This is the most conflicted I've felt about such a genuinely amazing game. Some of the highest peaks I've experienced from a triple A game in recent years. At the same time, a few very strange decisions took me out of what was (and still is) a phenomenal fucking adventure. Apologies if this comes out as a word vomit, but I played this at the end of a FF7 related binge and I have so many thoughts.

I want to start off by saying this game does a phenomenal job of expanding upon the characterization of this beloved cast of characters. I see a lot of critiques that this game is too much of a "road-trip" game with tons of goofing off and non-story relevant character moments. I have to say I never really had an issue with it, most of these moments serve to further the bonds between the party in a cute or endearing way. I generally liked all of these moments, but to me the way they chose to spread these moments throughout the game was a little weird. I feel like the bulk of them were directly in the middle, back to back. Felt like this could have been paced better.

The gameplay is still the stellar gameplay from FF7 Remake, I think with a great new twist: the Synergy Abilities. I think these are such an awesome way to work party affinity into this game, as well as spice up the combat a little from the original. These are eye candy, each animation is a cute nod to the characters and their relationship, I really liked them quite a bit. I think that the actual abilities are mostly reused from the original Remake, but to be honest they were good enough that I didn't really care. The only big FUCK YOU moment I had with the gameplay was realizing that I couldn't play as Vincent or Cid in this entry. As a huge fan of Vincent from the original, this was a huge disappointment for me, especially after playing through most of the game to finally see him.

I want to make a note here as well about difficulty. This game can be somewhat challenging if you're not prepared, but nothing fucking prepares you for the long boss gauntlets the game throws at you towards the end of the game. I was losing my shit because it felt like in the last few chapters there were a few times where I was fighting boss after boss for like an hour, and that might be something that you expect at the final boss, but not like 3 chapters before the end of the game. There is also some interesting difficulty spikes, at least for me personally, which might be an issue of "get good," but the climactic boss of chapter 12 legitimately almost had me throwing my fucking controller. I was so pissed because it comes at the end of one of those boss-rushes, and I was so frustrated because every time I lost I had to re-gear Cloud for the fight because he does it solo, and your gear doesn't save in between fights if you lose. This ultimately wasn't a huge deal, but it definitely pulled me out of a flow state I was hitting with the story and I had to put the game down and walk away for a day before picking it back up.

[SPOILERS ABOUT THE ENDING PARAGRAPH]

In terms of the story overall, I had very few notes save for the ending. I'm not going to lie, I felt like the ending was a little bit of a cop out. The fact that Aerith is both dead and alive in some capacity was an interesting choice to add to Cloud's visions and play into the whole concept of returning to the Lifestream, but on the other hand, it basically proves that Sephiroth was right? And we could make the argument that this is Cloud's Sephiroth/JENOVA induced psychosis, but I felt that the choice to have none of the party members acknowledge Cloud's indifference to Aerith's death was super odd, considering they were acutely aware of his condition for the majority of the runtime. I would also say that the climax was interesting, but having Zack be such an interesting part of the sidestory involving the other world and only to have that culminate in ONE FIGHT that you get to play as him, as well as a very safe ending with him implying that those worlds might join each other again. It felt like Schrodinger's FF7 a little bit, as if Rebirth was to differentiate itself from the original FF7, I would have rather had them double down on this change and embrace where the concept has come since then rather than half-heartedly imply we might see some changes in the next game. It felt like the glimpse we got of a new FF7 story was rather unconsequential.

[SPOILERS END HERE]

Ending aside, the long journey of Rebirth was such an amazing experience. I loved just about every second. The music, the visuals, it all landed so well for me, I got very emotional in a few places. My biggest gripes are just with how it felt like Square Enix was pussyfooting around making changes to FF7. It felt like they wanted a pass to go either way with the story in the final entry, as it leaves a lot hanging in the air, and not really in a suspenseful way, more a what the fuck kind of way.

