This review contains spoilers
Holy shit, just completed a playthrough of just the story, world intel, and sidequests than ran me over 90 hours on Dynamic. This game is a remarkable feat and the open world on this scale with so many JRPG elements like encounters and ships and hidden treasures is unlike anything I’ve experienced in the HD era of RPGs save for parts of Lost Odyssey or Ni No Kuni on the 360 and PS3. If anyone has recs for more open world jrpgs like this please send them my way. The environments in this game feel like they shouldnt be possible, and the cartoony art style with a mix of realism and nomura-isms is really nailed down in this from the characters to the landscapes to the enemies.
With all that said. This is no way anyone should experience FF7 for the first time. This one is strictly for the fans it seems, with meta-narrative piled on(which is unsurprising but not less groan-inducing than it was when Remake introduced it in the ending). I’m withholding all the judgement I can for the finale, especially cause I kind of like the darker and darker tone they seem to be hinting at with all that’s going on with Cloud’s psyche. Since they already gave away so many of the reveals that the original has about Cloud’s path in the original, I’m curious to see where they’ll diverge with that. Regardless, I’m pleasantly surprised that they still went through with Aerith’s murder despite hinting to the contrary, though the way it’s directed as with everything in this game’s direction lacks all subtlety and weight of consequence. I did come to really care for Aerith more than I thought I would with her characterization, but had she not woken up about three times and continued on as a Lifestream ghost I think her death would have still had quite an impact. Once again, I’m still curious what they’ll do with it but it made me roll my eyes a little.
As a fan, and for what it is, there’s so much I was curious to see and happy to see and enjoy. On the otherhand, there are way too many minigames that demolish the pace of this game. (My two roommates both said they saw me playing way more minigames than any actual combat or exploration, and I felt it too). Dyne’s death scene is butchered, Cid’s character is gutted(maybe they had a hard time updating the plot with his wife, but still, this alternative Cid is so nothing). But there are great additions to Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Vincent that I mostly enjoy.
It’s hard not to feel like they really game this IP the “Hobbit” treatment when it comes to adaptation. They probably shouldn’t have expanded a midpart into a game THIS long and expansive, but it still remains a technical wonder that they pulled it off. Combat is still great, but no way in hell will I invest in hard mode or mastering the piano game to beat this till completion. If you love these specific characters and this world to death and just want to spend time in it, there’s SO MUCH GAME here for you. I would still recommend any friend or young teen to get past the prejudice of turn based combat and play the original via emulation or ports with all the quality of life updates. That atmosphere and pacing can’t be matched.
With all that said. This is no way anyone should experience FF7 for the first time. This one is strictly for the fans it seems, with meta-narrative piled on(which is unsurprising but not less groan-inducing than it was when Remake introduced it in the ending). I’m withholding all the judgement I can for the finale, especially cause I kind of like the darker and darker tone they seem to be hinting at with all that’s going on with Cloud’s psyche. Since they already gave away so many of the reveals that the original has about Cloud’s path in the original, I’m curious to see where they’ll diverge with that. Regardless, I’m pleasantly surprised that they still went through with Aerith’s murder despite hinting to the contrary, though the way it’s directed as with everything in this game’s direction lacks all subtlety and weight of consequence. I did come to really care for Aerith more than I thought I would with her characterization, but had she not woken up about three times and continued on as a Lifestream ghost I think her death would have still had quite an impact. Once again, I’m still curious what they’ll do with it but it made me roll my eyes a little.
As a fan, and for what it is, there’s so much I was curious to see and happy to see and enjoy. On the otherhand, there are way too many minigames that demolish the pace of this game. (My two roommates both said they saw me playing way more minigames than any actual combat or exploration, and I felt it too). Dyne’s death scene is butchered, Cid’s character is gutted(maybe they had a hard time updating the plot with his wife, but still, this alternative Cid is so nothing). But there are great additions to Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Vincent that I mostly enjoy.
It’s hard not to feel like they really game this IP the “Hobbit” treatment when it comes to adaptation. They probably shouldn’t have expanded a midpart into a game THIS long and expansive, but it still remains a technical wonder that they pulled it off. Combat is still great, but no way in hell will I invest in hard mode or mastering the piano game to beat this till completion. If you love these specific characters and this world to death and just want to spend time in it, there’s SO MUCH GAME here for you. I would still recommend any friend or young teen to get past the prejudice of turn based combat and play the original via emulation or ports with all the quality of life updates. That atmosphere and pacing can’t be matched.
