Widescreen: 'Final Fantasy VII Remake' demo shatters most of the skepticism
PlayStation 4 gamers can finally own the inelegantly named "Final Fantasy VII Remake" on April 10, five years after the new version of Square Enix's groundbreaking role-playing game was announced at the annual E3 video gaming convention.
They don't have to wait to take it for a test drive, though; a free demo that took this skeptic about 75 minutes to complete is available now to download.
I'm still skeptical of the game's staggered release - more on that in a minute - but not of the game itself. The gameplay footage shown at last year's E3 proved this remake wasn't just the 1997 game with 2020 graphics, but a complete rework of the game's mechanics. (And those 2020 graphics are nothing to sneeze at - this is a stunning game, with no apparent loss in quality when jumping from cinematic cutscenes to actual gameplay.)
Iconic, spiky-haired protagonist Cloud Strife and his pals still battle the evil Shinra Corporation in the industrial city of Midgar, but this time it's with a battle system that plays like an organic merging of the classic "Final Fantasy" turn-based fighting with the button-mashing action of Square Enix's "Kingdom Hearts" series. You can pound away on the square button with Cloud's comically oversized sword, but you can also easily call up your menu of spells and items with the X button or switch to another character with the D-pad. It's nowhere near as chaotic (or brainless) as "Kingdom Hearts III," which wore out its welcome after a few hours.
Will I pay $60 to play this at launch? Probably not, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the game, which makes a fabulous first impression with this demo.
What the marketing fails to tell you is that "Final Fantasy VII Remake" is not a complete game, but the first of an as-yet-undetermined number of episodes that will flesh out the classic story to an inconceivable degree.
Jason Schreier of Kotaku.com says the game arriving April 10 covers only the first 5% to 10% of the original's story, but pads that out to the equivalent of a full "Final Fantasy" game. Going by my past experience, that means about 40 hours of playtime; will fans eventually be asked to buy 10 installments of one story, at $60 a pop, for a 400-hour experience?
That's asking an awful lot, but the quality of this week's demo will probably convince a lot of people to buy in. I'll be convinced as soon as that 50% off sale happens around Christmastime.
In the meantime, I'll continue to chip away at "Final Fantasy VIII" - I've been playing that sequel on and off since 1999 and still haven't completed it. Maybe I'll defeat the evil sorceress Ultimecia before my 50th birthday.
• Follow Sean on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.