As someone who played the original game, I absolutely loved FF7 Remake and the way it expanded the story in every way.

Rebirth is an excellent game in itself. A unique adventure, rich in content and diversity, accompanied by sumptuous music. A unique group of characters that you will most likely become attached to.

All the arcs readapted in Rebirth were done masterfully, notably the entire part of Corel with Barret, and the entire revival of Gongaga and its chapter 9 (with finally some focus on Tifa!!!), which I particularly loved. I also loved Costal Del Sol, which I found super fun, and the Gold Saucer is absolutely incredible with its opening cinematic! But one of my favorite aspects of the game is the group synergy. I think for this one, Barret and Yuffie were my big favorites! Yuffie is a breath of fresh air that the game needed, and it's a pleasure to see her finally interact with everyone else. I found Barret particularly interesting and very moving for this opus. I also really enjoyed the treatment of Cait Sith, my favorite characters being Vincent and Tifa but I will come back to that later and the reason why I didn't mention them.

The gameplay is an improved version of the Remake, which is more or less enjoyable throughout the game, with a very nice feeling of progression. I was a little worried about how the open world was going to be handled, but overall it was pretty nice. Unfortunately some areas of the game are hell on earth, the map does not allow you to find your way, you sometimes waste a lot of time in a stupid way. The side quests are mixed, some are very interesting and even rich in lore, while others can be ignored. Chocobo travel is fun depending on the area you are in, with some of its features being very enjoyable, while others not at all.
The soundtrack was really surprising, with a lot of remixes of already existing songs, I can't wait to listen to it again.

The game also has a big mini-game aspect, which I honestly didn't particularly like, any more than in the Remake.
The Queen's Blood on the other hand was really a superb addition. I also really appreciated the possibility of playing scores on the piano.

And now let's talk about the storyline, which is the most important for me. It was honestly a dream for a large part of the game, from the first 10 minutes with the appearance of Zack, who made me hope for wonders!
I really had a lot of fun, although I didn't particularly like seeing Tifa so much in the background, knowing that this part was supposed to be focused on Aerith.
As said above, Barret and Yuffie really amazed me in this one, while Red and Cait Sith where really cool too.
Unfortunately I probably had too high expectations for Vincent, knowing full well that he wasn't playable.
I had a little trouble with his first appearance, but these various interactions (and in particular the excellent date of the Gold Saucer) made me forget about it. So I still really enjoyed it, expecting a lot from him and Cid for the next one!

In short everything was going well, everything was beautiful, wonderful, then came the last hours of games and the last two chapters.
And I'm disappointed.
I didn't understand the reason for all these sudden changes, whether it was the weird variation of Aerith's death, the skip of the City of the Ancients, the sudden disappearance of Biggs after having had so many interactions?? The weird way Cloud and Aerith have with each other? What about Zack? So many hopes, teases, interactions, communications, for so little?
And Cloud. I think this is the first time I didn't like Cloud. The reunion stuff had too much of an effect on him and I found him unrecognizable. Even though that's probably the goal, I didn't like it at all.
And Zack. I mean, so much waiting, for so little. I am really disappointed. After seeing the trailers, the cover, and his various appearances in the game, I expected a lot more.

But don't get me wrong. I absolutely loved the game for dozens of hours, enough to do all the side content. But this ending unfortunately did not please me, and I am even more disappointed to have this bitter aftertaste which taints the whole thing.
I really hope that Rebirth was a passage, a detour for the 3rd game, which I hope will continue to pay homage to the masterpiece that is Final Fantasy 7.

"Wait, how are they supposed to call Part 3 Reunion if they already used that on the Crisis Core Remaster-"

At the core of this game, or should I say most of it, is a game that is leaps and bounds ahead of FF7 Remake in almost every way. I'll go into detail about that other stuff later but holy fuck this game is a fucking MIRACLE to play. The game looks and sounds mind-blowing with an easy Best Score and Music-winning soundtrack. Even though some of it is reused from Remake, the many MANY new tracks all sound amazing. It's also, like I said, graphically mind-blowing. Some of the shit that happens in this game is a technical achievement that 90% of other games would kill to get.

