our story begins as Cloud Strife, a cold, aloof mercenary, joins a group of eco-terrorists called Avalanche to topple the Shinra Electric Power Company. During this quest, they learn of the return of Sephiroth, Cloud’s nemesis, whose mysterious plans put the entire planet at even greater risk.
It’s a riveting yarn filled with countless memorable moments, but its most famous, by far, is when Sephiroth kills Aerith. It was tremendously affecting; the kind-hearted flower girl is taken so soon, robbing you, the player, of both her infectiously warm presence and ever-handy healing abilities. I remember spending ages running around the Midgar Slums, desperate to find a way to bring her back — an effective way to teach a young kid about the impermanence of life.
But for me, the bigger and more impactful twist came just a bit later, in the Northern Cave at the start of Disc 2. After mostly dealing with Sephiroth’s minions up until this point, we find the villain sleeping cozily in a creepy cocoon. As it turns out, everything that’s happened has been Sephiroth manipulating the party to get to that point. The coup de grâce? He reveals that Cloud isn’t the renowned SOLDIER hero he claimed to be — he was a simple Shinra infantryman who never made it into SOLDIER. Worse still, Shinra scientist Hojo had experimented on Cloud in an effort to turn him into a loyal Sephiroth clone, and he even proved a failure at that. All of that trauma caused Cloud to snap, assuming an identity that was formed by stories he’d heard from his best friend, Zack, an actual top-ranking SOLDIER.
It was an earth-shattering revelation for 10-year-old Brad. Our hero lied to us? I questioned everything I knew! And even in the years since, this “unreliable narrator” twist has remained remarkably novel in the video game space, making me appreciate it all the more. What follows, though, is even more painful to watch. We next find Cloud in a comatose state, suffering from intense sickness and the soul-crushing revelation he just experienced. Simply put, he’s utterly broken. Tifa, distraught by what’s happened to her childhood friend, opts to stay with him in the hospital in hopes that he’ll recover. Through some convenient spiritual magic, Tifa’s eventually able to enter Cloud’s subconscious and help him piece together who he really is. It turns out, he was a sad, lonely little boy who pined for Tifa, a popular girl in their hometown. When she nearly died in an accident with Cloud, the townspeople wrongfully blame him, leading the sullen youth to desperately want to leave home, join SOLDIER and become strong.
Now, Cloud’s story hit so hard because it related so heavily to my own. Those who follow MobileSyrup might remember that when Kingdom Hearts‘ Sora was revealed for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate last year, I wrote about why that meant a lot to me. In that piece, I focused on my best friend growing up, who was everything I wanted to be. I was pudgy, short, shy and awkward; my friend was lean, tall, confident and outgoing. He had a girlfriend and knew karate; I was single and could barely kick a soccer ball without falling on my face.
That same friend is the one who loaned me FFVII, which gave it special significance before I even played it. But beyond that, my friend, in many ways, was the “Zack” to my “Cloud” — the person I wished I could see myself as. Underneath Cloud’s badass swordsman exterior lay a deeply insecure loner. Like me, Cloud also was raised by a single mother, except in his case, his father had died, whereas mine was just an emotionally abusive, distant asshole. As someone who’s struggled with confidence and social interaction, I felt seen. We learn that when Cloud once returned home, he felt so embarrassed that he never made SOLDIER that he hid his identity so as to not be recognized by Tifa and everyone else. As a kid who would always nervously slink into a corner to fade away, I understood Cloud’s pain.
Eventually, Tifa is able to help Cloud finally discover who he really is. Crucially, she shows Cloud that regardless of what he or anyone else thought of him, he still saved the day — not as SOLDIER, but as Cloud. When Sephiroth burned down their hometown and nearly killed Tifa, it wasn’t Zack who stopped him — it was Cloud. Because he pushed through his fears and uncertainties to be there for her when she needed him most. That’s what she cared about, not that he didn’t make SOLDIER.
Later, in the party’s airship, The Highwind, Cloud comes clean to the team. “The combination of Jenova cells, Sephiroth’s strong will, and my own weaknesses are what created me. Everyone knew that,” he says. “I’m… Cloud. The master of my own illusionary world. But I can’t remain trapped in an illusion anymore… I’m going to live my life without pretending.” As he says this, the rousing, triumphant Highwind theme starts playing. Accepting their leader for who is and filled with a renewed sense of purpose, the party then excitedly leaves the room. Cloud, now alone, does a big stretch, a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He’s not Zack, nor is he Sephiroth; he’s Cloud, and that’s okay. Final Fantasy VII wasn’t afraid to show us a hero who was deeply flawed. Sure, he could swing a sword like no other on the battlefield, but we also got to see him at his most achingly vulnerable and lonely.
