This is what Final Fantasy 7 looks like as a side-scrolling beat-em-up

Maybe you love the idea of going back to the mean streets of Midgar but just can't deal with all those old-school random encounters any more. Maybe you'd be more into Streets of Rage if Axel fought with a giant Buster Sword. Either way, Final Fantasy 7 Re-Imagined has you covered.

The fan-made project lets two players control Cloud and Tifa as they stomp side-scroller style through the Mako Reactor, beating up Shinra soldiers and the Guard Scorpion as they go on their merry eco-terrorist way. It's not just Final Fantasy visuals on a standard beat-em-up, either - Cloud summons good ol' Ifrit in the trailer below, and he and Tifa can even equip materia to augment their attacks. The developers plan to put out a playable demo "soon," and hope to release the full game for free… Square Enix legal department permitting.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.