Final Fantasy VII Remake: Traces of Two Pasts (Novel) Hardcover – March 21, 2023

I’ve played Final Fantasy VII OG, Remake and Rebirth and I’ve always wanted to know more about Tifa and Aerith (as well as other characters!) but this novel really delivered. I’ll write this review as spoiler-free as possible.The book is split into 3 parts. Part 1 is about the events before and surrounding the Nibelheim Incident from Tifa’s point of view and how she survived in the years after it. Part 2 is about Aerith’s childhood with her mom and insight into how she came to live in such a cool house in the Sector 5 slums. Part 3 is much shorter, and it’s a cool story about someone who knew Aerith as a child.The events in the story exist in the world as created in Remake and Rebirth. If you haven’t played Rebirth, the book doesn’t have any big spoilers, just some light mentioning of early game broad strokes. The book will make sense to anyone who’s played FF7 original, but it will be much more colorful in your mind if you’ve recently played Remake because it vividly references the images of Midgar as depicted in that game.All in all, Kazushige Nojima hits it out of the park for big fans of FF7’s leading ladies with this beautiful book. The translation is true and very well written. Every sentence is in congruence with the game and our beloved characters are done much justice here. Highly recommend this book for any fans thirsting for more FF7 story!

I bought this book as well as the other FF7 books because I knew they were canon parts of the storyline, and I'm doing a marathon of the whole story. However what surprised me was just how well written the book is, to the point where I can honestly recommend this book even to people who aren't interested in Final Fantasy. That's because, despite the occasional theatrics and fantastical elements, this book is ultimately just a slow-paced slice of life novel getting deep into the emotions and experiences of two women who both had separate troubled upbringings.Tifa's life is the story of a woman's struggle with loneliness. Between her isolated and quiet childhood in a tiny village with few (eventually zero) people her age, to the whiplash of suddenly being forced to learn how to get by all by herself while trapped under an impossible debt and within an impossibly large and equally uncaring city—all the while learning difficult life lessons along the way. It's roughly 200 pages, fittingly divided in half between those parts of her life.Aerith's life meanwhile is somehow even more upsetting. From Aerith's childhood of being treated as less-than-human by Shinra scientists, to the tense escape away, and to the death of her mother all told from the perspective of a seven-year-old girl—and that's not even half of it. She then has to adapt to her sudden adoption by her new mother as well as all the drama her adoptee's family would bring, all while feeling anxious about living in a town that's (quite literally) under Shinra's rule.Everything in the narrative is handled with great care. As someone who's read many a half-hearted licensed tie-in book, this book stands out as one where you can tell the author not only deeply cares about the original work and it's characters, but also deeply cares about it's own story it's trying to tell. This book gives us a never before seen look into the minds of these two characters and the reality of living their lives, and for that I can highly recommend it for fans of FF7 as well as ordinary readers.The book is an emotional roller coaster, yet not a particularly fun one I'll admit. Unlike the video games, which often have comedic moments sprinkled throughout, this book is very serious and at times pretty damn sad. Seeing the emotions of characters in FF7 taken with full weight and given incredible detail really forces you to empathize with what it's actually like to live in their world and feel what they felt. This is especially true when you combine this book with this authors others: On the Way to a Smile and The Kids are Alright. I highly recommend reading those after this one.As for "What do I need to know going in?", the answer is "not much". This book is a prequel to FF7, and any element from the game gets explained in full detail when it becomes relevant. Now, you might be confused at some points if this is your first exposure to FF7 as well as a bit disappointed that certain plot elements are introduced yet never pay off (because they're intended to pay off in FF7), but overall I find this plot extremely understandable from a blind perspective. A large reason for that is simply because the focus of the book is squarely on character emotions, not the grander scope of how their world works.(That said, if after reading this book you'd like to move on to On the Way to a Smile, I'd recommend playing the original game first. While it's possible the gleam the plot of the game from occasional descriptions in that book, it'll not be a satisfying experience as that book is made to be an epilogue to the emotions our cast of characters felt after the game. Definitely play the game before reading that one.)

I just began reading chapter one, and this book is amazing. If you're a fan of the Final Fantasy VII game series, especially the Remake VII, read this. You will not be dissapointed!

Bought it for my girlfriend who is a final fantasy hard fan, and she really likes it

This is the third novel written by the same author I have read and this was probably my favourite out of the three.Grew up playing Final Fantasy 7 as a teenager when the game first game out so there is going to be a hint of bias to this review as I am a huge fan of the game but at the same time perhaps overly critical but honest.Would anyone likely go out of their way in purchasing this book if they have never played the game? Not likely. Do you need to have played the game to understand what is going on? Quite possibly.But lets get to the chase. It's two stories about Tifa and Aeries backstory plus a small additional story about Aeries time in the Shinra lab.The book itself reminded me a lot of the Star Wars film Rogue One. Taking small plots from the game and making a story out of it. *minor spoilers to follow for those few people who haven't played the game but want to read this book*For Tifa, there is a little more backstory to her time in Nibelheim but it is basically a novel of how she recovered from her attack at her home town and ended up in Midgar and met Barret & the rest of Avalanche. Basically her rags-to-riches tale and throw in her fighting journey to boot.This felt like it fell right out of the recent FF7 remake game and would fit in well expanded stories that were told from the side characters like Jessie.For Aeries, it's her tale of how she ended up from the Shrina lab with her mother Ifalna and landed in the embrace of Elmyra. It started well, but there was a hint of Kingdom Hearts 2+ to this story. Maybe, I need to re-play the remake or missed some key details but there were a lot of characters brought into this story that made me lose the plot a little. For example a lot of different men seem to enter Elmyra's home at any given time that was definitely not shifty....not one bit.. I am pretty sure there was an innocent explanation for the constant intrusion, but I started to lose my interest when the focus was drawn away from the more familiar characters, hence the Kingdom Hearts 2+ reference.It was perhaps just unfortunate that it followed the Tifa story which I thought was excellent. My favourite part to this chapter was whenever it went forward in time and Tifa & Aeries would chat amongst themselves, which was a great touch.Last but not least was a much smaller side story of Aeries time in the lab. Once again, I felt there were side characters thrown in that made it look like Kingdom Hearts 2.7 meet One who Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. I don't doubt other people that enjoy the game got something out of it, but it wasn't for me.Overall, it was still a great book. It's just shy of 400 pages with half the book dedicated to Tifa which was by far the stronger story in my opinion. If it's goal was to make me want to play the game again, it worked! But I'd have quite honestly been happy to have read a dragged out book on just Tifa. I suspect with a second read through I might enjoy the other 1/2 of the book that I enjoyed reading in bits and pieces whereas Tifa's story was great from start to end.