The other big reason this game had me conflicted: the open-world aspect. I would say that this game functions similarly to Xenoblade in the segmented open-world style with areas that are sprawling and filled with things to do, but I would argue that this game does those open-world side tasks in a much worse way than Xenoblade. The environments are gorgeous and full of life, but the actual things that you do feel extremely monotonous. It feels like each area has a checklist of arbitrary QTEs and side objectives that don't really do anything for me. Granted, they're optional. But I try my best to experience everything a game has to offer if possible, and after doing my best to 100% all the open world stuff I just hit a wall. The proto relic shit is kind of interesting, but ultimately pretty hit or miss whether or not you'll like it. The quests themselves are fucking great for an RPG of this length, and honestly the highlights of my time outside of the bigger story beats. I think that if the open-world stuff was more organically written into the quests, like certain stronger enemies or encounters as part of a side-quest, it would flow better for me and feel less like a laundry list. Xenoblade is a stellar example of games that do this, but I also wish every game took a little bit of that series' ingenuity, so take that with a grain of salt.

Regardless of my gripes with how they handled the ending and the open-world stuff, I can tell so much love went into this game, it really was an enjoyable experience, even if it feels like they are just gearing up. I will be waiting eagerly for the next game, which by the way, calling it now: the final entry will be called FF7: Reunion. They have to.

Finally finished this game, took a long time tbh. the way I feel about this game is the same way I felt about Remake which was a conflicting feeling which is I love most of the game like 90% of it, and the 10% I don't like is the ending and some side content. I do prefer this game to Remake overall and think its beyond better than it.

I loved this game from start up till chapter 13, there was aspects of chapter 13 that I loved but this chapter is were I started to feel negative towards the game. but chapters 1 - 12 were honestly unreal and felt like a perfect remake of FF7 in my opinion.

throughout these chapters the game basically follows the original game but just expanded upon and some new additions. the story that plays out here is just so good even having played the og it still feels good going through this story again. I also loved that they embrace the silliness of the og too.

I felt like this game compared to remake is more character focused than story focused which I loved, really got to know these characters and love them. so many great moments for each of them.

The music is perfect as usual.

the graphics were stunning and the combat is so fun and deep can't get enough of it. the mini games were addicting especially queens blood.

the problems that I have with this game is first, the open world which is beautiful and being able to experience the towns is unreal but the content within the open world is boring repetitive and feels more like Ubisoft checklist. when I play a game I will do as much as I can in said game, I'm bit of a completionism especially if I love the game but this was the first time I was burnt out from doing the open world content in a game.

and finally the ending which I didn't like. It just felt rushed and happened so quick that I couldn't even process anything. I didn't care for the final boss battle with sephiroth as it was more or less the same as the one from Remake (imo the Remake one is better). then I felt like ending was just not emotional whatsoever in fact I didn't feel anything which was weird to me, I felt like the way they handled that big moment was just done badly I felt nothing, there was no feeling or emotion when It played out I was just confused and didn't care.

This is still an amazing game and I loved playing through this massive game, honestly I would recommend to anyone, I'm about to start my hard mode play through for platinum trophy.

This review will include full spoilers for remake, rebirth, the original title and any and all spin-offs in the FF7 compilation.

Final fantasy 7 is a game that took me a while to truly come around to. Initially I believed the combat to be a slog with an ugly and outdated aesthetic and writing that had been so poorly translated with a confusing story on top of that.

But somewhere along the line, the Stockholm syndrome set in.

Joking aside, every time I've gone back to replay the original entry I've enjoyed it more and more. There is a pointed fierceness to the politics it engages in and how confidently it slams its hand down and forces you to take notice of themes like global warming, imposter syndrome, the feeling of not being in control and more.

The characters were all so unique and interesting with arcs you couldn't see coming. The eco-terrorist remains true to his cause of saving the planet, but realises that destroying the reactors that were sucking the life out of the planet was also endangering real human lives. He learns that he has to think bigger than his own self serving sense of justice and work with other people of the same ilk to make a much larger systemic impact.

The main character is your typical cool guy with big sword archetype with two love interests he has to choose between, except as the game goes on you come to see that this is a front for not knowing who he is or how to function on a day to day basis.

