This review contains spoilers
Just like this entire FF7 Remake series this review will be split into 3 parts. The Story/World, The Character Analysis, and The Gameplay. This is going to be a LONG one so grab your popcorn, grab your candies, grab your comically large sodas, cause this one’s a doozy. Before we start, I’d like to preface this by saying that I have played and completed the original FF7 and it is one of those games that hold a special place in my heart. Everything from the world to its gameplay and especially the story is why I view it as one of my favorite games I’ve played. I also 100% FF7Remake in its entirety and that was one of the best games I’d have played on the platform at the time, my feelings for it haven’t changed drastically since my initial first playthrough and I hold that game in such a high regard. It had its problems but I think its strengths outweigh the negatives for me, which is important to note because no matter how I feel about Rebirth I can say with pure confidence that this game is fantastic and don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. If you genuinely believe this game to be awful then you need to actually play an awful game to know what that definition even stands for. Along with Remake I’ve also played through the Intergrade Yuffie DLC and that was also very fun and gave a character like Yuffie who didn’t have much in terms of the original so much more development. But more on that later, I’m here to review what’s probably one of my most divisive games I’ve played this year. Coming off the shoes of Remake, Intergrade, and now this do I feel like there’s merit in retelling the FF7 story again? Well, the answer is yes… and no. Oh yeah and I feel like this should be obvious but I’m going to say it here anyways, this review will contain spoilers for the FF7 series entirely. So yeah, you’ve been warned. With that being said, without a further ado, “let's mosey”
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The Story/World
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The ending of Remake is one of mystery, as the whole gang finally defeated the huge crowd of whispers at the end, they’ve essentially stopped any sort of course correction in the plot. Now it’s anyone’s game as to what can happen, and what will be waiting in their future? No one knows. At this point I didn’t want a faithful remake anymore and I was fully invested in the idea of this being a reimagining of the original ff7 with brand new twists and turns for me to see and experience. But what we ended up getting was… not that. I won’t be going over the entire plot of Rebirth since that’s not why you’re here, you just want to know my overall thoughts on it and I’ll just say right now if there’s one word to describe this whole experience is uncertainty. Let me explain, I think this whole remake series doesn’t know what it wants to be, and after playing through rebirth that became obvious for me to notice its glaring issues. It shifts between brand new content not seen in the original and also staying as faithful as possible to the original game without shaking things up. I think the biggest criticism people had with the Remake was that Midgar had so much “padding” but I’d argue that was all just world-building and it offered a fresh and brand-new experience to both old and new players because they got to see more sides of Midgar that were never explored in the original. There was actual merit in playing the Remake and I highly appreciated that since at that time I was already so familiar with FF7 so playing through what was essentially the same game would just be pointless to me. That’s the crowd where I stand in, if the ending of Remake didn’t play out differently then I’d be fully on board with a full faithful remake of the original FF7, but that’s not what happened. Rebirth instead tries to have its cake and eat it too. While at points this may feel like a brand-new experience a lot of what happens in this game's story is just beat by beat in the original, with some slightly new scenes thrown in there. I think they took the criticisms people had with Remake and just decided to play it safe entirely, almost like this is exactly what the hardcore fans have wanted from the beginning. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Remake didn’t end on the note that “anything can happen” if Zack can live, what does this mean for the gang? What does this mean for the entire FF7 universe? Well, I’ll tell you, alternate universes. Yup. That’s right. The ol multiverse plot hole that more and more games are getting way too comfortable using. The reason why Zack is alive at the end of Remake is because that isn’t the timeline where he died, it’s the timeline where he lived. And this would be more interesting if they had done something with it at all. It just feels unnecessary and such a cop out for what we were hoping for at the end of Remake. So not only is our conception of this Remake series tainted with convoluted and pointless multiverses but it makes the original look better by comparison. Even looking past this incredibly stupid plot, what does Rebirth do for the locations and areas seen in the original FF7? In some cases, it does a lot and really fleshes out the area in a great way that makes sense for the narrative. But others… it misses the entire point of what made the original as iconic and amazing as it was.
