Final Fantasy VII Remake (ファイナルファンタジーVII リメイク) is a 2020 Japanese video game developed and published by Square Enix. This is a remake of the classic 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII that was released for the original PlayStation. The UK version was officially released on 10th April 2020.
Note: This post has been updated in August 2023 to reflect the current blog layout and some minor tweaks to the original write-up.
Background:
So this will probably be a surprise to many, but I have never played the original Final Fantasy VII game and I only just played Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII like two months ago (and I have played parts of Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XV and a little bit of the Nintendo DS remake for Final Fantasy III). Anyway I never played the original when I was younger and while I can go and download the original that was ported to PS4 and Steam, I figured that I would wait for the remake first.
So the remake is an interesting venture. There was a tech demo for the game back in 2005 when the PlayStation 3 was being unveiled at E3 which had some form of hype, and then it became even more infamous when the head of Square Enix announced at PlayStation Experience in 2014 that Final Fantasy VII was coming to PlayStation 4… the original that is (or in fact a port of the PC version). That created a meme for quite some time, and then about six months later at E3 2015 they finally announced a remake.
Tetsuya Nomura, who was the character designer for the original PlayStation version, helmed the remake project as the game’s director, with the original PlayStation’s director Yoshinori Kitase returning as producer. Nomura is more known for being the creator of the Kingdom Hearts franchise and the cancelled Final Fantasy Versus XIII game (which was rebranded and updated as Final Fantasy XV under Hajime Tabata).
While this remake is exciting news for newcomers and hardcore fans of the original PlayStation version, I should point out that this remake is not a remake of the whole game but rather part of it. From what I have heard this game is at least a 1/3 of the original story (or at least the first disc of the original PlayStation version) but I could be wrong (so don’t quote me on that). But regardless, Square Enix did expand the original story a lot with this remake with more content and added story.
The biggest change in the remake is that it’s now an Action RPG (like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XV) with a tweaked version of the Active Time Battle (ATB) system that was in the original. This game is also reportedly estimated to take 35-40 hours of playtime, with tons of extra hours on side-quests and other elements.
This is also one of the very few PlayStation 4 games that uses two Blu-ray discs. The first disc covers the installation part which is required first, and the second disc is the game portion which you can use after installing everything. In addition, the game will take up at least 100GB of storage space so be ready to make sure that you have enough space before installing this game.
Deluxe Edition Contents:
There were multiple editions released for Final Fantasy VII Remake and the one I ordered was the Deluxe Edition, which is exclusive to the Square Enix store and retailer GAME for the United Kingdom territory.
Priced at £79.99 SRP, it comes with a steelbook case as well as the regular PlayStation 4 case, plus a 64-page Hardback Artbook, a mini-soundtrack CD, and a download code for Cactuar Summon Materia DLC.
Disc Specs:
Distributor: Square Enix
Released: 10th April 2020
The PlayStation 4 release for Final Fantasy VII Remake that I own is the European/UK release from Square Enix. The disc is region free, like the other games released for the console, and takes up 90.66 GB of hard drive space as of Version 1.00. The space was added between the Data disc (Disc 1) and Play disc (Disc 2).
The game does feature downloadable content with additional add-ons for the gameplay like extra summons. Trophy-wise, this is doable but requires you to playthrough the game multiple times to cover every missable area but there is chapter select available to fill those gaps.
| Region | UK/Europe |
| HDD Space | Data disc: 45.272 GB Play disc: 45.388 GB Overall: 90.66 GB (as of Version 1.00) |
| Remote Play Support | Yes |
| Trophy Support | Yes |
| Local Players | 1 |
| Online Players | 0 |
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Final Fantasy VII Remake is available to own in digital and physical form for PlayStation 4. It is currently timed exclusive for the PlayStation 4 by 12 months, so it should be available on other platforms in 2021.
You can order the Deluxe Edition for PlayStation 4 at GAME and Square Enix store, and the regular edition on Amazon UK.
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