1997’s Final Fantasy VII is generally held to be the best (of the 15 and counting) iteration of the most successful JRPG franchise of all time. Steve Boxer investigates what can be expected from Square Enix’s cleverly updated modern-technology remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake

OVER the decades, JRPG fans constantly beset by those who argue that their beloved genre is outdated, obscure and divorced from the gaming mainstream have been able to refute such claims by pointing at the Final Fantasy games. Square Enix’s beloved franchise is indisputably mainstream: the most recent iteration, Final Fantasy XV, for example, is close to notching up lifetime sales of 9 million copies, while as of 2019, the entire series had notched up cumulative sales of over 149 million.