Final Fantasy VII Remake: World Preview

I hate to be that critical guy that rants about everything online, but Square Enix really under-delivered on this one. Before I go any further though, I'll start off by saying what I did like about this title. The best think you can say about the World Preview is that the build quality of the book itself is pretty good. The pages are thick, the print quality is good, and the cover is good and solid so I have no trouble believing this thing could last decades.

That's about the last good thing you can say about it though. When you look at the back of the book, it very bluntly describes it as "a collection of lavish illustrations." Reading those words, one would naturally conclude that it would include some of the concept art for various characters and locations from the game. But instead, once you open the book the first thing you'll notice is that the entire blasted thing is full of screen-caps. Screen-caps from the game. Screen-caps from various marketing material. Screen-caps from the original PSX title. There's one or two images in this book that are actually illustrated, but the vast majority isn't. The vast majority are things that players of the game would've already seen before but with slightly higher image quality. When I purchased this title I figured it would at least include some of the concept art for the original PSX title. I know that art exists because it's been floating around on the internet since the 1990's. But no, unless it's hiding in some odd little corner even that stuff is completely utterly absent.

You know what isn't absent? Merchandise you can buy off the Square Enix online store. The book devotes several pages to wallets, jewelry, stuffed toys and action figures, all of which you can currently buy for a tidy little sum on a website where Square Enix gets the maximum amount of profit. In other words, instead of the art book I thought I was buying, I somehow ended up with a very expensive store catalog!

But okay, lets assume you can forgive all that. Some people might want a collection of game screen caps, so how good of a job does this book do at that?

The answer is that, even there it's kind of mediocre. Most of the images in here don't actually use the full page. In fact, in many cases you'll see three or four shrunk down images on a single page, which means if you really want to get in there to check out the details you'd actually be better off doing it online. There are one or two times when an image is given the full page, but it's kind of rare and in at least one instance they end up obscuring the focal point of one image by splitting it across two pages so ShinRa tower can't be seen well through the seam.

Overall, this just isn't a good showing. Again, the build quality here is good, but the book itself strikes me almost as a glorified instruction manual that was thrown out there as a lazy cash grab. I was kind of hoping to walk away with a few good images to help inspire my own creative projects, but instead I'm just sitting here floored that they actually had the gall to sneak in a blasted store catalog.

I mean seriously. Guys, I bought your game. I bought your art-book. I'm even subscribed to your MMO. I'm already about as good of a customer as you could ask for. Asking for more of my money even after that, might be kind of pushing it a bit. XD

I pre-ordered this as soon as I saw it available on Amazon and was really excited to receive this. I fully expected to have to provide a disclaimer that my 5 star review may be a little biased given my love of the series. Sadly, this is not the case.
This book feels like no one quite knew what it should be. To be fair, this is not advertised as an art book, but rather a "full-color lavishly illustrated introduction to the world of Final Fantasy VII Remake". Unfortunately, I don't think it delivers there either. I'll break down each of the sections and my thoughts below:

Chapter 1- Almost the entire first chapter gives some brief information on some of the key players in the remake (all screen-caps, no concept art at all) along with their Japanese and English voice actors. This isn't bad, except if you've played the game there isn't really anything new for you here. They also omitted Tyler Hoechlin as the English voice actor for Sephiroth, a major oversight. The best part of the 50-ish pages of chapter 1 is a 4-page timeline that provides information leading up to the beginning of Final Fantasy VII. This is helpful since many of the FF7 spin-offs that exist occurred before the events of the game.
Chapter 2 - Screen caps of current locations of the game, followed up by some comparisons to the 1997 locations. I do like anytime they give these comparisons, and these portions include the best parts of the book in my opinion. This chapter also includes pictures of locations from the original game that are outside of Midgar.
Chapter 3 - Ugh, this chapter is essentially a tutorial of the game. It outlines things like the battle system, abilities and so on. My issue here is they could have done so much better comparing this to the original, talking about why they made the decisions they did. Instead, you get such great descriptions as "Cloud specializes in close-range combat. Press the square button to strike". Sorry, why is this in here? Again parts of this chapter were good when they dove into why certain things were included, and even just the screen captures of the summons are nice. Then they failed as it went tutorial mode for other parts of the chapter. The chapter ends with a comparison of the classic systems from the original, which is the strong point of this section.
Merchandise - Yep, after Chapter 3 ends there are six pages dedicated to merchandise from the Square Enix store. If you're like me, you have already looked at this stuff and almost all of it is overpriced. This had no business being in here.
Picturing the Past - A short story (about 16 pages) concerning a Shinra trooper reconciling with his past, which includes Aerith from her time spent at Shinra as a child. I did really enjoy this story, it was more of what I wanted out of this book. It gave some additional detail that we didn't have elsewhere, a good look into the world of FF7 from someone else's (not a featured character in the games) eyes.

At the end of the day, when you release something like this, you have to anticipate that your audience will be people who love the game and want more. This project came off as something that tried to cater to those who want to get introduced to the world of FF7, but also throw in some goodies for those of us that are long-time fans of the series. I can't see anyone who hasn't played the games wanting to buy something like a "World Preview" book, so it's disappointing that they didn't do more for those of us that can't get enough of Final Fantasy VII.