I want to bring up 1 great example and 1 bad example of each point I’m trying to make. Let’s start off with the good one, Costa del Sol. This was a very nothing area in the original, other than the very good music the gang would just stop by here as a resting point and then they’d take off. In Rebirth this acts exactly the same yet there’s more room for development between the gang as their stay is much longer and we really see that whole tropical paradise theme play into itself. Without going into gameplay too much, this place also offers a lot of great minigames to keep the player engaged and sell the idea of it being a resort where people come to play and relax. I think this was a great break in-between chapters and allowed the player to rest themselves to not get burnt out with the amount of story content being thrown at you. So honestly, I really enjoyed my time with this revisit to Costa del Sol there’s enough new here that I felt like the entire chapter itself was amazing and left an impression on me for what I’d assume the whole game would be like. Now we have the bad example, Dyne and his Death. I'm not really a big fan of how Dyne was handled here in Rebirth, I think making him so insane to the point of not even being able to talk to Barret normally is what really kills it for me. Dyne wasn't like that in the original, he was more so a broken man, barely emoting and full of regrets. The way Rebirth depicts him as a full-on psychopath and I think it misses the entire point of why Dyne was such an important part of Barret's life. In the original we're told about a man who shot and killed 3-4 innocent civilians at the golden saucer and the only description we have is a "guy with a gun for an arm" and the only person who fits that description is Barret to the player. And its not certain whether or not Barret really did do this because keep in mind we didnt know Barrets backstory in the original until after we find out he's innocent. In Rebirth we see from the very start it wasn't Barret who shot those people so Rebirth trying to play the whole mystery with the characters thinking it WAS him or not is stupid, and it doesn't work anymore. We find out his backstory BEFORE we enter the golden saucer and it completely kills off any mystery or doubt we may have had towards Barret. You see the thing is, Barret and Dyne were basically very similar, especially in the way they acted and you see that a lot in flashbacks but with how this remake really wants to ramp up the tragic factor it gets to the point of being overly emotional you know. And they also changed the way Dyne Died, in Rebirth he gets shot to death by Shinra soldiers, not too different from how Zack got killed. But in the original he basically took his own life by falling off a cliff. The whole talk of him having so much blood on his hands that he can't even hold his daughter/losing everyone he loved is what got him to break. Rebirth takes this scene and then tries to be really annoying about it, Dyne saying how he took his daughter away from her when Dyne in the original never mentioned this kind of thing at all, once Barret told him that Marlene was alive he was just shocked, and couldn't believe it. The whole scene is very simple, but it’s that simplicity that makes it more impactful to me. This rendition of it feels like they want to make you cry so bad but I’ll be honest with how overly blown out of proportion it is I couldn't help but not feel much. I love the voice acting of Barret though, his actor does a fantastic job at selling the emotion but Dyne goes too overboard that it misses the original point of this scene. This is where Barret gains that character development and it sucks that this is how they treated it in the remake. Another big thing too is when he died that was it. There wasn't another fight like right after it, the game knew when to stop for a moment and let it sink in, but in Rebirth I just beat the guy and now I’m thrown another boss fight like right after, I think the chapter should've ended there. It completely kills the mood and overall impact of the scene and it baffles me why they thought this was a good idea. Other impactful scenes such as Nanaki’s Realization and Aerith’s death are ones that Rebirth chooses to mishandle in such a way that even when it tries to please the audience that wanted a faithful remake they still fumble the bag.
So, the question I ask is, what’s the point of this remake series? If the whole point was that this was supposed to be a new experience for both old and new players, why can’t it decide what it wants to be? With most remakes of games, I feel like they have a purpose, a reason to exist, RE2 Remake was meant to be a reimagining of the original RE2, and it does so very well to the point where it feels like a brand-new game entirely. FF7Remake was exactly that, it was a reimagining of the original FF7s portion of Midgar, it followed similar story beats for sure but what you’re playing is a brand-new game. At many points in Rebirth, it just feels like I’m just playing the other parts of FF7 again except with mishandled recreations and slightly expanded bells and whistles. This game lack’s identity, it doesn’t know what it wants to be and it constantly shifts between it being a faithful recreation and a brand-new retelling of the original story. And THAT right there is what I have a problem with, I know already people are going to misunderstand my words and think I must hate this game, but that’s not true. I enjoyed my time with Rebirth, my main issue stems from the identity crisis its going through, similar to Cloud it doesn’t know what it wants to be and trying to please everyone in the end while completely straying away from what its true intended purpose was, is a level of aimlessness I feel from the main director Tetsuya Nomura. Who if you recognize his work has a problem with making shit so convoluted and messy, I mean look at Kingdom Hearts, I don’t want to hear someone tell me this shit isn’t convoluted because KH1, Chain of Memories and KH2 are the only ones that don’t spiral into convolution. But I’m straying away from the topic here, if you want a complete experience where it doesn’t feel like these games are trying to tease you all the time, you should just play the original FF7. Let’s return back to my thesis though, coming off the shoes of Remake, Intergrade, and now do I feel like there’s merit in retelling the FF7 story again? I said the answer was yes and no, and what I just explained in this story segment is the no, but now I’m going to get into why I also think it's yes.
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The Character Analysis
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Yeah, this is the main reason why I said yes. Despite everything I’ve said about these games aimless plot, if there’s one thing that Remake brought over and is done even more well here is the character development and character writing. Everyone and I mean everyone in this game shines in one way or another that it's something that I can’t say was ever the case for the original FF7. Rebirth does well to give all the characters the development they need while also making fun character moments and interactions for the whole gang to get involved with. This more than ever feels like a group of friends more so than the original game ever made them out to be, and I love it. To make this simple we’ll just go through everyone in order and talk about their differences and similarities from the original.
