Ans10n
Bio
All ratings and reviews are subjective. Your mileage may vary.
All ratings and reviews are subjective. Your mileage may vary.
Badges
1 Years of Service
Being part of the Backloggd community for 1 year
Loved
Gained 100+ total review likes
Donor
Liked 50+ reviews / lists
Noticed
Gained 3+ followers
Well Written
Gained 10+ likes on a single review
Gone Gold
Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page
GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
Elite Gamer
Played 500+ games
Liked
Gained 10+ total review likes
Gamer
Played 250+ games
N00b
Played 100+ games
Favorite Games
526
Total Games Played
009
Played in 2024
173
Games Backloggd
Recently Played See More
Recently Reviewed See More
A bit rough around the edges in terms of gameplay and rather underwhelming graphics, but the story, character writing and design, as well as music are top-notch.
First things first: the game still looks incredible. Graphics are realistic enough to be impressive, but not to the point where the imperfections stand out. CG cutscenes look good, in-engine scenes look even better. The only one thing in game that does not look good is moogles - this iteration in their design is possibly the worst the series ever had.
Another thing that's still as good as ever is the sound/music. Voiceovers of the main and supporting cast are still top-notch (Yuffie and Cait Sith being my personal favorites) and so is the music. The game has a ton of tracks (Chocobo Racing alone has like a dozen), most of which are arranges of good old FFVII music. For example, some open world areas have a unique mix of FFVII's Main Theme as background music, but the small area near Midgar where an arrange version of Hollow, theme of FFVII:Remake plays. This applies to battle music as well - some important fights feature all-too-familiar motifs from One-Winged Angel or J-E-N-O-V-A. There are one or two moments where the sound balance is weird, but otherwise the sound of this game is a treat.
Finally, the gameplay. The battle system is almost completely unchanged - Aerith got a bit of a rework and that's it. But it did not need to be changed - Remake's battle system was already great, and the fact that you can jump right into Rebirth and feel yourself right at home shows that the designers of battle system know their work better than anyone.
Another addition is the open world segments - packed with optional stuff, crafting ingredients scattered all over the place and Ubisoft Towers™. There is not too much variety in the content offered: battles with palette swap enemies, a couple minigames, some sidequests (also involving battles and minigames) and one optional boss per area. Not particularly impressive, but given the kind of "content" Remake and FFXVI offered - surely this is a step in the right direction.
So, sounds great so far? A game that looks, sounds and plays nice. Unfortunately, all of this comes undone when you pay attention to Rebirth's writing.
Ending of Remake was polarizing, but it did state one thing very clearly: this is not just a retelling of FFVII's story, it's more of a "new possibility". So how do you follow that up in the next game? I don't know, and evidently neither do the writers of the Rebirth, seeing as how they never fully commit to either following the original or writing a new story. This attempt to please everyone ends up pleasing no one.
But the worst offender here is not even the main storyline - it's the side characters and their appearances, their behavior. Did you like the side characters in Remake? I sure hope you did, since most of them, despite being residents of Midgar, appear all over the world in Rebirth - often, for extremely contrived reasons. Rebirth originals aren't much better too - some have just one (1) personality trait taken up to extreme, some just always act over-the-top without any reason to do so. About halfway into the game, a side character who's kind of a local crime boss shows up. His introductory scene is him dancing around your party for a minute or two while the upbeat music (with lyrics, because who the hell wants to listen to the characters talk) plays louder than character voices. Moments like this make me wonder if the team behind Rebirth wanted to make a FFVII musical all along.
So that's Rebirth - a great mix of action and RPG, in a pretty wrapping, soured by the output of the writing team. Maybe when the Final Fantasy VII: Reunion or whatever it's called comes out as a timed exclusive for PlayStation 6, I'll eat my words. But for now, this is a pretty disappointing outcome of the "remaking the FFVII" idea.
Another thing that's still as good as ever is the sound/music. Voiceovers of the main and supporting cast are still top-notch (Yuffie and Cait Sith being my personal favorites) and so is the music. The game has a ton of tracks (Chocobo Racing alone has like a dozen), most of which are arranges of good old FFVII music. For example, some open world areas have a unique mix of FFVII's Main Theme as background music, but the small area near Midgar where an arrange version of Hollow, theme of FFVII:Remake plays. This applies to battle music as well - some important fights feature all-too-familiar motifs from One-Winged Angel or J-E-N-O-V-A. There are one or two moments where the sound balance is weird, but otherwise the sound of this game is a treat.
Finally, the gameplay. The battle system is almost completely unchanged - Aerith got a bit of a rework and that's it. But it did not need to be changed - Remake's battle system was already great, and the fact that you can jump right into Rebirth and feel yourself right at home shows that the designers of battle system know their work better than anyone.
Another addition is the open world segments - packed with optional stuff, crafting ingredients scattered all over the place and Ubisoft Towers™. There is not too much variety in the content offered: battles with palette swap enemies, a couple minigames, some sidequests (also involving battles and minigames) and one optional boss per area. Not particularly impressive, but given the kind of "content" Remake and FFXVI offered - surely this is a step in the right direction.
So, sounds great so far? A game that looks, sounds and plays nice. Unfortunately, all of this comes undone when you pay attention to Rebirth's writing.
Ending of Remake was polarizing, but it did state one thing very clearly: this is not just a retelling of FFVII's story, it's more of a "new possibility". So how do you follow that up in the next game? I don't know, and evidently neither do the writers of the Rebirth, seeing as how they never fully commit to either following the original or writing a new story. This attempt to please everyone ends up pleasing no one.
But the worst offender here is not even the main storyline - it's the side characters and their appearances, their behavior. Did you like the side characters in Remake? I sure hope you did, since most of them, despite being residents of Midgar, appear all over the world in Rebirth - often, for extremely contrived reasons. Rebirth originals aren't much better too - some have just one (1) personality trait taken up to extreme, some just always act over-the-top without any reason to do so. About halfway into the game, a side character who's kind of a local crime boss shows up. His introductory scene is him dancing around your party for a minute or two while the upbeat music (with lyrics, because who the hell wants to listen to the characters talk) plays louder than character voices. Moments like this make me wonder if the team behind Rebirth wanted to make a FFVII musical all along.
So that's Rebirth - a great mix of action and RPG, in a pretty wrapping, soured by the output of the writing team. Maybe when the Final Fantasy VII: Reunion or whatever it's called comes out as a timed exclusive for PlayStation 6, I'll eat my words. But for now, this is a pretty disappointing outcome of the "remaking the FFVII" idea.
Years later, the part of this game that stands out the most is the relationship of Adell and Rozalin. It starts with the main story, evolves with it, and eventually drives it all the way to the end.
That's not to say the gameplay or music are not worth mentioning, but they are mostly improvements over what the previous entries had. If you played them, you know what to expect. Sato's music is still top-notch, as is Harada's art.
That's not to say the gameplay or music are not worth mentioning, but they are mostly improvements over what the previous entries had. If you played them, you know what to expect. Sato's music is still top-notch, as is Harada's art.