Final Fantasy 7 Remake Demo Impressions

Square Enix released a demo for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake this morning. I’ve played the demo now and have some thoughts on it!

When I woke up this morning, I did not think to myself “Today is the day I get to play a demo of the Final Fantasy 7 remake.” For me, it was average boring morning. Then, I looked on twitter and saw that a Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo had been released. I downloaded it right away.

The demo didn’t take long to download. As soon I could, I started playing it. And right away, I was impressed.
What did you think I’d say? That I was disappointed? That the demo sucks?

I was not disappointed. The demo does not suck. In fact, the demo is everything I wanted it to be and more.

Let’s talk about the graphics first. Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks and feels like Final Fantasy 7. The demo is the introduction of the game: you know, Cloud and the ragtag rebels arrive at the Mako reactor to blow it up. And it reminds me so much of the orignal game. It feels like someone went into my memory plucked it right out of there. FF7R demo’s graphics are mind blowing.

Its not just the graphics though. The added voice acting really helps. I also love how the demo easily transfers from cutscene back to gameplay and vice versa. And that’s one of the biggest difference between this game and the original: here the graphics remain the same between cutscenes and gameplay. FF7R is beautiful.

Going beyond graphics and sound, the actual gameplay in this demo is totally different from the original. The turn-based combat system is gone. Instead, you directly control Cloud’s movement during battle: run, attack, dodge, its up to you! There is a menu that you pull up during battle (after building up a gauge) and its very easy to switch between the menu and the action based combat. They work well together.

FF7R’s combat in the demo is simple and yet very, very, very satisfying. It just feels good to hit enemies quickly with Cloud’s gigantic sword. Oh and you get to play Barrett in this demo during battle and his Gatling gun is fun to control too.

And just because the game is more action based, doesn’t mean there isn’t any strategy to the game. The menu that you can pull up during battle gives you access to cool moves and spells. These come in handy, especially going up against a boss!

The Final Fantasy 7 demo wasn’t too hard though. I did have the demo on easy. And there are no random battles in this game. So you see all of the enemies coming. The level in the demo is pretty linear, though I did get turned around a couple of times. Its neat that you can find treasure chests and boxes to break in the levels. Its going to be amazing to see what other environments we get to check out in the full game!

Overall, the graphics, the sound, and the gameplay are very impressive. Getting the FF7R demo today was such a treat. I can not wait to play the full game!