9 Wishlist DLC’s We Want For Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Final Fantasy 7 Remake was a blast from beginning to end. But it’s a short RPG that would have benefited from a little more in the way of post-game content, DLC and fun-stuff. I’m not lamenting the things that have in most cases been changed for the better from the original. No, this is a list of the strange omissions, and ideas for what seem to us at Finger Guns as obvious DLC, cosmetic or not.
At release, what we got was three different pre-order bonus summons; a cute-as-hell Carbuncle (who was never previously part of FF7 – first appeared in FF8), Chocobo Chick, and the infamous Cactuar. They’re lovely, especially Carbuncle, but personally as DLC selections go these days, this is very lacking. FF7R had a good little collection of mini-games however, just like the original did.
We were never likely to get an extended story DLC here. The storyline is wrapped up and ready to move on to the next chapter. Usually I love a bit of story-DLC. The extra chapters in Spider-Man, or The Frozen Wilds in Horizon Zero Dawn were genuinely great additions to great games. Story DLC is unlikely, so here instead is our list of the DLC we wished had been available, and if you’re listening Square Enix, still could be…
Costumes for Cloud
Cloud Strife has appeared in a lot of other games at this point and some of his costumes have been even more devastating than that dress! There’s the epic world-hopping Kingdom Hearts redesign with red cape and cloth-wrapped buster sword, there’s Shinra Cloud with grey scarf, there’s Chibi Cloud from World of FF and there’s one-sleeve, one-leg skirt Advent Children Cloud. FF7R could have had a plethora of other costumes available for us to either earn, or as some kind of DLC. Is it just me or would walking about in Cloud’s Kingdom Hearts regalia complete with cape and a single wing in gorgeous HD not have been epic?
To be honest it wouldn’t have taken much to have a Zack Fair costume to really confuse the story.
The Dresses
Speaking of costumes, there is a pretty infamous scene right in the middle of the remake where Cloud is made-over in one of three different dresses, complete with corsets and wigs, one of which is rather extravagant. Another costume-based DLC we would have liked to see would have been the ability to continue as Cloudette throughout the game and wear your dress whenever you wanted.
True, fighting in it might well have been difficult, but not impossible with a little hitching here and there. Just like in Resident Evil 2 recently, this and many other costumes could have been post-credits rewards for further cross-dressing chapter-select fun.
Cait Sith reveal – I’ll try and do this without spoilers
Now this one’s a little obscure. At the end of Chapter 12 eagle-eyed players will have noticed a strange black cat with gloves, a cape and a crown, very upset by the events that just transpired. That is Cait Sith, a playable character in the original game. The cat would ride a large fluffy animatronic robot and shout at them with a megaphone. I don’t know, it was the nineties. Players of the original game with good memories will remember that Cait Sith is a robot himself, and his origins and the identity of the person behind his controls is revealed late in the original FF7 and explored in FF7: Before Crisis. I think there should have been a little more of this character, and potentially earlier allusions to the identity of his handler, and FF7R’s remade Midgar location would have been the perfect place for this.
For those who want to know the identity, google it and you will see what I mean.
Downloadable Weapons
Downloadable weapons upgrades have been a staple of the DLC market now for a few years. I’m looking at you Destiny and Call of Duty. Now I understand not having some of the later storyline weapons, like Cloud’s famous blue Ultima Weapon, included in this instalment – they are tied to later points in the story – but what about the weapons he’s had in other games? The Kingdom Hearts buster sword wrapped in bandages is fantastic and I would have had it equipped throughout both playthroughs. Others could have included the FF-themed Keyblades, and possibly even Squall’s Gunblade ala FF8.
Maybe, just maybe, they want to save that for an FF8 Remake.
Other FF heroes
Last one for costumes, I swear, and they’ve done this one before. In FF13 Lightning Returns, you can get a costume for Lightning that gives her Cloud’s famous SOLDIER get-up. But I wanted more here. What about DLC that would have allowed you to play as Lightning in FF7R? Or as Squall, or Tidus, or even Vaan? Nah, on second thought, maybe not Vaan. Zidane, maybe. I don’t really care about the in-world inconsistencies, we may never get that remake of FF8 (a personal fave) so having an HD Squall (with Gunblade) in this would have been fun.
