Final Fantasy VII Remake – What are the things we don’t know?

Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII Remake looking towards the Shrina Corporations buildin — Cloud standing in the shadow of Shinra (Picture: Square Enix)

Months have passed since E3 and although there was a hands-on Final Fantasy VII Remake demo most fans will have only seen a few short minutes of video footage. Thanks to the Tokyo Game Show though everyone can now see the extended gameplay footage for themselves. It’s only a walkthrough demo, which frustratingly means it’s accompanied by voices explaining what’s going on, but at least it’s fairly lengthy.

On top of that though was the more traditional trailer below, showing off new parts of the game that we have not seen before, such as summons and The Turks.

We’ve also discovered that Mark Hamill, best known as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars movies, plays none other than woman-crazed pervert Don Corneo.

However, overall, it has raised more questions than answers.

What is the plot in the Final Fantasy VII Remake?

The latest trailer creates an astronomical amount of speculation in just one single line of dialogue: ‘Hence forth allies of wicked Wutai are our sworn enemies,’ which is said by bad guy President Shrina. In the original game, the country of Wutai is an optional location but the mention of war between Wutai and Shinra seems to indicate it will be a much more significant plot point.

What are the ghosts seen in trailers of Final Fantasy VII Remake?

From the trailers alone we can see plot changes happening before our eyes but what are the ghost forms which seem to be hostile towards the people of Midgar? From the initial trailer, we thought they could be seen because Aerith is an Ancient and Cloud was holding her hand. However, this appears not to be the case, as they are seen causing a disturbance amongst the inhabitants of Sector 7 slums.

Another possibility is that the ghosts are the restless souls from the planet. As Shinra is sucking the essence out of the world, and AVALANCHE is destroying reactors to combat this, the beings can’t return to the planet and are therefore in limbo.

Whatever’s going on it wasn’t a part of the original story, so even if you know the PlayStation 1 version back-to-back there’s still going to be new surprises for you.

What characters haven’t we seen yet in Final Fantasy VII Remake?

The summons being available so early in the game is intriguing, as the first summons, Ifrit, does not appear until the team crosses the ocean – after leaving Midgar. So if we are acquiring these early, will anything be taking their place? Will we see new summonses that were not in the original? The various pre-order deals already include offers for Chocobo Chick, Cactuar, and Carbuncle summonses that weren’t in the original so there may well be more beyond that.

Four of the main protagonists have been seen so far – Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Barret – but what about the fifth character, Red XIII? As you fight through Shinra Headquarters to rescue Aerith, you gain his assistance as he is being experimented upon by another plot-relevant character, Professor Hojo – who we have also not seen yet. However, since the plot is being changed in other ways, will these characters still be in Midgar? Moreover, where is JENOVA?

As for The Turks, the assassins of Shinra, we have seen three of the four members: Reno, Rude, and Tseng but we have yet to see Elena. Usually, we do not meet her until after Midgar, but given the other changes there is nothing to say she won’t turn up beforehand.