Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is everything I wanted and then some.
Well, to clarify, 95% of it is everything I wanted and then some. That 5% isn't nearly enough to kibosh the entire experience for me but the fact that the vast majority of it was truly stellar is a triumph, honestly.
Rebirth needed to do a lot following up from Remake, and it does pretty much all of it to such a high level that it's baffling that a game of this magnitude could even be possible in such a short development time. Of course, I'm referring to both playtime and scale, but also to how lovingly crafted and relentlessly charming it is in all 60+ hours of the journey it takes you on, with only a handful of missteps along the way.
The overarching narrative and, most of all, the character writing in Rebirth are the strongest they've ever been. Characters that were presented well in the original are somehow made even better here, with backstory and banter that's consistently such a treat to listen to. If you manage to even make Cait Sith compelling, then you've got a real winner on your hands. The story beats and their wider implications differ from the original, as with Remake, and not all of them hit. However, again, the vast majority of them I found to be much more compelling than ever before, thanks to the greatly expanded scenes and dialogue present throughout.
The ending is indeed as divisive as you might have heard and while I won't go into it here, I did enjoy what it presented; however, I can absolutely see where and why people would dislike it, as the execution feels very slapdash. I totally get what they were going for and it went the way I figured it would but it's indicative of an ending that's spinning too many plates at once, both narratively and thematically.
But as I said, that falls under the 5% that wasn't as stellar as the rest of the package.
Gameplay-wise, there's not really much to add that hasn't already been pointed out by everyone else—it's just Remake but better, with tighter controls for each of the characters and much more mobility with air combos and team attacks now entering into the mix to make battles feel far more dynamic than they were before. When you get into a flow state with it, particularly during the game's many boss battles, it feels great and is a natural extension of the formula they crafted in the previous game.
As for Rebirth's open world, ultimately, I found it to be the poster child for the phrase 'too much of a good thing'. It's filled with the usual Ubisoft open-world guff of towers and challenging enemy encounters that seem to mostly exist simply to pad out the exploration some more, but there are also some truly excellent side quests and artifact hunts that feed into the game's larger narrative and world-building that are almost always worth seeing through.
And then there's Queen's Blood. I'm not even a fan of card games at all and QB just dominated my playthrough. Honestly, if Square releases it as a standalone game on the level of Hearthstone, I'm going to be even more unemployed than I already am.
All of this extra stuff is really great; however, it's an absolute overabundance. By chapter 12, you basically get given another 10+ hours of new side content to do and at that point, I just wanted to see the story through to the end.
Regardless, FF7 Rebirth is a real 'above and beyond' type sequel. It's by no means perfect and it has its faults here and there, but those highs are so high that the third entry will have to do a lot to supersede it.
9.5/10
Well, to clarify, 95% of it is everything I wanted and then some. That 5% isn't nearly enough to kibosh the entire experience for me but the fact that the vast majority of it was truly stellar is a triumph, honestly.
Rebirth needed to do a lot following up from Remake, and it does pretty much all of it to such a high level that it's baffling that a game of this magnitude could even be possible in such a short development time. Of course, I'm referring to both playtime and scale, but also to how lovingly crafted and relentlessly charming it is in all 60+ hours of the journey it takes you on, with only a handful of missteps along the way.
The overarching narrative and, most of all, the character writing in Rebirth are the strongest they've ever been. Characters that were presented well in the original are somehow made even better here, with backstory and banter that's consistently such a treat to listen to. If you manage to even make Cait Sith compelling, then you've got a real winner on your hands. The story beats and their wider implications differ from the original, as with Remake, and not all of them hit. However, again, the vast majority of them I found to be much more compelling than ever before, thanks to the greatly expanded scenes and dialogue present throughout.
The ending is indeed as divisive as you might have heard and while I won't go into it here, I did enjoy what it presented; however, I can absolutely see where and why people would dislike it, as the execution feels very slapdash. I totally get what they were going for and it went the way I figured it would but it's indicative of an ending that's spinning too many plates at once, both narratively and thematically.
But as I said, that falls under the 5% that wasn't as stellar as the rest of the package.
Gameplay-wise, there's not really much to add that hasn't already been pointed out by everyone else—it's just Remake but better, with tighter controls for each of the characters and much more mobility with air combos and team attacks now entering into the mix to make battles feel far more dynamic than they were before. When you get into a flow state with it, particularly during the game's many boss battles, it feels great and is a natural extension of the formula they crafted in the previous game.
As for Rebirth's open world, ultimately, I found it to be the poster child for the phrase 'too much of a good thing'. It's filled with the usual Ubisoft open-world guff of towers and challenging enemy encounters that seem to mostly exist simply to pad out the exploration some more, but there are also some truly excellent side quests and artifact hunts that feed into the game's larger narrative and world-building that are almost always worth seeing through.
And then there's Queen's Blood. I'm not even a fan of card games at all and QB just dominated my playthrough. Honestly, if Square releases it as a standalone game on the level of Hearthstone, I'm going to be even more unemployed than I already am.
All of this extra stuff is really great; however, it's an absolute overabundance. By chapter 12, you basically get given another 10+ hours of new side content to do and at that point, I just wanted to see the story through to the end.
Regardless, FF7 Rebirth is a real 'above and beyond' type sequel. It's by no means perfect and it has its faults here and there, but those highs are so high that the third entry will have to do a lot to supersede it.
9.5/10