I can't wait til the third part FF7: Cloud Goes to Therapy
This review contains spoilers
this game was a lot both good and bad(?) just to get it out of the way, one of my biggest gripes with open-world games as a whole, and by association, this game, is how much side content they throw at you. a majority of it was good, i loved all of the mini-games at the gold saucer. the open world ones (JOHNNY) suck sooooo much man. couple this with the basic open world objectives (activate towers -> reveal other side content) and it just gets boring and tedious halfway through the game.
anyways, aside from the side content, the rest of the game is phenomenal. the story is so good, only hampered by the overabundance of content, which ruins the pacing quite a bit if you're a first run completionist. like you'd finish the story in the area and then a bunch of side content opens up and then it's like, well shit now i have to do it :P its a skill issue on my end but the game gave me too much to eat.
NOW for the story........ what the hell was that ending?! they kinda flubbed aerith's death? like she's dead but also isn't? and now we have a bunch of timelines (thanks stamp?) and cloud might literally be a fusion of two realities?! what i find really interesting is cloud not only having serious imposter identity but also being influenced by the personifications of the white/black materias. one thing im still wondering is where the zack scene at the end of the yuffie dlc takes place. i guess sometime after rebirth? but idk! everyone in that world is content with being dead (unless zack got TP'd to another timeline). im kinda scared of cloud at the end of rebirth lol, that man is NOT WELL god knows how the mideel scene will play out now.
part 3 is setting itself up to be the biggest, hardest hitting final fantasy stories of all time, wether that will be in the next console cycle or still on the ps5, its certainly gonna be bigger than 150gb!
just one qol i would've liked to have is saved materia sets/loadouts. having to go back and forth from one of the 6 characters and swap each piece individually.
overall, i think i enjoyed my time with the game? very exciting moments dragged out by an overabundance of side content. i literally don't know if i have any predictions for the future. we pretty much got a close recreation of ff7's ending? we fought jenova in an almost similar way to jenova synthesis and had that weird sephiroth on sephiroth creature. i can only hope they do something insane with the third game, maybe fight real jenova as some final boss? sephiroth as the final boss x2 is kinda meh. still good fights but it def affects its magic.
anyways, aside from the side content, the rest of the game is phenomenal. the story is so good, only hampered by the overabundance of content, which ruins the pacing quite a bit if you're a first run completionist. like you'd finish the story in the area and then a bunch of side content opens up and then it's like, well shit now i have to do it :P its a skill issue on my end but the game gave me too much to eat.
NOW for the story........ what the hell was that ending?! they kinda flubbed aerith's death? like she's dead but also isn't? and now we have a bunch of timelines (thanks stamp?) and cloud might literally be a fusion of two realities?! what i find really interesting is cloud not only having serious imposter identity but also being influenced by the personifications of the white/black materias. one thing im still wondering is where the zack scene at the end of the yuffie dlc takes place. i guess sometime after rebirth? but idk! everyone in that world is content with being dead (unless zack got TP'd to another timeline). im kinda scared of cloud at the end of rebirth lol, that man is NOT WELL god knows how the mideel scene will play out now.
part 3 is setting itself up to be the biggest, hardest hitting final fantasy stories of all time, wether that will be in the next console cycle or still on the ps5, its certainly gonna be bigger than 150gb!
just one qol i would've liked to have is saved materia sets/loadouts. having to go back and forth from one of the 6 characters and swap each piece individually.
overall, i think i enjoyed my time with the game? very exciting moments dragged out by an overabundance of side content. i literally don't know if i have any predictions for the future. we pretty much got a close recreation of ff7's ending? we fought jenova in an almost similar way to jenova synthesis and had that weird sephiroth on sephiroth creature. i can only hope they do something insane with the third game, maybe fight real jenova as some final boss? sephiroth as the final boss x2 is kinda meh. still good fights but it def affects its magic.
