Why Are Games Refusing To Learn From Final Fantasy 7 Remake?
I have a strange relationship with video game remakes. I think in an increasingly unsustainable industry with mammoth costs and development cycles, remakes are wasteful of our medium's talent, stifling creativity as developers are forced to rehash old ground with little to no artistic input. The Last of Us Part 1, an expensive tweaking of a game already crowned a masterpiece that seems to move the visuals laterally and has as of yet showed us none of the much praised gameplay improvements - improvements on a game we all called perfect, to boot - is the worst example of this. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, on the other hand, is far more interesting.
I'm not against regular remakes per se. Some of my favourite experiences of the past five years are Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, and Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled. All remakes of games from my childhood. All also made by Activision Blizzard, who as we all know, are complete bastards. It's because of the success of N. Sane that we finally got Crash 4, so remakes do lead somewhere. They're not evil (unlike ABK), but they are extremely oversaturated and largely driven by the lust for safe profit rather than a desire to create. Enter Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Related: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Should Have Zack Sacrifice Himself For Aerith
FF7's name is a bit of a misnomer, given that it's not really a remake at all. It changes the old turn-based battle style into a more modern hack 'n' slash system - creating one of my favourite combat engines ever - and completely transforms the story. The game takes around 40 hours to beat, and focuses entirely on the Midgar section of the original game, which only took around five hours back in
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