Upon its release in 1997, Square’s FINAL FANTASY VII proved to be a truly groundbreaking JRPG and the kind of game that comes along only once in a generation. In the years after, rumours of a remake had been floating around, but nothing really materialized until, finally, FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE was announced during Sony’s legendary E3 2015 presentation.
Shortly after this, it was revealed that, due to the sheer scale of the original, the remake would actually be episodic and split into three different parts that eventually became FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE, released in 2020, FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH, released in 2024 and the upcoming FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION, which is slated for release in April of next year, exactly 30 years after the launch of the original.
My own story with FINAL FANTASY VII only started in late 2019, when I finally got around to playing the original in preparation for REMAKE, as I instead grew up playing either other FINAL FANTASY entries such as XIII and XV or my dearly beloved KINGDOM HEARTS. From 2019 to the time of writing, I have become a massive fan of everything FINAL FANTASY VII.
I have now played the majority of the games in the Compilation pretty much from front to back, watched ADVENT CHILDREN and even picked up the books penned by principal scenario writer and narrative designer Kazushige Nojima. So, suffice to say that I was beyond the moon when I heard that not only was FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION going to be playable at gamescom 2026, but also that I would get the chance to go hands-on with it for about an hour.
The demo I played, which was running on a PlayStation 5 Pro, kicked off during Chapter 4 of the game, as the band of heroes, with the notable exception of protagonist and mercenary for hire Cloud and martial artist Tifa, are aboard the iconic Highwind airship and making their way towards the nation of Wutai, home to ninjas such as party member Yuffie. However, although the story will only progress once Wutai is reached, due to the open nature of the game and, indeed, the demo, many of the regions present in FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION are explorable at will. According to the SQUARE ENIX representative who was present at my demo station, Chapter 4 would normally feature 15 to 20 hours of gameplay total, so I had little time to see and do everything I wanted.
Before parachuting from the Highwind into the vast open world, which itself is a new traversal method introduced in FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION, I spent a considerable amount of time putting together my party of three out of the available six playable characters. The choice of who exactly to include wasn’t what was giving me pause, since rocket scientist Cid and brooding vampire Vincent were playable for the very first time and so were easy inclusions, alongside my personal favourite, Cat Sith, a robot cat with a Scottish accent, but what was really holding me up was the new FITS mechanic: essentially a modern take on the job system found in classic FINAL FANTASY entries.
This meant that, even though I was 100% convinced that Cid, for example, would be part of my squad, what kind of Cid I wanted to include was a different story altogether. In the end, out of the four available FITS, my Cid ended up being a Knight; for all intents and purposes, my trio’s tank, my Vincent was my Black Mage and the main damage dealer in the group and my Cat Sith, perhaps fittingly, was left being able to invoke powerful elemental creatures as my Summoner. With my landing party ready, it was finally time to explore the world.
“…it was abundantly clear to me that FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION was absolutely following in the footsteps of its predecessor, REBIRTH, in being an open-world JRPG chock full of things to do.”
The first place I was set on exploring was Mideel, a hot springs town located on an island south of the eastern continent. This being said, upon making landfall over there, I was quickly bombarded with a myriad of pop-up windows in quick succession, each notifying me about the many activities I could partake in and the many points of interest to check out and unveil. That very moment, it was abundantly clear to me that FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION was absolutely following in the footsteps of its predecessor, REBIRTH, in being an open-world JRPG chock full of things to do.
Undoubtedly, this won’t please some, especially those who have been burnt out by open worlds littered by marks and waypoints, but, as far as I’m concerned, I’ll take as much FINAL FANTASY VII as I can get, especially considering that all of the activities I took part in, from the parachute landing to the chocobo dressage, were all very fun and very polished. My hope is that even those who might initially groan when looking at the amount of things to do in REVELATION will eventually be swayed over by the quality on display.
In any case, after Mideel, I boarded the Highwind once more in search of the Grasslands, the first region that the party found themselves in at the beginning of REBIRTH and after leaving the capital city of Midgar. I was curious to see what had changed over there following the events of REBIRTH, and the short answer is that, due to the activity of powerful monsters called Weapons, places previously visited in REBIRTH are functionally brand-new in REVELATION. Once in the Grasslands, I put this to the test by trying out some combat assignments, which were very familiar in nature to what had come before, but made different by both the introduction of new enemy types and by having Cid and Vincent be playable.
Having cleared the combat assignments with flying colours, my attention turned to the big prize: could I maybe encounter and even defeat a Weapon in the limited time I still had available? Determined to find out, I headed for the desert near the Gold Saucer where I remembered that the Ruby Weapon was supposed to appear and, lo and behold, there it was! Unfortunately, tried as I did, FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION clearly didn’t want me to try and fight it yet, resorting to blocking me from getting closer by placing an invisible wall between my landing party and it. With my tail between my legs and about 10 minutes to go before the demo came to a close, the only thing left for me to do was to head towards Wutai.
Once there, as one story cutscene ran after the other, I was able to fully take in how well REVELATION looked and played, especially on the PlayStation 5 Pro. Wutai was a good destination to showcase the power of the console, too, as the place was dense with intricate buildings and highly detailed character models and much more expansive than it used to be in 1997. No story spoilers here, but from what I could tell and experience, Wutai will be a larger part of the narrative than ever before.
And with that, before I could even realize it, my hour with the game came to an end. But, believe me, if I had the chance, I would have gone through the 15 to 20 hours of content available in Chapter 4 right there and then. The wait for the conclusion to what REMAKE has started and REBIRTH has continued has been excruciating, but in FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION, it sure feels like Square Enix has another bona fide classic on their hands. For one, I can’t wait to have it in my hands come spring.