Cloud Strife was always a very non-caring sort of mysterious guy in the original, he didn’t emote much and a lot of what made him interesting was the various situations he was put into. That’s still the case here, he’s just about the same in terms of how they handled him only with more headaches and vertigo. Everyone who’s played the original though knows exactly why he is the way he is though, and this game basically throws more and more hints towards the player for them to start picking up on the little details. Though in Rebirth he’s actually shown to be emoting a little bit more and it's really good to see, especially in the beginning half where you can start to notice he’s becoming a little looser with the gang and opening up to more things. This all basically falls apart when his Sephiroth DNA starts to take into effect and really starts to fuck with him, both in how he acts and what he says. We see a glimpse of this in the Gongaga reactor as he mindlessly kills off the Shinra soldiers in cold blood and he even attacks Tifa after thinking she’s one of them. This was the biggest point in the story that caught me by surprise because THAT was NOT in the original. We basically get more instances of Cloud losing himself in Rebirth with Sephiroth taking control and the subtle nods to it are seen throughout the whole game now as opposed to the one or two times you see it in the original. I will say though they have no problem with showing Cloud attacking Tifa and killing mindless Shinra soldiers, but he doesn’t attack Aerith in the original after obtaining the black materia. He basically goes insane to the point where he’s beating the shit out of Aerith and it's hard to watch honestly, but in Rebirth they just fall down in the temple abyss. I guess since they thought replicating the original would be too graphic but it did make the whole sequence feel more unsettling and unforgettable than how Rebirth handled it. There’s more to Cloud than meets the eye and I think with how this retelling throws so much hints towards the player the surprise of it all will probably lose its shock value when they do reveal the big twist. Other than that, though, I think the characterization of Cloud was done very well.
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Barret Wallace is without a doubt the best character in this entire remake series. He was great in the original and has only gotten better here. Even though I don’t like how they handled Dyne in Rebirth, the way he reacts to him and his overall emotion that comes from it is still great. I cannot deny the amount of effort that was put into the development of his character here, everything to his interactions with everyone, him showing more of his humane and fatherly side, and even the times where he’s allowed to be a goofball just like in the original. It all comes together to make one of the best characters in Final Fantasy. When there’s so little wrong with a character, I feel like there’s not much else that needs to be said. He’s peak your honor.
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Tifa Lockhart is a very special character; she was integral to the original when it came to being the glue that put avalanche together. Always keeping everyone in check and acting as a sort of mature level headed girl who always looked out for everyone. You see a little bit of that in Remake but I’ll be honest it feels like Remake was the Aerith game rather than the Tifa one. She may have had moments in that game but they’re nowhere near on the level that Rebirth does for her. Rebirth finally gives Tifa that much needed development she needed in Remake to flesh out her character more and make you care about her more. Tifa is a genuinely kind hearted soul who always wants to be a crowd pleaser and it’s that trait she mentions that she hates about her. You see that a lot here, from trying to stop Cloud and his random outbursts of violence to doing someone else’s job so that they don’t get fired from it, you see more and more of her acts of kindness and it makes me wonder how the hell can anyone hate her. That’s not all she is though, because she is capable of being silly like Aerith and when those moments happen throughout the story it really stands out to me. Tifa is lovely, and she was my favorite in the original due to who she was and what she meant for the team. I’m glad Rebirth helped show a new audience on why Tifa Lockhart is so beloved as a character. I’m not even going to mention the fact that she’s attractive cause you already know that, everyone knows that, that’s like saying the sky is blue.
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Aerith Gainsborough is still as amazing as she was in Remake, but has an even greater focus given how the main events play out. I think there’s not much to say about her because everything that made her great in Remake is just here again and It’s the reason why she’s my favorite. I guess if I were to mention one thing is that her positive and upbeat attitude when things are looking down is a stark reminder as to why she’s important to the overall gang. She IS the life of the entire gang and many of the games key moments center around her and how much she values the time she spends with her friends. Learning more about the world and how to save it. Which is why her death is so impactful in the original, and they utterly butchered it in Rebirth with the multiverse thing. I feel like if they were going to do this scene it had to be 100% faithful or just completely different, this weird in-between they went with made me feel nothing for it. And it pains me since this was one of the most iconic scenes in the original and they fumbled it so badly here.
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Red XIII (Nanaki) is a character I’m a bit mixed on how they handled Rebirth. So, throughout the game you hear him talk and its like this sort of mature very wise sounding voice but like once we find out who he really is in Cosmo Canyon it turns into this very naive sounding teenager. You find out in the story he’s 48 which is 15-16 in human years, so in retrospect I guess it makes sense but I’m not sure. It just feels a little off hearing it since you get so used to how he sounds at the start of the game but it's not like it's just a voice change, his whole personality and demeanor shift and it's not anything at all like what happens in the original. He basically kind of downgrades me to the point where he acts more like Yuffie when Yuffie is already supposed to be fulfilling that role as a naive sounding teenager.
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Yuffie Kisaragi was always a character that was weak in the original given how you could playthrough the whole game and not even have her join your party, yup she was entirely missable, so with Rebirth incorporating her into the main plot I was surprised to see how well they managed to actually do it. She doesn’t join immediately and instead the game sort of builds up her joining the gang that it feels very natural and I very much appreciate that. If the Yuffie DLC isn’t anything to go by she already had way more development to her in that DLC and Rebirth basically doesn’t forget it, and brings it up when its needed. She fills the role as the naïve sounding teenager who acts a sort of annoying little sister to cloud and the gang. She definitely brings that youthful energy to the whole cast that further encapsulates the feeling of everyone being a huge family. Like yeah, she can get annoying at times but that was literally the whole point of her character inclusion and I think they managed to write her into the story very well.
