What should've been a thoroughly enjoyable second part of this remake trilogy, with improved gameplay and a more interesting section of the story compared to FF7 Remake, is unfortunately overshadowed by often tedious and frustrating design choices that ultimately sours my experience of both this game and its predecessor.
The Good: Aerith Gold Saucer Chapter 12
- Voice Acting: As with the last game, all the voice acting is very good. There are few, if any, flat line deliveries, and the cast from the main characters down to background NPCs are all top notch.
- Visuals: Rebirth looks even better than the Remake, which is in part due to the setting it takes place in, as the dreary factories and slums of Midgar are less visually appealing compared to the dense forests and canyons prominently featured in Rebirth. But it looks great, nothing much to comment on really, its one of the best looking games on modern consoles.
- Characters: Rebirth effectively builds on the character interactions that were the highlight of Remake, and expands upon them by introducing new characters that fit into the dynamic of the main group. The main group are up there as one of my favourite core casts of characters in any video game I've ever played, and that is often in part due to the little things like random bits of dialogue and side quests.
- Core Gameplay Direction: I found that in Remake, most of the fights throughout the game wanted you to win by exploiting elemental weaknesses through spells. This often placed focus on having the right materia equipped, and setting up your party to efficiently hit spells (typically Aerith with a bunch of wards). However, I found that in Rebirth, they shifted away from this by nerfing the tier 3 magic spells to cost 2 ATB charges. Theres also more opportunities to pressure enemies outside of spells, such as dodging attacks or hitting ATB attacks at the right time. This focus on abilities over spells makes for much faster-paced and more interesting gameplay. Although, I will mourn the loss of melee Barret and spamming chi 2 Unbridled Strength with Tifa.
- Story: The story's great. I don't really have much to comment on, given that I've never played to originally and I don't know how the story ends, but it's really good. Thoroughly fleshes out all of our main characters and our antagonist effectively while providing enough story to the new characters that they are compelling in their own right. The chapters in Nibelheim are very good, and while there are some down moments and padding throughout the rest of the game (which I'll get to), for the most part, when the story's rolling it's very good.
- Music: From Tifa's Theme on the piano to new One Winged Angel in the last fight, all the music is great in this game.
- Queen's Blood: Once I got some good cards, I really enjoyed it. The only side quest type I actually had fun doing.
The Bad: I might have to go back and score FF7 Remake lower as well.
- Open World: After Remake was (fairly) criticised for being a hallway simulator, Square Enix decided to address this by introducing large open world areas that are prominent throughout most of the gameplay. In almost every chapter, you're introduced to a new map with it's own set of side quests and objectives, an exclusive Chocobo, and more.
But it all sucks. It all sucks. The objectives are a complete waste of time, from activating radio towers and analysing lifesprings to the irritating protorelic questlines, I was so thoroughly unengaged by the entire affair that I completely skipped almost all of it from Gongaga onwards. Traversing the regions is also annoying, as the Chocobos lose all momentum after bumping into anything and you're constantly interrupted by running across another pointless objective that doesn't take long enough so you feel compelled to complete it, but does takes long enough that you know you've just wasted minutes of your life. And in Cosmo Canyon, the traversal is made even more frustrating with the stupid flying and gliding range mechanics.
The entire open world concept only serves to drag out the time spent away from the actual fun things this game has to offer, and I honestly don't think I'll be able to play another open world game for at least 6 months after this shit.
- Boss Fights: Just like in FF7 Remake, and despite what I said earlier about the appreciating the change in gameplay direction, the boss fights in this are still annoying.
A good example of this is the Reno and Rude fight, as with Reno you're supposed to pressure him by dodging his physical attacks. The only problem is, he doesn't use them that much, mostly just after he's stunned you and you can't dodge anyway. He also dodges all your standard attacks. The only way I could really damage him was by hitting him with Fire attacks when he was charging the EMPs and hope it pressured him. This ended up being the point in this game where I dropped the difficulty down to Easy, and it became a 5 minute beat-em-up the rest of the way through the entire game.
Another example is the Rufus Shinra fight, which was the last straw that made me change over to Easy mode in Remake. The whole fight is so stupid I was laughing rather than yelling. You're supposed to dodge his attacks and attack him when he reloads. But if you stay too close he'll dash into your dodge path and stun you, dealing big damage, and if you stay too far away you can't counterattack long enough to effectively build the stagger bar when he's pressured. Sometimes he even recovers instantly after being pressured.
There's a few other instances I can remember, but I won't get too far into it. I am admittedly quite bad at action RPGs, so it is a bit mad-cause-bad. But given that Easy mode is such a walk in the park it's mind-numbing, and Normal mode is perfectly fine 70% of the time, I think it's fair to put some of the blame on the mechanics.
- Padded Story Missions: This was a problem in Remake as well, I just felt that often times sections of the main story missions were broken up by entirely unnecessary passages that completely fucked with the pacing. Anything that involved dragging a box around, splitting up the party for longer than 10 minutes, or setting up for the third mini-boss in this third of the mission did nothing but take my attention away from the best part of the game (the story) and focused it on the worst part (dumb shit).
All in all, I want to give this game an 8 out of 10, as there is an 8/10 game in here somewhere, but it's just buried under some really poor design choices.
I think I would still recommend this game, as I'm glad I played it, but with caveat that you will be slogging through a decent amount of filler content to enjoy the amazing story and characters.
The Good: Aerith Gold Saucer Chapter 12
- Voice Acting: As with the last game, all the voice acting is very good. There are few, if any, flat line deliveries, and the cast from the main characters down to background NPCs are all top notch.
- Visuals: Rebirth looks even better than the Remake, which is in part due to the setting it takes place in, as the dreary factories and slums of Midgar are less visually appealing compared to the dense forests and canyons prominently featured in Rebirth. But it looks great, nothing much to comment on really, its one of the best looking games on modern consoles.
- Characters: Rebirth effectively builds on the character interactions that were the highlight of Remake, and expands upon them by introducing new characters that fit into the dynamic of the main group. The main group are up there as one of my favourite core casts of characters in any video game I've ever played, and that is often in part due to the little things like random bits of dialogue and side quests.
- Core Gameplay Direction: I found that in Remake, most of the fights throughout the game wanted you to win by exploiting elemental weaknesses through spells. This often placed focus on having the right materia equipped, and setting up your party to efficiently hit spells (typically Aerith with a bunch of wards). However, I found that in Rebirth, they shifted away from this by nerfing the tier 3 magic spells to cost 2 ATB charges. Theres also more opportunities to pressure enemies outside of spells, such as dodging attacks or hitting ATB attacks at the right time. This focus on abilities over spells makes for much faster-paced and more interesting gameplay. Although, I will mourn the loss of melee Barret and spamming chi 2 Unbridled Strength with Tifa.
- Story: The story's great. I don't really have much to comment on, given that I've never played to originally and I don't know how the story ends, but it's really good. Thoroughly fleshes out all of our main characters and our antagonist effectively while providing enough story to the new characters that they are compelling in their own right. The chapters in Nibelheim are very good, and while there are some down moments and padding throughout the rest of the game (which I'll get to), for the most part, when the story's rolling it's very good.
- Music: From Tifa's Theme on the piano to new One Winged Angel in the last fight, all the music is great in this game.
- Queen's Blood: Once I got some good cards, I really enjoyed it. The only side quest type I actually had fun doing.
The Bad: I might have to go back and score FF7 Remake lower as well.
- Open World: After Remake was (fairly) criticised for being a hallway simulator, Square Enix decided to address this by introducing large open world areas that are prominent throughout most of the gameplay. In almost every chapter, you're introduced to a new map with it's own set of side quests and objectives, an exclusive Chocobo, and more.
But it all sucks. It all sucks. The objectives are a complete waste of time, from activating radio towers and analysing lifesprings to the irritating protorelic questlines, I was so thoroughly unengaged by the entire affair that I completely skipped almost all of it from Gongaga onwards. Traversing the regions is also annoying, as the Chocobos lose all momentum after bumping into anything and you're constantly interrupted by running across another pointless objective that doesn't take long enough so you feel compelled to complete it, but does takes long enough that you know you've just wasted minutes of your life. And in Cosmo Canyon, the traversal is made even more frustrating with the stupid flying and gliding range mechanics.
The entire open world concept only serves to drag out the time spent away from the actual fun things this game has to offer, and I honestly don't think I'll be able to play another open world game for at least 6 months after this shit.
- Boss Fights: Just like in FF7 Remake, and despite what I said earlier about the appreciating the change in gameplay direction, the boss fights in this are still annoying.
A good example of this is the Reno and Rude fight, as with Reno you're supposed to pressure him by dodging his physical attacks. The only problem is, he doesn't use them that much, mostly just after he's stunned you and you can't dodge anyway. He also dodges all your standard attacks. The only way I could really damage him was by hitting him with Fire attacks when he was charging the EMPs and hope it pressured him. This ended up being the point in this game where I dropped the difficulty down to Easy, and it became a 5 minute beat-em-up the rest of the way through the entire game.
