Final Fantasy VII Remake

Developer/publisher Square Enix

Format PS4

Release Out now

Play Final Fantasy VII Remake without having played the original and you’ll probably enjoy it more. The setting, Midgar, is one of gaming’s greatest, if least subtle, social metaphors: a vertical city split between gentrified boulevards and slums quarried from trash heaps hundreds of feet beneath. This is a dystopia fuelled by toxic Mako energy supplied by Shinra, a comically evil megacorp. Beginning in the middle of a raid on a Mako reactor, you take charge of Avalanche, a band of ecowarriors fighting to save an ailing planet. There’s Barret, the group’s over-muscled leader; Tifa, a big-sisterly martial artist; Aerith, a flower peddler touched by destiny; and Cloud, a dour super-soldier who is afflicted by mysterious flashbacks. These hallucinations often feature a swordsman named Sephiroth, a fallen war hero turned creature of the apocalypse.

Decked with flourishes but faithful to the designs of their 1997 forebears, the remake’s cast are possibly the most photogenic characters you’ll see this generation. More