Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Revelation marks the climactic chapter of the remake trilogy, and after its recently revealed release date of April 8, 2027, we’re months away from finally seeing the conclusion of the events between Cloud and the gang against Sephiroth.
In the lead-up to its launch, we spent over an hour playing with a demo build on a PS5 Pro, and this time was clearly not enough to run through the breadth of content that was provided to us, which covered various regions to visit such as Mideel and Wutai, along with other activities and quests that included a look at the return of Queen’s Blood and even the FITS system.
Final Fantasy VII Revelation Hands-on Preview
The Final Fantasy VII Revelation demo opens aboard the Highwind with Cid guiding players through tutorials. From here, we’re introduced to a couple of major additions and updates to the game. New to Final Fantasy VII Revelation is the addition of a grappling hook, adding a new level of verticality during traversal. Players will come across sections of the map they can grapple to, which will be clearly indicated, and simply pressing L2 will zip them across, getting players to their destination faster or even just bringing them to new places to see the world from. We’re not quite sure how this translates to traversal in the overworld, but with a few minutes spent in Wutai, players will be able to scale buildings and ledges with ease.
Then we have Piko the Chocobo, who will be an important member of the party in the game. Piko can be summoned, leveled up, swim, scale walls, and taught traversal skills like Chocojet (basically an air dash) to leap and glide across terrain. In the original title, this was accomplished by several colored Chocobos, but in Final Fantasy VII Revelation, it looks like Piko will be the only traversal option the party will need.
In fact, when riding around the world, you can approach monsters on Piko and even fight while using Piko, and surprisingly, Piko will also have specific commands and skills that you can use. You can dismount at any time to fight the usual way, but this is a fun way to go about things.
Skydiving and Parachuting are other additions to Final Fantasy VII Revelation that take advantage of the freedom of exploration brought about by the Highwind. While on the Highwind, players can gain access to the world and explore to their heart’s content, but upon seeing a place of interest, players can then immediately jump down and parachute to the exact place they wish to land. Returning to the ship is seamless too, making exploration as fluid and as friction-free as possible.
Looking down from the Highwind, it’s quite intimidating to see all of the places of interest that a map region holds. Exploring will show you how many points and activities on the map there are, but since we were playing a demo, the number of points of interest visible might be exaggerated for demo purposes and might feel a little bit too checklist-y. What is clear, though, as Hamaguchi explained in our discussion, is that there’s a sort of progression system here in which higher-level players will get a parachuting experience that is more versatile and convenient to players.
The regions of the map that we saw during the Final Fantasy VII Revelation demo (only some were available to visit) were the ff: Aerospace Cape, Nibel Region, Icicle Frostbelt, Midgar Outskirts, Junon Region, Grasslands, Corel Region, Cosmo Canyon, Gongaga Jungles, Mideel archipelago, and Wutai.
Exploration is further assisted by MAI, or Multifunctional Assisted Intelligence. Basically Chadley’s replacement and a female this time around, she can provide players with quests, rewards, and guidance as she basically informs players of all the interest points in the region. During our demo, she showed up way too often, which can feel pace-breaking, but as mentioned, it could also be because of how the demo was configured to unlock an exaggerated amount of content for demo purposes.
The Final Fantasy VII Revelation demo showcased several new areas. Mideel features upbeat jungle-inspired music and quests like photographing the Aria Toucan or claiming Typhon’s summon materia. Costa Del Sol brings Johnny back with a beachside quest, while Gold Saucer is packed with minigames such as snowboarding, and trouble from “32-bit Ruffians.”
Wutai, in particular, is sprawling and atmospheric, filled with pagodas, caverns, and trials, and introduces the summon Hades alongside familiar faces like Glenn and Godo.
The biggest draw of Final Fantasy VII Revelation, aside from the obvious conclusion of the story, is the upgraded combat courtesy of the FITS system. FITS or Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear system basically assigns specialized suits to party members, providing them with additional capabilities outside of their base character.
Here are the FITS and their specialties:
- Warrior – Warriors dish out pain with override system, making them excel at aggressive frontline combat. They have “Rallying Rush” to cause their limit gauge to steadily fill, and they can also execute specific abilities saved to command shortcuts without consuming ATB charges (but will be on a cooldown timer).
- Knight – Knights are the tanks, absorbing damage and providing defensive buffs. They have Defensive Bulwark which basically casts Protect and Shell within an area while guarding, and are also capable of expending limit gauge charges to perform unique support abilities.
- Summoner – Summoners can sync with summons to empower their standard attacks or enter into a Blood Pack to sacrifice HP to unleash a powerful ability.
- Black Mage – Black Mages can cast powerful elemental spells and can accrue elemental affinity charges, which can reduce the MP cost of further casts. Stockpiling three charges of the same affinity will grant access to a supremely potent spell.
Each character has a Folio grid, reminiscent of sphere grids, to unlock synergy skills and exclusive upgrades. These grids encourage experimentation and team synergy, especially when there are learned abilities (like Yuffie with a Max MP Up in her Black Mage Folio or Barret with a Crit Hit Rate Up in his Warrior Folio) that other allies can benefit from when at least one party member is wearing the appropriate FITS.
Lastly, our Final Fantasy VII Revelation demo session allowed us to try Vincent in combat. His gunplay is fast and fluid, chaining shots by pressing Square before unleashing Omega abilities. His Omega Abilities depend on how many basic attacks you’ve pumped out, which will let you perform Execration, Eclipse, Blood Moon, and Retribution.
Transforming into the Galian Beast by holding R1 introduces a risk-reward mechanic, with chaos levels boosting power but reducing max HP. While in Galian Beast mode, you can hold triangle to unleash and ability Damnation to instantly pressure foes, but press triangle with perfect timing to and you can unleash Damnation Prime. But be careful, as remaining in Galian Beast form will increase your Chaos levels to a max of 3, which will then decease max HP.
Lastly, there are some nice quality of life improvements that we noticed during our playtime with the Final Fantasy VII Revelation demo was an option to toggle auto pick up of items as you run by them during exploration, along with easily going back to the Highwind simply by opening the map and pressing square.
It’s a bit too early to say, but the short demo of Final Fantasy VII Revelation that we played displayed so much potential, especially with what combat changes may happen due to the FITS system. The world looked bustling with activity and exploration points, although it also runs the risk of doing too much and making it feel like a chore. Whatever the case may be, the wait for Final Fantasy VII Revelation is certainly going to be unbearable.
Final Fantasy VII Revelation is scheduled to be released April 8, 2027, on PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC.