It’s difficult to overstate how significant this all was for me. Growing up, I was often told to be one thing or another. When I did see him, my father would yell at me for being overweight and timid. His devout Hindu parents berated for me reading fiction books instead of the Bhagavad Gita. Kids at school would make fun of me for being nerdy. Even with a loving and supportive maternal family, that repeated external pressure to conform was a lot. And as a mixed kid, torn between two different cultures and ideologies and not looking quite like most my age, I felt like an outsider, just like Cloud. When my best friend moved far away, it felt like I lost the one person who fully understood me.
So, to see Cloud work through a similar identity crisis and come out all the better for it was powerful. He becomes more open about his emotions, like when he admits he’s anxious during a stressful moment in a submarine. He’s more conscious of his teammates, encouraging them before the final battle to leave the airship to reinforce what they’re fighting for, but also saying he fully understands if they choose not to return. He drops the cool front and says corny things like “let’s mosey!” — a good reminder to the player that despite how cool he looks, he’s still just a big dork like many of us. And as a brilliant marriage of narrative and gameplay, the final fight of the game with Sephiroth is an unlosable one, illustrating in a unique way, how much Cloud how has grown.
All of this showed me the importance of staying true to yourself. By doing so, Cloud discovered his own self-worth and, by extension, the enduring loyalty of his friends. In turn, I learned to accept myself for who I am, not what I thought or was told I should be. It didn’t matter if I had the recognition of many, as long as I had the love of a few. What my friends and family valued in me — my honesty, loyalty and genuine desire to do good — was what mattered. This was an essential truth to learn when I was younger, and it’s even more relevant today. Often, I’ll see people making disingenuine social media posts for cheap engagement. People care more about clout, like Cloud did, then earnestness. I even drifted apart from my best friend in high school because he turned into a completely different person in a disappointing effort to become more popular. There are few things more important than sincerity, and I have Final Fantasy VII to thank for teaching me that.
Have a little faith
I have a complicated relationship with religion.
As I alluded to before, my paternal grandparents are hardcore Hindu — the sort that wakes up at 3am to pray, constantly preaches to everyone and frowns upon family doing pretty much anything that could, you know, be perceived as fun. That wouldn’t be nearly as bad if it didn’t come laden with hypocrisy. At the same time I was told that meat-eating, gambling and leather-seated cars were wrong, I would see this same family… eating meat, gambling and rocking cars with leather seats. Hell, my dad would literally take me to Burger King, get me a burger without the patty, tell the guy working there that we shouldn’t be eating meat, and then order a chicken sandwichanyway. This “do as I say, not as I do” mentality was enough to make me pretty jaded at an early age. For a while, I couldn’t understand why anyone, outside of those being forced into it like I was, would even bother with religion.
But then I played Final Fantasy VII, and I began to open my mind. When you boil it down, pretty much any work of art has a theme of “life,” but FFVII took that concept to a level I had never seen in a game. Several hours into the game, the party stops at Cosmo Canyon, the home of party member Red XIII. Here, we meet Bugenhagen, Red’s grandfather, who explains the Lifestream, an ethereal substance that keeps the planet alive. When people die, they join the Lifestream, creating Spirit Energy which, in turn, fuels the birth of new life.
When I first watched this scene in Bugenhagen’s observatory, I was stunned. A video game espousing profound spirituality, with similarities to the Hindu teachings I’d been made to sit through and had come to resent? (Not to mention, as an adult, discovering all of the other religions that the game has drawn inspiration from.) To find such beauty in something I had once held in disdain! And that was even before I learned that creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who co-wrote the story of FFVII, dreamed up the Lifestream as “a mathematical and logical way” of dealing with the untimely passing of his mother. Therefore, I started to view religion differently, a feeling that was further validated as I made friends who were Christian, Jewish and Muslim, who all had healthy, lovely relationships with their respective faiths. Although I still didn’t love the role it played in my family, I could finally understand what it meant for others.
Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. Image credit: Apple
All of that’s proven even more poignant now as I’ve been putting this piece together. Earlier this week, a close friend’s sister passed away from an aneurysm. After spending six days listening to him vent — desperately trying to give him some hope that she’d pull through in the hospital — she’s now officially gone. I can’t even imagine how he feels, and my heart breaks not only for him, his parents and his brother-in-law, but also for his young niece and nephew, who will now grow up without a mother. Such a sudden death can no doubt be difficult to process. How do you make sense of it?
