Since the release of the first game of the trilogy in 2020, I have been heavily invested in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake saga.
I've spent over 100 hours between the first two games, Remake and Rebirth, entrenching myself in this remade version of Gaia, re-acquainting myself with Cloud and the gang, and peeling back layer after layer of this reimagined story. Revelation, the upcoming third installment, is a finale 11 years in the making (if you start counting from FF7 Remake's initial E3 2015 reveal trailer), and I went into the latest demo for Revelation ready to learn more about this final chapter.
After playing through Revelation's opening 25 minutes, however, I'm left not with answers, but more questions.
The new crew
The demo put me in control of Cloud, of course, but with him are the two newest members of the party: Cid Highwind and Vincent Valentine. Both of their full combat kits were available, and there were ample amounts of enemies around to dig into both new party members.
Of the two, I found Vincent's power to be more difficult to harness. Vincent is capable of switching between his human form, which focuses on long-range firearms, and his Galian Beast form, which shifts him to close-range combat. You can't undergo this transformation needlessly, however, as becoming the beast will slowly lower Vincent's HP while he's in that form. Achieving some semblance of balance between both forms seems to be key to mastering Vincent, and there just wasn't enough time in the short demo to find it.
I was able to see each form's key abilities though, and there's a lot to like in the combat versatility they provide. Vincent's human form has Blood Moon, a charged shot that hits for big damage, and Reckoning, which fires multiple shots into the air that quickly descend onto a targeted enemy. The Galian Beast form's coolest move is Damnation, where the beast jumps into the air and does his best Sonic the Hedgehog spin-move impression for multiple hits.
Cid, meanwhile, has a much simpler philosophy: See enemy, attack enemy, defeat enemy. His lance gives him a bit of range and allows him to sometimes stay out of harm's way while attacking, and multiple attacks can knock enemies into the air, where Cid can follow them for some impressive air combos. Focused Charge is one of the best moves in his arsenal, as the increased Stagger it causes can immediately send an enemy into the weakened Staggered state.
The key to Cid is his ability to "mark" enemies, up to five at a time, by pressing Triangle. Doing so will allow him to deal extra damage to any marked enemies, and combining that extra damage with his more powerful moves makes him an absolute force. Of the two new characters I tried out, I think Cid has a better shot of making my team.
While my focus was on Cid and Vincent, Cloud also showed off the Summoner job from the new FITS job system. As a Summoner, Cloud can have a summon appear for quick one-off moves outside of the standard "summon joins the group for a few minutes" routine. The demo specifically equipped Titan to Cloud's Summoner build, and after activating the Sync: Titan ability, every once in a while the massive man would blink into frame, bash an enemy with his fists, and disappear again. I'm interested to see how other summons, and other jobs in general, will work in this system.
Take a number
While I was fighting with Cid, Vincent, and Summoner Cloud, I was playing through what the demo called a "Special Chapter," set in the Northern Crater, which picks up just after the end of Rebirth. Cloud and the team are looking for Sephiroth as they venture into the crater, fighting fiends and other baddies along the way. This brief bite of Revelation's story sets the table for the entire adventure by throwing multiple plot points at you without giving any concrete answers, which I should have expected.
First, the shambling hooded figures are all over this demo, leading us down the path by walking and pointing the way. Eventually, some of the less-fortunate hooded figures are grabbed by fiends, and the two meld into a larger, more horrible monster. What's allowing the fiends to do that? One of the hooded figures is revealed to be Broden, the innkeeper of Kalm, and when a fiend merges with him, they grow into the boss Gigas. What makes Broden different from the other hoods that he becomes the boss? Is it the Cloud connection? The demo never got far enough into the story for me to discover any answers.
The demo then introduces another mystery involving the entire party: As they descend further into the crater, multiple party members start to show signs of Mako exposure, most notably Nanaki's inability to stop laughing. Mako exposure is also blamed for Cloud's visions and hallucinations, which makes me wonder if this demo chapter is even happening at all. This "special chapter" demo eventually drops Cloud and the team into a black-and-white version of Nibelheim out of nowhere, before abruptly ending as the team enters a dark and smoky portal. Who's to say Cloud doesn't wake up from a nightmare on the Highwind once the team enters the portal in the final version?
Once Sephiroth is finally found, a lot of attention is placed on the numbers on each of the shambler's arms--numbers given to the people Hojo injected Jenova cells into, we're told--before Sephiroth asks where Cloud's number is. That is, admittedly, a good question, and even with foundational knowledge from the original FF7, it's intriguing to think of when those numbers will become significant.
Speaking of Jenova, the final battle of the demo pits the group against a new Jenova form, Jenova Deathmourner. That name is interesting by itself, considering the events at the end of Rebirth that occurred just before this demo began, but how did Jenova get down here in the first place? This demo took only 25 minutes, and yet I find myself with even more questions swimming in my head.
It's been 11 years since we first saw Final Fantasy VII Remake at E3 2015, and six years since we first entered this new remade version of Cloud Strife's adventure. While this demo was a small snip of what's to come, my time with the final chapter of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy clearly shows that the team at Square Enix has plenty of story left to tell. We'll just have to wait until April for the rest of the Revelation(s).