Square Enix recently revealed the redone opening cinematic for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, showcasing the remake's extreme graphical upgrade compared to the original. Final Fantasy 7 Remake's opening both recreates shots from the original and adds new ones, providing additional context to the game's introduction.
It's been more than 23 years since the original Final Fantasy 7 released on the first PlayStation console. While the most noticeable difference in the remake is the new character models and high-quality graphics enabled by that gap in releases, Square Enix is making a number of other changes to the game. Since the first "episode" will take place entirely in Midgar, Square Enix has added new characters and story elements to flesh out Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Midgar scenes. But all of it starts with the opening cutscene.
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake opening cinematic begins with an extended sequence not seen in the original game or any previous trailers. The camera follows a bird flying over the wasteland area outside Final Fantasy 7's Midgar. The barren landscape hints at the devastation Midgar's energy usage is causing to the planet, something players of the original wouldn't learn until later. The camera then sweeps through Midgar during the daytime, showcasing its tall buildings, dirty streets, and twisting roadways.
These shots of the city are reminiscent of ones shown in the first Final Fantasy 7 Remake reveal trailer at E3 2015. In particular, the trailer and the cinematic share a scene of children playing on a playground, concluded by a shot of a little girl looking up into the light cast by one of Midgar's Mako Reactors. The cinematic's version of this scene contains different details than the trailer's, but the general structure is similar.
The remake's opening finally begins to line up with the original game's when the camera focuses on the particles shot up by the Mako Reactor, which begin to look like stars. In a shot sure to trigger Final Fantasy 7 nostalgia, these stars are revealed to be Lifestream Energy, seeping out of a pipe in an alleyway. Rather than the original game's fade-in directly to Aerith's face at this point, the remake's camera descends from above into the alley, creating a smoother transition from "stars" to particles. It then sweeps around to focus on Aerith's face, just like the original.
Here, the remake's opening once again diverges from the original's. Rather than calmly standing up and walking out of the alley as she did in the original Final Fantasy 7, Aerith is startled by a something off in the darkness, prompting her to quickly rush out onto the sidewalk. A man bumps into her, causing her to drop a few flowers on the ground, one of which is stepped on by a careless passerby.
After Aerith stands again, the camera pulls away from her face, recreating the iconic zoom-out of the original. Both cinematics show the entirety of Midgar and their respective Final Fantasy 7 logos. The remake then continues to follow the original: Both cameras lower back down into the right side of the city, periodically cutting to close-up shots of a zooming train.
Unlike in the original, where the train is immediately shown pulling into its station, the remake's opening first shows a shot of Cloud riding atop the train as it moves. Things then line up again, showing the AVALANCHE members, under the command of Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Barret, taking down Shinra guards. This plays out much like the original, but with a moving camera and more interesting animations. Barret then calls for Cloud, saying, "Get down here, merc." In the original, Barret signals for Cloud to drop off the train before speaking to him, and instead says, "C'mon newcomer. Follow me."
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake opening concludes with the camera sweeping around to Cloud's face as he plops his Buster Sword onto his back. Notably, the remake's intro also features drastically different music throughout, especially noticeable in the less bombastic remix of "Bombing Mission." Both cinematics are viewable below (original via YouTube's ROFLSoup).
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is set to release for PS4 on April 10, 2020.
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