While I now identify as agnostic, there’s still a part of me that hopes something like the Lifestream could exist. Some level of comfort, however small, can be found in the belief that the lives that are lost — especially young and innocent ones like his sister — are given some sort of afterlife. Incidentally, my friend’s family is Buddhist, so they’ll no doubt have their own takes on reincarnation.) Knowing Sakaguchi’s inspirations for the Lifestream, and seeing how they could apply to what my friend is going through, adds deeper meaning to FFVII‘s themes for me, even all these years later. Amid all the horrible trials of life that so many people go through, I now see how religious beliefs can provide solace, and I credit VII for helping to make me be just that little bit more empathetic.
Embrace your dreams
After everything I’ve said about Cloud, you’d think he’d be my favourite FFVII character. But actually, it’s Zack. Not in the original game, mind you — he barely has any screentime there, and the pivotal flashback scene in which he dies is, oddly, completely missable! No, I’m talking about the prequel game Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, in which Zack is the lead.
Simply put, Crisis Core itself came at the perfect time for me — March 2008, when I was 13 and just a few months away from ninth grade. That’s a critical time in one’s life. Puberty, teenaged angst, the dread of starting high school… all of it. I needed a big game to dive into, and there FFVII was again.
On the one hand, I shouldn’t have been surprised that I ended up liking Zack. After all, he does remind me a lot of my childhood best friend. But what I couldn’t have foreseen is how impactful his story would end up being. Zack’s arc is, ostensibly, the inverse of Cloud’s; he starts off overly energetic and becomes more serious over time. Totally understandable — by the end of the game, his good friend Sephiroth had a heroic fall and Shinra, the company he gave his life to, begins hunting him down. But throughout all of this adversity, Zack kept reminding himself of his aspirations. His personal mantra, “embrace your dreams,” was what helped him pull through — in this case, dreams of becoming a hero.
In the end, the Shinra army catches up with him, and after an incredibly grueling battle and heartwrenching farewell scene with Cloud, he succumbs to his injuries. But my biggest takeaway, in between balling at what I had just seen, was that amid everything he’d gone through, Zack still held onto his dreams. Despite a literal army at his heels, he stopped to save both a wounded Cloud and a former SOLDIER named Genesis, who Shinra had left to die. Because of this, he never got the happy ending with Aerith that he’d hoped for, but he did fulfill his dreams. In the end, he became a hero. Does that sound like a cheesy anime plot? Sure! But it’s what 13-year-old Brad needed to see. Zack’s story, so intrinsically tied to Cloud’s, had recontextualized my favourite game. Knowing the sacrifice that ensured Cloud would live added deeper meaning to everything that he later went through.
More importantly, though, it proved inspirational. That “embrace your dreams” quote is one that’s stuck with me ever since. As someone who’s always enjoyed reading and writing, I’d always thought turning that into a job would be pretty swell. Then high school comes along and we’re rather quickly pushed to make educational decisions that will lead us down a career path and shape the rest of our lives. At this time, I looked around and saw seemingly all of my peers turn to engineering or some other similar field, and I thought that I maybe should do that, too, even though I’d never been good at math or science. Ultimately, I ended up taking a gap year to figure things out, which included a failed exchange program attempt and a stint at FutureShop, where I’d meet many good friends, including the one whose sister just passed, and come out of my shell a bit.
The music of Nobuo Uematsu has been so important in my life, so you can imagine how much I freaked out after meeting him in my graduating year.
And throughout all of this, I kept hearing that damned quote in the back of my head. “Embrace your dreams.” After many hours in deep thought at the local library, including reading an eye-opening Official Xbox Magazine piece about how writers with journalism backgrounds could break into the industry, I got a crazy thought. “What if you pursued journalism? Honed your writing skills so you could eventually use them to pursue something related to gaming?” Months later, I applied to Ryerson Toronto Metropolitan University, one of Canada’s top journalism schools, thinking it was a long shot. To my surprise, I got accepted and, after a four-year program, got this job at MobileSyrup right after graduating. In the five years since, I’ve gotten to realize many lifelong dreams, including going to E3 and interviewing Hironobu Sakaguchi himself. I still pinch myself that I was able to speak with him.
