The Final Fantasy VII remake project is a gargantuan task over a decade in the making. With two games in the rearview mirror covering nearly the entirety of the 1997 original, the third and final chapter in the remake trilogy is nearly upon us. Final Fantasy VII Revelation, coming April 8 of next year, aims to bring the iconic and storied modernized adventure to a close. During PAX West in Seattle, I played about an hour of the game. If you’ve played the previous game, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, you’re familiar with just how vast the world is and how many activities there are to do.
In Revelation, this is expanded on exponentially. The entire world is now your oyster to explore, thanks to the airship Highwind. But with only an hour at my disposal, I was quickly overwhelmed at my options. I regrettably missed out on taking on any of the new Weapon bosses, something I’m really looking forward to with the full release. But I do think I got a good sense of the rest of the new things Revelation has to offer compared to its predecessors.
The Gang’s All Here
To start, I was really looking forward to checking out combat with newly-playable party members Cid Highwind and Vincent Valentine. Combat is one of the best parts of the first two games, so I was eager to see how their kits stood out compared to the rest of the cast. Cid is a high-flying dragoon that utilizes a spear, with a unique combat timing style that can be tough to master at first. After starting a combo, you’ll need to wait for him to flash blue, then hit the attack button again.
This unleashes a flurry of even more attacks. It can be a little counterintuitive to what we’re used to from the button-mashing combat of the previous games. Vincent, on the other hand, is a midrange projectile and melee hybrid fighter. One of his coolest attacks is transforming into the Galian Beast, hitting for massive damage. I enjoyed using Vincent more than Cid, but I chalk this up to the clock limiting how much time I was able to experiment.
But the biggest new addition to combat in Revelation is the Function-Intengrated Tactical Suitwear, or FITS, system. This is essentially a job or class mechanic that helps party members augment their abilities. It seems there will only be four, and they’re jobs you’ll be familiar with if you’ve played many other titles in the franchise. You can equip Knight, Summoner, Black Mage, and Warrior FITS, and they change each character’s appearance. You’ll then gain access to different playstyles, spells, and abilities to suit however you’d like to build out each character. The Knight, for example, boasts higher defense and can draw enemy attacks. So throwing this is on a more tanky character like Barrett felt like a no-brainer. I had hoped there would be a few more FITS than these four, but each character’s loadout is unique enough that it will likely end up being fine.
Go Where You Want
After relearning combat, I wanted to fly around on the Highwind. The whole world is explorable, all the way back to Midgar from Remake. There are dozens of new activities to check out, and I was a little overwhelmed once the demo started. Once I gained control, I got what felt like endless notifications of things to do in the various regions. This probably won’t be an issue at launch since the game will drip feed them over time. But the demo was a few hours in, and I couldn’t make any sense of what was what on the map.
Regardless, I flew around the world, which was snappy and intuitive (and gorgeous, might I add). I hovered over Cosmo Canyon, curious to see what’s changed since we last visited in Rebirth. But instead of landing the ship and entering via a loading screen, I skydived to the land below in real time. It’s an undoubtedly impressive feat to be able to do this so seamlessly in a game of this magnitude, and it was incredibly fun to steer around in freefall before the chute deploys.
Wutai Is Breathtaking
When I got the warning the time was running out, I wanted to check out one of Revelation’s new areas, Wutai. At this point in the game, that’s where the main story wanted me to go. So when I entered Wutai airspace I was informed that I wouldn’t be able to leave the region for a bit. The topography of the region is vast and visually stunning, with the Eastern Asian architectural influences you’d expect.
It’s also another rather large explorable region, and even on a chocobo that could float I wasn’t able to see even a fraction of it. But rest assured, there are plenty of activities to do and points of interest to discover. I did, however, find a Queen’s Blood player, and was excited to get a match of the in-game card game in before time was up. The mechanics are unchanged, but I imagine there’s a host of new cards to collect and build decks with.
Previewing RPGs is never the easiest to task to accomplish. A massive game like this will likely take dozens upon dozens of hours to complete, even if you don’t see or do everything. With only about an hour of hands on time, it’s a bit tough to get a full read on Final Fantasy VII Revelation’s overall quality, and I’m concerned about bloated or meaningless side content filling in the gaps. But what I did get to experience, like using the two new characters in combat and exploring the wider world on airship, feels great and successfully recreates the feeling Rebirth gave us in 2023 while adding to it.
Final Fantasy VII Revelation launches April 8, 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
