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Leaked Final Fantasy VII Remake demo reveals story changes, file size, and more

Aaron Mamiit
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Square Enix will apparently soon release a demo for the Final Fantasy VII Remake on the PlayStation Network, and dataminers who have already combed through the game’s files discovered several interesting details about the highly anticipated RPG.

Ahead of its official release, hackers have acquired a playable version of the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo, with playthroughs easily found in various streaming platforms. The demo covers the opening sequence of the original Final Fantasy VII story, with Cloud joining Barrett and Avalanche in attacking one of Shinra’s Mako Reactors.

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Fair warning: From here on out, there will be some spoilers — yes, even for the hardcore Final Fantasy VII fans who have memorized the RPG’s story by heart.

While it appears that the Final Fantasy VII Remake will broadly follow the original RPG’s story, it looks like there will be some tweaks to the plot. For example, instead of Avalanche destroying the Mako Reactor in the opening sequence, they only disable it. President Shinra, however, orders a larger explosion in order to drive public opinion against the group.

The demo’s 10GB package, however, was also found to be packed with content that is otherwise not found over the course of playing through it.

Dataminers have unearthed four hours of music and minigames that include a rhythm-based game with Cloud dodging the enemy’s attacks. A chapter list was also discovered, containing 18 entries. The demo, which appears to be the game’s first chapter, runs for 45 minutes, so the length of the Final Fantasy VII Remake may be somewhere around 13.5 hours.

The more interesting hidden contents of the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo, however, are storyboards and renders that showcase the game’s characters and changes to certain scenes to tie in other content related to the RPG, including 2007’s Crisis Core for the PSP.

The images also reveal that the story arc with Don Corneo, with Cloud dressing up as a woman to try to trick the crime lord with Tifa and Aerith, will return.

Lastly, an information sheet from the PlayStation Store on the game’s requirements reveals that the Final Fantasy VII Remake will take up a total of 73GB in the PlayStation 4’s storage. With two months to go before its official release, gamers may need to clean up their hard drives.

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Aaron Mamiit
Aaron Mamiit
Contributor
Aaron received a NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was 4 years old, and he has been fascinated with…
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