With all of the hype for the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake (especially after the recent demo leak), I've been itching to dive back into the original game in the meantime. I debated picking the PS4 version back up to finish, but the classic iffy English translation was really bugging me this time, even with some of the touchups that Square Enix has made over the years. I eventually settled on trying out the PC version, with two mods installed: Reunion, and Remako.
Here's what both mods do, for those who don't know what they are:
I've been playing the game for several hours today with Remako, Beacause, the model overhaul, and the 60 FPS battle mod with interpolated animations enabled, and it has been fantastic. I really think this may end up being (in my opinion) the definitive way to play the original FF7 in the modern age; the redone translation really helps make the dialogue a lot more clear to understand while still retaining a lot of the charm of the original release (and making Barret's dialogue a lot less, um, stereotypical), the updated models make the game feel a whole lot less dated, and Remako just does absolute wonders for most of the backgrounds, though some text on them still just isn't readable due to how low-res and pixelated the original backgrounds were.
If anyone hasn't seen these mods together before, I recorded some no-commentary gameplay of the game's opening and uploaded it to YouTube, which I've embedded below. Just keep in mind that the way I had my game set up is entirely optional, and the mod has a few different settings so you can make it closer to what you'd like. Namely, I had the 60 FPS battles mod enabled with interpolated animations, which causes some camera cuts to lag behind the animation. I also had transparent dialogue boxes enabled, which are similarly optional. (Also, I don't actually do much with my channel, so hopefully this video isn't seen as self-promotion of some sort)
My only real complaint at the moment is that for the relocalization, some names were changed; for instance, Marlene is now Marin. There's an option when you first install Reunion to use the original / official Square Enix translations for names, but it doesn't appear to quite affect all of them. It really isn't much of a complaint since it's pretty minor (at least so far), but still something that bugs me just a little bit. It's absolutely worth it, though, for the rest of the changes that Beacause makes to the game's script. It really is night and day for me compared to the kind of shoddy script that Square Enix has insisted on using and updating since 1997.
Has anyone else tried these mods before? How do you feel about them? And do you think they make it difficult to go back to the original game, or do you think that they make the experience different enough that they don't replace the original game?
Here's what both mods do, for those who don't know what they are:
- The Reunion is a collection of seven mods (each of which can be enabled or disabled as the user wishes) for Final Fantasy VII that all work together to make the game a lot more polished. The mods are as follows (with some descriptions taken from the original thread on Qhimm):
- Beacause: "Beacause is a Final Fantasy VII relocalization. It is a complete retranslation and relocalization from the ground up, using the original Japanese script. The aim is to have an end product that is accurate and professional. Official sources have been used to minimize errors in context and spelling. The project's name "Beacause" comes from a misspelling (in the original localization) of the only line spoken by Jenova." (description taken word-for-word from the original page)
- Menu Enhancement: The Menu Enhancement portion of The Reunion fixes "thousands of menu alignment issues" and also makes many other changes to the game's user interface, including improvement to font spacing, adding the original PlayStation buttons prompts back into the game, allowing more items in menus, and more.
- Audio Replacement: This fixes many bugs with the game's original sound module, on top of adding in sound effects recorded from the original PS1 version of the game, making it so that FMV audio is affected by the config volume settings, and also making it so that FMV audio doesn't mute when the game is out of focus.
- Weapon: "This [work-in-progress] mod attempts to address the [game's] imbalance, and make the player think more about their actions in game. For example, in battle, rather than pressing attack continually, a player will be encouraged to think about which attacks will hurt a particular enemy. A mechanical enemy will succumb much more easily to lightning attacks than anything else. Weapon tries not to inflate difficulty artificially through high HP amounts or cheap gimmicks. Weapon will also address the game-play outside of battle. For example, script changes have been made, the price of goods will be altered, and various mini-games have been modified."
- Model Overhaul: Self-explanatory. This mod replaces most models in the game to look less dated. This model mostly affects overworld models, but some battle models are replaced too.
- 60 FPS Battles: This mod lets you increase the framerate in the game's battles from 15 FPS to 60 FPS (including things like the battle menu and interactive Limit Breaks), making it more responsive and more similar to the original PlayStation version. There's also an option to use interpolated model animations if you'd like to try them out.
- SOLDIER Quest: "99 1:35 Soldiers will be hidden throughout the world as collectables."
- Remako replaces the game's FMVs, pre-rendered backgrounds, textures in battle and on the world map, and several other textures with higher resolution versions created by taking the original files and enhancing them with an AI upscaling tool. The results look much less pixelated, and are much easier to make out details of.
I've been playing the game for several hours today with Remako, Beacause, the model overhaul, and the 60 FPS battle mod with interpolated animations enabled, and it has been fantastic. I really think this may end up being (in my opinion) the definitive way to play the original FF7 in the modern age; the redone translation really helps make the dialogue a lot more clear to understand while still retaining a lot of the charm of the original release (and making Barret's dialogue a lot less, um, stereotypical), the updated models make the game feel a whole lot less dated, and Remako just does absolute wonders for most of the backgrounds, though some text on them still just isn't readable due to how low-res and pixelated the original backgrounds were.
If anyone hasn't seen these mods together before, I recorded some no-commentary gameplay of the game's opening and uploaded it to YouTube, which I've embedded below. Just keep in mind that the way I had my game set up is entirely optional, and the mod has a few different settings so you can make it closer to what you'd like. Namely, I had the 60 FPS battles mod enabled with interpolated animations, which causes some camera cuts to lag behind the animation. I also had transparent dialogue boxes enabled, which are similarly optional. (Also, I don't actually do much with my channel, so hopefully this video isn't seen as self-promotion of some sort)
My only real complaint at the moment is that for the relocalization, some names were changed; for instance, Marlene is now Marin. There's an option when you first install Reunion to use the original / official Square Enix translations for names, but it doesn't appear to quite affect all of them. It really isn't much of a complaint since it's pretty minor (at least so far), but still something that bugs me just a little bit. It's absolutely worth it, though, for the rest of the changes that Beacause makes to the game's script. It really is night and day for me compared to the kind of shoddy script that Square Enix has insisted on using and updating since 1997.
Has anyone else tried these mods before? How do you feel about them? And do you think they make it difficult to go back to the original game, or do you think that they make the experience different enough that they don't replace the original game?
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