He constantly has panic attacks and doesn't know how to handle them, he stole his identity off a man he doesn't even recall and lives his life like he's going through the motions of what he thinks he should do.

But the point of his arc is that he doesn't need to do any of that, he learns who he is fundamentally as a person and accepts that he's a dork like the rest of his crew. He takes the love and friendship that was shown to him and uses that to bolster their way to the finish line.

To get to this point he had to experience the grief of losing a friend, someone incredibly close to him. And it wasn't something one could possibly process at the time, when it happens he and his friends are thrusted into a fight. Barely having the time to understand the events that took place.

Aerith has now returned to the planet. And while she's gone, her impact still remains.

I know all of this is extremely scattershot and messy, and that's because this review has been stewing in my head even since I beat the game.

I've struggled with how to format this for a while now and I think I'll just continue typing until I reach a mythical word limit.

Now with all the interesting stuff out of the way, let's talk about the remake project!

The first entry of which released in April 2020 to great buzz and critical reception.

Initially I played it back when I wasn't too into the FF7 universe so I thought it was a fine enough game. Second time round, after I combed through the universe, I felt a lot colder on it.

The pacing felt so elongated with plot points being few and far between, instead of staying true to the pulse of the original's environmental message it felt more obsessed with the style and aesthetic of the universe. Which had its pros, there are absolutely some stunning moments in that game and a lot of really good meat and potatoes boss fights.

Instead of adapting the original 1 to 1 it added a lot of the compilation content and meta ghost elements to spice things up. Neither of which I cared for, but at the very least admitted was a gutsy move. In an admittedly clumsy ending it you with the promise of an unknown journey, one where fate could be changed and exciting new possibilities.

This was my charitable reading of it leading into rebirth. So, how did they choose to execute their new vision?

Well, in truth, they didn't. Every single event that happened in the original happens here, but instead there will be an incredibly awkward scene shoved in to pretend like something is different.

Red XIII's backstory is interrupted to introduce these new beings who want the black materia. How will this factor into things? It doesn't, they are never brought up again.

Zack is alive in a different world and in that world events are intertwined and all over the place. What creative gameplay and story moments will come out of this?

Absolutely nothing. The Zack content is fed piecemeal, separated with long stretches of forgetting he's even a factor. Despite the fact that he's on the cover of the box.

There are a plethora of more examples I could site, but my point ultimately is that I have to accuse this remake series of one thing and one thing only.

Cowardice.

They are not confident in their new vision so they play it incredibly safe and spend the entire runtime saying and doing nothing of note. There aren't really any themes to this tale, it is full bombast all the time.

There are scenes that break through and manage to resonate, the aforementioned Red XIII backstory and Barret's history with Dyne. But these moments are few and far between, they have done themselves no favours with what that have chosen to adapt and how they adapted it.

Aside from those two cast members, everyone else is completely lost.
"What's that, cloud is acting like a lunatic again and pushed Tifa into a mako lake? Well whatcha gonna do, that's cloud for you!"

Moment after moment the characters need to act in unbelievable ways so we can go back to the open world format. And dear god, let's get to that why don't we?

A world with so much potential for thematic richness and they choose to make a checklist out of it, with two annoying and redundant characters there every step of the way to re-explain objectives to you like you're a toddler.

Ubisoft towers, combat challenges with the same three objectives over and over, some of the worst traversal I have ever played and absolutely no reason to explore the environment outside of the icons on the map. We did it, everyone. A new revolutionary take on the open world.

I understand that I'm coming off as petty and dismissive, if anyone reading enjoyed said content then honestly I am happy for you. I just struggle to see the point in it.
Why does there need to be so much copy and pasted content like this. If the answer is "To give you a chance to test out the combat" then I have bad news for you because the enemies facilitated in the open world die in what feels like two seconds. There is even a quest in Gongaga with Yuffie where you are tasked with fulfilling three objectives when fighting three enemies. But the problem is that you kill them so fast that it is actually dumb luck if you can even get two of these objectives done before the fight is over, let alone three.