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Cait Sith is definitely more memorable here than he was in the original ff7, and the whole plot point of him betraying the gang was done much better here as we see everyone start to warm up to him only for him to break their trust. I knew it was going to happen and the game even throws nods to this by Barret completely not being on board with him joining us, but it was still nonetheless a good scene. And him being Scottish was an interesting choice for the voice direction.
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Cid and Vincent are ones that I’m not going to write much about since their inclusion is very minimal in Rebirth but Cid in particular, I like what they did, he basically shows up much earlier in the story when the gang has to travel to Cosmo Canyon and his character is nothing short of entertaining. I love this guy, can’t wait to see how the 3rd game handles him and Vincent's stories.
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That concludes this very long character analysis for Rebirth, if you couldn’t tell everyone gets time to shine and everyone basically feels like a much stronger version of themselves from the original (maybe say except for Nanaki) but that’s all I have to say about the characters. I think this remake series did a great job in fleshing out everyone to the point where this gang feels more of a family than the original ever did. Now we get to what most have been probably waiting for, the gameplay.
The Gameplay
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This game takes Remakes combat and expands upon it in greater ways while also fixing that games shortcoming. One thing I’ve definitely noticed while playing is that everyone gets a chance to be controllable throughout the main story, with many varied party combinations. You’ll be forced to learn everyone sooner or later and I appreciate that, it means no character gets left behind or benched for the most part, you have total control over your main party through most segments but sets of party members will be put into play given where you are in the narrative. The inclusion of synergy attacks is awesome and does a great job in giving us even more character moments with the whole cast, which Is always welcome. Combat wise this is the best, and I still think the ATB structure is the way to go for offering a fun and tactical way to play through the game. Now let’s get into the really new stuff that is the open-world gameplay, when you step out of Kalm and see the world it's ginormous. It's when you actually start exploring is when the scope sort of breaks down. This game unfortunately falls into the same trap that many open-world triple A games do where every objective and everything there is to do is marked on your map, with little to no room for exploration. Especially because everyone’s favorite AI navigator is back, Chadley. Who I feel completely kills off any sort of discovery you can have with the world. It doesn’t help that there is now a gender bent Chadley known as MAI is 10x more annoying and unnecessary as Chadley was. Like I really don’t see the need for this character since she offers little to nothing new and is just another form of Chadley, it just feels unnecessary. That being said I don’t think it’s a bold claim to say that most triple A games just sort of mock your intelligence and have to hold your hand to do every little thing. I know the reason why its like this is because of accessibility but my argument here is that this is a SEQUEL game to a game people should already be familiar with.
Well, whatever the tutorials breaking the pace up aside, what about the side quests? Are they any good? To be honest I don’t really care about the quests itself but what I really love about them is how each is now tied to a certain character. We get to see even more character interactions with them and cloud in a way that helps further boost their relationships. Speaking of, the whole relationship system is new in this game and I really like it! It’s just about the same from the original where it felt like all your choices mattered in how some would alter your relationships. All for the Golden Saucer date and sky wheel ride which are just as great of a reward here as they were in the original. While we're on the topic the Golden Saucer was home to many minigames in the original, and they didn’t slack with anything here in rebirth, there are SO many minigames and for the most part they’re all great fun. I think the only one I didn’t really enjoy was Queen’s Blood. I think it’s a fine card game but having it be mandatory to progress in the story was a bit too much, I think they could’ve gone without it and it was just an optional thing. From the Chocobo Mario Kart races to the fall guys inspired frog mini game, there’s always a new gameplay style introduced and I think this game does its minigames very well. Cannot wait for the snowboard minigame in the 3rd game.
In terms of overworld exploration I sort of already mentioned how everything is marked in the map but I also think there’s just way too much to do in this game that it can get exhausting if you’re trying to do it all. Especially since this game is huge in its length and that’s just the story, if you stop and do any of the optional content you’ll have even more hours of playtime. Which I won't lie just kind of feels like busy work, every area has mako fountains, towers to find, and combat challenges to do. After a while you just kind of expect the same things for each area and while that is the whole point of an open-world it loses its charm as soon as you hit the next area and you gotta do it all over again. The rewards you get also don’t feel like its worth going out of your way for since it's just some materia and the occasional folio. Oh yeah gone are the long upgrades for each weapon they now include a skill tree for each character known as “folios” by increasing your party rank you unlock even more abilities that your gang can use in combat such as using weak elemental magic without wasting MP. This was a solid addition and I think its much better than going into your weapons and having to upgrade every little feature about them like how Remake handled it. This is more streamlined and easier and it works.
