Final Fantasy VII Remake – Five Years On

Bex looks back at a remake

- By Bex Prouse

It's hard to believe that five years have already passed since the international release of Final Fantasy VII Remake. In honour of this, I thought I'd do a look into what Remake and Final Fantasy VII mean to me, and I'm sure, so many others. But first, let's go back to the beginning.

No one can doubt that Final Fantasy VII was the game that launched Square Enix (then Squaresoft) into the international spotlight, and truthfully, it was the first Final Fantasy game I fell in love with. Of course, I have a soft spot for the first one I played all the way through, Final Fantasy X, but it was Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children that truly got me invested in the franchise. My first foray into meeting Cloud Strife wasn't in Advent Children, however: it was upon playing Kingdom Hearts at my friend's house, seeing the mysterious figure on his search for Sephiroth. I wanted to know more, and as it was 2005 – the perfect time to. After all, Advent Children had just come out, and Cloud was returning in Kingdom Hearts II, so I knew I needed to know more about the character.

But, while this celebrates the fifth anniversary of Final Fantasy VII Remake, I can't talk about it without first discussing the major hit that was the original version. After all, it was such a phenomenal game that I became obsessed with it eight years after the initial release. Although this was due to the power of the amount of marketing that went into The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Without Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts, I wonder whether Final Fantasy VII would still have the same impact as if it were just a standalone.