Final Fantasy 7's latest Steam launch aimed to update the almost 30-year-old JRPG classic, but it's landed a 'Mostly Negative' rating on release for technical issues, most notable of which is the doubled battle speed. This was fixed in a launch-day patch, though players report that other issues remain.
Square Enix announced that a new version of the original Final Fantasy 7 would replace the then-current 2013 PC port. At the time this statement was made, the company didn't clarify what changes the new version would include, but on release, we learned that it would feature autosave, the ability to turn off overworld encounters, and a 'win' button that refills HP, MP, and the Limit Gauge during combat.
The biggest change in the update is undoubtedly the "3x speed mode." As the name suggests, players can triple the game's speed during battles, travel, and certain in-game cutscenes. One of the largest criticisms of the original PC port was the significant drop in framerate compared to the PlayStation version. The PC version ran at 20fps in the overworld and 15fps in battle, compared to the PS1's 60 and 30fps respectively.
However, even without using this new triple speed function, players struggled with the increase in the combat speed at launch. It appears that Square Enix attempted to match the PC version's framerate to PlayStation's by simply doubling it, which caused numerous things to break, most notably the game's signature active-time battle system. One user review states that the "combat speed is completely broken."
The top-rated Steam user review at the time of writing reads, "The FPS limit has been increased from 15 to 30 doubling the speed of fights and actions but without adapting the animations so the actions desyncs with the audio." It goes on to note that the roulette-style Limit Breaks are now "extreme hardcore." However, other user reviews point out that a patch to fix this was implemented on the same day.
"With the speed in battles fixed, this is pretty much just a slightly better version of the previous port," one user review reads, though others note that the battle speed wasn't the only issue. One user reports issues with "overlays and textures," another says they experienced a "weird screen tearing issue," while another reports that the fix to the combat speed has dropped menus to 20fps.
Square Enix at least appears to be aware of the ongoing issues, and quick to deliver fixes, but given that this launch has replaced the original Final Fantasy 7 PC port, we hope it returns to working order soon.
