The highest of highs and the middlest of mids, this is a game without peer in so many ways. It’s overstuffed to exhaustion, but its character moments are enough to frequently move you to tears of joy and sorrow. It took me 75 hours and
almost four months to finish, and I nearly gave up after the halfway point. However, after an interminable final chapter or two, I already miss my “friends” and want to go back to complete all of the content I missed in order to spend more time with them. If that doesn’t tell you how conflicted I am about this game, I don’t know what would.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an incredible video game. It was tough to collect my thoughts about it, as there's a lot to process in a narrative-driven game that took me 80 hours to beat. I haven't ever been more hyped for a video game than this, and my strong expectations were met with one of the best products I've ever interacted with in this medium. Let's get into it.

One of the strongest features of this game is the writing. Each member of the party feels like a tangible individual, replete with their own characteristics, motivations and experiences. Whilst definitely apparent in the original incarnation of Final Fantasy VII, the contemporary writing and fantastic localisation of Rebirth are both marked improvements. Complementing this is the high quality of voice acting, present in both English and Japanese, that really brings the cast to life.
Another great strength of the game is the battle system, building from Remake's already robust execution. Each character feels truly unique to use, and makes changing up the party and experimenting with different formations a peerlessly rewarding experience. The addition of synergy attacks, which play into the characters' narrative-affecting friendship stat, add an extra layer of complexity and dynamism to the game's strong combat design.
The soundtrack is once again a particular highlight here, comprised of remixes of original tracks as well as top-shelf new tracks. I found myself stopping in-game at many, many different locations to simply listen to the themes and pan around the environments.
On that, the world design in the game is leaps and bounds above what was on display in Remake. Being large-scale open areas, there was a demand for change from Remake's good-looking corridors, and the call was answered with resounding finesse. Whilst not as graphically superior as the Final Fantasy franchise historically aims for, the environments are very enjoyable to explore.
The enjoyability of exploration in Rebirth is fueled by World Intel, which never feels stale or too long in the tooth. There is just enough content in each area to not feel burned out, and it all contributes to a measurable and worthy end goal. Whether that's historic lore for each region, powering up a summon or defeating enemies with particular objectives, Rebirth answers the question of how to make large open areas enjoyable to interact with.
Obviously, the main driving factor behind the player's motivations in Rebirth is the narrative, and this game delivers strongly in that regard. Not without the pacing issues that were prevalent in Remake, Rebirth successfully brings the story of Final Fantasy VII into the 2020s with a degree of success that seemed impossible, based on the company's efforts during the Compilation titles. Certain decisions made proved divisive for new and longtime fans of VII, and I certainly have opinions too, but ultimately it stands testament to how attached to the world and characters the fanbase is.

-(Light-ish) SPOILERS AHEAD-
So, why haven't I ranked it above the original game? The answer once again comes back to the narrative. Final Fantasy VII is a complete video game, an incredible narrative told from start to finish that organically paces itself across the 30 hours it will take the average player to beat it. Each location is present and accounted for, proving its worth in the world and story of the game, no matter how optional or 'weird' they can be. It's primarily this factor that holds Rebirth back; it's the middle chapter of a trilogy. That alone isn't necessarily a point against it on principle, but it does leave critical character arcs and questions unresolved. Whilst it is an ask, I believe a player's experience with Rebirth, as with Remake, is greatly improved by previous experience of the original Final Fantasy VII. I'd even go as far as to say it's enhanced by interaction with the Compilation as well.
-END SPOILERS-

Nitpicking at this point, Rebirth's graphical presentation is another aspect that detracts from the overall product. Unreal Engine 4 is being pushed to its limits here, and it's evident through starkly contrasting environmental detail in open areas and particularly lighting. This is not to take away from the game's finer graphical setpieces however. The towns and character models feature some of the best looking assets I've ever seen in a real-time video game.

All told, Rebirth is one of the greatest experiences I've had with a video game. Every facet of the game feels deeply constructed and strongly executed, and I look forward with confidence to what they can produce for the conclusion of the Remake trilogy.

