Returning to Midgar never felt so good. In this, yet another sequel to the series which used to forbid such a thing, you experience what the world was like before Sephiroth went absolutely insane. You are Zack, a young recruit in SOLDIER who has aspirations of being a hero.

Like most Final Fantasy heroes, Zack is full of that youthful exuberance which you are annoyed with at every step of the way. He’s cocky, he’s uneducated, but that makes him downright Final Fantasy which means you’re going to love him anyway. As usual he has the overly strict and critical mentor who will downplay every accomplishment he does and will lecture you about mindless crap until your ears fall off. Otherwise though there is the blatant sign that something is up with this dude and that the story will probably turn him evil or kill him off part of the way through. Don’t worry, nothing has been spoiled here because unless you’ve missed every game and Hollywood movie made in the last 20 years, you’ll see it coming.

Despite the obvious plot twists, the story still works and is genuinely entertaining to be involved in. There are several familiar faces which pop in here and there throughout the story, and having a conversation with Sephiroth just turns downright weird when you realize just what he’s probably got cooking in that noggin of his. The dialogue is very well done and doesn’t suffer from the classic Final Fantasy problem where you feel like the actor just stumbled into the studio and they cast him for the part.

Although the return to Mena Suvari for the role of Aerith is just as cringe inducing as it was in Kingdom Hearts 2. It’s absolutely amazing how she could be so devoid of emotion when recording dialogue like this. I call for a return to the days of Mandy Moore for our Aerith needs. That or just give her back the good old blue boxes from the original FF7, anything but this nightmare.

Complementing the actors is the always stellar soundtrack which permeates through this entire series of games. The bulk of the composing this time was done by Takeharu Ishimoto, and also features some remixes of the original work done by Nobuo Uematsu for the original FF7. It all fits into the environments and battle sequences very well, doing a lot to drive along the action on screen.