Another example is the Rufus Shinra fight, which was the last straw that made me change over to Easy mode in Remake. The whole fight is so stupid I was laughing rather than yelling. You're supposed to dodge his attacks and attack him when he reloads. But if you stay too close he'll dash into your dodge path and stun you, dealing big damage, and if you stay too far away you can't counterattack long enough to effectively build the stagger bar when he's pressured. Sometimes he even recovers instantly after being pressured.
There's a few other instances I can remember, but I won't get too far into it. I am admittedly quite bad at action RPGs, so it is a bit mad-cause-bad. But given that Easy mode is such a walk in the park it's mind-numbing, and Normal mode is perfectly fine 70% of the time, I think it's fair to put some of the blame on the mechanics.
- Padded Story Missions: This was a problem in Remake as well, I just felt that often times sections of the main story missions were broken up by entirely unnecessary passages that completely fucked with the pacing. Anything that involved dragging a box around, splitting up the party for longer than 10 minutes, or setting up for the third mini-boss in this third of the mission did nothing but take my attention away from the best part of the game (the story) and focused it on the worst part (dumb shit).
All in all, I want to give this game an 8 out of 10, as there is an 8/10 game in here somewhere, but it's just buried under some really poor design choices.
I think I would still recommend this game, as I'm glad I played it, but with caveat that you will be slogging through a decent amount of filler content to enjoy the amazing story and characters.
i need therapy
After arguments over what makes an ff game or not from their last release, Square finally gets the FF charm down perfectly. A couple of sections near the end could use some cutting and in terms of story they didn’t stick the landing but I can’t think of a rating for this game other than perfect.
This game takes the issues I had with Remake and stamps them out, and the result is an incredibly rich and immersive game with a superb combat system and peak character interactions. I think the game is a bit bloated, and I'm not really sure what to think about the direction the story has gone until it all wraps up, but I love these characters and world so much and this game honestly feels made for me. This game is Final Fantasy in its purest form: Huge world and stakes, great characters, entertaining scenarios, and a ridiculous amount of fan-service. If you love the original VII like I do, and you love expansive words and bizarre twists on stories you know, I think this game will satisfy you. If you're a story continuity purist, and you don't like having a lot of side content to engage with, this game will likely disappoint you. I may write more regarding this later, but overall this will likely be my pick for game of the year. I enjoyed nearly every moment of my 80 hour playthrough, and think it pulls off everything it goes for. Its not a 10/10 imo but its probably a 9.5 or 9.6.
Woahhhh this game was insane!!! Only gripe is that it was a bit frustrating at certain bits, but I think that was me not being prepared enough. Game handled the materia management in the last chapter very poorly too.
peak
Meh. I cannot think of any other time a game's final act has soured me so completely on the whole thing. I'm in a weird place of finding this game to be generally fun but unsatisfying, and I'm hoping they can stick the landing in part three.
So far Game of the year 2024 for me!
I liked Remake but Rebirth did almost all things better. There is so much to do and the story is just amazing. Play it!
I liked Remake but Rebirth did almost all things better. There is so much to do and the story is just amazing. Play it!
This review contains spoilers
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth isn’t a bad game per se, but it is a disappointment in the sense that where Remake miraculously managed to justify stretching out a five-hour intro sequence into a full thirty-hour game, Rebirth left me feeling that they should’ve just stuck to making one game after all. The amount of padding in Rebirth is absurd. I did all of the sidequests in Remake and initially had planned to do the same in Rebirth alongside all the Queen’s Blood matches, but a couple chapters in I gave up because I was just not having fun. I don’t normally hold bad optional content against a game precisely because it is optional, but in Rebirth’s case, I think it’s justified because they’re constantly shoving it in your face during the early game. Besides, the annoying padding isn’t always optional. When Rebirth isn’t being bogged down by its bad sidequests, it’s slotting extended minigame sections in the middle of otherwise enthralling story sequences. I respect that Rebirth tries to lean into the occasional absurdity of the original game with all the minigames and whatnot, but when that absurdity actively distracts from the seriousness of the story around it, it starts to become annoying.
None of this is aided by the fact that Rebirth is an act two isolated from its acts one and three. The story does start to pick up in the back half, but between the stakes only vaguely recalled from the first game and all of the aforementioned padding drawing attention away from what plot is actively happening, the first half of the game often feels like the party is just wandering from place to place without much rhyme or reason save for the fact that it’s where all the hooded men are going.
The frustrating thing about all this is that Rebirth has some sequences that are absolutely stellar. Barret in particular absolutely steals the show in this game, which I really was not expecting. Barret was a character I always liked, but Rebirth really elevated him with all his fun comedic moments in the early game and his more serious emotional moments in the back half of the game. Just in general, the story really picks up around the time the party gets to the Golden Saucer. By then, it finally starts to feel like the plot has some more direction and the party starts to feel more active in all the goings-on between Barret’s backstory and Cloud and Tifa’s shared trauma. I thought the way the game portrayed Cloud’s PTSD was really strong (except in chapter 13, but we’ll get to that) and Tifa’s trip through the lifestream was another standout moment. Rebirth’s strengths in adapting and augmenting scenes from the original game makes me think that if they made a single, straightforward remake of the original Final Fantasy VII, it would easily be a perfect ten.
Unfortunately, much as how the game started weak, it also kind of ended weak, in the sense that the last two chapters kind of lost me. I really don’t like how they handled the whole sequence with the black materia. That was such a memorable part of Cloud’s character arc in the original game because it’s a futile moment of him trying and failing to escape from Sephiroth’s influence. Here in Rebirth, Sephiroth seems to completely take him over from the moment the party enters the temple and the whole back-and-forth with the black materia dilutes the strength of Cloud’s apparent betrayal. Then immediately after that at the start of chapter 14, the game really dives into all of the timeline shenanigans hinted at at the end of Remake and it was all very confusing.
First of all, I still don’t know how or why Zach is alive and if he’s alive in the main timeline or some side timeline or what, which is odd, because it felt like the end of Remake was setting things up so that Rebirth would answer that question. Then there’s the whole situation with Aerith’s death. Going in, I thought that how Rebirth chose to handle Aerith’s death would serve as something of a litmus test for how seriously I should take the remake trilogy as an earnest attempt to retell the original going forward. Aerith’s death is such a famous and well-remembered moment in gaming to this day not just because it’s sad, but because it ties so strongly into the original game’s themes of life and death. If the remake trilogy has any interest whatsoever in maintaining the integrity of that messaging, they would kill off Aerith. On the other hand, Remake made it clear that the writers didn’t give a damn what the audience thought and that they were going to do whatever they wanted with this trilogy, so if they wanted to really drive that point home and stick it to the purists, they would let Aerith live. So what did they decide to do? Both, apparently. Even by the time the final cutscene rolls around, it’s still not clear what exactly happened. Overall, I just don’t understand the point of introducing things like parallel worlds and alternate timelines into Rebirth. At least in Remake it made sense since that game was actively trying to be a meta-commentary on the original, but Rebirth doesn’t really take things in that direction, so as it stands, it mostly just feels like they’re convoluting the plot for no reason.
I maintain that Remake is still a great game in spite of Rebirth’s relative failure to follow-up on that game’s formula, so I do have hopes that they can pull things together for the finale, but Rebirth when taken on its own reminds me a lot of Tales of Arise. Its strong middle section is held back by a weak beginning and ending and that, when combined with a number of odd gameplay decisions, makes the game an extremely mixed bag.
Alternate review.
None of this is aided by the fact that Rebirth is an act two isolated from its acts one and three. The story does start to pick up in the back half, but between the stakes only vaguely recalled from the first game and all of the aforementioned padding drawing attention away from what plot is actively happening, the first half of the game often feels like the party is just wandering from place to place without much rhyme or reason save for the fact that it’s where all the hooded men are going.
The frustrating thing about all this is that Rebirth has some sequences that are absolutely stellar. Barret in particular absolutely steals the show in this game, which I really was not expecting. Barret was a character I always liked, but Rebirth really elevated him with all his fun comedic moments in the early game and his more serious emotional moments in the back half of the game. Just in general, the story really picks up around the time the party gets to the Golden Saucer. By then, it finally starts to feel like the plot has some more direction and the party starts to feel more active in all the goings-on between Barret’s backstory and Cloud and Tifa’s shared trauma. I thought the way the game portrayed Cloud’s PTSD was really strong (except in chapter 13, but we’ll get to that) and Tifa’s trip through the lifestream was another standout moment. Rebirth’s strengths in adapting and augmenting scenes from the original game makes me think that if they made a single, straightforward remake of the original Final Fantasy VII, it would easily be a perfect ten.
