My recommendation is FFVII Remake for the simple reasons being it’s the only one of the game I’ve played on your list and can back by personal experience, and because I think it’s superb. I was a fan of the original but have since grown less fond of it than other games in the series. Even so, it has some incredible moments and has stuck with me. What I appreciate about the remake is that rather than simply remaking the game it attempts to engage with the legacy of the game, to build off the discourse created by the game, off of it’s story and mechanics. There are places it plays with the nostalgia, genre conventions and player expectations associated with the original game while in other places if forges an entirely new direction for the story that we are familiar with. There is a risk that if you’re not a fan of the original that some of this will be less impactful, but I do think the game stands on its own quite well and that the compelling things it does are not just limited to riffs on the original. It’s also a lot of fun to play and I very much enjoyed the hybrid ATB and real time combat system.
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