But it's not just the aesthetics, the game's combat is also noticeably improved from Remake. Instead of adding so many new major mechanics on top of Remake's system which would bloat the combat, instead it's mostly done through the new Synergy Skills, the new party members, and a bunch of little changes that fit so naturally into the combat style of Remake, that I bet that game is going to have the Breath of the Wild effect of "how did I ever play it like this" come in. Also for what it's worth I actually quite like how fun this game is compared to remake. There's a mission where you help a dog and then the song goes "Bow wow wow Bow wow wow" even while you fight enemies. It's a good year for doggies in JRPGs. And Queensblood is actually very addicting and I had to stop myself at a certain point so I could continue the narrative.

So, this game seems like the best Square Enix game since NieR Automata. So... why is it ranked LOWER than Remake for me? Well, there are two problems I have related to major parts of the game that I have some issues with. First, the open world. Yes, I love a bunch of the side quests I did do, but a lot of other aspects of this world feel very Ubisoft-y. Unlike most games with open-world elements, I just stopped exploring the world after a while. Even though they give you some incentive to explore it, it just wasn't all that fun and part of me wishes that they handled it a little differently. Because I had issues with the world design of FFXVI last year as well.

And speaking of FFXVI, one of my biggest complaints there was with how blah the story is. Well, I am pleased to report that FFVII Rebirth is actually incredibly strong in the story department. Sure they do have some pacing issues, and sure Cait Sith is one of the most annoying characters I've had the displeasure of experiencing in a while, but for the most part the cast's interactions, the narrative twists, and the emotional beats all hit leading to an incredibly satisfying narrative experience.

And then the game ends. Holy FUCK. I read early reviews criticizing the ending for going completely off the rails, and I had NO CLUE it would be this bad. It leaves an insanely bad taste in my mouth, which sucks because this is an otherwise incredible game. It's one thing if Fire Emblem Engage's ending is bad because the whole story is bad. But when you have a story and an experience as amazing as Rebirth and then hit us with Multiverse bullshit and an awkward retooling of Aerith's death, and Cloud going even more coo-coo than in the original, and I just wasn't a huge fan of it at all.

Even after over 30 hours of some of the best Final Fantasy gameplay I've ever played, this one fucking ending (along with the problems I have with the pacing) makes me look at this game a lot less fondly than Remake. When that ended, I was confused, sure, but I was overall intrigued to see where they take this. Now, I just have no clue how they're possibly going to stick the landing. It's mostly dependent on how Part 3 is done, but man this is so fucking awkward now.

However, it is still a great game because bow wow wow bow wow wow.

The good is VERY good: We have the absolute peak of gameplay in the Yakuza series, both in combat and in side content. Every single one of the 10 playable characters are awesome, multi-dimensional, and super fun. Seeing Seonhee's dorky side was an absolute treat. The party banters you get throughout the cities range between heartwarming to absolutely sidesplitting. The game itself runs really well and mostly looks awesome outside a few weird looking NPCs. Some of the main story is great (mostly Kiryu's side). The Bucket List outside of a couple infuriating narrative choices is one of the most unique and ultimately poignant piece of side content I've ever seen.

Now for the bad, and why this is behind a spoiler warning: The main plot is so uneven. For every amazing moment there's one "what even is this shit" moment. Ichiban's main villain falls flat on his face both narratively and from a fight perspective (the two big fights just before were much more difficult and fun). The worst part though is the ending. RGG just absolutely REFUSES to take the easy wins that everyone would love. They don't let us see Haruka and Kiryu reunited, (they are absolutely reunited to be clear, we just don't get to see it). Ichiban's personal growth and repairing his relationship with Saeko after his massive fuckup at the start is thrown away for a cheap gag. I came out of the ending ultimately rather furious. They dropped the ball on the ending hard. I could have forgiven all the weird unevenness of the main plot if they'd just done what was obvious all along, but they overcomplicated it and it landed like a sack of potatoes.

Steam says I played 86 hours. I'd say about 84 of those were fun as all hell. It's still a great game and worth every penny. But I said to my friend about 2/3 of the way through "the only way this drops out of my top 5 is if they completely shit the bed on the ending" and unfortunately that's what happened, so it'll probably place somewhere around 9-10.