Unfortunately, much as how the game started weak, it also kind of ended weak, in the sense that the last two chapters kind of lost me. I really don’t like how they handled the whole sequence with the black materia. That was such a memorable part of Cloud’s character arc in the original game because it’s a futile moment of him trying and failing to escape from Sephiroth’s influence. Here in Rebirth, Sephiroth seems to completely take him over from the moment the party enters the temple and the whole back-and-forth with the black materia dilutes the strength of Cloud’s apparent betrayal. Then immediately after that at the start of chapter 14, the game really dives into all of the timeline shenanigans hinted at at the end of Remake and it was all very confusing.
First of all, I still don’t know how or why Zach is alive and if he’s alive in the main timeline or some side timeline or what, which is odd, because it felt like the end of Remake was setting things up so that Rebirth would answer that question. Then there’s the whole situation with Aerith’s death. Going in, I thought that how Rebirth chose to handle Aerith’s death would serve as something of a litmus test for how seriously I should take the remake trilogy as an earnest attempt to retell the original going forward. Aerith’s death is such a famous and well-remembered moment in gaming to this day not just because it’s sad, but because it ties so strongly into the original game’s themes of life and death. If the remake trilogy has any interest whatsoever in maintaining the integrity of that messaging, they would kill off Aerith. On the other hand, Remake made it clear that the writers didn’t give a damn what the audience thought and that they were going to do whatever they wanted with this trilogy, so if they wanted to really drive that point home and stick it to the purists, they would let Aerith live. So what did they decide to do? Both, apparently. Even by the time the final cutscene rolls around, it’s still not clear what exactly happened. Overall, I just don’t understand the point of introducing things like parallel worlds and alternate timelines into Rebirth. At least in Remake it made sense since that game was actively trying to be a meta-commentary on the original, but Rebirth doesn’t really take things in that direction, so as it stands, it mostly just feels like they’re convoluting the plot for no reason.
I maintain that Remake is still a great game in spite of Rebirth’s relative failure to follow-up on that game’s formula, so I do have hopes that they can pull things together for the finale, but Rebirth when taken on its own reminds me a lot of Tales of Arise. Its strong middle section is held back by a weak beginning and ending and that, when combined with a number of odd gameplay decisions, makes the game an extremely mixed bag.
Alternate review.
A big, messy, delicious, and beautiful buffet table
This game is a robust and filthy Christmas feast.
It is absolutely huge, I played through mostly as I think was “intended” (doing all the quests and map stuff but not mastering all the mini-games) and it took me 95 hours. That time was spent doing the following:
1. Gawking at the artistry with which Final Fantasy VII’s world has been recreated here.
It is truly superb and I stopped playing many times to simply take in the scenery. It’s impressive how some of the recreation exactly captures the structure of the original as well. Somehow they kept Junon city as inscrutable to navigate here as it was in the original. But overall, even the most ridiculous aspects of the original (or at least this section of it) have been recreated with the utmost dedication.
2. Hanging out with the glorious music.
And frankly, #1 and 2 kind of get me up to 4 stars by themselves. It’s really pretty fascinating just to witness this ridiculous project of getting thousands of people to blast out a tentpole videogame into a three-game reimagined epic.
3. Watching cutscenes.
I must say these are pretty darn well done. Some of the scenes in Remake had me pretty bored, here the acting is pretty outstanding all around. These characters are just the most intense versions of themselves that already existed in my 12-year-old mind, which frankly, is somewhat of a miraculous achievement in design. The narrative itself has gone completely off the rails… but I think anyone who finished Remake (and really the original FF7) already knew this. Now this story is certainly not profound enough to justify the 100 hours here, but as the foundation holding this entire experience together, it serves quite well.
4. Exploring stuff.
Which has three different flavors:
a. Towns/Peopled Locales
b. Dungeons
c. World Map
Just like the old days! Towns are easily the best and most fun to explore, as they always have been in JRPGs.
5. Playing Queen’s Blood.
This is the new Final Fantasy GOAT card game, giving Triple Triad the boot. Once I got a good replacement deck, I spanked everyone, but I always enjoyed playing.
6. Engaging in the myriad of other mini-games, of quality varying from amazing to atrocious.
There’s somewhere between 10-30 fully formed mini-games in this thing. Some of which are genuinely impressive.
7. Map Icon crossing off.
I’ve never played an Ubisoft open-world game but apparently this is that. It’s not particularly engaging, you more or less navigate to the icon, do something that may or may not be boring, then get the icon checked off. Sometimes these are cool, sometimes they suck. There’s a lot of repetition here! It was just varied enough that I didn’t completely question my life choices, but I was aware I was engaged in some repetitive time-wasting nonsense. This probably accounts for 1/3 of the player’s time if they engage in it.
8. Fighting.
I liked the combat in this game a lot more than Remake, but maybe I just learned how to interact with it more. Skills feel much more useful here and they don’t do that miserable thing they did in remake where bosses would not keep their stagger when they got to the next phase. Each character plays quite uniquely and they all have their strengths for sure.
9. Messing around in menus.
I hope there are no poor souls who haven’t put the Weapon Skills on “auto”. For the materia, it feels more interesting in this game compared to remake and I had a good time creating builds for my characters.
10. Executing “side quests”.
These are your typical side quests. They’re decent… but sidequests still feel mediocre. There is one in Gongoga involving chickens that genuinely feels like the development team was trolling about how stupid side quests are… and I lapped it up like an idiot.
I think that quantifies most of what I did with this game. There is a lot here! Like I mentioned up top, it is a buffet table. Some of the offerings are delicious, some are nasty. But it feels special, like a Christmas dinner. I ran the whole gamut of emotions with this thing: joy, sorrow, regret, amusement, boredom, anger, etc. 95 hours is probably too much time to spend with this thing relative to the enrichment I’ll glean from it… but I can’t not play it, let’s be real.
This is also 3 years in a row with “must play” 100 hour beefcakes.
2022: Elden Ring
2023: Tears of the Kingdom
2024: FF7 Rebirth
2025: Give me a break please.
Also maybe my favorite thing about this game is how far it pushes the JRPG trope of NPCs. NPCs in this game are literally boring contemporary Americans and your party all look like Demi-Gods, except for Aerith and Tifa who are full on goddesses. It's completely insane.
This game is a robust and filthy Christmas feast.
It is absolutely huge, I played through mostly as I think was “intended” (doing all the quests and map stuff but not mastering all the mini-games) and it took me 95 hours. That time was spent doing the following:
1. Gawking at the artistry with which Final Fantasy VII’s world has been recreated here.
It is truly superb and I stopped playing many times to simply take in the scenery. It’s impressive how some of the recreation exactly captures the structure of the original as well. Somehow they kept Junon city as inscrutable to navigate here as it was in the original. But overall, even the most ridiculous aspects of the original (or at least this section of it) have been recreated with the utmost dedication.
2. Hanging out with the glorious music.
And frankly, #1 and 2 kind of get me up to 4 stars by themselves. It’s really pretty fascinating just to witness this ridiculous project of getting thousands of people to blast out a tentpole videogame into a three-game reimagined epic.
3. Watching cutscenes.
I must say these are pretty darn well done. Some of the scenes in Remake had me pretty bored, here the acting is pretty outstanding all around. These characters are just the most intense versions of themselves that already existed in my 12-year-old mind, which frankly, is somewhat of a miraculous achievement in design. The narrative itself has gone completely off the rails… but I think anyone who finished Remake (and really the original FF7) already knew this. Now this story is certainly not profound enough to justify the 100 hours here, but as the foundation holding this entire experience together, it serves quite well.
4. Exploring stuff.
Which has three different flavors:
a. Towns/Peopled Locales
b. Dungeons
c. World Map
Just like the old days! Towns are easily the best and most fun to explore, as they always have been in JRPGs.
5. Playing Queen’s Blood.
This is the new Final Fantasy GOAT card game, giving Triple Triad the boot. Once I got a good replacement deck, I spanked everyone, but I always enjoyed playing.
6. Engaging in the myriad of other mini-games, of quality varying from amazing to atrocious.
There’s somewhere between 10-30 fully formed mini-games in this thing. Some of which are genuinely impressive.
7. Map Icon crossing off.
I’ve never played an Ubisoft open-world game but apparently this is that. It’s not particularly engaging, you more or less navigate to the icon, do something that may or may not be boring, then get the icon checked off. Sometimes these are cool, sometimes they suck. There’s a lot of repetition here! It was just varied enough that I didn’t completely question my life choices, but I was aware I was engaged in some repetitive time-wasting nonsense. This probably accounts for 1/3 of the player’s time if they engage in it.
8. Fighting.
I liked the combat in this game a lot more than Remake, but maybe I just learned how to interact with it more. Skills feel much more useful here and they don’t do that miserable thing they did in remake where bosses would not keep their stagger when they got to the next phase. Each character plays quite uniquely and they all have their strengths for sure.
