// KOTAKU — GAMING
8 Things Final Fantasy VII Revelation Is Changing From The Original On PS1
Final Fantasy VII Revelation is the culmination of the Final Fantasy VII remake project. Square Enix, somehow, miraculously, in the face of ever-ballooning development cycles, will manage to release three triple-A games in seven years, each one bigger than the last. Revelation will be bigger than the two games that came before it, offering a fully open and explorable world and an augmented battle system that layers a job class mechanic called FITS over real-time action. It’s also a dramatic departure from the original game at the heart of this whole endeavor.
Wrapped up in optimizing FITS for Cloud and the gang, learning the ropes for Cid and Vincent who will become full-time party members, and trying to figure out just what the hell happened at the end of Rebirth, you might miss some of the differences between Final Fantasy ’97 and ’27. But in combing through interviews and hands-on impressions, we’re able to see all the ways Revelation diverges from the original canon. Lots of them are subtle, but they are there.
The developers on Revelation have stressed that the game will offer a true open world from the jump. Much like in Disc 3 of the original, you’ll be able to jump in the Highwind airship and fly to where you want to go. However, in the OG, once you unlocked the Highwind, everything everywhere became available. Revelation will be a little coy about how things unfurl before you. Not every location will be available, with things like weather events and closed airspaces gating content until it’s time for you to see them.
If you cast your mind back 30 years to the original Final Fantasy VII, after the events at the Forgotten City, Cloud follows Sephiroth up the Corel Valley Cave to Icicle Town where he needs to complete a snowboarding minigame to get to the next section. From some of the hands-on previews, it doesn’t sound like Revelation will follow suit. However, previews do indicate that snowboarding, Icicle Inn, and the hypothermia minigame will be present in Revelation, just out of the order we would expect.
In the original Final Fantasy VII, you had seven standard party members. Do a bit of extra work, and you got two more, Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi. Their stories and availability as full party members were completely optional. But in Revelation, their stories have been enmeshed into the narrative, meaning you’re gonna visit Wutai and learn more about Vincent’s background as a member of the Turks whether you want to or not. (But you’re definitely gonna want to.)
His original Limit Break, specifically the one that transforms him into the Galian Beast, will just be a part of his regular combat kit. In an interview with IGN, battle director Teruki Endo says that little quirk is one of his favorite things about Vincent’s fighting style, making him unique among the rest of the party. 1997 Vincent also had other transformations that may become a part of his actual Limit Break kit in Revelation.
In the original game, Master materia is a special version of the magic rocks that grants players access to every command ability, magic spell, or summon beast, all with one piece of materia. That worked fine in the original Final Fantasy VII with its turn-based combat, but probably wouldn’t work as well in Revelation. Game director Naoki Hamaguchi had a relatively simple answer ready when Wccftech asked if Master materia would make an appearance in Revelation. “No, there aren’t. Master materia would break the game.”
Some of the summon monsters you can fight and then add to your arsenal will be in different places in Revelation than where they were originally found. Typhoon, the wind summon, has moved from the Ancient Forest over to Mideel. Hades has siginfcantly upgraded his accomodations, moving from an underwater dungeon accessible by the submarine used to encounter Emerald Weapon, to becoming Wutai’s patron deity, replacing Leviathan. And…
You know how Bahamut has three versions in the original? It seems like