I guess that’s… it. I would talk about the music but it’s a final fantasy game. Do I really need to? Yall already know that shit kicks ass. I don’t need to talk about it, this is already long enough as it is. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was a game I had high hopes for but a lot of it didn’t really hit the mark on how some of its executions were handled. It’s still an amazing game but it's not something that I can effortlessly replay like the original FF7 was. And the story is just so awful to me that other than the solid character writing I might not have stuck around if the gameplay wasn’t as good as it was. If you played and enjoyed Remake, you’ll most likely enjoy this one too, but whether or not you agree or even like what the story of this game does then that’s really all on you to decide. The original is one of my favorite JRPGs and I have a lot of sentimental value towards it so to watch it get butchered like this was hard to experience at times. On the surface though I think Rebirth is a fantastic game that you will definitely be getting your money's worth if you choose to buy it, or if you even own a PS5. Which if you’re even reading this you do.
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The Story/World
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The ending of Remake is one of mystery, as the whole gang finally defeated the huge crowd of whispers at the end, they’ve essentially stopped any sort of course correction in the plot. Now it’s anyone’s game as to what can happen, and what will be waiting in their future? No one knows. At this point I didn’t want a faithful remake anymore and I was fully invested in the idea of this being a reimagining of the original ff7 with brand new twists and turns for me to see and experience. But what we ended up getting was… not that. I won’t be going over the entire plot of Rebirth since that’s not why you’re here, you just want to know my overall thoughts on it and I’ll just say right now if there’s one word to describe this whole experience is uncertainty. Let me explain, I think this whole remake series doesn’t know what it wants to be, and after playing through rebirth that became obvious for me to notice its glaring issues. It shifts between brand new content not seen in the original and also staying as faithful as possible to the original game without shaking things up. I think the biggest criticism people had with the Remake was that Midgar had so much “padding” but I’d argue that was all just world-building and it offered a fresh and brand-new experience to both old and new players because they got to see more sides of Midgar that were never explored in the original. There was actual merit in playing the Remake and I highly appreciated that since at that time I was already so familiar with FF7 so playing through what was essentially the same game would just be pointless to me. That’s the crowd where I stand in, if the ending of Remake didn’t play out differently then I’d be fully on board with a full faithful remake of the original FF7, but that’s not what happened. Rebirth instead tries to have its cake and eat it too. While at points this may feel like a brand-new experience a lot of what happens in this game's story is just beat by beat in the original, with some slightly new scenes thrown in there. I think they took the criticisms people had with Remake and just decided to play it safe entirely, almost like this is exactly what the hardcore fans have wanted from the beginning. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Remake didn’t end on the note that “anything can happen” if Zack can live, what does this mean for the gang? What does this mean for the entire FF7 universe? Well, I’ll tell you, alternate universes. Yup. That’s right. The ol multiverse plot hole that more and more games are getting way too comfortable using. The reason why Zack is alive at the end of Remake is because that isn’t the timeline where he died, it’s the timeline where he lived. And this would be more interesting if they had done something with it at all. It just feels unnecessary and such a cop out for what we were hoping for at the end of Remake. So not only is our conception of this Remake series tainted with convoluted and pointless multiverses but it makes the original look better by comparison. Even looking past this incredibly stupid plot, what does Rebirth do for the locations and areas seen in the original FF7? In some cases, it does a lot and really fleshes out the area in a great way that makes sense for the narrative. But others… it misses the entire point of what made the original as iconic and amazing as it was.
I want to bring up 1 great example and 1 bad example of each point I’m trying to make. Let’s start off with the good one, Costa del Sol. This was a very nothing area in the original, other than the very good music the gang would just stop by here as a resting point and then they’d take off. In Rebirth this acts exactly the same yet there’s more room for development between the gang as their stay is much longer and we really see that whole tropical paradise theme play into itself. Without going into gameplay too much, this place also offers a lot of great minigames to keep the player engaged and sell the idea of it being a resort where people come to play and relax. I think this was a great break in-between chapters and allowed the player to rest themselves to not get burnt out with the amount of story content being thrown at you. So honestly, I really enjoyed my time with this revisit to Costa del Sol there’s enough new here that I felt like the entire chapter itself was amazing and left an impression on me for what I’d assume the whole game would be like. Now we have the bad example, Dyne and his Death. I'm not really a big fan of how Dyne was handled here in Rebirth, I think making him so insane to the point of not even being able to talk to Barret normally is what really kills it for me. Dyne wasn't like that in the original, he was more so a broken man, barely emoting and full of regrets. The way Rebirth depicts him as a full-on psychopath and I think it misses the entire point of why Dyne was such an important part of Barret's life. In the original we're told about a man who shot and killed 3-4 innocent civilians at the golden saucer and the only description we have is a "guy with a gun for an arm" and the only person who fits that description is Barret to the player. And its not certain whether or not Barret really did do this because keep in mind we didnt know Barrets backstory in the original until after we find out he's innocent. In Rebirth we see from the very start it wasn't Barret who shot those people so Rebirth trying to play the whole mystery with the characters thinking it WAS him or not is stupid, and it doesn't work anymore. We find out his backstory BEFORE we enter the golden saucer and it completely kills off any mystery or doubt we may have had towards Barret. You see the thing is, Barret and Dyne were basically very similar, especially in the way they acted and you see that a lot in flashbacks but with how this remake really wants to ramp up the tragic factor it gets to the point of being