9. Messing around in menus.
I hope there are no poor souls who haven’t put the Weapon Skills on “auto”. For the materia, it feels more interesting in this game compared to remake and I had a good time creating builds for my characters.
10. Executing “side quests”.
These are your typical side quests. They’re decent… but sidequests still feel mediocre. There is one in Gongoga involving chickens that genuinely feels like the development team was trolling about how stupid side quests are… and I lapped it up like an idiot.
I think that quantifies most of what I did with this game. There is a lot here! Like I mentioned up top, it is a buffet table. Some of the offerings are delicious, some are nasty. But it feels special, like a Christmas dinner. I ran the whole gamut of emotions with this thing: joy, sorrow, regret, amusement, boredom, anger, etc. 95 hours is probably too much time to spend with this thing relative to the enrichment I’ll glean from it… but I can’t not play it, let’s be real.
This is also 3 years in a row with “must play” 100 hour beefcakes.
2022: Elden Ring
2023: Tears of the Kingdom
2024: FF7 Rebirth
2025: Give me a break please.
Also maybe my favorite thing about this game is how far it pushes the JRPG trope of NPCs. NPCs in this game are literally boring contemporary Americans and your party all look like Demi-Gods, except for Aerith and Tifa who are full on goddesses. It's completely insane.
I LOVE AERITH GAINSBOROUGH!!
Letteralmente 80h di minigame consecutivi, pare di giocare a Mario Party. A parte gli scherzi, Rebirth riprende il gameplay già efficace di Remake e lo rende: più strategico, più variegato, più divertente. Riuscire a far sì che il giocatore si diverta ancora, dopo +50h, con un sistema di combattimento che arriva alla sua completezza praticamente già dopo una ventina di ore sicuramente non é una cosa da poco. Peccato per sta roba del destino/noumen bianchi e neri/sephirot che compare ogni 2 curscene, per il resto c’è ben poco da dire sulla qualità del gioco.
Rebirth riesce a richiamare alla perfezione le scene più iconiche del secondo quarto di gioco di FF7, dilatandole per necessità ma riempiendole anche di sostanza. Un applauso al finale, trasporre quella scena era davvero difficile ed é stato fatto in maniera praticamente perfetta. La cutscene finale é da lacrime agli occhi e lo dice un duro che non si commuove mai: porcozio, voglio sinceramente bene a sti ragazzi.
Rebirth riesce a richiamare alla perfezione le scene più iconiche del secondo quarto di gioco di FF7, dilatandole per necessità ma riempiendole anche di sostanza. Un applauso al finale, trasporre quella scena era davvero difficile ed é stato fatto in maniera praticamente perfetta. La cutscene finale é da lacrime agli occhi e lo dice un duro che non si commuove mai: porcozio, voglio sinceramente bene a sti ragazzi.
Heu ta gueule
Better than the former in every way, great open world game and masterfully crafted in terms of visuals and sound. Not a diehard FF7 purist but I'm still a little unsold on the execution of the ending.
An excellent game that builds up on the promising foundations of Rebirth in almost every way, though a few minor issues hold it back from being perfect.
Combat is tightened up greatly from Remake, thanks partly to the addition of Synergy abilities; the characters, particularly the main cast, are just as endearing as they were in Remake; and the diverse settings are a very welcome change to the constant dreariness of Midgar.
A few minor issues keep it from being perfect, however. The pacing issues that occasionally plagued Remake once again rear their ugly head here, making some main story segments feel like more of a slog than they should. In a similar vein, the open-world objectives can also feel like somewhat of a slog as their design feels very reminiscent of the Ubisoft-esque open-world syndrome that plagued several games last decade.
Combat is tightened up greatly from Remake, thanks partly to the addition of Synergy abilities; the characters, particularly the main cast, are just as endearing as they were in Remake; and the diverse settings are a very welcome change to the constant dreariness of Midgar.
A few minor issues keep it from being perfect, however. The pacing issues that occasionally plagued Remake once again rear their ugly head here, making some main story segments feel like more of a slog than they should. In a similar vein, the open-world objectives can also feel like somewhat of a slog as their design feels very reminiscent of the Ubisoft-esque open-world syndrome that plagued several games last decade.
Tim Rogers once described FF7 Remake as "More FF7 than FF7." Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth continues that trend. FF7 Rebirth is egregious. It feels like it should be illegal to make a game like this, and yet Square-Enix keeps getting away with it. This video game is - simultaneously - both too much and not enough. It's the annoying middle stepchild in a family of games you haven't quite yet played - but really, let's be real, you've already played. Even if you haven't played the original Final Fantasy VII (PSX), you've played this sort of sprawling open world timesink game before, and you will again.
The thing that makes Rebirth remarkable amongst a field of AAA bullshit is its commitment to the bit. Not even in Yakuza have I seen such a dedication to bespoke, high-fidelity side-content. Even when there's a minigame that is utter dogshit nonsense (which is FREQUENTLY), I am struck by the sheer dedication the devs displayed in handcrafting a uniquely bad experience. No, I'm not mad. I'm actually having a great time. You can't stop me from playing Superman 64 (Chocobo Edition). I relish the opportunity. We simply have not seen this level of dedication to crap minigames since the PS2 era, and by god I'm going to savor that now that it's got millions of dollars in budget behind it.
Rebirth walks the tightrope between big swingy and conservative due to its unwavering commitment to fanservice that is its double-edged sword. I could complain about the story divergences and ending here, which are the narrative equivalent of kicking the can down the road. Why bother? Really it just speaks to the insecurities of the creative team, insecurities that are completely absent everywhere else in the game where they are just going nuts with stupid bullshit. Not to mention of course, a best in class ARPG battle system that somehow keeps getting better. The polarity of gamefeels of Rebirth is a testament to jank. Regardless of hangups: IT IS FUN TO PLAY
In summary: Rebirth is a luxurious experience despite and because of itself. The major issue of the modern era is Art being subsumed into Content; FF7 Rebirth manages to take Content to an Art form. God bless Tetsuya Nomura.
The thing that makes Rebirth remarkable amongst a field of AAA bullshit is its commitment to the bit. Not even in Yakuza have I seen such a dedication to bespoke, high-fidelity side-content. Even when there's a minigame that is utter dogshit nonsense (which is FREQUENTLY), I am struck by the sheer dedication the devs displayed in handcrafting a uniquely bad experience. No, I'm not mad. I'm actually having a great time. You can't stop me from playing Superman 64 (Chocobo Edition). I relish the opportunity. We simply have not seen this level of dedication to crap minigames since the PS2 era, and by god I'm going to savor that now that it's got millions of dollars in budget behind it.
Rebirth walks the tightrope between big swingy and conservative due to its unwavering commitment to fanservice that is its double-edged sword. I could complain about the story divergences and ending here, which are the narrative equivalent of kicking the can down the road. Why bother? Really it just speaks to the insecurities of the creative team, insecurities that are completely absent everywhere else in the game where they are just going nuts with stupid bullshit. Not to mention of course, a best in class ARPG battle system that somehow keeps getting better. The polarity of gamefeels of Rebirth is a testament to jank. Regardless of hangups: IT IS FUN TO PLAY
In summary: Rebirth is a luxurious experience despite and because of itself. The major issue of the modern era is Art being subsumed into Content; FF7 Rebirth manages to take Content to an Art form. God bless Tetsuya Nomura.
As the continuation of the Remake series of FF7 games, the sophomore entry is wildly more ambitious than Remake and successfully navigates an open world, a bigger party, and grander storyline but loses something in the process.
Overall - the gameplay got a massive boost by the addition of Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities, showcasing the party growing closer and more willing to work together in an interesting and engaging gameplay mechanic. Air combat is far more tolerable with Cloud being able to ascend at will and intentionally and use ranged magic sword attacks when you want to maintain distance. Newcomer Red XIII is engaging and fun to play as, with an interesting feature prioritizing blocking to build meter then spending that meter in a support role or to self-heal. The other new playable character, Cait Sith, leaves a lot to be desired. He seems tuned for expert players to exploit his odd mechanics, but feels too slow in such a blazing fast game which makes playing as him feel quite dull.
The music features loving renditions of the original FF7 tracks we love, and absurdly catchy new songs that stay in your head (Bow wow wow...)
Graphics are a double edged sword. The world looks great, and the character models look great, but very often the lighting can make them look like shiny toys instead of people, and entering or exiting a building can lead to insane dark or light levels making it impossible to see anything at all. Overall, the sheer scope of the game and how good it looks 90% of the time makes it quite a spectacle.
The storyline is once again the classic FF7 story with a twist and lime, that is - more fleshed out with something new to spice it up. I'll say without spoilers the game kept me engaged and interested the entire time I was playing the main storyline, and while I thought the ending fell a bit flat, it wasn't enough to hamper my enjoyment of the story told overall.
