Final Fantasy 7 Revelation overlord Naoki Hamaguchi says players can automatically level up after a certain point in Square Enix’s conclusion to its Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy, since some fans were apparently about to pass out from JRPG exhaustion.
Video game news update Twitter account Genki shares the sentiment in a translation of a new interview Hamaguchi did with IGN Japan, where the Square Enix lead talks about learning a lot of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players wanted to trim the fluff on the game’s 40-hour campaign. Hamaguchi is now prepared to meet them in the middle – you’ll be able to juice your weak party up to the game’s recommended level after reaching a specific milestone in Revelation, out April 8, 2027.
The pop-up option will simply ask you something like, “Do you want to automatically raise the level to the recommended level?” Hamaguchi hopes doing so will let interested players force their way through Revelation’s main campaign rather than skulk around in however many million hours’ worth of open world exploration if they don’t want to. That way, Hamaguchi says, you can play Revelation like a linear game rather than the universe-sized experience it actually is.
Those who prefer their RPGs to be nice and never-ending, though, don’t have to participate in automatic leveling if they don’t want to. If you’d rather get caught up in side quests and earn your levels through traditional slog, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will honor that. It offers something for everyone.
Square Enix is really just following a trend here – classic JRPG grind is steadily being replaced with auto-battlers that laser-zap all the little chores that were once mandatory for the genre, and Revelation’s automatic leveling option does the same.
A new definition for JRPGs is emerging, and it says a game can be dense, beautiful, and immersive without making you want to slam your head against Sephiroth’s abs (unless you really want to).