Far better than its reputation suggests.
Since Final Fantasy VII: Remake hit shelves, fan debate has raged over the new plot elements. On one side are traditionalists who see the addition of swarms of magic flying ghost monsters as a distraction from the original’s themes. On the other, optimists are certain that this rat’s nest of bewildering metatextual loose ends will be satisfyingly wrapped up in 2027’s Revelations.
However, Square-Enix and AppLibot have quietly been releasing a fully faithful and incredible-looking, completely separate remake of Final Fantasy VII that’s flown under the radar and is about to be shut down forever.
Enter Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, an ambitious mobile/PC title that set out to retell the stories of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, Advent Children, and the lost media Japan-only feature phone game Before Crisis. Heck, they even squeeze in some scenes from the actually-surprisingly-good Tifa/Aerith novel Traces of Two Pasts.
On top of all that is a lengthy new two-part story about the adventures of kid Sephiroth, apparently salvaged from the ashes of the failed battle royale title The First Soldier. This is all presented with HD pre-rendered backgrounds, beautiful new chibi character models, new FMVs, and a dynamic and fun ATB turn-based battle system.
But there’s a fly in the ointment – Ever Crisis is a mobile-focused gacha game, a phrase that’ll cause a huge swathe of gamers to dismiss it out of hand. Arguably they’re right to do so; gacha games usually feel like they’re constantly trying to weasel their way into your wallet with lengthy cooldown timers, difficulty spikes, and slot machine draws for rare items.
At first glance, Ever Crisis doesn’t do itself any favors on that front. The game is stuffed with a head-spinning amount of upgrade materials for characters, weapons, and materia, combined with a baffling UI that, possibly intentionally, isn’t eager to explain any of this.
In a perverse twist, Ever Crisis turned out to be quite bad at being a gacha game – not great for Square-Enix bean counters, but great for us. From July 2026 onwards, it’s been impossible to spend real money in the in-game store, but even before then the game would shower you with enough free stuff to enjoy story mode without paying a penny. It seems the game was too generous, as the Producer’s Letter about the shutdown noted that balancing “visual quality and development costs” had been an “ongoing challenge.”
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-vii-got-a-beautiful-mobile-remake-that-nobody-played/