A lot has been made of the insane amount of mini-games in Rebirth, and there truly is a crazy amount of them. Thankfully, you can choose which ones you want to engage with for the most part, only being forced into playing them on occasion. Personally, I found most of them pretty enjoyable for their own merits, and a fun breather from the combat heavy gameplay.
Overall, I thought Rebirth was an incredible game to be made in a short amount of time (reports are 3 years). It has upheld both the OG FF7 and the Remake legacy, and is very much worthy of being in the series. The open world necessitates a large amount of side activities, and it's very easy to stall the momentum of the game by engaging with all that's on offer. There are people who can play a few side quests, do some activities, and move on. There are also people who feel compelled to complete everything in an area before moving on to the next. I fall into the latter camp, and as a result, felt that stalled momentum and feeling of checking off chores from a list. I think the tighter pacing of FF7 Remake made for a better overall product, but I still love Rebirth for expanding on Remake in every way.
Overall - the gameplay got a massive boost by the addition of Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities, showcasing the party growing closer and more willing to work together in an interesting and engaging gameplay mechanic. Air combat is far more tolerable with Cloud being able to ascend at will and intentionally and use ranged magic sword attacks when you want to maintain distance. Newcomer Red XIII is engaging and fun to play as, with an interesting feature prioritizing blocking to build meter then spending that meter in a support role or to self-heal. The other new playable character, Cait Sith, leaves a lot to be desired. He seems tuned for expert players to exploit his odd mechanics, but feels too slow in such a blazing fast game which makes playing as him feel quite dull.
The music features loving renditions of the original FF7 tracks we love, and absurdly catchy new songs that stay in your head (Bow wow wow...)
Graphics are a double edged sword. The world looks great, and the character models look great, but very often the lighting can make them look like shiny toys instead of people, and entering or exiting a building can lead to insane dark or light levels making it impossible to see anything at all. Overall, the sheer scope of the game and how good it looks 90% of the time makes it quite a spectacle.
The storyline is once again the classic FF7 story with a twist and lime, that is - more fleshed out with something new to spice it up. I'll say without spoilers the game kept me engaged and interested the entire time I was playing the main storyline, and while I thought the ending fell a bit flat, it wasn't enough to hamper my enjoyment of the story told overall.
A lot has been made of the insane amount of mini-games in Rebirth, and there truly is a crazy amount of them. Thankfully, you can choose which ones you want to engage with for the most part, only being forced into playing them on occasion. Personally, I found most of them pretty enjoyable for their own merits, and a fun breather from the combat heavy gameplay.
Overall, I thought Rebirth was an incredible game to be made in a short amount of time (reports are 3 years). It has upheld both the OG FF7 and the Remake legacy, and is very much worthy of being in the series. The open world necessitates a large amount of side activities, and it's very easy to stall the momentum of the game by engaging with all that's on offer. There are people who can play a few side quests, do some activities, and move on. There are also people who feel compelled to complete everything in an area before moving on to the next. I fall into the latter camp, and as a result, felt that stalled momentum and feeling of checking off chores from a list. I think the tighter pacing of FF7 Remake made for a better overall product, but I still love Rebirth for expanding on Remake in every way.
I was really hot and cold on this game for like the first 30 hours. I think this game has one of the worst openings to a game I've played in recent memory. It's a lot of information overload with loads of tutorials, text to read, minigames to learn. Assuming you're doing the open world content, the first 15 hours of the game are basically just the Nibelheim flashback and then pulling Chadley out of your ass every 5 minutes. I really hate Chadley too, there's nothing necessarily wrong with the character, but I lost track of how many times I had to stop and pull him out of my ass just for him to say the most useless thing that could have easily been ambient dialogue. Most of the open world content is very uninteresting as well, but I ended up doing a lot of it because I felt it was the best time to experiment with different materia and master weapon skills.
Queensblood was initially a fun idea to me, but got old REALLY quickly once I got to a level of "difficulty" where the computer just counters your every play. All you need to do is pass your first turn and do the same thing to the cpu, then the game becomes a joke. Once I realized that I lost all interest in it. It's definitely no Gwent. The minigames as a whole were really hit or miss. I liked some of them like Chocobo racing, but a startling amount of minigames were just "learn these mechanics and do this perfectly, otherwise you don't win, and by the way you won't progress either"...
LOOKING AT YOU FUCKING GEARS AND GAMBITS. But I guess I didn't need to do Gears and Gambits, because the payoff ended up being a secret boss fight that requires immense grinding long after you've finished the game to even stand a chance against, which was also disappointing. Moogle hearding was also really miserable and you barely get anything of value from it. Man, the more I think about it, I just did not like many of the minigames at all lol.
I know I've been talking a lot of shit about this game, but despite all of that I still think it is a REALLY good RPG. The parts here that are traditional RPG are really good. The game really clicked for me around the Gongaga/Cosmo Canyon region. Gongaga was a pain in the ass to navigate, but Cosmo Canyon was the total opposite and really fun to explore. The main story beats are all gorgeously animated, beautifully scored, even if I have no idea what is going on with the story. Synergy abilities and materia combinations made it fun to try out different strategies. Bosses and summons were really fun to fight.
I only wish this game was just a little bit harder. I'm kind of sick of games locking their hard modes behind game completion... Like really sick of it. FFXVI did this too, which was another game that could have benefited from some difficulty. But honestly, higher difficulty in these kinds of games usually just means more health, less damage.
Great game though, I'm torn between giving it a genuine 4.5/5 and saying that it's slightly overrated at a 4, but I enjoyed my time with it enough that I think it's a 4.5 for me.
Queensblood was initially a fun idea to me, but got old REALLY quickly once I got to a level of "difficulty" where the computer just counters your every play. All you need to do is pass your first turn and do the same thing to the cpu, then the game becomes a joke. Once I realized that I lost all interest in it. It's definitely no Gwent. The minigames as a whole were really hit or miss. I liked some of them like Chocobo racing, but a startling amount of minigames were just "learn these mechanics and do this perfectly, otherwise you don't win, and by the way you won't progress either"...
LOOKING AT YOU FUCKING GEARS AND GAMBITS. But I guess I didn't need to do Gears and Gambits, because the payoff ended up being a secret boss fight that requires immense grinding long after you've finished the game to even stand a chance against, which was also disappointing. Moogle hearding was also really miserable and you barely get anything of value from it. Man, the more I think about it, I just did not like many of the minigames at all lol.
I know I've been talking a lot of shit about this game, but despite all of that I still think it is a REALLY good RPG. The parts here that are traditional RPG are really good. The game really clicked for me around the Gongaga/Cosmo Canyon region. Gongaga was a pain in the ass to navigate, but Cosmo Canyon was the total opposite and really fun to explore. The main story beats are all gorgeously animated, beautifully scored, even if I have no idea what is going on with the story. Synergy abilities and materia combinations made it fun to try out different strategies. Bosses and summons were really fun to fight.
I only wish this game was just a little bit harder. I'm kind of sick of games locking their hard modes behind game completion... Like really sick of it. FFXVI did this too, which was another game that could have benefited from some difficulty. But honestly, higher difficulty in these kinds of games usually just means more health, less damage.
Great game though, I'm torn between giving it a genuine 4.5/5 and saying that it's slightly overrated at a 4, but I enjoyed my time with it enough that I think it's a 4.5 for me.
I don't know if this is a situation of great game bad time or if it's a game that's generally not for me even tho I don't really like open world games in general.
The highs are really high but the lows impact my enjoyment ALOT.
Easiest thing to say is that the graphics on this game are incredible, I genuinely stop playing at times just to take in the environment amazing work by the devs.
Gameplay is pretty much like rebirth but more fluid and mostly improved as I miss the original weapon skill tree system.
Music is pretty banger what else do you expect from these guys.
Now the open world.. yeah I hate it it's just the outdated Ubisoft system with 9999 icons disrupting your UI even if you don't plan to go near them. It's not fun it sucks and is full of bloated content that ends up being more tedious then it does fun which chadley and the girl version of him constantly popping up.
Story feels like it's going nowhere and if the idea is to take in the journey and the adventure well that aspect of it blows too. I'm over 50 hours in now and I just don't care and feel no urgency to continue. The journey doesn't even feel great as the characters don't seem as good as they was in the last game, plus you have aerith constantly going AAAA GIRL YOU LIKE?? AHH LIKE A GIRLFRIEND like no go away it is very annoying.
As a game it is very well produced with content everywhere, a great battle system and banger ost to go with it but the story and open world aspects just really hurt my ratings for this game.
I will finish this game but it's gonna require me to really do a PUSH on it.
The highs are really high but the lows impact my enjoyment ALOT.
Easiest thing to say is that the graphics on this game are incredible, I genuinely stop playing at times just to take in the environment amazing work by the devs.