I haven't really stopped thinking about FFVII Rebirth since I finished it almost two months ago. It's an incredible game and a stunning accomplishment for its development team that somehow manages to both conform to and subvert expectations almost simultaneously
Its open world design feels very Ubisoft on the surface (or perhaps more directly, Horizon Zero Dawn), but more than that I found myself thinking as I played it that this is where Final Fantasy games must have gone in a parallel universe where capturing the feeling of the "world map" remained a priority beyond the era of the original PlayStation. In contrast to other modern open world games, Rebirth endeavors to (and succeeds in) making its open-world content rewarding, particularly with how character-focused many of its side-quests are
Like Remake before it, Rebirth is crafted with such love and reverence for the original Final Fantasy VII that it almost defies belief. More than once during my time with Rebirth, I uncovered remembrances of the original, drawn from the aether of the patchwork memory of my adolescence in vivid, almost overpowering detail
This is accompanied by the same sense of...playfulness that was so central to the original game: mini-games and over-the-top set-pieces abound, juxtaposed against the same compelling character work that so strongly elevated Rebirth's predecessor. Here, with the groundwork laid in Remake, the characters are explore in greater depth, with a particular focus on their relationships to one another and the world around them, culminating in the famous "Gold Saucer date" from the original, this time expanded into a full-blown opera house-style spectacle in true Final Fantasy fashion
While the ending will likely frustrate those still hoping for an entirely faithful retelling of Final Fantasy VII, it sets up a number of intriguing possibilities for the final installment of the Remake trilogy, and I firmly believe there's potential for many of the original story's strongest moments to land with more impact in 2027 than they did even all the way back in 1997
That is, of course, assuming the team sticks the landing, but from where I sit today, I have significant confidence that they will
Its open world design feels very Ubisoft on the surface (or perhaps more directly, Horizon Zero Dawn), but more than that I found myself thinking as I played it that this is where Final Fantasy games must have gone in a parallel universe where capturing the feeling of the "world map" remained a priority beyond the era of the original PlayStation. In contrast to other modern open world games, Rebirth endeavors to (and succeeds in) making its open-world content rewarding, particularly with how character-focused many of its side-quests are
Like Remake before it, Rebirth is crafted with such love and reverence for the original Final Fantasy VII that it almost defies belief. More than once during my time with Rebirth, I uncovered remembrances of the original, drawn from the aether of the patchwork memory of my adolescence in vivid, almost overpowering detail
This is accompanied by the same sense of...playfulness that was so central to the original game: mini-games and over-the-top set-pieces abound, juxtaposed against the same compelling character work that so strongly elevated Rebirth's predecessor. Here, with the groundwork laid in Remake, the characters are explore in greater depth, with a particular focus on their relationships to one another and the world around them, culminating in the famous "Gold Saucer date" from the original, this time expanded into a full-blown opera house-style spectacle in true Final Fantasy fashion
While the ending will likely frustrate those still hoping for an entirely faithful retelling of Final Fantasy VII, it sets up a number of intriguing possibilities for the final installment of the Remake trilogy, and I firmly believe there's potential for many of the original story's strongest moments to land with more impact in 2027 than they did even all the way back in 1997
That is, of course, assuming the team sticks the landing, but from where I sit today, I have significant confidence that they will
I experienced every possible human emotion over the course of the 100+ hours I played this. I could write thousands of words about cards, segways, Zack, teamwork porn, bald people, Cloud Jr., dog songs, the Gongaga region map, mobile games, anime Young Sheldon, ninja shadow clones, Loveless, and of course, that frickin ending. But suffice it to say I had a pretty good time! On average.
Final Fantasy VII ''Rebirth'' Continues on with the fallacy that retelling the same story in a lengthier, more convoluted way, will somehow—someday— mean that more equals better.
The second coming of madness proves the faults of a ''quantity over quality'' philosophy; FF7's remake pushes through on presenting a thirty wordcount story in what feels like a thousand lines.
That which was once focused and intentional is lost in the sea of side content add-ons, there for the sake of justifying yet another 70-dollar purchase.
Because good things can't die, and if they can, then we'll just make them again— except completely different.
So long as nostalgic attachment can fuel another one.
And then some.
The second coming of madness proves the faults of a ''quantity over quality'' philosophy; FF7's remake pushes through on presenting a thirty wordcount story in what feels like a thousand lines.
That which was once focused and intentional is lost in the sea of side content add-ons, there for the sake of justifying yet another 70-dollar purchase.
Because good things can't die, and if they can, then we'll just make them again— except completely different.
So long as nostalgic attachment can fuel another one.
And then some.
Excelente en cuanto a lo jugable, ambientación, personajes y música. La historia me ha encantado, menos el remate final.
Square ha mejorado mucho con respecto al primer juego, pero muchas veces, menos, es más. Personalmente creo que el exceso de actividades perjudica al desarrollo del juego, al aprovechamiento de mapas y a la saturación personal.
Square ha mejorado mucho con respecto al primer juego, pero muchas veces, menos, es más. Personalmente creo que el exceso de actividades perjudica al desarrollo del juego, al aprovechamiento de mapas y a la saturación personal.
A huge improvement in nearly every bit of FF 7 Remake and probably the best mainline FF game in probably over a decade. Some minor issues for the most part but doesn't hinder the overall quality of the game imo. Big recommend.