It’s been a wild, satisfying ride, and it’s all because I listened to this spiky-haired fictional character. Not bad, huh?
On Our Way
It’s not an understatement to say that Final Fantasy VII changed my life. When I was 10, it taught me the value of accepting myself for who I am. In the following few years, it taught me to accept others for who they are. And during my teens, it taught me the importance of always pursuing your dreams.
If that weren’t enough, VII has remained a steady source of joy. I make a point of replaying it almost every year, reminding myself of all the memories and life lessons that have come about from it. It’s like a warm blanket. When I’m not playing the game, I regularly turn to Nobuo Uematsu’s majestic music, which never ceases to genuinely move me. The soundtrack has many beautiful pieces, but “Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII” has provided so much comfort in my darkest moments — I hold it very dear) And now, with the ongoing Final Fantasy VIIRemake trilogy, I get to experience fresh adventures with Cloud and the gang — basically old friends at this point — for years to come.
At every point in my life, Final Fantasy VII has been there for me, and I’ll always love it for that.
Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is now available as a free download on Android and iOS.
The Square Enix RPG was originally released in Japan in October 2020, but July 27th marks the game’s official worldwide launch.
Set a few years before the events of 2018’s Octopath Traveler, Champions of the Continent follows “the Chosen One,” a hero who must save the land of Orsterra from ruthless tyrants.
Beyond being a prequel to the 2018 game, Champions of the Continent has several other elements in common with its predecessor. For one, it sports the stunning ‘HD-2D’ aesthetic — which mixes 2D sprites with HD polygonal graphics — that was introduced with the first Octopath and used in multiple games since. Acclaimed Octopath Traveler composer Yasunori Nishiki has also returned to produce new music for Champions of the Continent.
Gameplay-wise, Champions of the Continent features similar turn-based combat to the original Octopath Traveler, except it’s centred around a party of eight instead of four. Altogether, you’ll be able to recruit over 64 characters, including Tressa, the playable merchant from Octopath Traveler.
Of course, this being a free-to-play game means that how you unlock characters will be left up to chance, with a suite of in-app purchases supported to more easily acquire better party members.
In related news, Square Enix just launched another HD-2D game, Live A Live, on the Nintendo Switch on July 22nd. For more on that ambitious, once-Japan-exclusive title, read our full review.
Square games have held a special place in my heart for most of my life.
Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts… the journeys they’ve taken me on, and the long-lasting memories and friendships that came about from them, have meant a lot to this socially awkward nerd. Whether it’s the emotionally resonant stories, deep character progression and robust combat, there’s just a magical quality to these games.
Imagine, then, when I found out that a long-lost SquareSoft RPG was getting another shot, nearly 30 years later. Enter Live A Live, a fascinating 1994 title that was only ever released in Japan on the Super Famicom (SNES for my fellow Westerners).
While disappointing sales put a stop to any subsequent plans to bring Live A Live overseas, it’s nonetheless a notable title, as it hails from Takashi Tokita, the lead designer of Final Fantasy IV, co-director of Chrono Trigger and director of Parasite Eve. Now, Square Enix has brought Live A Live to the Nintendo Switch in a remake that changes little from the original experience beyond sprucing it up with the stunning ‘HD-2D’ visuals introduced with 2018’s Octopath Traveler.
Given my lack of knowledge about Live A Live, though, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Would it be like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy? But much to my surprise, Live A Live was decidedly different from those other Square works — both from the ’90s era and in the decades since. And by the end of my 25-hour playthrough, I came to an unforeseen conclusion: Live A Live deserves every bit of the recognition enjoyed by fellow SNES Square RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. By masterfully playing with genre conventions, Live A Live proves to be a superb and unforgettable experience. Impressively, it offers that same sense of wondrous magic that I look for in a JRPG, easily making it my current Game of the Year.
A beautiful anthology
There’s so much to love about Live A Live, but its greatest strength no doubt lies in its radically different seven main scenarios. In “Prehistory,” a young caveman (Pogo) defies his tribe to save a young woman from being sacrificed. “Imperial China” follows an aging martial arts master (the Earthen Heart Shifu) as he seeks three final pupils. A shinobi named Orobomaru is tasked with rescuing a political prisoner and assassinating a feudal lord in “Twilight of Edo Japan.” From Asia to America brings us “The Wild West,” in which a mysterious gunslinger known as The Sundown Kid defends a small town from bandits. Years later, in “Present Day,” martial artist Masaru Takahara pushes himself to become the world’s greatest fighter. Meanwhile, “The Near Future” shows us a psychic-powered orphan Akira Tadokoro who takes on a corrupt government. And, finally, “The Distant Future” tells the story of Cube, a robot tasked with investigating mysterious incidents on a spaceship.