Some moments of this legitimately do not feel play tested. Who wants to do a box throwing dungeon as Cait Sith? Who wants to try traversing Gongaga with the horrible feeling Chocobos? Who wants to avoid engaging with the themes of final fantasy vii so we can do a copious amount of minigames?

Minigames, there's a topic to discuss.
Even the people who love this game agree that this aspect it incredibly hit or miss. And while you may be expecting me to complain about them, I actually don't have an issue with this aspect of the game really.

Yes, there are too many that are shoved into the main story. Yes, some DO feel horrible to control. But at the very least, you're doing something new.
You're not completing a checklist, you're not going through a belaboured regurgitation of kingdom hearts. You are engaging in bite sized content you can pick up or put down.

I want to take the chance to celebrate my favourite minigame and what could be my favourite thing in the game as a whole come to think of it. And that's Queen's Blood.
It is a staggeringly well made card game with an incredible soundtrack that I never got sick of. The best chapter in the game is where they set you on a cruise boat and let you partake in an entire tournament where you can choose your opponents and there are like 7 different songs.

Speaking of music, that is also an unequivocally excellent aspect of this game. So many good compositions and reinterpretations of the old soundtrack, and the new songs are no slouch either.
While it's fairly uninspired game design to have a dog escort mission, it does come complete with two songs dedicated to Stamp the shinra propaganda dog. One for traversal and the other for combat. There is a lot of work put into the ost that I would never attempt to discredit.

However, I do have to pivot into a complaint.
Remember when I said the best chapter was the queen's blood tournament?
In a way I think that exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses of this game.

Because short term? There is a lot of fun to be had.
If you focus on mainlining the content you like then there is a lot of fun banter and a joyous atmosphere to be had with hanging out with the characters and seeing what wacko minigame lies around the corner, not dissimilar to the Yakuza games.

However, when I say "short term" I do mean short term. Because viewed as a whole it is difficult to actually parse any type of forward momentum or themes this game has. I used "full of bombast" to describe this game and I want to elaborate on that.

It is not a game engaged with the original text of final fantasy vii, it is a game that uses the visuals and characters to present wacky moments in a world that feels more like a theme park than an actual place that is suffering.

The original presented a world that had been tainted by neglect and suffering. Everything is inefficient, so they suck up the resources from the planet to compensate. This only resulted in the world becoming emptier and colder every day.
Final Fantasy Vii was a sad game a lot of the time, it mourned
how easily people can mistreat the planet they inhabit and made a stance against that mindset.

Everywhere you went, you saw people suffering. Not enough food, not enough water, not enough gil.
Nothing was free and everything was tough, it was your job to upset the status quo and make an honest attempt to save what was left of the world before it was too late.


In Rebirth everyone is all smiles all the time. Planet suffering? What planet? Hey, why don't you run around as red and play some football? Come stay at the golden saucer that runs on the ever dying resources of the planet. Don't think about anything too taxing now!

Taxes, I wanted to get to that.
I think the number one thing that is indicative of how lazy the world building is just that, money.

Every inn, and I mean every inn, is completely free. You don't have to spend a cent of your gil once to sleep. This, to me, breaks the universe in two.
This is meant to be a society that is relying on the scraps of what's left to survive, no?
No, this is Disneyworld. Come look at the attractions.

The game almost shows its hand by having a cardboard cut-out of Rufus Shinra, because truly that is what this game is. A xerox of a xerox. A game that has no interest in making you re-evaluate how you effect the world around you but one filled with momentary whimsical distractions where they forget to drop the other shoe.

I have more to say but I think that's the greatest offence this game makes, it looses what was special about the original story and replaces it with cheap thrills.

It doesn't matter that there are 12 different worlds with 5 new timelines, what matters is an actual story. A worldview the creators wanted to communicate.

There is nothing like that here.

Mechanically there is fun to be had. Orchestrally it soars. You may have fun. But in the end, your life will be exactly the same as it was before you started.

The original endures through time.

Rebirth makes you endure it.

