The recent release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth undoubtedly has made a lot of fans nostalgic for the original PlayStation RPG. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people are going back to play it since it’s on just about every modern system you can own these days. Rebirth remakes moments from OG FF7, but it also has some notable additions, such as the new mini-games, tweaking characters like Cid to be more palatable in modern day,, and the lovely vocal theme “No Promises To Keep”. The song captured fans’ hearts long before they played the reimagined RPG, as vocalist Loren Allred performed it at the December 2023 Game Awards. Fans have no doubt been listening to some version of it on repeat for a few months. But this song is new to Rebirth, so one fan decided to imagine what it might have sounded like in the original Final Fantasy VII.
Sara Garrard, a composer who has a YouTube channel that features several covers and remixes for songs in the style of the original Final Fantasy 7, uploaded a video of “No Promises To Keep” that she made to sound like it would have on the original PlayStation. It doesn’t feature any vocals, but it does mimic the melody while sounding straight out of the original Final Fantasy 7 MIDI soundtrack, all set against a backdrop of footage from the 1997 game. It speaks to the consistent musical tone of the greater FF7 franchise that a song released in 2024 can feel so at home in a game from almost 30 years ago, and hearing the melody soar over footage of Cloud’s original adventure really sells it.
Check out the full video below:
Rebirth is the second of three games that encompass Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Remake project. While sentiment around the game has been strong, it has been divisive on a few fronts, such as its reliance on mini-games and its ending feeling inconsistent with Remake’s themes. But there’s still a whole third game to come, so we’ll see if it manages to bring those ideas back around.
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