Final Fantasy VII Remake is still beautiful on PS5, even with minor upgrades

Here’s some PS5 remake impressions

Final Fantasy VII Remake came out in April of last year. I almost couldn’t believe it, hearing that out loud! It simultaneously feels like it was out way before that and just a few months ago. Maybe it’s the enduring legacy of VII that I’m thinking of vaguely: as the entry is always in the zeitgeist in some shape or form.

And it definitely will be for a bit longer now that the enhanced edition, Intergrade, is coming on PS5.

Let’s break down what Intergrade actually is with some PS5 remake impressions.

• Improved textures, lighting, and backgrounds
• A swappable graphics mode (4K) and performance mode (60 FPS)
• A photo mode (sample below)
• DualSense PS5 support
• Yuffie DLC (more on this later)

In other words, several of the upgrades are skin deep. Welcome, mind! But not Earth-shattering.

It does look noticeably better, but given how gorgeous it was on PS4, it’s very easy to live with the original. The performance mode actually lives up to its name, providing incredibly smooth gameplay throughout, but note that the “graphics” setting does stutter. You can see both of these in the above gameplay video: we start with performance mode, then swap to graphics when we get inside the station, then swap back. You can see for yourself how it shakes out, but I prefer performance for my PS5 playthrough.

The photo mode is fairly barebones, but it exists. You can change the angle of the camera, swap filters, take out party members to just capture the scenery, and do a few other touch-ups like tilting. That’s essentially it. The DualSense features are similarly fine, and it really depends on how “immersive” you feel like the feature is regardless. So far it’s been interesting weighing when it’s a pro and a con: because for games like Resident Evil Village where it can hamper shooting, it can get real old real fast.

In case anyone is worried, my trophies transferred over as soon as I used the save transfer tool. Like, the second my save was downloaded, each trophy popped up (annoyingly) one after one sequentially. Oh, and on my PS5, without the DLC, the file size of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is 81.39 GB.

Other than that, this is still Final Fantasy VII Remake. For the posterity that is reading this, you should probably experience it at some point. PS5 upgrades or not, this is a saga worth getting into, and a consistent framerate is the icing on the cake.

So where is “INTERmission,” the story DLC involving Yuffie? Well, we don’t have access to that yet. Once we do, we’ll be sure and provide a review.