overly emotional you know. And they also changed the way Dyne Died, in Rebirth he gets shot to death by Shinra soldiers, not too different from how Zack got killed. But in the original he basically took his own life by falling off a cliff. The whole talk of him having so much blood on his hands that he can't even hold his daughter/losing everyone he loved is what got him to break. Rebirth takes this scene and then tries to be really annoying about it, Dyne saying how he took his daughter away from her when Dyne in the original never mentioned this kind of thing at all, once Barret told him that Marlene was alive he was just shocked, and couldn't believe it. The whole scene is very simple, but it’s that simplicity that makes it more impactful to me. This rendition of it feels like they want to make you cry so bad but I’ll be honest with how overly blown out of proportion it is I couldn't help but not feel much. I love the voice acting of Barret though, his actor does a fantastic job at selling the emotion but Dyne goes too overboard that it misses the original point of this scene. This is where Barret gains that character development and it sucks that this is how they treated it in the remake. Another big thing too is when he died that was it. There wasn't another fight like right after it, the game knew when to stop for a moment and let it sink in, but in Rebirth I just beat the guy and now I’m thrown another boss fight like right after, I think the chapter should've ended there. It completely kills the mood and overall impact of the scene and it baffles me why they thought this was a good idea. Other impactful scenes such as Nanaki’s Realization and Aerith’s death are ones that Rebirth chooses to mishandle in such a way that even when it tries to please the audience that wanted a faithful remake they still fumble the bag.
So, the question I ask is, what’s the point of this remake series? If the whole point was that this was supposed to be a new experience for both old and new players, why can’t it decide what it wants to be? With most remakes of games, I feel like they have a purpose, a reason to exist, RE2 Remake was meant to be a reimagining of the original RE2, and it does so very well to the point where it feels like a brand-new game entirely. FF7Remake was exactly that, it was a reimagining of the original FF7s portion of Midgar, it followed similar story beats for sure but what you’re playing is a brand-new game. At many points in Rebirth, it just feels like I’m just playing the other parts of FF7 again except with mishandled recreations and slightly expanded bells and whistles. This game lack’s identity, it doesn’t know what it wants to be and it constantly shifts between it being a faithful recreation and a brand-new retelling of the original story. And THAT right there is what I have a problem with, I know already people are going to misunderstand my words and think I must hate this game, but that’s not true. I enjoyed my time with Rebirth, my main issue stems from the identity crisis its going through, similar to Cloud it doesn’t know what it wants to be and trying to please everyone in the end while completely straying away from what its true intended purpose was, is a level of aimlessness I feel from the main director Tetsuya Nomura. Who if you recognize his work has a problem with making shit so convoluted and messy, I mean look at Kingdom Hearts, I don’t want to hear someone tell me this shit isn’t convoluted because KH1, Chain of Memories and KH2 are the only ones that don’t spiral into convolution. But I’m straying away from the topic here, if you want a complete experience where it doesn’t feel like these games are trying to tease you all the time, you should just play the original FF7. Let’s return back to my thesis though, coming off the shoes of Remake, Intergrade, and now do I feel like there’s merit in retelling the FF7 story again? I said the answer was yes and no, and what I just explained in this story segment is the no, but now I’m going to get into why I also think it's yes.
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The Character Analysis
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Yeah, this is the main reason why I said yes. Despite everything I’ve said about these games aimless plot, if there’s one thing that Remake brought over and is done even more well here is the character development and character writing. Everyone and I mean everyone in this game shines in one way or another that it's something that I can’t say was ever the case for the original FF7. Rebirth does well to give all the characters the development they need while also making fun character moments and interactions for the whole gang to get involved with. This more than ever feels like a group of friends more so than the original game ever made them out to be, and I love it. To make this simple we’ll just go through everyone in order and talk about their differences and similarities from the original.
Cloud Strife was always a very non-caring sort of mysterious guy in the original, he didn’t emote much and a lot of what made him interesting was the various situations he was put into. That’s still the case here, he’s just about the same in terms of how they handled him only with more headaches and vertigo. Everyone who’s played the original though knows exactly why he is the way he is though, and this game basically throws more and more hints towards the player for them to start picking up on the little details. Though in Rebirth he’s actually shown to be emoting a little bit more and it's really good to see, especially in the beginning half where you can start to notice he’s becoming a little looser with the gang and opening up to more things. This all basically falls apart when his Sephiroth DNA starts to take into effect and really starts to fuck with him, both in how he acts and what he says. We see a glimpse of this in the Gongaga reactor as he mindlessly kills off the Shinra soldiers in cold blood and he even attacks Tifa after thinking she’s one of them. This was the biggest point in the story that caught me by surprise because THAT was NOT in the original. We basically get more instances of Cloud losing himself in Rebirth with Sephiroth taking control and the subtle nods to it are seen throughout the whole game now as opposed to the one or two times you see it in the original. I will say though they have no problem with showing Cloud attacking Tifa and killing mindless Shinra soldiers, but he doesn’t attack Aerith in the original after obtaining the black materia. He basically goes insane to the point where he’s beating the shit out of Aerith and it's hard to watch honestly, but in Rebirth they just fall down in the temple abyss. I guess since they thought replicating the original would be too graphic but it did make the whole sequence feel more unsettling and unforgettable than how Rebirth handled it. There’s more to Cloud than meets the eye and I think with how this retelling throws so much hints towards the player the surprise of it all will probably lose its shock value when they do reveal the big twist. Other than that, though, I think the characterization of Cloud was done very well.
