‘Final Fantasy VII Revelation’ Just Proved Its Biggest Missing Piece Was Worth the Wait

Final Fantasy VII Revelation gave me a world to explore, and I immediately used that freedom irresponsibly. There were plenty of places I could have gone during my hands-on preview with the final chapter of Square Enix‘s remake trilogy. I had less than an hour with the game, which should have encouraged me to see as much of it as humanly possible. Instead, because I apparently have no sense of urgency even when Meteor is involved, I spent almost all of my time poking around Mideel and Wutai.

I regret nothing. Final Fantasy VII Revelation is absolutely gorgeous, its combat feels as smooth as ever, and both locations made it incredibly easy to forget that I was technically supposed to be accomplishing something. I may have only seen a small piece of what Revelation has to offer, but that’s largely because the small piece I saw kept giving me reasons to stick around.

‘Final Fantasy VII Revelation’ Made Me Want To Ignore the Main Quest

Image via SQUARE ENIX

Mideel was the first place I was allowed to simply exist in Revelation’s world. There’s a particular pressure that comes with playing a game like this at a preview event. You know your time is limited and there are things you should probably be seeing, but then you spot something interesting in the opposite direction and wander away anyway. That happened to me constantly. I kept stopping to look around, checking corners, and generally behaving like I had several hours to burn. It’s easy to say a Final Fantasy game is beautiful, particularly when visual spectacle has been part of the series’ identity for decades, but Revelation impressed me most in the smaller moments when I wasn’t doing much of anything.

Mideel feels like somewhere people actually live. The environments are packed with enough detail that slowing down feels worthwhile, and moving through them feels natural. Square Enix has spent this trilogy taking familiar locations and doing more than simply making them bigger and prettier. At its best, it has made them feel like actual parts of a much larger world. Then I went to Wutai, and any remaining hope I had of using my preview time responsibly disappeared.

Wutai Is Going To Be a Problem For My Attention Span

Image via SQUARE ENIX

Wutai was always going to be one of the locations I was most excited to see in Final Fantasy VII Revelation. The remake trilogy has repeatedly demonstrated how much it can do with locations from the original game, but Wutai comes with a different level of anticipation after sitting out the first two entries. It did not disappoint. If Mideel made me want to slow down, Wutai made me want to stop following directions entirely. It’s immediately striking, but what grabbed me wasn’t simply that it’s pretty. Wutai feels like somewhere designed to be explored instead of admired while you’re running toward the next objective. I wanted to know where everything went. I wanted to wander down side paths, look at the architecture, and see what was around corners that clearly had nothing to do with what I was supposed to be doing. Every time I thought I should probably move on and see something else while I still had the chance, Wutai gave me another reason not to.

That’s what makes the location so exciting. There’s a difference between an environment that looks impressive and one that makes you curious about what’s inside it. Wutai did both, and once I had the freedom to wander, I wanted to keep wandering. Considering Final Fantasy VII is rapidly approaching a point in its story where Cloud and company have slightly more pressing concerns than tourism, that could become a problem.

‘Final Fantasy VII Revelation’s Combat Is As Smooth As Ever

Eventually, I did remember that Final Fantasy VII Revelation contains things other than places for me to wander around looking at. The remake trilogy’s combat has always been one of its greatest achievements. Remake found an incredibly satisfying middle ground between real-time action and the command-based systems of the original, while Rebirth expanded it without sacrificing the rhythm that made it work. Revelation immediately feels like a continuation of that evolution. Combat is fast, responsive, and remarkably smooth. Moving between enemies, building ATB, firing off abilities, and switching characters flowed together so naturally that there was practically no period of reacclimation. Even after spending time away from Rebirth, the muscle memory returned almost immediately. That’s important for a third game. Revelation doesn’t need to completely reinvent a combat system that already works exceptionally well just to prove this is a new entry. From what I played, it feels refined instead, with exploration flowing naturally into encounters and combat never getting in the way of my desire to keep moving through the world.

My hands-on time barely scratched the surface of what Square Enix has built, partly because less than an hour was never going to be enough and partly because I made absolutely no attempt to use that hour efficiently. I could have tried to see as many locations as possible. Instead, I went to Mideel and Wutai because those were the places I wanted to see, and once I got there, my decisions were validated. That ultimately told me more about Final Fantasy VII Revelation than racing through a checklist probably would have. The combat remains fantastic, the game is beautiful, and Square Enix has created locations that made me want to ignore both a ticking preview clock and an impending planetary apocalypse just to see what was around the next corner. Cloud may eventually save the Planet, but he’s just going to have to wait for me to finish looking around first.

Final Fantasy VII Revelation launches April 8, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Steam, and Epic Games Store.