Great game i would go as far as to say that i prefer it over elden ring thats why the little misses it has are so frustrating, i want to give this game a perfect score i really do but with how awful the PC optimization is i just cant. I will get the negatives out of the way first, there is no Bz theme song and it hurts my soul, the story only gets interesting in the final 5 to 7-ish hours of the game and thats only if you are going for the true ending. Now for the positives, everything about DD1's odd game design decisions was fixed or improved, everything feels very dynamic and natural from encounters with enemies to how the fights go, there is just something so exhilarating about an flying enemy about to escape and you jumping on its back, letting it carry you to the other side of the map while you are relentlessly trying to take it down mid air. Although i miss the electric guitar undertones of the first game the ost of dd2 is pretty good especially when you bring a large enemy to low hp and the music kicks up its moments like that which really make the game. There is not much to be said besides this is a better version of dragons dogma (if you dont mind the fps drops on pc) if you plan on getting this game please consider getting it on console or wait for the pc port to get fixed if it ever does.

I rarely use the word masterpiece when it comes to media but with full confidence i can say that this game is it. It is a masterpiece in every sense. There is so much thought and care put into every character, every side quest every interaction. There are completely missable mini-games and dungeons which are just as high quality as the main scenario. The side quests i cannot praise them enough, not only are they interesting and build on the lore but they also have completely unique animations for the cutscenes. The combat is further perfected from the previous title and in my opinion i hope future final fantasies adapt it with their own twist instead of making something completely different. The game is jam-packed with music every area has a chocobo, battle and exploration rendition on top of that almost all minigames and side quests have their own themes with battle renditions it is genuinely crazy.
It almost feels like this game came from back in time when developers actually cared about the player experience and just wanted to make a fun game. This game does not feel like a sqare-enix game it feels like a square-soft game and i couldnt be happier about it. Usually with longer games and especially JRPGs towards the end im just about done with them and kinda just want to them to end but with rebirth, here i am with 104 hours of playtime dreading the fact that im at the final boss and that the story is almost over it kept me engaged all the way through. Every few hours you would experience something new either that be a new minigame, mechanic or chocobo ability and the sheer charm of it all kept a smile on my face the whole way through. Over the years so many people worked on so many different titles of final fantasy that i feel like the series' lost its way somewhat, everybody has a different thing that makes a final fantasy to them, to me Final Fantasy is a story with stakes full of colorful characters that sometimes get into really wacky and goofy situations along the way, riding on big chickens, playing a vast variety of minigames, exploring the world finding something thats actually worthwhile its not meant to be some overly realistic linear action adventure or a glorified hallway simulator. Rebirth put the series back on track and gave me a serious rethinking of what i enjoyed about the games in the first place. This is the most final fantasy game to have come out in the past 20 years which is crazy to think about. I honestly expected to like the game but not like it this much.
Final Fantasy VII is a special game for me and millions of others, the impact it had on the industry is undeniable and while i can only hope that rebirth will have as big of an impact i can safely say rebirth is another special game a perfect 10/10 in my books.
As sad as i am that the main story is over, my playtime isnt quite yet, im currently working on getting that platinum as I eagerly await part 3.

POST PLATINUM EDIT
after 211 hours everything ive said in this review still stands. Thought i will add that i do not recommend 100% the game, i suggest only doing the side quests and world intel stuff. The rest can be quite hard and frustrating to do mainly the combat simulator there was this one fight that took me nearly 8 hours of retrying to do they really went overboard but hey that just makes the feeling of getting platinum all the more sweeter.

I had high expectations for this game but it still managed to blow me away the quality of the controls and combat is so tight and satisfying the boss design is some of the best ive seen in recent years, the story is captivating and full of memorable characters. Visually the game is beautiful, the painted style the series is so known for translates really well into 3D here with great integration of painted textures one of the most stunning aspects is the clouds which is fitting. The music has works of the legendary Nobuo Uematsu which speaks volumes on the quality you can expect.
I really dont have much i can say negatively about this game it accomplishes what it wants to be flawlessly it was well worth the delays and wait.
It would be preferable to go into this game with at least some knowledge of Granblue and its characters because this is not an origin story it takes place well into the overall story. If you dont wanna play the moblie game you can watch the anime which is free on Cygame's youtube channel or read the Granblue manga.

If you are a fan of Final Fantasy, JRPGS or Action RPGS do not sleep on this game!
I will now continue to play the post game content and 100% the game :)

This game blew my expectations. I was expecting a standard indie rpg but ended up walking away with a great game that stands on par with the games it took inspiration from. The plot does need some time to get going but it gets pretty good in the latter half of the game. The gameplay is excellent and there is a good flow of introducing new mechanics and expanding the combat system throughout the game without feeling bombarded with tutorials and information. The music and visuals are without a doubt the best part of the game both Yasunori Mitsuda and Eric Brown did an excellent job with the soundtrack. The visuals are outright stunning at times the mix of great dynamic lighting and the aesthetic of the pixel art really makes the game pop, i would go as far as to say that i prefer this look over the "3D pixel art" look square enix is doing with Octopath, diofield, live a live and now star ocean.
If you are planning to check this game out I highly recommend sticking with it all the way through.