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Barret Wallace is without a doubt the best character in this entire remake series. He was great in the original and has only gotten better here. Even though I don’t like how they handled Dyne in Rebirth, the way he reacts to him and his overall emotion that comes from it is still great. I cannot deny the amount of effort that was put into the development of his character here, everything to his interactions with everyone, him showing more of his humane and fatherly side, and even the times where he’s allowed to be a goofball just like in the original. It all comes together to make one of the best characters in Final Fantasy. When there’s so little wrong with a character, I feel like there’s not much else that needs to be said. He’s peak your honor.
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Tifa Lockhart is a very special character; she was integral to the original when it came to being the glue that put avalanche together. Always keeping everyone in check and acting as a sort of mature level headed girl who always looked out for everyone. You see a little bit of that in Remake but I’ll be honest it feels like Remake was the Aerith game rather than the Tifa one. She may have had moments in that game but they’re nowhere near on the level that Rebirth does for her. Rebirth finally gives Tifa that much needed development she needed in Remake to flesh out her character more and make you care about her more. Tifa is a genuinely kind hearted soul who always wants to be a crowd pleaser and it’s that trait she mentions that she hates about her. You see that a lot here, from trying to stop Cloud and his random outbursts of violence to doing someone else’s job so that they don’t get fired from it, you see more and more of her acts of kindness and it makes me wonder how the hell can anyone hate her. That’s not all she is though, because she is capable of being silly like Aerith and when those moments happen throughout the story it really stands out to me. Tifa is lovely, and she was my favorite in the original due to who she was and what she meant for the team. I’m glad Rebirth helped show a new audience on why Tifa Lockhart is so beloved as a character. I’m not even going to mention the fact that she’s attractive cause you already know that, everyone knows that, that’s like saying the sky is blue.
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Aerith Gainsborough is still as amazing as she was in Remake, but has an even greater focus given how the main events play out. I think there’s not much to say about her because everything that made her great in Remake is just here again and It’s the reason why she’s my favorite. I guess if I were to mention one thing is that her positive and upbeat attitude when things are looking down is a stark reminder as to why she’s important to the overall gang. She IS the life of the entire gang and many of the games key moments center around her and how much she values the time she spends with her friends. Learning more about the world and how to save it. Which is why her death is so impactful in the original, and they utterly butchered it in Rebirth with the multiverse thing. I feel like if they were going to do this scene it had to be 100% faithful or just completely different, this weird in-between they went with made me feel nothing for it. And it pains me since this was one of the most iconic scenes in the original and they fumbled it so badly here.
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Red XIII (Nanaki) is a character I’m a bit mixed on how they handled Rebirth. So, throughout the game you hear him talk and its like this sort of mature very wise sounding voice but like once we find out who he really is in Cosmo Canyon it turns into this very naive sounding teenager. You find out in the story he’s 48 which is 15-16 in human years, so in retrospect I guess it makes sense but I’m not sure. It just feels a little off hearing it since you get so used to how he sounds at the start of the game but it's not like it's just a voice change, his whole personality and demeanor shift and it's not anything at all like what happens in the original. He basically kind of downgrades me to the point where he acts more like Yuffie when Yuffie is already supposed to be fulfilling that role as a naive sounding teenager.
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Yuffie Kisaragi was always a character that was weak in the original given how you could playthrough the whole game and not even have her join your party, yup she was entirely missable, so with Rebirth incorporating her into the main plot I was surprised to see how well they managed to actually do it. She doesn’t join immediately and instead the game sort of builds up her joining the gang that it feels very natural and I very much appreciate that. If the Yuffie DLC isn’t anything to go by she already had way more development to her in that DLC and Rebirth basically doesn’t forget it, and brings it up when its needed. She fills the role as the naïve sounding teenager who acts a sort of annoying little sister to cloud and the gang. She definitely brings that youthful energy to the whole cast that further encapsulates the feeling of everyone being a huge family. Like yeah, she can get annoying at times but that was literally the whole point of her character inclusion and I think they managed to write her into the story very well.
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Cait Sith is definitely more memorable here than he was in the original ff7, and the whole plot point of him betraying the gang was done much better here as we see everyone start to warm up to him only for him to break their trust. I knew it was going to happen and the game even throws nods to this by Barret completely not being on board with him joining us, but it was still nonetheless a good scene. And him being Scottish was an interesting choice for the voice direction.
