Representing the worst of Final Fantasy VII Remake is Sonon Kusakabe (Aleks Le), resident Anime Boy (™) with some spiky hair and no personality. It’s the kind of anime silliness that was Final Fantasy VII Remake at its best, and Yuffie excels at it. One of the character’s best moments comes right before a boss fight, where she gives a dramatic introduction complete with changing art in the background, finally revealing her actual outfit after five hours of wearing a delightfully stupid Moogle costume over it, only to fall face-first onto the ground. It’s a saccharine sweetness that can be overdone in some anime and JRPGs, but it strikes a good balance here, with Yeung giving a great performance for the character in the English localization. A ninja from the often-referenced land of Wutai, Yuffie is exuberant and cheerful nearly all the time, dancing around giddily as she speaks about infiltrating fascist governments and fighting bad guys. Like many characters in Final Fantasy VII Remake, Yuffie was originally a relatively minor character who now is getting more time in the spotlight, and although I admit I know nothing about the original iteration, I adore this one. Yuffie is the star of the entire episode, not coming into contact with any members of the main cast aside from a few glances in the distance and, oddly enough, playing a few mini-games with them. The biggest improvements are in the background textures like skyboxes and doors, which didn’t get as much love as the character models and big setpieces and thus could look a little pixelated or ugly compared to the rest of the game. The visual upgrades are slight but noticeable, which is fine since it was already one of the best-looking games on the PS4. Once you’re able to actually start the game, however, things are pretty good. As Square Enix is wont to do, it feels like a needlessly complicated way of doing things, and I’m not fully convinced that the expansion couldn’t have been sold as a DLC episode for the original game on PlayStation 4, especially since the new console is so hard to come by. The remaster itself is free for everyone who has a copy of the original (aside from those who got the game through PlayStation Plus), but Episode Intermission has to be purchased separately for $19.99, or as part of Intergrade if you don’t qualify for a free version. Somewhat confusingly, this expansion is a part of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, which is effectively a remaster of the 2020 game for PS5 that pretties up some of the textures and improves the frame rate and resolution while adding a normal-difficulty option for the turn-based “classic” mode that nobody played. Still, the continuation of its combat along with the introduction of some great characters does enough to make it worth its relatively shorter runtime and smaller price tag, with the PS5 enhancements sweetening the deal. Unfortunately, Episode Intermission doesn’t entirely live up to the high standards set by the base game, and falls into some of the same traps VII Remake also does toward the end. So it pretty much goes without saying that I was excited to play Episode Intermission, a PlayStation 5-exclusive expansion that focuses on Yuffie Kisaragi (Suzie Yeung) while providing some much-anticipated story tidbits that hint at what might be next in store for this iteration of Cloud and the gang. I became part of a similarly fucked-up world, but one that I could change by joining a group of friends fighting for what’s right in the most over-the-top anime way, all with fantastic combat and dazzling visuals. The only Final Fantasy I’ve played aside from Final Fantasy XV, which I loved despite its evident flaws, it was one of the first games I threw myself into in the early days of the pandemic, taking me and many others away from the traumatic headlines and rising death counts. I’m not what one would call a conventional Final Fantasy fan, but I love Final Fantasy VII Remake.
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