Man I really don't even know what to say about this game, I play tons of games its my main hobby, and RPGs are my favorite and this might be one of the best I've ever played, the writing is fantastic (especially the character writing and voice acting performances) very fun and often funny and heartfelt in a way I rarely feel from RPGs lately. The towns and cities are full of life and unique culture and lots of things to do and people to talk too.
The combat is easy to pick up with a lot of depth for individual characters, groups and gear/materia combinations. It fixes all of my problems with XVI (no whimsy, no real towns, no minigames, no life, weird misogyny, no party, stale combat) and then some, I was worried I no longer liked Final Fantasy but its really just whatever CBU3 is..trying to do. It's fun, its heartfelt, it isnt afraid to be both a love letter to the original and something entirely new, its just refreshing while still being nostalgic and familiar. My ONLY complaints about the game are: a 4k, 45 fps mode would do wonders, performance mode feels great but sacrifices a ton of visual fidelity and quality mode looks great but 30fps feels awful in the combat. There are a small handful of minigames that are kinda bad, i think most of them are at least decent and more that are actually good, there's one in particular that verges on being an accessibility issue that I could see preventing some people from 100%ing the game. And my final complaint is that it ended, even after 99 hours I was not ready to let go of this world and characters, I'm so excited to get back into the post-game content and hard mode that I'm struggling to even pay attention to other releases right now. This review might not mean anything to most people but after a lot of disappointment thank you Rebirth for making me remember why I love Final Fantasy and making me feel like I can love it again.
The combat is easy to pick up with a lot of depth for individual characters, groups and gear/materia combinations. It fixes all of my problems with XVI (no whimsy, no real towns, no minigames, no life, weird misogyny, no party, stale combat) and then some, I was worried I no longer liked Final Fantasy but its really just whatever CBU3 is..trying to do. It's fun, its heartfelt, it isnt afraid to be both a love letter to the original and something entirely new, its just refreshing while still being nostalgic and familiar. My ONLY complaints about the game are: a 4k, 45 fps mode would do wonders, performance mode feels great but sacrifices a ton of visual fidelity and quality mode looks great but 30fps feels awful in the combat. There are a small handful of minigames that are kinda bad, i think most of them are at least decent and more that are actually good, there's one in particular that verges on being an accessibility issue that I could see preventing some people from 100%ing the game. And my final complaint is that it ended, even after 99 hours I was not ready to let go of this world and characters, I'm so excited to get back into the post-game content and hard mode that I'm struggling to even pay attention to other releases right now. This review might not mean anything to most people but after a lot of disappointment thank you Rebirth for making me remember why I love Final Fantasy and making me feel like I can love it again.