The dominant faction of the world is the Shinra Electric Power Company, a powerful corporation that harvests Mako as an energy source. Shinra is seen as responsible for raising the quality of life for everyone in its sphere of influence.

Each character has their own set of starting stats, which grow when the character levels up, though there are numerous other ways to boost stats. Stat-upgrading items boost a specific stat, and though difficult to come by, can be obtained ad infinitum through methods such as morphing enemies.

The commands change as the game progresses, and are dependent on the characters in the player's party and their equipment. Commands include attacking with a weapon, casting magic, using items, summoning monsters, and other actions that either damage the enemy or aid the player characters. Final Fantasy VII also features powerful, character-specific commands called Limit Breaks, which can be used only after a special gauge is charged by taking enemy attacks. After being attacked, characters can be afflicted by one or more abnormal "statuses", such as poison or paralysis. These statuses and their adverse effects can be removed by special items or abilities or by resting at an inn. Once all enemies are defeated, the battle ends and the player is rewarded with money, items, and experience points. If the player is defeated, it is game over and the game must be loaded to the last save point.[3]: 20–27 

Outside of battle, characters use different, blockier models. The player controls the party leader—normally Cloud, but Aeris, Tifa, Barret, and Cid are party leaders briefly in the story—and can traverse and interact with the environment. This can involve interacting with non-player characters to use their dialog boxes, which can involve purchasing items and equipment from shops or progressing the main story or sidequests.

Final Fantasy VII Remake falls just short of perfection, but it’s clearly one of the best RPGs to release so far and is definitely a contender for RPG of the year.

Final Fantasy VII Remake received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic,[113] with critics praising its faithfulness to the original game. Tamoor Hussain of GameSpot states that, while Remake is only the initial entry in a full reimagining of the original game, it is rich in details that were previously unexplored, realizes new storytelling ambitions with confidence, and presents fresh perspectives that feel both meaningful and essential in his review. To summarize, he says that the game tells a smaller, more personal Final Fantasy VII tale and marries it with a smart mashup of action and RPG gameplay in order to deliver a must-play experience.

Visually, the goal was to make Final Fantasy VII a completely unified work with a single final fantasy 7 remake style running from beginning to end. The transition from 2D computer graphics to 3D environments overlaid on pre-rendered backgrounds was accompanied by a focus on a more realistic presentation.

Yuffie Kisaragi takes center stage in this additional episode, which takes place concurrently with the main game.

[45] Certain tricks were used to conceal load times, such as offering animations to keep players from getting bored.[38] When it was decided to use 3D graphics, there was a discussion among the staff whether to use sprite-based character models or 3D polygonal models. While sprites proved more popular with the staff, the polygon models were chosen as they could better express emotion. This decision was influenced by the team's exposure to the 3D character models used in Alone in the Dark. Sakaguchi decided to use deformed models for field navigation and real-time event scenes, for better expression of emotion, while realistically proportioned models would be used in battles.[61] The team purchased Silicon Graphics Onyx supercomputers and related workstations, and accompanying software including Softimage 3D, PowerAnimator, and N-World for an estimated total of $21 million. Many team members had never seen the technology before.[37]

Cloud explains to the others that what they had been pursuing was not the true Sephiroth, but can feel he is nearby. Cloud and Tifa go alone, and Cloud hands the Black Materia to a party member remaining behind to prevent himself from being tricked into giving it to Sephiroth again.

With only a week until Meteor falls, Cloud asks everyone to come up with their own reason and resolve to keep on fighting, beyond the mere reason of fighting for the planet; should they find one, they may return for the last battle.

The main characters were adjusted in various ways for Remake. Rather than the "cool and collected" Cloud as seen in other games, Remake depicts his apathetic attitude as a façade to mask his insecurities. Nojima wanted to convey that his standoffishness could be seen as lame.[54] Cloud's initial redesign for Remake departed more dramatically from the original's, but was later altered to more closely resemble Nomura's design.[43] Tifa's desire for revenge against Shinra is complicated by her reluctance to enact violence. Barret's passion and charisma rallies other characters to follow his lead.[54] Nojima worked hard to make the interactions between these three conterraneo.[55] It was important to Hamaguchi to include a scene wherein Cloud has an intimate conversation with one of his teammates based on the player's choices in homage to the "date" scene from the original game.

Although Tifa knew it to be longer than that, she had never confronted him, instead asking him to join AVALANCHE so she would have more time to decide what to do and to keep an eye on him and his strange behavior.

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