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Cid and Vincent are ones that I’m not going to write much about since their inclusion is very minimal in Rebirth but Cid in particular, I like what they did, he basically shows up much earlier in the story when the gang has to travel to Cosmo Canyon and his character is nothing short of entertaining. I love this guy, can’t wait to see how the 3rd game handles him and Vincent's stories.
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That concludes this very long character analysis for Rebirth, if you couldn’t tell everyone gets time to shine and everyone basically feels like a much stronger version of themselves from the original (maybe say except for Nanaki) but that’s all I have to say about the characters. I think this remake series did a great job in fleshing out everyone to the point where this gang feels more of a family than the original ever did. Now we get to what most have been probably waiting for, the gameplay.
The Gameplay
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This game takes Remakes combat and expands upon it in greater ways while also fixing that games shortcoming. One thing I’ve definitely noticed while playing is that everyone gets a chance to be controllable throughout the main story, with many varied party combinations. You’ll be forced to learn everyone sooner or later and I appreciate that, it means no character gets left behind or benched for the most part, you have total control over your main party through most segments but sets of party members will be put into play given where you are in the narrative. The inclusion of synergy attacks is awesome and does a great job in giving us even more character moments with the whole cast, which Is always welcome. Combat wise this is the best, and I still think the ATB structure is the way to go for offering a fun and tactical way to play through the game. Now let’s get into the really new stuff that is the open-world gameplay, when you step out of Kalm and see the world it's ginormous. It's when you actually start exploring is when the scope sort of breaks down. This game unfortunately falls into the same trap that many open-world triple A games do where every objective and everything there is to do is marked on your map, with little to no room for exploration. Especially because everyone’s favorite AI navigator is back, Chadley. Who I feel completely kills off any sort of discovery you can have with the world. It doesn’t help that there is now a gender bent Chadley known as MAI is 10x more annoying and unnecessary as Chadley was. Like I really don’t see the need for this character since she offers little to nothing new and is just another form of Chadley, it just feels unnecessary. That being said I don’t think it’s a bold claim to say that most triple A games just sort of mock your intelligence and have to hold your hand to do every little thing. I know the reason why its like this is because of accessibility but my argument here is that this is a SEQUEL game to a game people should already be familiar with.
Well, whatever the tutorials breaking the pace up aside, what about the side quests? Are they any good? To be honest I don’t really care about the quests itself but what I really love about them is how each is now tied to a certain character. We get to see even more character interactions with them and cloud in a way that helps further boost their relationships. Speaking of, the whole relationship system is new in this game and I really like it! It’s just about the same from the original where it felt like all your choices mattered in how some would alter your relationships. All for the Golden Saucer date and sky wheel ride which are just as great of a reward here as they were in the original. While we're on the topic the Golden Saucer was home to many minigames in the original, and they didn’t slack with anything here in rebirth, there are SO many minigames and for the most part they’re all great fun. I think the only one I didn’t really enjoy was Queen’s Blood. I think it’s a fine card game but having it be mandatory to progress in the story was a bit too much, I think they could’ve gone without it and it was just an optional thing. From the Chocobo Mario Kart races to the fall guys inspired frog mini game, there’s always a new gameplay style introduced and I think this game does its minigames very well. Cannot wait for the snowboard minigame in the 3rd game.
In terms of overworld exploration I sort of already mentioned how everything is marked in the map but I also think there’s just way too much to do in this game that it can get exhausting if you’re trying to do it all. Especially since this game is huge in its length and that’s just the story, if you stop and do any of the optional content you’ll have even more hours of playtime. Which I won't lie just kind of feels like busy work, every area has mako fountains, towers to find, and combat challenges to do. After a while you just kind of expect the same things for each area and while that is the whole point of an open-world it loses its charm as soon as you hit the next area and you gotta do it all over again. The rewards you get also don’t feel like its worth going out of your way for since it's just some materia and the occasional folio. Oh yeah gone are the long upgrades for each weapon they now include a skill tree for each character known as “folios” by increasing your party rank you unlock even more abilities that your gang can use in combat such as using weak elemental magic without wasting MP. This was a solid addition and I think its much better than going into your weapons and having to upgrade every little feature about them like how Remake handled it. This is more streamlined and easier and it works.
I guess that’s… it. I would talk about the music but it’s a final fantasy game. Do I really need to? Yall already know that shit kicks ass. I don’t need to talk about it, this is already long enough as it is. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was a game I had high hopes for but a lot of it didn’t really hit the mark on how some of its executions were handled. It’s still an amazing game but it's not something that I can effortlessly replay like the original FF7 was. And the story is just so awful to me that other than the solid character writing I might not have stuck around if the gameplay wasn’t as good as it was. If you played and enjoyed Remake, you’ll most likely enjoy this one too, but whether or not you agree or even like what the story of this game does then that’s really all on you to decide. The original is one of my favorite JRPGs and I have a lot of sentimental value towards it so to watch it get butchered like this was hard to experience at times. On the surface though I think Rebirth is a fantastic game that you will definitely be getting your money's worth if you choose to buy it, or if you even own a PS5. Which if you’re even reading this you do.