Each premise offers its own terrifically unique flavour, driven in no small part by sharp character designs from renowned manga artists like Detective Conan‘s Gosho Aoyama (“Twilight of Edo Japan”), Skull Man‘s Kazuhiko Shimamoto (“The Near Future”) and Basara‘s Yumi Tamura (“The Distant Future”). These creations were already exceptional and unlike what was found in other JRPGs in 1994, and the Switch remake’s gorgeous HD-2D aesthetic only makes them pop all the more. It really feels like a marvelous short story collection, rather unlike the many bloated experiences we get today.
The variety of each chapter is further enhanced by an eclectic soundtrack from legendary composer Yoko Shimomura, best known for Kingdom Hearts and Street Fighter II. Shimomura’s sublime music has helped me through a lot of rough patches in my life, so it’s been an absolute delight to finally experience her first project for Square. Of course, it helps that the Live A Live original soundtrack is downright phenonemal, and the remake only elevates it. Free from 16-bit hardware limitations, we now have new arrangements overseen by Shimomura that effortlessly mix a considerable assortment of instruments ranging from guitars, saxophones and piano to violins, organs and choirs to sensational effect. Oh, and Hironobu “King of Anime” Kageyama, the Dragon Ball Z opening singer, handles the Japanese and English vocals of the delightfully over-the-top song that plays when Akira commandeers a giant mech. Need I say more?
Ever-changing gameplay that constantly innovates
But strong presentation only gets you so far; you have to care about what’s actually happening in each of these chapters, and they have to feel different. In that sense, Live A Live more than delivers with one of the most refreshingly innovative and diverse gameplay experiences in any JRPG I’ve ever played. Admittedly, the trade-off with the “short story” approach is that you don’t get to spend nearly as much time with any one character as you would in a single narrative experience like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. It’s a worthy compromise, though, allowing Live A Live to stand out among its peers and, even, avoid many of their pitfalls. Compare it to Octopath Traveler, best known for unabashedly trying to emulate Final Fantasy VI. It was a decent game overall, but one that suffered immensely from each of its eight stories feeling too disparate and repetitive in their ‘town-cutscenes-dungeon-final boss’ designs.
Live A Live, though, is far more ambitious in its pacing and structure, and so all seven scenarios, while clocking in at roughly three hours each, don’t play out even remotely the same. Take “Prehistory,” which I picked first: it’s completely dialogue-free, told instead through lively sprite animations and the occasional emoji. Such a novel manner of storytelling lends this chapter a significant amount of lovable charm, particularly through Pogo and his loyal gorilla friend Gori’s amusing bickering. This contrasts nicely with something like “Distant Future,” which, outside of an optional minigame, has no combat until the end. Instead, you’re given free roam of a large ship, the Cogito Ergo Sum, to determine who among the crew is responsible for a deadly series of events. It’s a dark and eerie mix of an Agatha Christie-esque “whodunnit” mystery with an Alien setting, and it’s extremely engrossing. For something tonally in between those chapters, “Imperial China” is a touching fable about a wise old man trying to leave a positive impact on the world before his time comes while having his hands full with young and impetuous apprentices. That’s to say nothing of the engaging Western antics of The Sundown Kid and his rival/begrudging ally Mad Dog, the endearing relationship Akira has with his fellow orphans or Orobomaru’s incredibly stylish ninja running and somersaults through moonlit, trap-filled pagodas in the Feudal Japan chapter.
What does unify each chapter, though, is the combat. Like a lot of classic JRPGs, Live A Live features a turn-based battle system, but it’s got some nifty twists. Namely, it takes place on a traversable 7×7 grid and focuses on a slowly filling bar that’s reminiscent of the Active Time Battle gauge in the Final Fantasy series. In Live A Live, basic attacks can be carried out immediately, but moving tiles or carrying out powerful maneuvers that must be charged will allow your enemy’s bar to increase in the meantime. What makes Live A Live‘s combat so solid, though, is that it’s all about positioning. Not unlike chess pieces, many attacks have unique radiuses covering different directions, requiring you to be strategic about how you move your characters. Do you risk charging up The Sundown Kid’s handy multi-hit, area of effect gunshots, which might end up being avoided or even interrupted by certain heavy attacks from enemies? Maybe you’ll carefully line him up so he can attack with a move that hits through a group. Specific tiles can also be ensnared to cause periodic damage, which only further encourages you to be thoughtful about where you move and attack. While I’ll always have a soft spot for the static turn-based systems of Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, the mobility of Live A Live‘s battles feels fresh and exciting for an old-school JRPG like this.