This might actually be one of the best video games of all time, I started playing the remake a few months ago and i fell in love with it even if there was some nitpicks i had about it like for example it's linearity but finishing the game made me more excited to play Rebirth. Once i finished the first chapter I immediately knew that this game is gonna be something truly special, This game being open world brings this game so much life and replay value especially with the many improvements from the combat and huge amount of minigames, The story is not only phenomenal but the character interactions and cutscenes makes this game even better and I had a smile on my face seeing the dynamics between the characters. The soundtrack is just as good as remake's and it might even be up there with Sonic music as the best video game soundtracks of all time and once this game finished I wished it never ended and overall left me wanting more and this is 100% my game of the year and I don't see any other game ever toping this magnum opus of a video game.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is not a game that should work at all. It has a very formulaic, repetitive structure, it's sometimes closer to a mini-game collection than an action RPG, it barely has a plot, goes completely off the rails by the final chapter, and it's still a giant conundrum how Cait Sith really works. And yet, very much in the spirit of the original Final Fantasy VII, it somehow comes together in such a way where I can't see any game in 2024 being even remotely as good or special as Rebirth was to me.

I could say that it's thanks to the combat system that with this iteration might actually be the best action RPG combat that's ever been created (though, I'd have to replay Kingdom Hearts II to say that with complete certainty), the incredible soundtrack that's so monstrously huge and varied that it could fill several slots on a best soundtracks of the year list, the new lore given to every location that breathes more life into these places that I've known for decades now and suddenly make them feel new again, or just how goddamn incredible the cutscene direction is.

And yeah, I love all those things and they are a big part of why I love Rebirth as a whole, but here's the thing: this might come as a shock to you, but I play a lot of video games, and I have since the early 2000s. I love it as an artform, a medium, a hobby, but I can also sometimes feel like I've seen it all by this point. That's obviously not true, but most games do feel very familiar, and so does Rebirth in many aspects, but it's been a very long time a game can constantly surprise and delight me as much as this game did. Not just by being a modern AAA sequel that actually feels like it innovates on its predecessor rather than being a slight, but still very derivative upgrade, but also by really channeling that original FF7 spirit of "any idea is a good idea" in every single facet of its being, and it's a better game for it.

This is a very big, still fairly new game so I won't spoil any specifics, but this is one of those games where you both know exactly where the story's leading you, but also have absolutely no idea what routes it will take or how it will go about doing so, and even looking back on some things this game does I feel like I'm having just memories of a fever dream rather than a real game, but in a very positive way. Sure, a lot of Rebirth is the side content in the semi-open zones where you activate Chadley towers and other Ubisoft-like open world things (which, to be honest, have never really bothered me in the games they've appeared in), but then you also have things like the weird proto relic sidequest with its own, fun subplot and new ways to progress it in each region, as well as the new card game Queen's Blood that also has a subplot that gets more progressively more unhinged the deeper you get into it, and is also simply the best card game this franchise has ever had even if you don't care for the story around it.

Plus, of course, the myriad of things to do in the (extremely lovingly recreated and expanded upon) towns, like the side quests that are actually good this time and always tie into on of your party members and lets you grow closer to them while doing fun things, or the millions of different mini games (of very varying quality, but I found most of them fun.)

So much to do on the side, but the things the main missions make you do and the sights you get to see are also such a delight, with so many things that feel so expensive and often made me think "surely, this has to return at some point to make the development costs worth it", and then they just never do, like this was some kind of PS2 game or something (or FF7 on the PS1), but at an absolutely giant scope that could never have been done back then. Also one that shouldn't be possibly today, with ballooning budgets and a market of where people play more than ever, but the pool of games that take up those hours is also smaller and safer, more F2P than ever. Investors could, and probably should, have given a straight no to Nomura & Co came up with some of these ideas that were ultimately put in the game and can't have been cheap, and I'm so glad they got that freedom to really make this AAA piece of occasional outsider art (in the context of this sphere of games development a game like this exists within) that they did.