Avalanche’s Hideout and Pinball
So this time its something that was missing that would make great DLC. You remember Tifa’s bar, Seventh Heaven (it was the title of our review for the whole game). Well, you may also remember Barret and the other members of Avalanche using the pinball machine like a lift and disappearing below decks, while Cloud hung out and sulked in the bar, nursing a bourbon. In the original there is a cellar down there, where Jessie made bombs and the team talked about the second Reactor job. And Cloud was there. But for some reason Square Enix decided to omit this little fan-favourite place. I tried for a few minutes to get the Pinball machine to turn on, or to find the hidden switch behind the bar, but to no avail. The DLC is obvious. Give us access to the Avalanche Hideout, possibly with a little place to keep our earned treasures, a beer fridge, a PS4, a jukebox and a dance-mat.
And make the Pinball machine work. FF15 tried to rekindle the famous minigames of the PS1 era FF games, and failed miserably, but they had half a goer in the shape of the pre-order bonus pinball game, Justice Monsters. I love a pinball game, and though Justice Monsters still needed that special something, an FF7-themed one might have done it. If that had been sat next to the great darts game in the bar I could have happily whiled away even longer not getting down into that hideout.
Quests about stuff that matters – minor Spoilers
I enjoyed the quests in FF7R, don’t get me wrong, especially the ones in Wall Market, but let’s be honest hunting rats and finding lost kitties are not up there with the Colosseum and the various Angel of the Slums ones. What would make great DLC is a pack of extra quests, and make them about characters, you know, that I actually give a shit about. Instead of Betty and her cats, why not Marlene!? Barret could have needed help finding her when she went missing. I was a lot more invested little Marlene’s safety than any number of cats.
What about a quest with Biggs that involved the Leaf House, instead of introducing a whole new teacher with Ms Folia? If you listen carefully, he used to work there before joining Avalanche. Show don’t tell, give us a quest where he had to go back, one that needed his strategist skills and had some real tension and stakes.
Jessie gets a good chapter or so of fleshing out, so this one’s less called for, but you find out before Avalanche she worked as an actress in Gold Saucer, the famous theme park. Why not a quest, probably in Wall Market, where she was able to demonstrate her acting skills with Cloud’s help, on the stage at the Honeybee Inn?
Dancing all night long
One of the whole team’s favourite sections of FF7R was the dance off sequence at the Honeybee Inn. Press the button prompts at the right time and you were treated to Cloud’s impressive dance moves. But two short dances are nowhere near enough!
The DLC we want most of all is a fully expanded dance-off mini-game somewhere in Wall market, where you can strut your funky stuff to each and every one of the 31 jukebox collectible songs. We know a lot of dancing games aren’t great – I’d be the first to say we didn’t need Kinect Star Wars Galactic Dance Off, but in FF7R the dancing mini-game was fun, simple and funky. If you do it right, Square Enix, guess what, we want more.
Alternatively, when we (finally) get to Gold Saucer, there has to be a dance-mat/virtual reality dance game in the arcade!
A Card Game
FF8 and 9 introduced Final Fantasy fans to two of the greatest card games to have graced a PlayStation console in two decades. Yes, far better than Gwent. Triple Triad and Tetra Master both involved a grid-like board where you would place monster and character-themed cards and try to beat your opponents to turn more cards over with intricate number rules that only worked in a digital game. This was not Topp Trumps. FF7 Remake could have a wonderful DLC card game full of all the new characters, summons, monsters, weapons and attacks, and allowed you to challenge half the slums, and taken all their best cards. It would have extended the game’s 40+ hour runtime considerably if I had to challenge everyone to card games, and added a neat collectible on top of the juke box music.
What do you think of these DLC suggestions? Would you pay dollar for more dancing, or more quests? Let us know.
We still gave FF7R a 9 out of 10, but oh, what could have been…
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