If you're reading this, or even care, there's potential spoiler material, so read at your own risk.

When the tech demo was revealed almost a million years ago showcasing the intro of Final Fantasy VII in nice, shiny current gen graphics, fans of the game have been hungry for a remake ever since. But for whatever reason, despite SE saying that a remake was not their priority and probably never will be, it's been constantly reported as "news" ever since as well, and Gamespot is guilty of that. But when this bit of info was once again regurgitated I decided to go ahead and pop in the first of the three white-and-black discs into my PS2 and begin the game anew, for nostalgic purposes.

All I can say is, it's nowhere near as good as I remember it, which shouldn't be a surprise.

Although, that is quite an unfair judgment of the game since I still haven't left Midgar yet. But a few things just popped out at me, which took away some of its merit from the get-go.

For starters, Cloud's character is incredibly inconsistent, and that's not even including the plot device of Zack's personality and memories being part of his subconcious. I mean honestly; Cloud begins as a cold, self-centered mercenary who "does not care about the Planet" and the struggle "does not concern him". Clearly, he's trying to keep himself distant from any events that are taking place. Later on, he meets up with Aeris (or Aerith if you want to be a purist) and he's ready and willing to protect her, and bring her home safely, without pay, when there hasn't been any sort of character development in between. There are also a few instances where there's literally just an incoherent mess of dialogue on the screen, just to make the game seem deep and ambiguous (I guess). It's honestly just bad writing, I can't describe it any other way. Example:

"You alright?"

Cloud: "...Yeah..."

"Back then...you could get by with just skinned knees..."

"What do you mean by 'back then...?"

"What about now? Can you get up?"

"What do you mean by 'that time' [even though the voice never said 'that time']? ...What about now?"

"...Don't worry about me, just worry about yourself now [even though Cloud's question wasn't about the voice's well-being]."

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^ I honestly wouldn't have caught anything from that if I didn't have prior knowledge of the game's story. I don't know if it was a mistranslation or what, but that just left me with a mix of laughter and confusion.

You may think I'm just nitpicking but between Cloud's inconsistency and the dodgy dialogue, I've been put off, and it's probably because the game fails to make its story interesting in the beginning, and it honestly feels like a chore going from point A to point B.

Also related to FFVII; there's this hiiiiiilaaaarious web comic called Final Fantasy VII: The Sevening which is an exaggerated take on the ridiculousness of some of the game's plot holes, inconsistencies, and mistranslations (plus there are plenty of cameos from iconic characters from other games). Go on, read it. Seriously.

Don't know if I'll make updates on this while I make progress, but I think I'm going to have a grand time taking FFVII in more critically, as opposed to my first playthrough when I was young, and was simply amazed by any damn game that was thrown at me.