And I love the characters, of course, so much. They were fantastic in Remake, and the growing relationships between them, plus the inclusion of Red XIII and Cait Sith in the party adds even more to love about them, about their journey, about the game itself. Like I said, this game barely has a plot, being almost completely character driven and feeling a bit like a vacation arc where they mainly have a good time getting to grow even closer, get to help each other, and somehow even making Cloud crack a smile and act openly empathetic towards them. There's a lot of trauma to unpack for everyone involved, but also so much joy, and the game masterfully these moments to create a tonally rather chaotic game, but also one that works because it manages to feel so messy in a very human way, rather than just feeling sloppy and poorly thought out.

When I think of the original Final Fantasy VII (still my favorite game of all time) and my favorite moments from it, it is when it sort of cuts through its own insanity (that I still love, just to be clear), poor translation and anime over-the-topness to somehow have the most human moments a JRPG could ever possibly have,like the brief moment Barrett acknowledges how many innocent people were killed because of AVALANCHE, Cloud and Tifa's gold saucer date that's just a social anxiety simulator between these to super humans, or many others that I won't spoil for anyone. Rebirth has these moments, and so many more newly created for this game, and they make me feel so many of the same emotions I did with the original game, in a way that I honestly did not think was possible for modern Square to make me feel.

I know there's controversy surrounding the final chapter, and I definitely get why. First of all, the final boss lasts about as long as all other boss fights in the game combined (though I thought it was a fun spectacle with amazing music, so not much of an issue.) Then afterwards you want more emotion out of the actual ending, but it's vague enough that it's a bit unclear what's actually going on and thus a bit impact is lost. I'm not going to say people are wrong or that I completely love it myself, but without completely understanding what Square's cooking, I've thought quite a bit about it and at least like my own interpretation of it and it'll be exciting to see if I'm even close to right whenever the final part of the trilogy comes out.

Vincent is still cool. He's always been cool.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, my love, my sunshine, where do I even begin…
Square did something truly incredible with this one. I wondered how they would approach adapting the second part of FF7 after seeing how dense remake was. After all, it is an awful lot to adapt. Maybe this is recency bias, but I think this may just be the greatest Final Fantasy I’ve played, yes even better than the original, though I feel like they make a sort of package since part of my love for it comes from loving the original. I am truly blown away by what square accomplished with FF7 Rebirth, and I’m gonna glaze the fuck out of it.

Flaws out of the way first. The frame rate. 30fps isn’t optimal, since this is simply due to the limits of the ps5 this problem will disappear upon pc port. My second problem is world intel, completely optional but there are only so many radar towers you can climb before it starts to get slightly repetitive. Due to the repetitive nature of it I got burnt out and didn't play for a month and a half, also I was reading wano which out-peaked the peak. However it's also my own fault for halting story progression until I completed a region. As soon as I balanced this out I got right back into it and didn’t face this issue again.

Now onto the glaze. This game is absolutely massive. I had almost 90 hours when I finished chapter 14 and had completed everything except the end game bosses for the final protorelic. There is so much to do, so many minigames that are so much fun and all unique. Also the game is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. At times the best I’ve ever seen. Especially during the "cinematic" cutscenes, it is insane. The locations oh my the locations. Seeing the old locations revitalised was my favourite part of this game. I spent half an hour just exploring Kalm, not doing anything to progress the story, just admiring the world square crafted. Each location is dense and filled to the brim with detail. My favourites were Cosmo Canyon, the wider Gongaga region and Kalm, however every town looked incredible. The music is outstanding. Genuinely the greatest soundtrack I’ve ever heard in a game. There are so many tracks with iterations of each. EVERY track from the original game is expanded and improved. My personal favourite, on our way, is absolutely gorgeous in Rebirth. When I first entered the open world, leaving Kalm, I genuinely was tearing up hearing the Main Theme and running around the open world. This game is just so special. Combat is expanded and greatly improved from remake. I love the synergy system, it’s fantastic, really makes my party feel like a party working together in synergy. Folio upgrade system, great. Not super deep, but solid enough. Now the characters. What I love most about this game is how it really fleshes out the cast. The big character Arc moments for party members are handled fantastically, especially my favourite, RedXIII. The humour is on point too. I laughed so many times, the chemistry between the cast is fantastic. The gold saucer sequence was fantastic too. I was not ready for loveless to be adapted in such a manner, truly mind boggling. Rebirth also happens to possess the best in-game card game I’ve ever played, diffing Gwent, Caravan and Pazaak by a mile. Queens Blood is a joy to play and I relished any opportunity I had to play. There are too many little things I want to cream about but I think everything I’ve said conveys just how incredible I think Rebirth is.

