So this finally came out. Fantastic.
Seriously, that this thing actually got made after literally 15 years of Square pointedly not talking about it (but teasing the crap out of it!) is quite remarkable.
Even more remarkable is that .... it's actually quite good?
I'm about 12 hours in now; during that stretch of time, the game has covered ... about the first 3 hours of the original? Square has done an absolutely amazing job recreating Midgar in modern full 3D style; they've added a lot of interstitial stuff between the major plot beats of the original that (when they're good) flesh out side characters and the city of Midgar, when the stuff is bad it's basically taking the place of the original's random battles.
What I actually like the most about it is that this is a game with a strong meta element. FF7 (the original) had "rediscovering the past" as one of its themes: Pretty much everyone in it has to deal with remnants of their past, their origin or their upbringing in some form. In this game, which is ostensibly about remaking FF7, there are explicit elements in the plot that only make sense from the context of this game existing in a universe where FF7 already exists. There are forces in the plot, fighting to keep the story on the track FF7 laid out, and Sephiroth at least seems to be aware of this and actively fighting it... Which, at least as things stand now, is an awesome idea that allows the people making FF7R now to have actual narrative tension in there that would not exist if this had been just a straight remake.
