Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade PC Review friv game
At The Game Awards 2021, Japanese company Friv2Online announced the PC version of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and on December 16, the game was released exclusively on the Epic Games Store platform. How the port of last year's PlayStation hit turned out - we tell in the review.
The original Final Fantasy VII from the then Squaresoft was created in 1997 for the very first PlayStation, a year later the owners of personal computers were able to touch the beauty and, as we recently learned, the same fate awaited the remake.
Despite all the splendor of subsequent licensed parts, it was FFVII that became the most discussed and sought-after part of the franchise, and Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa - stood in line with the most recognizable characters in the history of the gaming industry.
The popularity of FFVII turned out to be so high that in 2006 the developers released Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII - a PS2 shooter (very entertaining, by the way) starring Vincent Valentine, which takes place a few years after the original story.
Moreover, Square created an amazingly beautiful (for those times) animated CGI film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which develops the original story of the seventh part, and the mobile game Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. But their main ode to the classics was the Final Fantasy VII Remake project - a completely redesigned and modernized version of the original.
To the great delight of PC fans of the title, Final Fantasy VII Remake did not stay in exclusives for long, and already on December 16, 2021 appeared in EGS in an expanded edition of Intergrade, including a separate story of Yuffie, as well as a number of improvements, and a huge (by PC standards) price tag at 5719 rubles.
In this article, we will not talk about the gameplay and plot of the remake, since Cubiq.ru already has exhaustive reviews of the original Final Fantasy VII Remake and the native PS5 version of Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already!
So, the developers promised us "improvements in textures, lighting and scenery, a fully customizable photo mode, support for 4K resolution, HDR technology, compatibility with XInput and DirectInput controllers, keyboard and mouse, and increased frame rates up to 120 fps."
The lighting in the friv game has really changed, and volumetric shadows have become deeper, thanks to which the environment and especially interiors with an abundance of small objects have improved readability, but the overall detail in the game noticeably limps.
For every detailed texture, there are dozens of low-res elements: flat and nondescript surfaces, piles of unfinished objects, still blurry backdrops, great shading, barely noticeable reflections on tinted mirror surfaces.
But the character models, when viewed in detail, even in game scenes, look incredibly detailed. Every fold on Tifa's skirt, every hair on Cloud's hair has been worked out. Light plays and refracts on the unevenly colored pauldron, scuffs on the leather handle of the sword turn white. Each cutscene is a work of art!
The photo mod was really added to the game, but there can be no talk of “detailed settings”. It is as simple as possible, allows you to stop the game, hide interfaces and, if desired, acting characters, but the camera completely refuses to break away or move away from Cloud and rests on any object in the environment.
There are no filters in Square Enix's photo mod, you can't manually blur unsightly details, you can't focus on one particular element, you can't play with brightness, contrast and colors.
But the photo mode can be activated absolutely at any time, whether it's a walk through the locations, a battle, or absolutely any cut-scene. In the latter case, the camera will be static, but will allow you to hide dialog boxes, and since Final Fantasy VII Remake is full of cinematic bokeh inserts, you will have the opportunity to take many amazing shots.
Management is really well adapted to the keyboard and mouse, but in the default version, I would not call it convenient. Fortunately, it is possible to customize the keys for yourself, including on the Xbox gamepad.
There are practically no complaints about optimization. On a high graphics preset, fps stays within 90-100 frames per second, during scenes - around 60, but sometimes in certain places it drops to 30 or even 20, but nothing critical.
At the same time, the processor is used no more than 7-10 percent, while the graphics adapter (I have an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super) is loaded at 98-99% almost all the time. Even during idle time, even in the friv game menu.
There are no detailed options in the graphics settings. All players can afford is to choose a preset for textures and shadows, prefer the desired frame rate between 30, 60, 90 and 120 (with the game automatically enabling adaptive resolution), and choose the number of characters displayed on the screen.
Unfortunately, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade does not support UltraWide monitors, but it works in 4K and the high dynamic range (HDR) function is well integrated into the game with the ability to separately adjust the brightness of UI interfaces.
Despite the fact that Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade still has quite a lot of low-res textures, nondescript backs and enough unexpected frame rate drops, the port turned out to be more than playable and still very beautiful, because, among other things, it has an excellent combat system, impressive character development and the incredibly addictive atmosphere of Final Fantasy VII.
To plunge into this story now, twenty years later, is an experience for which it is difficult to find words if the original touched your soul at the time. The only really annoying moment - once again frankly overpriced price tag.
