Square Enix released the opening movie for Final Fantasy VII Remake. The opening sequence is for the Japanese version of the game, but it doesn’t make much of a difference since there isn’t any real dialogue other than a brief comment from Barret to Cloud after the title screen appears.

The opening sequence is five minutes long and starts with a look at town life in Midgar. We see some kids riding their bikes through the streets, some construction taking place, and the Oldsmobile-style design for the vehicles that line the roads.

You can check out the opening sequence video below.

What’s interesting is that the aesthetics remind me more of Final Fantasy XV than they do Final Fantasy VII.

It seemed like in the original game on the PSX and PC the setting was more dieselpunk fantasy, and here it’s more retro-cyberpunk.

I think it looks less fantasy and more like reality than what I was expecting.

It also looks like they slightly modified Aerith’s face. It looks less… long?

Then again maybe it’s just been a while and she always looked like that.

Anyway, I do have to give them props for the seamless transitions between cinematics and gameplay. That’s always very impressive to me when it zooms out of the high-fidelity render of Midgar and zooms straight into the gameplay once Cloud and the other eco-terrorists hop off the train.

There isn’t too much else to say. The cinematics look good for what they are, but if you’re not into games pretending to be movies then you probably don’t give two Chocobo turds what the game looks like.

Most of the gameplay that proceeds the opening sequence is covered in the demo for Final Fantasy VII Remake and we covered that in an article some time ago.

You can look for the game to release on the PS4 starting April 10th, 2020.

(Thanks for the news tip FF)