Final Thoughts:
+ Comparisons between original game and remake
+ Thoughts from Producer Yoshinori Kitase and Director Tetsuya Nomura
+ Timeline depicting events of all FF7 related media
+ Short story
+- All art depicted in the book are screen captures, the game is beautiful, but I wanted more.
- Tutorial elements
- Mostly information that we already know
- The positives listed above make up a relatively small portion of the book
--- Merchandise pages

the entire layout of this book was disappointing from start to finish.

the font choice reminds me of a 3rd party strategy guide from the 90s. bright colored text on a dark background.
speaking of dark background, the entire book from beginning to end uses the same simple pattern, lines on dark gray.
each piece of art is just screenshots from the game, nothing new or interesting. the colors of the art also clash, where there would be 4 total pieces of art on the page, 3 of which feature a character's face in a dark setting, and the last piece in a bright setting. there's no theme or flow to the colors, or even the choice of art. it feels completely random what picture is placed in each page.

not at all worth the money, even if it was discounted to $15

I pre-ordered this in June, and it's finally here.

The first thing I noticed is that if you take off the sleeve, it reveals an awesome cover to the book. It's beautiful and was a nice surprise. The book opens up with messages from the producer, Yoshinori Kitase, and the Director, Tetsuya Nomura.

I figured this book would completely focus on Final Fantasy VII Remake, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are a lot of references to the original game. It's like a retrospective, taking not only a look at the past and the original game, but an overview of the history of the FFVII world.

- Chapter 1 - Character
- Chapter 2 - Location
- Chapter 3 - Systems
- Merchandise
- Final Fantasy VII Remake - Picturing the Past

The book is filled with images and information and there's a lot to dig into. I just really love that the book takes a look at the past, present, and future of the world of FFVII.

I saw multiple 1- or 2-star reviews saying this book is "disappointing". There may be a misunderstanding on what function this book is supposed to serve. It is meant to be a preview for the game, not a concept art book (you can probably tell by the page count from the product description). In fact, the Japanese version of this book was published in March 2020 as an introduction to the game, which was released one month after the book.

The official product description, as seen from SE and Amazon sites, is indeed a little misleading, but I think this product still delivers. You may think of it as a deluxe version of the instruction manual that came with the game disc back in the PS/PS2 era. The book contains introduction to the main characters, story, battle system, locations, recap on the original FF VII, and an exclusive short story.

Not sure why there was a 6-month gap between the publishing dates of the Japanese and English versions of the World Preview, but having 100% completed the game way before this book came out, I still learned some interesting things from the book. It is overall an enjoyable read, even if you only look at the pictures. It is not extremely rich in details, because again, it is literally a preview to the game.

If you are a fan of FF VII, this book can be a nice addition to your merchandise collection, just don't expect it to be an actual concept art book or strategy guide. If you are looking for something more "hardcore", the best option as of October 2020 is the FF VII Remake Ultimania, which is only available in Japanese. It is the official strategy guide with detailed information on almost everything related to the game. Unfortunately, there seems to be no sign of an official English translation of the Ultimania. I also haven't heard any news about an official concept art book.

Edit: as of late December 2021, the FF VII Remake Material Ultimania in English language is availanle on Amazon. For those who are looking for a more comprehensive art book, the Ultimania is the book for you. Note that the English version of Material Ultimania is not an identical translation from the original Japanese version Ultimania.

I absolutely love this book! What the heck are people complaining about? That it's not an artbook? Of course it isn't, it was never advertised as one! If you want an artbook then get the Ultimania book! The images are smooth and beautiful and it's overall a good read. If you love Final Fantasy VII, don't listen to the bad reviews and just go for it, you won't regret it.

For years (up until recently, anyways) if there was a video game guide in the form of a book that was available for a game I purchased I strongly considered getting it. Final Fantasy has been one of my favorite gaming franchises for a long time and it has, for the most part, always been a franchise in which I sought out a guide since I got enjoyment with playing the games to completion. This book is more of a primer which offers a detailed explanation of the game's mechanics. It also came with some history of the world of FFVII and a short story; which are sort of cool features, as well. However, there was no in depth walkthrough of the game which was something that I was hoping I would get. Another redeemable feature about video game guide books is that they tended to come loaded with really cool artwork. This certainly is not a feature that can be found online and many of the supplements for current games leave a lot to be desired since they are pestered by annoying pop-ups (I compare it to being attacked by a horde of flies while I am trying to enjoy my game). I continue to push for restoration of official game guides in book format. Unfortunately, my plea continues to go unheard and the last big publisher of such media these days, Piggyback, has gotten very quiet over the last several months.

I was impressed by the game. It took me one or two hours to adapt to the gameplay, which is surprising at first, but once the adaptation is done, it is an amazing game, which manages to be truly faithful to the original while managing to improve so many aspects, and not just visually. I can't wait for the future episodes, because indeed, even if the game has a good length, it is just a small part of the original ff7. The game will end when the group leaves Midgard. I have no idea how many episodes they have in mind, but I expect many. Anyway, if you loved the original ff7, it's a must buy. Otherwise, if you like turn based mixed with real time action, it is also a game to have.

Not exactly a strategy guide for the game, gives back ground info, wonderful screen shots of the game, along with the game making progress.

90% of the "illustrations" in the book are FF7R screenshots. This is such a disappointing purchase. Don't expect any concept art, sketches, or any sort of behind the scenes images.