{"id":370825,"date":"2026-01-15T06:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370825\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T06:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:27:11","slug":"ive-never-played-final-fantasy-7-before-but-im-liking-the-remake-on-xbox-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370825\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Never Played Final Fantasy 7 Before, But I’m Liking The Remake On Xbox So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

The demo throws you into what I believe is the start of the game, initially playing as the sword-wielding hero-for-hire character known as “Cloud” (yes, I know he’s mega-famous, but he isn’t to me!), and I was immediately shocked to learn that the combat isn’t turn-based in this remake. Instead, it employs a fluent and satisfying hack-and-slash system that also features the ability to slow down time in order to access spells and items.<\/p>\n

You get around an hour’s worth of gameplay in the free Xbox demo, which sees you grouping up with a collection of characters in order to take down what’s known as a “Mako Reactor”. Along the way, you also get the chance to switch between Cloud and Barrett (a muscle-man focused on ranged attacks), and it quickly becomes clear that switching between characters is the key to keeping enemies on their feet, especially with the more boss-like encounters.<\/p>\n

And I have to say, even though I don’t really know what’s going on yet, the story seems intriguing and the presentation is excellent. Final Fantasy 7 Remake definitely feels like a big-budget game, even for something that was first released almost six years ago, and the best compliment I can give is that the demo left me wanting more.<\/p>\n

The optimisation for FF7 Remake seems to be amazing as well, at least on the platforms I’m playing on. I spent around 45 minutes on Xbox Series X, which is where the above screenshots are taken from, and it feels like an ultra-smooth 60FPS experience (albeit on a VRR<\/a>-enabled display) with impressive visuals.<\/p>\n

After that though, I switched to the ROG Xbox Ally X<\/a> for the final 15 minutes, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it immediately synced my save with the Series X version. Yes, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an Xbox Play Anywhere<\/a> title even when it comes to the free demo, so switching between console and handheld is seamless. The Xbox Ally X seems to handle it with ease as well \u2014 I was playing at 720p (just a preference thing) with multiple “High” graphics settings, and didn’t even need to use the “Turbo” power mode to reach a stable 60 frames per-second. There was loads more room to squeeze out even greater visuals, but it didn’t feel necessary.<\/p>\n

I still haven’t decided if I’m definitely buying Final Fantasy 7 Remake on January 22nd yet, but it’s certainly got me intrigued to finally see what this game is all about. To be honest, I might even go back and finally play the original PS1 version first \u2014 you actually get it included for free as part FF7 Remake’s pre-order bonus on Xbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This might all sound kind of ridiculous if Final Fantasy 7 is ingrained in your brain like so many other classic games, but somehow it never locked onto my radar! If you’ve got any tips for me as I potentially embark on this journey, or you want to share any other stories about the Final Fantasy franchise, please do drop them in the comments below!<\/p>\n

Will you be picking up Final Fantasy 7 Remake on Xbox next week? Come and tell us.<\/p>\n

\tRelated Games<\/p>\n

\"Fraser<\/p>\n

Fraser is the News Editor at Pure Xbox, where he spends his time reporting on the biggest stories in the world of Xbox and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The demo throws you into what I believe is the start of the game, initially playing as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[242,141494,59,840,184,86,56,54,55,183,695,694],"class_list":["post-370825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-features","tag-final-fantasy-7","tag-gb","tag-hands-on","tag-rog-xbox-ally","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-xbox","tag-xbox-series-s","tag-xbox-series-x"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}