This review contains spoilers
Final fantasy 7 rebirth is an absolutely fantastic experience that pushes the boundaries and standards we should expect for modern games and remakes in this era of gaming, however as much as I loved the experience and definitely think this is my game of the year so far it isn’t without flaws unfortunately that I really really wanted to ignore.
First let’s start off with the good of course the game is beautiful, insane soundtrack, themes that have been remixed masterfully, beautiful graphics, tons of content and side quests have been made way better than the first part. Almost everything has been expanded and enhanced for the better compared to the original game/remake and the journey with the ff7 party is just a joy to re-experience.
Combat is at its peak with the introduction of synergy abilities and new limit breaks and synergy attacks. It’s so smooth and fun and tactical it’s just so fun to go ham on enemies. Amazing new summons and boss fights as well that are a huge spectacle.
The whole map is huge with tons of areas new and old with so much to do and unique things for each region which is awesome. Everything is so much bigger and just feels crazy to see how far we’ve come compared to the ps1. We also got to ride the buggy and tiny bronco which was awesome. Tons of mini games too and queens blood is goated.
The writing and dialogue is very very good for the most part, the dialogue between characters is so amazing the energy is just so unique compared to other jrpgs the experience you get is just so special. The humour is great, story is still ff7 for the most part and it’s just so fun to interact with characters new and old unless it’s chadley.
So yeah it’s amazing! Which is really not surprising since it is without a doubt a wonderful game! I wanted to do almost everything and I loved seeing characters like cissnei being given a bigger role too.
Now the main issues with the game is having this stupid timeline multiverse thing that just makes the great story feel stupid. I didn’t even know what was happening at the end of the game genuinely. And I don’t understand how this is gonna tie into advent children, and why exactly does it have to tie into advent children?
The game feels like it wants to please everyone with the ideas it presents but it ends up making the mystery or whatever feel convoluted for no reason and just makes the original story less special. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken and if you are adding things we will accept that as long as it’s reasonable and doesn’t turn the game into the MCU.
The game is also a bit too grindy suffers from that Ubisoft game design and feels like some sections are stretched out just to make the game longer artificially which is just so stupid. Way too much handholding and although the open world is great it does have some FFXV feeling where it seems dead at times and you don't have many unique interactions other than the ones for the linear story path.
Chadley and Mai are literally two of the worst characters ever created and ruin the game. Every 5 second they call you when you do something on the map like what is the purpose. They just piss you off.
SPOILERS BELOW
Some of the most important moments such as aeriths death and cloud giving sepohrith the black materia are changed for the worse. I still enjoyed what I saw but the original was definitely more impactful and they stray a bit too far away from the original scenes.
But Areiths death was just left completely emotionless because they tried to have cloud save her and then he does but she dies anyways lol?? Couldn’t just have seporith off her like the original which is literally one of the most shocking and iconic scenes in gaming?? And then we go into a boss fight against a jenova lifesaver??? Like 1 minute later!! What a joke!! Completely ruined the emotion and even cut clouds original speech. Criminal!
They also made the love triangle between Tifa and Aerith feel less impactful it’s still solid here but they cut out some really important dialogue such as when Cait Sith says Aerith and Cloud are meant for each other, they do add a ton of new stuff like cloud and hers date but you’re just left confused cus you don’t know what the hell is going on!! And also Zack being more involved makes it feel weird!
Seporith also is just too confusing of a villain here to like compared to the original the writing is just not there. He was much more horrifying in the original.
Zack is a goat and he was soo cool to play as and was intriguing to see how he lived and stuff but he just feels shoehorned in here and serves really no purpose to the plot other than being pure fan service. Idek what’s gonna happen in the third game. Im all for originality and taking risks but this is a remake and why multiverse timeline specifically you could’ve done anything. We lose so much of the original games themes because of that too.
Overall, I still greatly enjoyed my experience with the game and it is a must play but it did feel a little disappointing knowing that the game has flaws that aren’t ignorable for me, it was close to perfection and could’ve been the best remake but there’s just too much new goop that lowers the game a little bit. I can see why people didn’t enjoy the game as much but even though the story is the main problem I have with the game everything else is so good.