Gameplay is pretty much like rebirth but more fluid and mostly improved as I miss the original weapon skill tree system.
Music is pretty banger what else do you expect from these guys.
Now the open world.. yeah I hate it it's just the outdated Ubisoft system with 9999 icons disrupting your UI even if you don't plan to go near them. It's not fun it sucks and is full of bloated content that ends up being more tedious then it does fun which chadley and the girl version of him constantly popping up.
Story feels like it's going nowhere and if the idea is to take in the journey and the adventure well that aspect of it blows too. I'm over 50 hours in now and I just don't care and feel no urgency to continue. The journey doesn't even feel great as the characters don't seem as good as they was in the last game, plus you have aerith constantly going AAAA GIRL YOU LIKE?? AHH LIKE A GIRLFRIEND like no go away it is very annoying.
As a game it is very well produced with content everywhere, a great battle system and banger ost to go with it but the story and open world aspects just really hurt my ratings for this game.
I will finish this game but it's gonna require me to really do a PUSH on it.
YES.
Square's re-imagining of the story of Final Fantasy VII, arguably one of the greatest stories ever told, continues to amaze me.
I understand and even agree with some of the complaints (especially that the open world wasn’t particularly exciting and messed up the pacing); however, I loved this game. AAA game that is serious, campy, vulnerable, silly, was obviously a labor of love, excellent combat, great voice acting and characterization, so much to do (the brutal combat challenges are WIP). Looking forward to a hard play thru focused on story before the third game comes out.
This review contains spoilers
[There will be spoilers for the original game as well as both current entries in the Remake continuity as a heads up!]
The original Final Fantasy VII is about many things, but I would say its most enduring theme is processing loss--being able to say goodbye, persevering in spite of that loss, knowing that those we love can live forever through the legacy they've left behind. So here we are, with the middle chapter of the Remake Continuity, which would ostensibly include that pivotal thematic moment, and its impact on me as a sequel is less about continuing the original story [or even branching off into its own retelling] and more a follow-up to my review for Final Fantasy XVI, an admittedly pretty goofy but sincere eulogy for my love for Final Fantasy as a franchise moving forward. Now I feel I can actually say goodbye, and it's because in an unfathomable number of ways Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is incapable of the same.
When you leave Midgar in the original FF7, the bounds previously placed on your understanding of the physical world expand into, as far as you're concerned, the infinite. Midgar is enormous, and its enormity amounts to a gross blemish on a much larger planet the second you escape its walls. Similarly, when you leave Midgar at the conclusion of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the exciting thing is the increasing size of the story's possibility space. It doesn't necessarily land its telling, but Remake ends with you severing the threads of fate. Now anything can happen--Aerith even says as much, and that character delivering that story beat provides some obvious [and frankly emotionally manipulative] implications.
I was okay with this. I love Final Fantasy VII, but I am not married to it being faithfully recreated [as much as I would probably actually enjoy that], even when it comes to the fate of Aerith, one of the most widely familiar Video Game Story Moments. Obviously the original Final Fantasy VII does not work if Aerith does not die. But that's why the Remake trilogy could have been something exciting--the story wouldn't necessarily have to rely on it. It could thematically pivot--maybe someone else dies as a reminder that fate is still outside of your grasp, maybe Aerith still dies because fate is never truly conquered. I don't know, I'm not a terribly capable writer and I certainly can't craft stories, and thankfully there are people in the world who will do that for me.
What I do know is that I strongly appreciate stories told with conviction and stories with actual emotional weight, and after finishing Rebirth I'm not convinced that the writers know how to do either. Sometimes character performances power through and connect, but so many important emotional moments are undercut immediately by overexcited, childlike bursts of "ideas."
There were several moments of doubt before, but the sequence with Dyne and Barret--friends years ago, separated by their ideologies and tragically set on different paths in life--sent deafening sirens. In the original, following an intense encounter but before falling down a cliff to his death, a physically and emotionally broken Dyne makes Barret promise to never make Marlene cry--Dyne's biological daughter whom Barret has adopted under the assumption Dyne died years in the past. In Rebirth, after a fight in which he becomes fucking Magneto [what?], Dyne instead tells Barret to live with his guilt [incredibly dark, and an interesting alteration] before dying--not by falling to his death, mind you, because mirroring the events of the flashback sequence in which Barret let go of Dyne's arm and watched him fall and presumably die was I guess too much for the storytelling, but instead by being gunned down in a blaze of glory by Shinra soldiers [not an interesting alteration]. Then, before the player is allowed to dwell on his grim parting words, Shinra immediately sends in a huge frog robot piloted by Palmer, a side character who largely exists for comedic purposes, and the party is forced into a fight with it. Then the game gets back to Barret and Dyne for a moment [a minor and genuinely satisfying moment in which Cloud shows support for Barret] before the party is forced into a bad vehicular shooting minigame on rails. Consider me moved!
Final Fantasy VII is a rollercoaster of vibes and frequently jumps between melancholy and humor, but it also knew when to let moments just exist. After concluding the sequence with Dyne in Rebirth, I had no faith that Aerith's destiny would be portrayed in a satisfying manner--after all, the implications of her fate are far more complex, with much heavier player investment, and tied to expectations of where this narrative might diverge on top of all that. Meanwhile, Dyne's story is a fastbreak open layup of an emotional payoff that the game somehow managed to botch despite recognizing some of the details, simply because it can't help itself and needs to keep adding things.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a game about being More, at the expense of the journey's details at every possible turn. Nowhere is this more evident than in the open world activities of the game, which feel partially necessary if you're interested in improving gear or obtaining a lot of materia types to play with, but are so laborious and dreary that after completing the first area I simply... stopped doing them, outside of anything that was on the way to my objectives [since every activity you do serves as a fast travel spot, which feels like a concession that getting around is eventually just annoying]. I would identify the most interesting sounding materia available from Chadley in each region, keep a mental note of roughly how many points I would need to get at least one of each, and do the quickest activities with least resistance in order to get the required points. But then the game kept adding regions, even turning Gongaga into an incomprehensible mushroom jungle, and so I just stopped engaging with the side content pretty much entirely, even refusing to talk to Chadley. [Which, honestly, fantastic.]
And what are the activities? Some roughly mirror normal activities in the game [combat activities as well as towers which almost always have a combat encounter at their base], but others are braindead. At one, you press triangle three times and look at pretty scenery. At another, you repeat a sequence of button presses. At another, you awkwardly stumble around on a chocobo and hold up on the D-pad so it can sniff out item locations very slowly. I eventually identified which ones were potentially the most helpful and tried to stick to those, though unfortunately the chocobo excavations were the most interesting to me as they led to crafting recipes for upgrading gear, and even more unfortunately you have to do the expeditions, the aforementioned "press triangle three times" activity, to unlock them.
In my meandering review of Final Fantasy XVI I mentioned how the bloat in that game existed, as far as I can tell, for the sole purpose of extending the experience for perceived value. The open world side of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is very much like that kind of bloat, and even more hilariously resembles common big-budget game design [the towers are distinctly Ubisoft open world garbage]. What's absolutely puzzling about Rebirth, however, is that a lot of its other non-narrative bloat comes with good intentions. [Not pushing mako vacuums around though. What on earth.]
A lot of older Final Fantasy games thrived on relentless throwaway minigames that were charming through their frequency and brevity. I don't doubt that the creators of Rebirth love that particular aspect of Final Fantasy VII--all you have to do is look at the setup for the soldier routine sequence in Junon. Originally a set of simple quick minigames in which you pretended to be a Shinra grunt soldier and do militaristic routines for a parade, it's now been elaborated upon so that you track down and "recruit" ranks of soldiers of different formations and then "equip" them depending on your desired difficulty/reward for the eventual parade minigame [basically the Honeybee dance sequence from Remake, which, sidenote, is still the worst-presented QTE in terms of clarity I've maybe ever seen in a game, so I wasn't exactly thrilled that it was being reused]. Is this setup unique? Sure, I guess! But it's setup, and it is exhausting to be presented with a tutorial for the setup to a minigame when in the original it was something that took maybe a couple minutes.
Or look to the dolphin sequence, also in Junon. Originally a dolphin helps you reach the top of Junon by jumping you up onto a tower; you simply find the right position and hit a button, and it takes a minute but is immediately understandable. In Rebirth, you now run a race course with the dolphin, running into balls to increase your speed [???] in order to complete the track within a given time limit--all to accomplish the same exact thing. It requires tutorial explanation as well, it lasts maybe 2 minutes, and it's not very interesting. Cool!
There are countless other examples, some of which simply attempt to add fun moments for characters--though I refuse to even talk about the Shinra mansion "puzzle dungeon" with Cait Sith. But most of these were obviously made by people who love the original game. That's what's so utterly maddening. Why in God's name would you go through the effort of creating a specific racing minigame with unique mechanics to elaborate on a small throwaway moment if you didn't? It's a game that serves as a tribute to the lovable, zany qualities of the series, but doesn't recognize that it's embracing its inspiration so tightly that it's suffocating it.