PEAK VIDEO GAMES buuuut I am unfortunately blinded by bias, as Rebirth is structurally a fantastic game... but it comes at the cost at being chock full of fanservice.

Rebirth probably features the best ATB (active time battle) combat in an RPG I've ever played; reminder I said ACTIVE as Turn-Based still reigns supreme... for now. It knocks Part 1's combat system out of the park thanks to new additions such as Airborn Attacks, Synergy Moves, Limit Level 2s and 3s, new Weapon Abilities, the new Skill Tree, and of course - the new playable characters:
- Yuffie (revamped from Intermission)
- Red VIII / Nanaki
- Cait Sith

The gameplay loop present in each region is surprisingly enjoyable and I never truly got bored of it until I reached Cosmo Canyon. But then it picked right back up once I reached Nibelheim due to that region's Chocobo. Speaking of which - each region's unique Chocobo freshened up ways of traversal, making sure that exploration doesn't get stale. I can't even begin to talk about the OST as that's a whole other conversation (but some highlights are Costa Del Sol, the Dog Follow Quest, Gongaga's Forests, every rendition of Crisis Core music used, and of course - Aerith's Theme).

Soooo the story is absolutely fucked. We continue off of Part 1's ending determining that the team has broken the barriers of fate, and that the future of the team's decisions are unknown. Despite it's theme, the game still follows the OG's story beats pretty faithfully with some exceptions (no Rocket Town, finding Yuffie in Junon and recruiting her in Costa, etc). 'The Planet will be saved, but will You?' was the main message behind the game's marketing, alluding to the fate of Zack and Aerith respectively. The segments with Zack were different then what I imagined, but I still enjoyed his moments despite being drip-fed over the main chapters. Seeing Cissnei was a great surprise as her entire situation was unknown post-Crisis Core + post-Meteorfall. Turk interactions were excellent. Half the minigames were mid, while the other half were enjoyable. I still hate Chadley, though Combat Assignments were A FANTASTIC addition.

Very excited to see how the story will continue into Part 3, as they're setting up the Jenova Reunion and Weapons as the opener + Rufus seems to have an extremely important role going forward. Hopefully Wutai, Rocket Town, and a fully playable Forgotten Capital get realized and wE GET ZACK PLAYABLE.

TOP 5 MOMENTS (Ordered):
1 - Forgotten Capital / Ending Sequence.
2 - Costa Del Sol's Main Story Quest
3 - Barret VS Dyne
4 - Vincent's introduction and Boss Fight
5 - Nibelheim Flashback.

This game was great, my favorite character was tifa. Her development was so good, they showed so much depth to her character and made her so realistic. I was so happy about it because i already find her a very beautiful character, and rebirth just made it better. Her relationship with cloud too is done so well, their romance is just perfect. I’ll never understand people who hate them honestly. Same with her friendship with aerith, it was really cute seeing how close they got in such short amount of time.

Barret and cloud’s friendship was also so beautifully done, i loved the way cloud told barret that they’re here for him, and after barret joked about it he said “i mean it, man.” That stuck with me for so long😭

Aerith was amazing too. She was so beautiful while singing NPTK, I’ll never get over her performance. The way she loves her friends and just loves living is beautiful. She chose to love the world instead of hating it despite how it’s treated her for being a cetra. It was displayed really well in rebirth. However, i do wish we saw more of her cetra background and her childhood instead of just seeing it in the trial. I felt like it wasnt enough.

My least favorite part about the story was how Aerith’s death was handled. I get that it’s supposed to be different than the og and that they were trying to show us how cloud thinks he saved her, but it just didnt hit for me. I love aerith so so much, and it makes me sad that i didnt feel enough for her death:( i also expected more from zack, hes one of my favorite characters so i was pretty disappointed. I’m not saying his part wasnt good, it just wasnt my favorite. I have hope for part 3 though

There were also so many moments where the game felt like a drag. the map, the minigames, also the story, sometimes felt boring and unnecessary. Cosmo canyon was insufferable

Im just waiting for part 3 tbh