Bloody Hell, Square Enix: Final Fantasy VII's New Steam Port is a Glitchy Gimmick, Not a Glow-Up
AI Gaming News Author · kotaku ·
Square Enix's latest Steam re-release of the classic Final Fantasy VII has landed with an 'Overwhelmingly Negative' rating, plagued by issues like stuttering audio, a forced launcher, and blurry visuals, all while inexplicably delisting the superior 2013 version.
Right, gather 'round, mates, because I've been tinkering with this story all morning, and bloody hell, it's wilder than a chocobo on rocket fuel. You know that feeling when you're trying to cast a simple 'Enhancement' spell on a treasured artifact, but your wand decides to sneeze mid-incantation and you end up with something… different? Something distinctly *worse*?
Well, that, my digital friends, is pretty much the vibe coming from Square Enix's latest attempt to bring the legendary 1997 classic, *Final Fantasy VII*, to modern Steam players. The new version, which dropped on February 24th, has been greeted with the kind of digital pitchforks normally reserved for forgotten NFTs and loot box schemes, earning an 'Overwhelmingly Negative' score on Steam. For context, only 36% of its 308 reviews are positive. To put that in perspective, the previous Steam iteration – now quaintly dubbed the '2013 Edition' – boasts a gleaming 92% 'Overwhelmingly Positive' rating.
And here's the genuine mind-bender, the sort of move that makes you tilt your head like a confused moogle: Square Enix didn't just release this new, arguably broken version. Oh no. They went full dark wizard and *delisted* the perfectly functional, widely praised 2013 Edition. It's like having a perfectly good, well-maintained airship, then replacing it with one that's missing an engine and occasionally catches fire, all while telling everyone the old ship never existed. What gives, honestly?
So, what exactly turned this anticipated re-release into a full-blown digital dumpster fire? The list of grievances from players is longer than Sephiroth's sword, but a few stand out like a botched teleportation spell:
* **Stuttering Sound Effects:** Nothing quite immerses you in the epic struggle against Shinra like battle music that sounds like it's trying to escape a broken record player. Imagine those iconic Limit Break animations with the sound cutting out – pure auditory agony, mate. * **A Mandatory Launcher That Just Doesn't Care:** A forced launcher isn't usually the end of the world, but this one apparently registers inputs even when the game is full-screened. It's like having a helpful sprite follow you around, only it keeps accidentally bumping into your spellbook and changing your menu options. * **Buggy Resolution Settings:** Players are reporting that selecting different resolution options does precisely nothing. You want to play at 1080p? The game just laughs in blurry pixels. This is especially baffling when the previous version offered sensible scaling and even an 'Original Graphics' mode. It's like being offered a potion that promises clarity, but just makes everything fuzzier. * **Blurry Visuals and Missing Filters:** Tied into the resolution woes, the general visual quality is being lambasted as 'blurry.' The 2013 Edition had optional linear filtering and an 'Original Graphics' mode, which, you know, let players choose how they wanted their classic to look. This new version? Not so much. It's like watching a classic film through a smudged lens – why would anyone choose that?
But wait, there's more! Because no grand software debacle is complete without a truly spectacular, almost comedic, blunder. In the initial hours of release, several people on X (formerly Twitter, remember that?) reported that the original Steam depot for *Final Fantasy VII* was… 0 kilobytes. Yes, you read that right. Zero. Kilobytes. Someone at Square Enix, presumably after a long day of, well, *something*, forgot to upload the actual *contents of the game* to Steam. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, mate – the feature of 'not existing at all'! Thankfully, that particular gem of a mistake was patched out swiftly. A low bar, but at least they noticed *that* particular digital ghost.
And then there was the 'fix' that wasn't quite. Apparently, the FPS of the original release got a bump, from 15 FPS to a glorious 30 FPS! Sounds like a win, right? Except this 'improvement' somehow resulted in animations and cutscenes playing at double their normal speed. Imagine Cloud Strife suddenly moving with the frantic energy of a speedrunner on five coffees. Hilarious in theory, less so when you're trying to enjoy the narrative pacing of one of gaming's greatest stories. I reckon that was another priority patch, and fair enough too.
It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Why does a company with the pedigree, history, and frankly, the astronomical resources of Square Enix, manage to stumble so spectacularly with a beloved classic? This isn't some niche indie title; it's *Final Fantasy VII*, a foundational pillar of modern gaming. It's not about new features or revolutionary blockchain integrations (thankfully, none of that here, which is a blessing in itself given the current state of things), it's about careful preservation and thoughtful accessibility. Gamers aren't asking for miracles, just for their cherished memories to be treated with respect, not turned into a blurry, stuttering mess behind a broken launcher.
This whole incident highlights a recurring theme in the gaming industry: the often baffling inability of big publishers to simply re-release their classics without making them worse. We're not asking for a complete remake (we've got *Remake* for that, eh?), but a stable, playable version that works on modern systems without feeling like it was cobbled together in a dark alley using spare code. This isn't just about *FFVII*; it's about the broader issue of digital game preservation and the expectations players have for quality, even from older titles.
Let's hope this isn't a sign of some wider, unseen enchantment gone awry in the industry. For now, it seems the best advice is to perhaps avoid this particular portal to Gaia and stick to a version that actually, you know, *works*. One can only optimistically chaotic hope that Square Enix casts a proper 'Fix-It-Good' spell soon, rather than just fumbling through their digital grimoire with their eyes closed.
Tags: Final Fantasy VII, Square Enix, PC Gaming, Game Preservation, Steam
Original article: kotaku