Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

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There’s something to be said about being spoiled for choice. These days, console-exclusive titles tend to be pretty rare. Where they do exist, they typically end up appearing on other platforms later. In particular, there’s been a push toward having all manner of games show up on PC lately. Microsoft, unsurprisingly, led this charge, and now most Xbox games tend to show up on PC as well. This is clearly working out for them, given how Sony is following along by porting formerly exclusive games like Days Gone.

Initially debuting on PlayStation 4, upgrading to PS5, Square Enix’s long-awaited Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Intergrade is finally available on PC, giving non-console fans a chance to revisit one of the most popular JRPGs all over again.

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In the dystopian city of Midgar, the populace toils under the seemingly-benevolent power company Shinra. The city is built on the power provided by Mako reactors, which draw power directly from the Lifestream of the Planet on which the city is built. The ecoterrorist group Avalanche believes that the use of Mako power is killing the planet and have resolved to stop Shinra from continuing to do so.

In particular, one extremist branch of Avalanche has hired on a mercenary to help with more dangerous and impactful raids against Shinra facilities. In particular, they’ve hired a certain spiky-haired mercenary, Cloud Strife, to help do their dirty work…but ex-Shinra operative Cloud has some skeletons in his closet that are just waiting to come out.

Remake’s closest relative would probably be the Kingdom Hearts series, though if you wanted to stay within the Final Fantasy 7 canon you’d be talking about Crisis Core. That means this is an action-RPG with an emphasis on the action. A “Classic” mode that’s pseudo-turn-based is available, but this drastically reduces the difficulty of the game and doesn’t feel like a recommended way of experiencing Remake.

In practice, Remake ends up feeling like a whole lot of style with….somewhat less substance. This is a game that’s all about presentation and that extends to the gameplay experience. Mash away on the attack button and watch as your chosen character beats the bejeezus out of whatever you’re targeting in as stylish a manner as possible! A personal favorite is Cloud’s tendency to knock an enemy up with the penultimate hit of his regular attack combo before launching a perfectly accurate midair slice. It’s lovely.

That said, you aren’t really doing a lot to make any of that lovely stuff happen. That midair slice? It’s perfectly accurate because you’re not the one controlling it. Likewise, there’s all kinds of impressive-looking special skills, magic and combos you can use that just kind of happen when they’re ordered rather than involving a significant amount of player input. That goes for enemy attacks as well; you’ve got a dodge roll, but it’s slow, it’s unwieldy and it’s unlikely you’ll ever dodge much with it.

Things aren’t all bad, of course. Each playable character controls differently and feels unique to play, with Barrett being a personal favorite thanks to his tanky nature and the heavy impact of his special attacks. However, there’s just not a great degree of immersion when it comes to combat past the first few hours’ “wow” factor.

Along with this, Remake would really like you to do what Remake wants you to do. Outside of specified hub areas and dungeons, you’re locked onto a specific path, with characters chiding you if you dare to stray. You often won’t even have the chance to stray, as many areas are simply corridors with few side paths. If you think about it on a practical level, this is understandable; the degree of polish that defines Remake would simply be impossible to maintain throughout a full-sized RPG. It’s still disappointing whenever you see a potentially interesting path and aren’t allowed to go that way.

We’re playing the PC version of Intergrade, and as tends to be the case with big-name PC releases we’re seeing a lot of divergent opinions on how well the game runs. The fact that this is currently exclusive to the ever-controversial Epic Games Store might have something to do with that, of course. For my part, I played on an RTX 2080 with a 7700K processor and had no issues whatsoever running the game at max settings at 1440p. Everything was smooth as silk and looked fantastic.

There’s definitely precedent for Japanese ports of PC games encountering *ahem* issues at launch, so it’s hard to say which experience is unusual. You might want to note that the Epic Games Store has a pretty generous refund policy if you’re worried about how Intergrade will run on your system.

As for the new content added in Intergrade, it’s a great bonus scenario called Intermission that adds another few hours to the game and brings back the much-beloved Yuffie from the original FF7 along with the questionably-beloved Fort Condor minigame. This is included with the EGS release of Remake.

Yuffie’s chunk of the plot is shorter than the main game, naturally, but she provides a significant enough shift in gameplay that the few hours you’ll have playing her feel fresh and exciting. She’s got a speedy playstyle that mixes melee and ranged combat, something that the other characters in Remake tended to lack. She’s also got a companion, Sonon, that allows for fancy combo attacks. You’ll spend about five hours with the new characters and they’re pretty pleasant all around, which bodes well for future entries in the series.

With the upgrades and new content added in Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade it’s easy to recommend this upgraded upgrade without any reluctance. Assuming, of course, that you don’t have any performance issues, this is the same rock-solid adventure you could get on the PS5. If you’ve got fond memories of the 90s’ premier JRPG classic and don’t mind a few liberties being taken, you’re bound to have a good time here.

About the Author: Cory Galliher