If there’s an issue with the combat, it’s that there’s a generallack of difficulty balancing across the seven chapters. By and large, most can be completed with few, if any, deaths, making them feel a touch too easy. However, some chapters, like the more combat-heavy “Prehistory” and “Twilight of Edo Japan,” occasionally have battles that come off as overly punishing. That said, this is largely a forgivable issue, since Live A Live, as its title suggests, is more interested — and at its best — when it just lets you live in its manifold settings. Combat isn’t necessarily the focus, at least in several chapters. In this way, it thankfully avoids the grinding tedium that can befall many JRPGs.
Moreover, each level offers its own unique gameplay gimmick, many of which impact combat in some genuinely creative ways. For example, Pogo’s ability to sniff out where random encounters will occur and Oboromaru’s to hide from enemies are both brilliant ideas to avoid conflict and add a layer of strategy. These help offset some of the uneven levels of challenge, as you’re afforded a welcome bit of freedom in whether to fight in the first place. On a similar note, The Sundown Kid’s uneasy alliance with Mad Dog has them gathering supplies to set up traps with the townspeople, which, in turn, affects the final boss fight. Live A Live‘s willingness to let you alter or even avoid combat entirely is genuinely revivifying for a JRPG, and I wish we saw more of this from other titles in the genre.
It’s also easy to see how Live ALive‘s regular introduction of new mechanics could be quite messy, but impressively, it manages to pull off nearly all of them. I say “nearly” because Akira and Masaru’s individual hooks feel disappointingly half-baked. The former has a mind-reading ability that serves no real purpose narratively or mechanically beyond revealing some optional dialogue, although it’s at least ameliorated by a small, chapter-specific mini-city overworld that serves as a neat segue between areas. Masaru, though, doesn’t get anything nearly as cool; all that changes with him is that he can automatically learn abilities that enemies use on him. On paper, that might sound like a compelling angle, but his chapter — which adopts a Street Fighter-esque “Arcade Mode” boss rush format — means your opportunities to use these moves are mostly limited. Worse still is the fact that Masaru is easily the blandest of our heroes; he wants to become an unrivalled fighter, and that’s literally all that defines him. Some brief cutscenes in between each fight could have gone a long way towards shaking his chapter up while providing some insight into who he is beyond “muscly meathead.”
But wait, there’s more…
You might have noticed that the key art for this game features eight characters, and I’ve only mentioned seven. Indeed, there’s more to Live A Live after everything I’ve mentioned thus far: eighth and ninth chapters that bring everything together. Unlike Octopath Traveler, which featured a bunch of disparate stories which awkwardly came together by the end, Live A Live smartly plants connective narrative seeds throughout each scenario. As you go through all seven, there’s a certain key element that brings everything full circle, and you’ll likely begin to notice it over time. But it’s not until you’ve cleared that the eighth chapter, “The Middle Ages,” is unlocked, and it’s here that Live A Live truly lays out its devilishly clever grander scheme. This scenario, which focuses on a young knight named Oersted as he leads a party to save his beloved from The Lord of Dark, is outstanding. What starts off as a seemingly standard fantasy story reveals itself to be downright tragic, and, moreover, a brilliant means of recontextualizing the game as a whole.
The final chapter, meanwhile, is all about sweet, sweet payoff — a fantastic culmination of all previous narrative threads and gameplay mechanics into one thrilling, meaty package. The ways in which each character is brought into the fold — and the greater emphasis on exploration and combat therein — create a more traditional, yet nonetheless exciting, JRPG experience. To say more would spoil the copious amount of surprises, but suffice it to say Live A Live absolutely sticks the landing.
A gem no longer hidden
As a lifelong fan of Square JRPGs, it’s difficult to express how much joy Live A Live brings me. With an avant-garde premise that still feels new nearly three decades later, Live A Live provides something I rarely feel from modern JRPGs: a true sense of discovery. Whether it’s the absolutely sensational character designs and music, wonderfully varied approaches to storytelling, immaculate turn-based combat and enlivening gameplay twists, I was constantly excited to see more. Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger might get much of the attention from the SNES era, but Live A Live, without question, deserves to be in the same conversation. Not only is it my favourite game of 2022 so far — it’s an all-time classic.