Which brings me back to Aerith, and the most egregious failure of the story. So Remake ends with a vision of a surviving Zack Fair as an indication that nothing is guaranteed anymore and that fate has changed. What Square coyly neglected to elaborate on with Remake is that it's not necessarily that the world has changed, but instead that there are many worlds. You know, parallel universes, probably one of the worst and most difficult storytelling devices for emotional payoff? So the possibilities are endless not in the way that a player familiar with Final Fantasy VII should be on edge with excitement as they can no longer predict the central narrative of a story they cherish, but instead in a way that stakes are hard to establish anymore. So when Aerith is "still" killed at the conclusion of Rebirth, she is also not killed, because she exists in parallel worlds, kind of? It's having it both ways, and the verb "dulls" doesn't properly communicate the damage that does to processing Aerith's character emotionally.
When you feel Aerith's presence for the remainder of Final Fantasy VII, it's with a great deal of sadness because she is still gone. The end of Rebirth implies all the characters will continue to feel her presence as well, but since we're likely still going to see her throughout the final game--whether it's through some Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque horseshit or simply through Cloud's imagination--we won't be able to say goodbye in the same way. And no amount of pretty good combat mechanics [as satisfying as most of the characters are to control, and as confident as Square is getting with this battle system] or strong voiceover performances from the main cast [the actual saving grace of Rebirth] will make that better.
The original Final Fantasy VII is about many things, but I would say its most enduring theme is processing loss--being able to say goodbye, persevering in spite of that loss, knowing that those we love can live forever through the legacy they've left behind. So here we are, with the middle chapter of the Remake Continuity, which would ostensibly include that pivotal thematic moment, and its impact on me as a sequel is less about continuing the original story [or even branching off into its own retelling] and more a follow-up to my review for Final Fantasy XVI, an admittedly pretty goofy but sincere eulogy for my love for Final Fantasy as a franchise moving forward. Now I feel I can actually say goodbye, and it's because in an unfathomable number of ways Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is incapable of the same.
When you leave Midgar in the original FF7, the bounds previously placed on your understanding of the physical world expand into, as far as you're concerned, the infinite. Midgar is enormous, and its enormity amounts to a gross blemish on a much larger planet the second you escape its walls. Similarly, when you leave Midgar at the conclusion of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the exciting thing is the increasing size of the story's possibility space. It doesn't necessarily land its telling, but Remake ends with you severing the threads of fate. Now anything can happen--Aerith even says as much, and that character delivering that story beat provides some obvious [and frankly emotionally manipulative] implications.
I was okay with this. I love Final Fantasy VII, but I am not married to it being faithfully recreated [as much as I would probably actually enjoy that], even when it comes to the fate of Aerith, one of the most widely familiar Video Game Story Moments. Obviously the original Final Fantasy VII does not work if Aerith does not die. But that's why the Remake trilogy could have been something exciting--the story wouldn't necessarily have to rely on it. It could thematically pivot--maybe someone else dies as a reminder that fate is still outside of your grasp, maybe Aerith still dies because fate is never truly conquered. I don't know, I'm not a terribly capable writer and I certainly can't craft stories, and thankfully there are people in the world who will do that for me.
What I do know is that I strongly appreciate stories told with conviction and stories with actual emotional weight, and after finishing Rebirth I'm not convinced that the writers know how to do either. Sometimes character performances power through and connect, but so many important emotional moments are undercut immediately by overexcited, childlike bursts of "ideas."
There were several moments of doubt before, but the sequence with Dyne and Barret--friends years ago, separated by their ideologies and tragically set on different paths in life--sent deafening sirens. In the original, following an intense encounter but before falling down a cliff to his death, a physically and emotionally broken Dyne makes Barret promise to never make Marlene cry--Dyne's biological daughter whom Barret has adopted under the assumption Dyne died years in the past. In Rebirth, after a fight in which he becomes fucking Magneto [what?], Dyne instead tells Barret to live with his guilt [incredibly dark, and an interesting alteration] before dying--not by falling to his death, mind you, because mirroring the events of the flashback sequence in which Barret let go of Dyne's arm and watched him fall and presumably die was I guess too much for the storytelling, but instead by being gunned down in a blaze of glory by Shinra soldiers [not an interesting alteration]. Then, before the player is allowed to dwell on his grim parting words, Shinra immediately sends in a huge frog robot piloted by Palmer, a side character who largely exists for comedic purposes, and the party is forced into a fight with it. Then the game gets back to Barret and Dyne for a moment [a minor and genuinely satisfying moment in which Cloud shows support for Barret] before the party is forced into a bad vehicular shooting minigame on rails. Consider me moved!
Final Fantasy VII is a rollercoaster of vibes and frequently jumps between melancholy and humor, but it also knew when to let moments just exist. After concluding the sequence with Dyne in Rebirth, I had no faith that Aerith's destiny would be portrayed in a satisfying manner--after all, the implications of her fate are far more complex, with much heavier player investment, and tied to expectations of where this narrative might diverge on top of all that. Meanwhile, Dyne's story is a fastbreak open layup of an emotional payoff that the game somehow managed to botch despite recognizing some of the details, simply because it can't help itself and needs to keep adding things.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a game about being More, at the expense of the journey's details at every possible turn. Nowhere is this more evident than in the open world activities of the game, which feel partially necessary if you're interested in improving gear or obtaining a lot of materia types to play with, but are so laborious and dreary that after completing the first area I simply... stopped doing them, outside of anything that was on the way to my objectives [since every activity you do serves as a fast travel spot, which feels like a concession that getting around is eventually just annoying]. I would identify the most interesting sounding materia available from Chadley in each region, keep a mental note of roughly how many points I would need to get at least one of each, and do the quickest activities with least resistance in order to get the required points. But then the game kept adding regions, even turning Gongaga into an incomprehensible mushroom jungle, and so I just stopped engaging with the side content pretty much entirely, even refusing to talk to Chadley. [Which, honestly, fantastic.]
And what are the activities? Some roughly mirror normal activities in the game [combat activities as well as towers which almost always have a combat encounter at their base], but others are braindead. At one, you press triangle three times and look at pretty scenery. At another, you repeat a sequence of button presses. At another, you awkwardly stumble around on a chocobo and hold up on the D-pad so it can sniff out item locations very slowly. I eventually identified which ones were potentially the most helpful and tried to stick to those, though unfortunately the chocobo excavations were the most interesting to me as they led to crafting recipes for upgrading gear, and even more unfortunately you have to do the expeditions, the aforementioned "press triangle three times" activity, to unlock them.
In my meandering review of Final Fantasy XVI I mentioned how the bloat in that game existed, as far as I can tell, for the sole purpose of extending the experience for perceived value. The open world side of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is very much like that kind of bloat, and even more hilariously resembles common big-budget game design [the towers are distinctly Ubisoft open world garbage]. What's absolutely puzzling about Rebirth, however, is that a lot of its other non-narrative bloat comes with good intentions. [Not pushing mako vacuums around though. What on earth.]
A lot of older Final Fantasy games thrived on relentless throwaway minigames that were charming through their frequency and brevity. I don't doubt that the creators of Rebirth love that particular aspect of Final Fantasy VII--all you have to do is look at the setup for the soldier routine sequence in Junon. Originally a set of simple quick minigames in which you pretended to be a Shinra grunt soldier and do militaristic routines for a parade, it's now been elaborated upon so that you track down and "recruit" ranks of soldiers of different formations and then "equip" them depending on your desired difficulty/reward for the eventual parade minigame [basically the Honeybee dance sequence from Remake, which, sidenote, is still the worst-presented QTE in terms of clarity I've maybe ever seen in a game, so I wasn't exactly thrilled that it was being reused]. Is this setup unique? Sure, I guess! But it's setup, and it is exhausting to be presented with a tutorial for the setup to a minigame when in the original it was something that took maybe a couple minutes.
Or look to the dolphin sequence, also in Junon. Originally a dolphin helps you reach the top of Junon by jumping you up onto a tower; you simply find the right position and hit a button, and it takes a minute but is immediately understandable. In Rebirth, you now run a race course with the dolphin, running into balls to increase your speed [???] in order to complete the track within a given time limit--all to accomplish the same exact thing. It requires tutorial explanation as well, it lasts maybe 2 minutes, and it's not very interesting. Cool!
There are countless other examples, some of which simply attempt to add fun moments for characters--though I refuse to even talk about the Shinra mansion "puzzle dungeon" with Cait Sith. But most of these were obviously made by people who love the original game. That's what's so utterly maddening. Why in God's name would you go through the effort of creating a specific racing minigame with unique mechanics to elaborate on a small throwaway moment if you didn't? It's a game that serves as a tribute to the lovable, zany qualities of the series, but doesn't recognize that it's embracing its inspiration so tightly that it's suffocating it.
