Playing A Game Final Fantasy VII Remake PS4

The gameplay is ... okay. But storytelling has been my biggest concern with Final Fantasy VII Remake, and the demo's take on FF7's seminal reactor mission offered no solace.

Converting a turn-based RPG into a real-time action RPG may sound absurd, but when you come at it from the direction of Kingdom Hearts - or perhaps more recently, Final Fantasy XV - it actually kinda works. Basic attacks map to button-mashing, magic and items are in quick-access menus, cooldowns and power meters act as throttles on super-moves, lock-on targeting keeps the action moving except when it auto-selects the wrong thing...

Blocking and dodging is terrible. Or, if I'm being very generous, I may not have gotten the hang of this game's defensive moves. Learning anything "advanced" in this demo was pretty tough, since most enemies were a total pushover and the scorpion-tank boss was such a visual mess of distracting explosions.

But even if I did assume that all these game mechanics will work harmoniously in the final product, it's the quality of FF7 Remake's narrative that's got me nervous. And to be clear, I know that the 23-year-old PlayStation game's storytelling doesn't hold up well today; actually, that's part of my worry.

Back in the heady days of tinny music and pre-rendered background art, a great deal of FF7's story came from the player's imagination. And the game did a fantastic job of stoking that imagination, with minimally-explained environments, sudden scene changes, and lore that didn't really come together until you read a message board. Inspiring wonder was one of the game's great strengths.

Now, in high-definition, we have to watch as the game tries to sensibly articulate its plot -- and it does so with no subtlety or sophistication. In 1997, we could scoff along with Cloud when AVALANCHE described Mako as the planet's "life force," and dismiss that hippie nonsense until Aeris Aerith came along. But in 2020, Barret's conviction in the mission is embarrassingly melodramatic and over-the-top; while every aspect of Cloud's mannerisms and outfit screams "brooding" as if the game is afraid we won't notice that he's a loner.

Really, the voice acting (and/or dialog writing) might be the worst part. The only thing more distracting than Barret's bluntly-stereotyped banter is the frequent and out-of-place "oh" and "uh" exclamations from the cast. This is peak JRPG bullshit, and it feels ... silly, in a game whose character models and setting are otherwise darkly realistic. It's the narrative equivalent of the uncanny valley.

Maybe I'm overreacting? Maybe the released product won't be so self-parodying after all, or maybe the action gameplay will be good enough to make up for it. But I'm not getting my hopes up.