Live A Live will release exclusively on the Nintendo Switch on July 22nd. A free demo covering three chapters of the game is also available on the eShop.
The original PS3 classic isn’t even 10 years old and still looks quite solid, on top of having already been re-released with updated visuals on the PS4, so it feels largely pointless to remake it. While it certainly looks better visually and should further benefit from the mechanical improvements being brought over from The Last of Us Part II, I’d ultimately just rather the time and resources be put into something new. After all, it’s telling the exact same story as the 2013 game, and we’re going to be getting, for the most part, another take on this narrative in the upcoming HBO show. Both the remake and the TV series are giving us the same Joel and Ellie story again — not even a different spin or new tale in the same world.
Both are, effectively, remakes of previous Final Fantasy VII titles, and yet, the way Square Enix is approaching them is so much more exciting than The Last of Us Part 1. And I say this as a big fan of both properties; while Final Fantasy VII is my favourite game of all time, The Last of Us — and its brilliant, unfairly hated sequel — are also high on my list of all-time greats. I also understand the financial incentives to create remakes, especially in the age of massively budgeted — and potentially unsustainable — titles.
But the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy shows that you can have your cake and eat it, too. The Crisis Core Reunion is there to give fans and newcomers alike a chance to experience an improved version of a game that has been stranded on the PSP for years, which certainly justifies it getting the re-release treatment. It also provides players with an introduction (or re-introduction) to popular VII hero Zack, protagonist Cloud’s deceased best friend and Aerith’s former lover. But even if this remaster didn’t exist at all, Final Fantasy VII Remake would be more than enough.
When it was originally released on PS4 in April 2020, fans who played until the end were surprised to see the story — which had, until that point, been remarkably faithful to the original 1997 PlayStation game — make some pretty big story changes. In so doing, Square Enix revealed its true intention with the remake.
Note: spoilers for the original Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake follow:
Essentially, Final Fantasy VII Remake, by adopting a multiple timeline structure, is both a metacommentary on the concept of remakes and a sequel of sorts to the original Final Fantasy VII. The long and short of it is that the original game’s version of Sephiroth, the series’ iconicvillain, has entered a new timeline, in which Remake is set. On top of that, Zack is actually alive through a separate timeline, which has further implications for where the story may go. And if there was any doubt that there would indeed be major plot departures, the Rebirth trailer leaned heavily into this concept, teasing Zack’s expanded role while directly asking, “what is fact and what is fiction?”
Zack in Crisis Core Reunion. He’ll also play a major role in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in one of the Remake trilogy’s biggest deviations from the original game. (Image credit: Square Enix)
On the one hand, this is all somewhat misleading for a project that’s branded as a “remake,” and it becomes less approachable to newcomers as a result. It has also already alienated some fans, who are hesitant or downright opposed to the idea of making deviations to a beloved story. I, myself, have previously admitted that it’s been a bit clumsily handled and has the potential to devolve intoKingdom Hearts-levels of convolution.
But for me, it’s also absolutely exciting. The original Final Fantasy VII is available on pretty much every single modern platform if you want the pure, unchanged experience. Square Enix is also giving us another, more direct remake in the form of theEver Crisis mobile game. With all of that out there, why do we need the same Final Fantasy VII experience again? We’ve seen Cloud and friends go on a journey across Gaia to stop the evil megacorporation Shinra and its former soldier-turned-madman, Sephiroth. While we’ll certainly get similar beats in Rebirth and its untitled sequel, the idea of not fully knowing what to expect is tantalizing.
Because it could have, rather easily, been the exact same thing we’ve seen before. We’re in an age where nostalgia is so often manipulated for a quick buck; cheap fanservice is prioritized over telling any semblance of a decent story. It’s how we get things like J.J. Abrams’ TheRise of Skywalker, an utterly abysmal and creatively bankrupt husk of a film. Considering all of that, I find it quite admirable that a developer like Square Enix is willing to take something so beloved and be bold with it.
And, to be clear, this isn’t “messing” with someone else’s creation; many of the key figures of the original Final Fantasy VII are spearheading the Remake trilogy. Outside of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who co-wrote and produced the original VII but is no longer with Square, Remake involes producer Yoshinori Kitase (original VII director), creative director Tetsuya Nomura (original VII co-writer and character designer) and scenario writer Kazushige Nojima (original VII co-writer). The notion of these talented people working with both old and new blood to reimagine their own iconic work is extremely compelling.