This game is so special, I constantly found myself smiling, it’s truly a labour of uncapped love. You can feel it in every corner of the game, this is made by people who love Final Fantasy 7 and they had just as much fun making it as you did playing it. Thank you Tetsuya Nomura, my glorious king, I can’t wait to see how you close out this phenomenal saga.

Really enjoyed my time with this game, that largely exceeded my expectations as a sequel. I’m glad I played the original VII in between the two, as it ended up enhancing everything rather than spoiling it. It’s such a fun and joyful experience that I loved seeing how they approached each part of the story. Some highlights being the opening sequence and Kalm, Junon and the journey to Costa Del Sol, and the latter half of the Temple of the Ancients.

Everything is cranked to 11 all the time. The crazy amount of mini games, the detail and richness of every town and region, every story and character moment, every boss. It does get too much at times, and starts to become over the top or overly padded. I do think that condensing these two games into one might have been better for the remake project as a whole. Easy for me to say of course. But overall I enjoyed far more than I didn’t, and will likely be playing for many hours yet. These chocobos aren’t gonna race themselves.

Unfortunately not as good as Remake. It's too bloated with side content with very little that is actually good and meaningful. It feels like they just wanted to stretch the filler part of the original FFVII game as much as possible to justify the price tag and had to go out of their way to do it with the most irritating mini games possible. The story is meaningless and it could be skipped totally to Part 3, there's barely any character development, the open world is dated, something that Far Cry 3 did it better I don't know how many years ago, and the combat does not evolve from Remake. It truly was made just to please shareholders, there's no artistic vision or "soul", it's as by the book as it can be. It still, however, has charm, the characters are still as interesting as in the original FFVII, the voice work is good and the soundtrack is still killer, so for people super nostalgic about FFVII, it's worth playing just for that. This whole game could be a 3 min introductory cutscene for part 3.

How do I talk about a game that has taken up so much time and left such an impact? A game that I logged over 77 hours into and 3 real world months. A game that during one of the craziest times of my life as I was buying a home for the first time, moving, rehearsing and performing in multiple shows, and more was a bedrock for me. Something I could go to when I finally had time to rest and enjoy the world, combat, and especially the characters as everything around me was a swirling tornado of chaos. I don't know if I fully can, but I'll do my best here.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was a game I was looking forward to having enjoyed Remake, but not one I was overly hyped about. I loved the characters in Remake, especially as someone who never got around to the original game and was meeting them for the first time. I really liked the combat too, but otherwise it was very good if not great. So imagine my surprise when I boot up this Part 2 just to have my mind blown. The combat is back with some major improvements and additions that made it even deeper than its already impressive predecessor. The story goes to new, exciting places, and even if it's a bit meandering, it finds its way to important key moments I won't forget. The characters are back and better than ever! Getting a whole open world with tons of side content to further flesh them out only helps. I loved seeing my old favorites from Remake again and meeting all the new, wonderful characters for the first time.

It's a game that just completely sucked me in and refused to let go. I don't know if it's even released its grasp by this point, moments and music and characters running through my mind still. It's been less than a day since I rolled credits, so maybe I'll see in a few days. The open world is just phenomenal, the act of claiming towers to discover all the good little bits spread around the wilderness excellent at activating that part of my lizard brain that just wants to complete complete complete. It's nothing new but a nice streamlining of the formula so many Ubisoft games and others have used for years. It's polished to a sheen here. While some pieces were a bit too much busywork and not every minigame worked as well as others, I could not stop hopping all over this world completing all the different combat challenges, lifesprings, minigames, sidequests, and more! Every area introduced so many new things, from new activities to new ways to navigate.