Which brings me back to Aerith, and the most egregious failure of the story. So Remake ends with a vision of a surviving Zack Fair as an indication that nothing is guaranteed anymore and that fate has changed. What Square coyly neglected to elaborate on with Remake is that it's not necessarily that the world has changed, but instead that there are many worlds. You know, parallel universes, probably one of the worst and most difficult storytelling devices for emotional payoff? So the possibilities are endless not in the way that a player familiar with Final Fantasy VII should be on edge with excitement as they can no longer predict the central narrative of a story they cherish, but instead in a way that stakes are hard to establish anymore. So when Aerith is "still" killed at the conclusion of Rebirth, she is also not killed, because she exists in parallel worlds, kind of? It's having it both ways, and the verb "dulls" doesn't properly communicate the damage that does to processing Aerith's character emotionally.
When you feel Aerith's presence for the remainder of Final Fantasy VII, it's with a great deal of sadness because she is still gone. The end of Rebirth implies all the characters will continue to feel her presence as well, but since we're likely still going to see her throughout the final game--whether it's through some Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque horseshit or simply through Cloud's imagination--we won't be able to say goodbye in the same way. And no amount of pretty good combat mechanics [as satisfying as most of the characters are to control, and as confident as Square is getting with this battle system] or strong voiceover performances from the main cast [the actual saving grace of Rebirth] will make that better.
Do story... avoid mini games
I've never been as heartbroken by a video game the way I was by this. I love Final Fantasy, I love FF7, I love Remake and I loved this for a time. It starts off so well. The combat is fantastic, I love spending more time with the characters and seeing them interact more but this game is too big for its britches.
There are 8 open-world areas that are all essentially the same. The environments are different but every activity is the same, the amount of every activity is the same. And you're not rewarded for exploring either, there are no interesting landmarks or places to discover, you go to Ubisoft towers to fill your map with checklist items. And it's that 8 times! It's all optional but it's indicative of the game's main problem, meandering excess. There's too much here and too much of it is just meandering. When the story is good it is GOOD but so much of it is just meandering to keep you in the areas longer. So much of it is just of so little consequence and you just want things to happen, it's nice to get more time with the characters but after a certain point the bubble bursts and you just want it to move on. There's simply too much game here and not enough to justify it. Remake is the first part of a story stretched into a full 30-hour game but it feels like a full 30 complete story. This is the middle part of a story stretched into a full 80-hour game and it feels like a middle section stretched out beyond what it can justify.
When I first played Remake I ended it feeling excited. Excited for the future, excited over the game I just played. When I finished this I felt deflated and despondent. I just wanted it to end. I'm so sad.
There are 8 open-world areas that are all essentially the same. The environments are different but every activity is the same, the amount of every activity is the same. And you're not rewarded for exploring either, there are no interesting landmarks or places to discover, you go to Ubisoft towers to fill your map with checklist items. And it's that 8 times! It's all optional but it's indicative of the game's main problem, meandering excess. There's too much here and too much of it is just meandering. When the story is good it is GOOD but so much of it is just meandering to keep you in the areas longer. So much of it is just of so little consequence and you just want things to happen, it's nice to get more time with the characters but after a certain point the bubble bursts and you just want it to move on. There's simply too much game here and not enough to justify it. Remake is the first part of a story stretched into a full 30-hour game but it feels like a full 30 complete story. This is the middle part of a story stretched into a full 80-hour game and it feels like a middle section stretched out beyond what it can justify.
When I first played Remake I ended it feeling excited. Excited for the future, excited over the game I just played. When I finished this I felt deflated and despondent. I just wanted it to end. I'm so sad.
The only complaints i have are some really late game nitpicks with the challenges and some of the bosses in the story. other than those, this game is incredible and has so much to do.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth é certamente o jogo singleplayer que eu mais gastei tempo jogando até a data dessa review, e não é por acaso. Esperei desde 2021 pra jogar a segunda entrada da franquia, já sendo fã do primeiro.
O jogo tem uma campanha longa, que trilha o novo caminho da saga por estradas muito similares às do jogo de 97, mas que trazem mais riqueza de detalhes, imersão na vastidão de seu mundo e mais sensibilidade na direção, o que me fez gostar bastante da parte narrativa num geral, apesar do retorno de certos artifícios do 1º game...
Mas acho que, acima de tudo, Rebirth tem que ser reconhecido pelo seu tamanho, porque de verdade, é um dos jogos com mais conteúdo que eu já joguei (pro bem e pro mal). Missões secundárias, arenas de combate, interações de cenário e MUITOS minigames recheiam o mundo aberto. E aqui que estão alguns dos meus problemas com o jogo, visto que parte dessas acabam apenas como um tira gosto que só serve pra aproveitar espaço nas grandes regiões do jogo.
Porém, mesmo seguindo algumas fórmulas eu ainda me diverti com as missões secundárias, num geral agregam aos personagens aos quais são direcionadas e me aprofundei em todos os minigames mesmo não apreciando tanto alguns (parte da platina), sem contar o simuladores de combate que me debrucei por completo.
Vale ressaltar também uma mudança na dinâmica da gameplay, já que o jogo foca mais em saber lutar contra seus inimigos do que saber jogar com seus personagens. Fora isso, o jogo segue a base que deu muito certo no primeiro jogo e só deu um pouco mais de recursos pra diversificar mais o jogo, como as habilidades de sinergia.
Pra além disso tudo, o jogo usa alguns recursos que já vem se tornando clássicos na indústria que tiram muito da parte da intuição individual, como manchas amarelas pra escaladas e etc., só que pra ser honesto isso nem me afeta tanto.
Em resumo, foi uma experiência bem divertida e que valeu a pena no final. Não acho que seja uma obra prima ou coisa do gênero até por não ter tantos picos na história, e por ter alguns defeitos nela e no mundo aberto (principalmente nesse). De qualquer forma, recomendo.
O jogo tem uma campanha longa, que trilha o novo caminho da saga por estradas muito similares às do jogo de 97, mas que trazem mais riqueza de detalhes, imersão na vastidão de seu mundo e mais sensibilidade na direção, o que me fez gostar bastante da parte narrativa num geral, apesar do retorno de certos artifícios do 1º game...
Mas acho que, acima de tudo, Rebirth tem que ser reconhecido pelo seu tamanho, porque de verdade, é um dos jogos com mais conteúdo que eu já joguei (pro bem e pro mal). Missões secundárias, arenas de combate, interações de cenário e MUITOS minigames recheiam o mundo aberto. E aqui que estão alguns dos meus problemas com o jogo, visto que parte dessas acabam apenas como um tira gosto que só serve pra aproveitar espaço nas grandes regiões do jogo.
Porém, mesmo seguindo algumas fórmulas eu ainda me diverti com as missões secundárias, num geral agregam aos personagens aos quais são direcionadas e me aprofundei em todos os minigames mesmo não apreciando tanto alguns (parte da platina), sem contar o simuladores de combate que me debrucei por completo.
Vale ressaltar também uma mudança na dinâmica da gameplay, já que o jogo foca mais em saber lutar contra seus inimigos do que saber jogar com seus personagens. Fora isso, o jogo segue a base que deu muito certo no primeiro jogo e só deu um pouco mais de recursos pra diversificar mais o jogo, como as habilidades de sinergia.
Pra além disso tudo, o jogo usa alguns recursos que já vem se tornando clássicos na indústria que tiram muito da parte da intuição individual, como manchas amarelas pra escaladas e etc., só que pra ser honesto isso nem me afeta tanto.
Em resumo, foi uma experiência bem divertida e que valeu a pena no final. Não acho que seja uma obra prima ou coisa do gênero até por não ter tantos picos na história, e por ter alguns defeitos nela e no mundo aberto (principalmente nesse). De qualquer forma, recomendo.
literally one of the best modern rpg content and gameplay, the ending thought...
perfeito. uma das melhores coisas que eu já joguei em toda minha vida.
One of the most content filled and exciting gaming experiences I’ve had in awhile. I’m already a huge fan of FF7 and the FF series as a whole, but this game truly blew all my expectations out of the water. It manages to balance the dark, serious tone of the games story, while adding all kinds of humor, fun character moments, and jaw dropping visuals. While it does have some pacing issues, given the context of the original, I think they did a great job filling in some gaps, and setting things up for an eventual part 3.
Part 1 was already an incredible feat, but with some of the new combat mechanics, leveling systems, and mini games, this has possible taken the spot from FF9 as my all time favorite Final Fantasy game.
If you value your sanity, I would not getting the platinum trophy for this.
Part 1 was already an incredible feat, but with some of the new combat mechanics, leveling systems, and mini games, this has possible taken the spot from FF9 as my all time favorite Final Fantasy game.
If you value your sanity, I would not getting the platinum trophy for this.