9/10
First let’s start off with the good of course the game is beautiful, insane soundtrack, themes that have been remixed masterfully, beautiful graphics, tons of content and side quests have been made way better than the first part. Almost everything has been expanded and enhanced for the better compared to the original game/remake and the journey with the ff7 party is just a joy to re-experience.
Combat is at its peak with the introduction of synergy abilities and new limit breaks and synergy attacks. It’s so smooth and fun and tactical it’s just so fun to go ham on enemies. Amazing new summons and boss fights as well that are a huge spectacle.
The whole map is huge with tons of areas new and old with so much to do and unique things for each region which is awesome. Everything is so much bigger and just feels crazy to see how far we’ve come compared to the ps1. We also got to ride the buggy and tiny bronco which was awesome. Tons of mini games too and queens blood is goated.
The writing and dialogue is very very good for the most part, the dialogue between characters is so amazing the energy is just so unique compared to other jrpgs the experience you get is just so special. The humour is great, story is still ff7 for the most part and it’s just so fun to interact with characters new and old unless it’s chadley.
So yeah it’s amazing! Which is really not surprising since it is without a doubt a wonderful game! I wanted to do almost everything and I loved seeing characters like cissnei being given a bigger role too.
Now the main issues with the game is having this stupid timeline multiverse thing that just makes the great story feel stupid. I didn’t even know what was happening at the end of the game genuinely. And I don’t understand how this is gonna tie into advent children, and why exactly does it have to tie into advent children?
The game feels like it wants to please everyone with the ideas it presents but it ends up making the mystery or whatever feel convoluted for no reason and just makes the original story less special. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken and if you are adding things we will accept that as long as it’s reasonable and doesn’t turn the game into the MCU.
The game is also a bit too grindy suffers from that Ubisoft game design and feels like some sections are stretched out just to make the game longer artificially which is just so stupid. Way too much handholding and although the open world is great it does have some FFXV feeling where it seems dead at times and you don't have many unique interactions other than the ones for the linear story path.
Chadley and Mai are literally two of the worst characters ever created and ruin the game. Every 5 second they call you when you do something on the map like what is the purpose. They just piss you off.
SPOILERS BELOW
Some of the most important moments such as aeriths death and cloud giving sepohrith the black materia are changed for the worse. I still enjoyed what I saw but the original was definitely more impactful and they stray a bit too far away from the original scenes.
But Areiths death was just left completely emotionless because they tried to have cloud save her and then he does but she dies anyways lol?? Couldn’t just have seporith off her like the original which is literally one of the most shocking and iconic scenes in gaming?? And then we go into a boss fight against a jenova lifesaver??? Like 1 minute later!! What a joke!! Completely ruined the emotion and even cut clouds original speech. Criminal!
They also made the love triangle between Tifa and Aerith feel less impactful it’s still solid here but they cut out some really important dialogue such as when Cait Sith says Aerith and Cloud are meant for each other, they do add a ton of new stuff like cloud and hers date but you’re just left confused cus you don’t know what the hell is going on!! And also Zack being more involved makes it feel weird!
Seporith also is just too confusing of a villain here to like compared to the original the writing is just not there. He was much more horrifying in the original.
Zack is a goat and he was soo cool to play as and was intriguing to see how he lived and stuff but he just feels shoehorned in here and serves really no purpose to the plot other than being pure fan service. Idek what’s gonna happen in the third game. Im all for originality and taking risks but this is a remake and why multiverse timeline specifically you could’ve done anything. We lose so much of the original games themes because of that too.
Overall, I still greatly enjoyed my experience with the game and it is a must play but it did feel a little disappointing knowing that the game has flaws that aren’t ignorable for me, it was close to perfection and could’ve been the best remake but there’s just too much new goop that lowers the game a little bit. I can see why people didn’t enjoy the game as much but even though the story is the main problem I have with the game everything else is so good.
9/10