I admit that we weren’t really excited at the initial announcement of a Final Fantasy 7 remake over a year ago; in fact, I was feeling pretty pessimistic about it after seeing the gameplay portion in the original trailer since the interface looked so much like the one used in Kingdom Hearts 2, a pretty disappointing experience for me back when I played it. After seeing their new FF7Remake trailer from this year's E3 and learning a bit about the battle system, we've gotten interested and, dare I say, even a little hyped!

Final Fantasy 7 was never my favorite Final Fantasy game, but it was definitely VERY impressionable for me at the time. There were so many new and interesting things to it and it felt like a completely different experience than any other RPG I’d seen up till then. It felt so full of mystery and I loved the world’s character and the mix of something steampunkish and fantasy. Thinking about it now, it still feels like something that stands out among most JRPGs since there are so few that straddle the two themes.

I'm really happy that the FF7 remake development team incorporated some form of the Active Time Battle system from the classic FF games into the game and giving characters their own battle advantages. For instance, Barett being better at attacking ranged enemies reminds me of how it was in Final Fantasy 10, like how Auron was strong against armored enemies and how Rikku was insanely good against machines. =3 It was fun because it made the individual characters feel that much more special; it added weight to the decision of who to put in your team and it always felt satisfying taking advantage of their individual quirks.

One thing I’m really curious about the FF7 remake is how faithful do they plan to go with it since they chose to go with such a realistic aesthetic. There were some fun and corny things I like that happened in the original that I can’t help might feel out of place if they were to be put in the remake too, but maybe the contrast would make it even better? Will Tifa’s Dolphin Blow skill still summon a dolphin from out of the ground? Looking at the trailer, Tifa does the animation that looks like it should be there, but it isn't. >.< Hopefully we're just reading too much into it '_' I think it’s iconic because it’s a little weird, but because it’s weird, it’s really cool. I’m also super curious about what they plan to do for the stage play in the gold saucer. Will they really have Cloud and the theatre troupe spinning off stage after Cloud kisses to the dragon?! Would them spinning look too weird with the hyper realistic graphics? I really don’t think it would work out if they didn’t spin!

Anyway, I’m pretty excited to see what they do with the FF7 remake. It sucks to feel that they captured the nostalgia lurking in my heart, but man, it looks so cool. XD I hope it lives up to and exceeds my imagination and expectations.