Amazing game, just wow.
This game has one of the best stories, soundtracks and gameplay ive ever experienced.
The greatest highlight is definitively the bosses, each one is cinematically, mechanically and musically stunning and its obvious that the majority of the development went into perfecting them i cannot stress how much of a spectacle they are and its something thats best to experience for yourself to understand.
With all the high praises, i do have a few issues.
Firstly, the side quests are just incredibly boring, yes they give a ton of world building but truth be told i found only like 10-15 of them really interesting lore wise. Gameplay wise the side quests are just simple fetch quests with little to no variety.
I also found the world pretty lacking, not only is there basically nothing to do in it besides get to point A to B. With the team leaning so hard into realism it left the world looking pretty boring and uninspired compared to other games.
A little personal take, but i much prefer the sci-fi fantasy look that the series is so well known for so i do hope that future installments go that route rather than trying to go for a low fantasy aesthetic again :)




Now go play ff14 if you haven't already.

Loved the story characters and especially the world.
However i dont think the combat was a good match for this game. I ended up just opening the console and doing the "killthem" command to just skip all the battles and enjoy the story and running around the beautiful world. Im blown away by the fact that the world was made by essentially one environment artist its insane and really inspirational.
Although the game ended fairly abruptly it did set up a bunch of stuff for a potential sequel.
If another game is in the works i truly hope the team changes the combat for the next one and potentially expands their team .

Really fun game with creative use of combat and a great story that kept me engaged till the end (it does have some moments where they set up a plot point and then just not do anything with it but they are very minor to the overall plot)
level design can get a bit confusing and messy at times, some maps feel like mazes.
Its a shame that the game got overshadowed by Tales of Arise since they are both Bandai published and came out at roughly the same time and i feel like this game is more deserving of praise compared to arise.

Excellent!
i did not expect much from this game from trailers ive watched and the demo i played but i must say i was pleasantly surprised. Its great mindless fun, they took a lot of gameplay inspirations from doom instead of coming up with new idea which isnt a bad thing in my opinion ( if it aint broke dont fix it) plus the unique weapons and mechanics they added are great fun so its not like the game is just a doom clone.
I must give major props to the exellent level desing, although open and complex it always leads the player in the right directing ( not counting a few instances where for some reason they put a button on a high ceiling that you need to shoot and cant see unless you are standing right under it) the level design also does a great job at telling a story through the levels with enemy placements, events etc.
With all that being said i did run into a few glitches that made me restart my game to fix here and there but other than that it was a great experience that is just the right length and its pretty cheap too.

Great soundtrack and visuals, im really glad that anime games are experimenting with the anime aesthetic and not just sticking to the basic anime celshaded look. The game started off great, i had a fun time with it exploring the world and characters but then towards the end, the game just refuses to end (and not in a good way) all the plot twists were very predictable and the final areas felt like the only challenge was keeping your stamina so i kept having to go and buy stamina items and spending all my money on those. It doesnt help that they are so expensive too. The final areas also had segments where its nothing but: walk a bit, cutscene, walk, cutscene, talk to all your party members, cutscene, walk, cutscene, gameplay. It doesnt help that in the final area there are no warp points so you are forced to walk through the entire dungeon to get to the part i left off. The enemies too are just the same tanky type that take 10 minutes to kill for almost no XP and then the boss that just spams enemies and respawns them and randomly casts a attack that kills you in 3 seconds if you arent fast enough without warning. Its just sucks that the ending was so awful since besides that is quite a fun game, but man the late portion of the game just completely ruined it for me. The game is also poorly optimized for pc, sure it runs fine but it has barely any settings it doesn't even have ultra wide support and you cant acess the menu from the title screen, you need to be in game and go into settings through there. I wouldn't recommend getting this game at full price, if you really want to play it at least wait for a sale.

This was my first souls game and it was quite enjoyable, the open world was so well made and designed with a bunch of flavor events sprinklered throughout for example you could be walking to a small post and then a giant dragon flies down destroys it and starts fighting you. The combat was fun and there is a lot of wacky builds you can make depending on what stats you focus on while leveling up.
Now with all that being said, i do have a few issues with the game. Firstly, the terrible pc port, i have a ultra wide monitor and the game does not support ultra wide which is just mind boggling in 2022, there is a way to get ultrawide enabled but you literally need to mod the game but because of the anti cheat, you cant play the game online if you do so. Speaking of online, the multiplayer is such a mess, sure playing with your friends is fun but the connection is awful, you constantly get disconnected randomly, there is a high chance of your game crashing while joining your friends world and when you do eventually join, there is a high chance of a enemy player invading your world and there is no way to disable it. Another issue is that the games framerate would constantly drop especially in the first area for some reason.
Another thing that bothered me about the game was that like 50% of the time i didnt know what the fuck was going on and i know that the point is to do outside research and understand the lore that way but i really dont enjoy doing that i just prefer learning everything in game and then having some bonus lore stuff not explained that you could research if you would like.
All in all, i dont know if i agree with the amount of praise the game is getting. It is a good game but i wouldn't go as far as to say its the best game ever made.