Why is Final Fantasy 7 Remake?

 I know a twist is coming, I just don't know where...

So we all know what the Final Fantasy 7 remake is by now, don't we? But can we sit back and truly say we know why the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is? Because right now we've lined ourselves in the path of a full blown trilogy of these remake products and I've got not earthly clue how we got here in the first place. I mean I can assume. I guess that Tetsuya Nomura is a snot-noosed punk who played FF7 back in the day, fell in love with it, and been begging to do anything with that world for years now. Why else would Cloud and Sephiroth both feature throughout Kingdom Hearts without having any actual ties to the core narrative? I'm serious, those two seem to be off having their own conflict throughout the entirety of the first Kingdom Hearts and Sora quite literally plays no part in that storyline whatsoever, it almost feels like a fan edit of FF7 got inserted in the script, and in hindsight I'm pretty sure that was Tetsuya's doing.

I ask this now having actually had the chance to play the thing in the wake of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade making it's lumbering way to the Steam ecosystem meaning Square is finally willing to accept my money. Oh, thank you so much Square Enix; how very gracious of you! And no: I haven't gotten over the absolute extortionate pricing that the higher ups have decided on for their godawful PC port. I'm serious, this port if a dog's dinner and these absolute clowns think it's totally reasonable charging £70 for it? Thank god that for the first few days of release the game had to be discounted to sensible pricing. That shouldn't have to be the case but I'll happily take that infinitesimal win if it's offered, I need anything they'll give me. Hey; maybe the point of FF7R is to expose greedy corporate machinations in the real world in order to parallel Shinra! Maybe Square Enix is a less flashy evil megacorp trying to strip the planet dry for it's own sordid longevity. Seem legit.

But seriously, I've wondered for a while what exactly it is that makes FF7 the one worthy of a reboot. I think Tetsuya Nomura isn't exactly an FF7 isolationist; he's worked with the franchise for long enough after all, almost made FF15 and has Squall prominently in Kingdom Hearts as well. (Although Squall actually is integrated into the narrative in his 'Leon' guise, unlike Cloud who is literally just there as fan service.) It's not as though FF7 is a flawless game by any stretch of the imagination. For example, despite being just one game originally, it's narrative is practically dripping with 'And then' syndrome where it feels like events are just jumping out at you with little to no build up and the player is just dragged along for the ride. Guys in hoods? Yeah, they're big monster people now. Who are also Sephiroths. But not the real Sephirtoth because he's in a big vat. Or not really because that's the... Genova... Vincent... Cloud is actually... what even is going on anymore? 

I think the Materia system the game implemented is inspired and remains one of the most lightweight but enjoyable to mess around with magic systems in a Final Fantasy to date. (At least it doesn't take half a game to be fully explained like some of the later Final Fantasy's I could think of.) The monster designs are wild and interesting, but that's not exactly away from the norm for a Final Fantasy game anyway. (Character design is what FF does best.) Cloud is a silent Protagonist, and so his input to the greatness of the game is minimal. Maybe it's the core cast, Tifa and Aertih and Barret and Yuffie and Red XIII. They are classics all in their own right, even if Yuffie generally gets left out of character line-ups even though she's my favourite. (Really feeling the disrespect there!) But FF6 is sometimes hailed as a better game and FF4 is said to have the best narrative. So what perfect point in history does FF7 hit to be the chosen recipient of a remake franchise?

Perhaps, and not to take anything away from the individual successes of Final Fantasy 7; maybe it's the time and framing of the game. Remember that the original FF7 hit the presses at a time where the tech behind gaming was improving dramatically and FF7's visual style, though easily trounced today, was a revolution back then with it's in-battle models. Nintendo had jealously guarded the FF licence before 7, at which point the team had to end their partnership in order to take advantage of the new disk-based tech that Sony was rocking when Nintendo weren't; meaning that 7 was also the point where a totally new wave of fans were introduced to the franchise. Maybe the popularity and success of this game is a product of circumstance as much as the actual substance of the software. Yet even saying that; I find it hard to dismiss that there is something timeless about Final Fantasy 7 more so than a lot of the others.

Maybe it's the narrative and the way it tells a story that can always be related to; the struggle against climate catastrophe. I mean seriously; if the strip away all of the stuff about Genova and cloning technology, at the end of the day MAKO is a stand-in for mother earth and every way it's abused over the course of the narrative is an analogy for the overall death of our ecosystem. I do wonder as to why the FF7 writers chose to divorce personal responsibility from the equation by making Shinra the big evil bad guys running the big factories; but I suppose it must be difficult to provide nuanced multi-layered commentary on an anime RPG game where most problems are solved by beating it up with a massive sword. Either way, it's a moral with legs which is as relevant today as it was a near generation ago.

And finally, I think that Tetsuya Nomura is fronting this remake because he wants to fundamentally change the events of Final Fantasy 7. I had a theory on this but it's only been cemented now I've actually played the game; I think all the narrative changes aren't just about making the story sing smoother (although a lot of them do deftly manage that as well) I think the point to establish a distinction between this Final Fantasy 7 and the original. The stepped-up flashbacks that seem forceful rather than just memories drifting into Cloud's mind, the prevalence of Sephiroth who seems to be leaning heavily on the coming twist with almost overt foreboding, and then the strange premonitions about things that Cloud should have no way of seeing. What about seeing Aerith's memories out of the blue? Or, more to the point, crying randomly during one flash whilst in her presence. What is Cloud remembering? Is it maybe what's due to happen to her according to the events of the original FF7? And if so, does this awareness prelude a coming shift from what we expect into a completely different direction entirely? I think so.

Whatever the case, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a remarkably fun action adventure title that retells one of the most classic RPG's of all time for a totally new audience; marrying a fun story with a new standard for game design. I had my misgivings, but I should have known that Tetsuya really knows how to direct games of this style and thus probably knew exactly what he was doing. Just so long as no one let's him make a card-based version of the FF series, leading to a Chain of Memories style situation, I think we can stand to let him mess around with FF7 to his heart's content. Even if his restless heart won't be content until he's literally remade every piece of ancillary content around FF7 from the games to the spin offs to bloody Advent Children. The man is insatiable.