The combat, while once again taking some getting used to again like in Remake, flourishes once you've locked in. It's deepened its materia system, expanded its weapon catalog and their abilities, and provides so much to analyze and play with for every foe and fiend you find. Hell, I even left a piece or two of the system alone and still felt like I was juggling a ton to strategize and fight each enemy in the best way possible. There's certainly more depth to be found, which is exciting especially as I do want to come back and beat this game on Hard mode.

The story too, while it has some silly stumbles in the late game like Remake, makes up for any slip with some of the best plotting and character development I've seen in games. It's not afraid to get silly nor serious, and it's a marvel at how well it balances these tones.

And the characters, oh my lord the characters. It was fun talking with one of my best friends who has played the original about how they've changed things around for the better. The glow up for Cait Sith was especially surprising. I loved the little furball from the get go, so to hear how maligned he was before was a shock. His arc hits some big spots I won't spoil but tore me to absolute pieces. Alongside the other part that... well they have fun handling that as you'd expect.

Honestly, my only complaints are some stupid minigames, sidequests, and the silly story stuff at the end that was too much. They get absolutely blown away by all the positive. This game moved me in ways I haven't been moved in a long time paired with gameplay that reaches the stratosphere in quality and execution. It's gorgeous to behold, runs great the vast majority of the time, and has a new version of what was already one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. And by god is it one of the best stories and casts of all time too.

It's amazing to see what Nomura and team are doing to remake this game into its own masterpiece trilogy. Hell, these aren't even your typical remakes/remasters that spruce up the game while still keeping the same gameplay core. These are really brand new AAA games that are more "adapting" the original game. If they keep this quality up, I can't wait to see how things end in Part 3. For now though, Rebirth is easily a new all time favorite for me, and I implore anyone who cares about gaming to check it and its predecessor out.

Game of the Year, lock it in. My god, this game shouldn't exist. It's too perfect! Part 3 has a lot to do to reach this high quality game.

I loved it all. The atmosphere, the soundtrack, the visuals, minigames (QUEEN'S BLOOD IS SO GOOD), battles with the synergy system. Every single character was so good, I really don't know how SE will manage to make the same thing for Revengeance. The hints that connect to other parts of the compilation and how it will all connect. This has to be a modern masterpiece. I just wanna play this game over and over again. Clocked my first run at 105 hours with a lot left to do. 10/10

Sendo uma sequência direta do jogo anterior, o gameplay é praticamente o mesmo, adicionaram só algumas novas coisinhas e 3 novos personagens, o que não é ruim considerando que o do primeiro já era muito bom, então não tem nenhuma surpresa nesse quesito.
Já na exploração, os mapas e cenários são alguns dos mais bonitos que eu já vi, a direção de arte é impecável, um show a parte; mas, na parte de mundo aberto, apesar da beleza dos cenários acaba ficando um pouco repetitivo pois fora das missões principais e secundárias, as atividades são basicamente ctrl c + ctrl v (lembrando um jogo da Ubisoft), com várias torres e desafios de combate idênticos espalhados pelo mapa.
Agora provavelmente num dos quesitos mais polêmicos, a história é (na minha opinião) muito boa no geral, principalmente o desenvolvimento de personagem que dá de 10 a 0 no original, pois lá cada personagem tinha praticamente só um mini arco de história próprio e ficava estagnado pelo resto do jogo, enquanto aqui as relações dos personagens são bem mais orgânicas e com evolução gradual, fizeram de forma que cada integrante da party tem um objetivo claro e realmente um motivo pra começar a seguir o grupo. Apesar disso, quanto ao enredo de fato, tomaram muitas liberdades em relação ao original, principalmente nas horas finais em que fica claro o envolvimento da galera de Kingdom Hearts, sendo um pouco complexo demais e até confuso sem motivo, o que deve deixar muita gente que queria algo mais próximo ao original insatisfeita.
Mas enfim, é um jogo espetacular pra qualquer um que gostou do anterior e muito mais ambicioso que o remake, só, na minha opinião, há a pequena ressalva de que esse acaba tropeçando um pouco em algumas coisas que se propõe, diferente do seu antecessor, que apesar de ser uma experiência mais contida, acaba sendo mais polida.