After all, decades have passed and the developers are older. They may have more they wish to say. And with age comes wisdom and new life experiences, which can inform how the Remake team approaches this classic tale. I think back to Sony Santa Monica, the studio behind the God of War series. Director Cory Barlog has been candid about how much he’s grown since his work on the original games, particularly through marriage and having a son. That helped shape the mature, emotional and much-adored 2018 God of War reboot, which also has a highly anticipated sequel coming later this year. That’s to say nothing of directors Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami, who have given Capcom their blessings to expand and evolve their original visions in remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 4, respectively. (The former is one of the most well-reviewed horror games in years). Hell, even The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann was inspired to take a risk on The Last of Us in the first place — a marked departure from Naughty Dog’s previous lighthearted works — in part due to his own experiences with fatherhood.
And so far, we’ve already seen Square Enix accomplish all of this, as Final Fantasy VII Remake took considerable care to improve upon the shortcomings of the original game. In place of the spotty English translation came an exceptionally strong script. Gone was the homophobia of the Cloud cross-dressing quest; instead, there was an earnest push for inclusive messaging. Characters who barely had any lines in the original have become fan-favourites with fully fleshed-out backstories and personalities. All of that, plus a general reverence for maintaining the spirit of the original — themes of spiritualism, environmentalism, class and all — ensured that Remake was a genuinely fantastic game.
Square Enix did so much right with Final Fantasy VII Remake that it’s earned the benefit of the doubt with some of the game’s more outlandish twists. (Image credit: Square Enix)
It’s for these reasons that I have a great deal of faith that Rebirth and its sequel will deliver. Of course, there are many ways in which it could fall short. The inclusion of parallel timelines and once-dead characters could get extremely messy or even be bungled entirely. The deviations could further upset fans, including, even, more optimistic ones like me. And many of the Final Fantasy VII prequels, sequels and spin-offs are, admittedly, mediocre or shoddy, with Crisis Core, itself somewhat flawed, being the shining exception. In other words, fan apprehension isn’t unwarranted.
But ultimately, I can’t help but be elated over the prospect of Remake and its sequels. I’ve often likened it to reuniting with old friends and going on brand-new adventures with them; the fond memories of VII will always remain, but you also have fresh ones to look forward to creating. These will include Zack, one of my favourite characters in gaming, and the yet-to-be-seen significance of his return — both to us, the fans, and characters like Cloud and Aerith. I don’t believe the creators would bring him back without having a meaningful role for him, especially all these years later, and I’m eager to discover what that means. And even if you’re not vibing with the general direction of the Remake saga (which, to be clear, is totally fair!), Square Enix should be commended, at the very least, for taking a risk.
Sure, a prettier repeat outing with Joel and Ellie could be fun, but the promise of new stories with other old friends? Now that’s exhilarating.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is set to release on PS5 “next winter.” Crisis Core — Final Fantasy VII — Reunion, meanwhile, is slated to launch “this winter” on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
But for me, the bigger and more impactful twist came just a bit later, in the Northern Cave at the start of Disc 2. After mostly dealing with Sephiroth’s minions up until this point, we find the villain sleeping cozily in a creepy cocoon. As it turns out, everything that’s happened has been Sephiroth manipulating the party to get to that point. The coup de grâce? He reveals that Cloud isn’t the renowned SOLDIER hero he claimed to be — he was a simple Shinra infantryman who never made it into SOLDIER. Worse still, Shinra scientist Hojo had experimented on Cloud in an effort to turn him into a loyal Sephiroth clone, and he even proved a failure at that. All of that trauma caused Cloud to snap, assuming an identity that was formed by stories he’d heard from his best friend, Zack, an actual top-ranking SOLDIER.
That same friend is the one who loaned me FFVII, which gave it special significance before I even played it. But beyond that, my friend, in many ways, was the “Zack” to my “Cloud” — the person I wished I could see myself as. Underneath Cloud’s badass swordsman exterior lay a deeply insecure loner. Like me, Cloud also was raised by a single mother, except in his case, his father had died, whereas mine was just an emotionally abusive, distant asshole. As someone who’s struggled with confidence and social interaction, I felt seen. We learn that when Cloud once returned home, he felt so embarrassed that he never made SOLDIER that he hid his identity so as to not be recognized by Tifa and everyone else. As a kid who would always nervously slink into a corner to fade away, I understood Cloud’s pain.
