Words cannot do this game justice... this is everything I ever wanted and more... my favorite game of all time given such treatment is special beyond words. I wish everyone could experience having their favorite piece of fiction shown such adoration and respect.

They nailed every character (major and minor), their interactions and dialogue were perfect, the world and its expanded lore magnificent, all of the mini-games, the unbelievable soundtrack, the perfect marriage of action & turn-based combat, some of the best towns in gaming history, etc. Literally everything about this game felt like such a personal and heartfelt gift to my 8-year-old self.

It made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions, smile, and cry in equal measure. They somehow struck that perfect balance that the original so brilliantly displayed between lighthearted and more serious, dark moments.

Here I sit a couple weeks after completing it, and it still takes up residence in the back of my brain. I just cannot stop thinking about it. Like, I cannot believe this game is actually real after damn near 2 decades of hoping and praying for a remake. They did it... they really did...

What I would have thought impossible to achieve only half a decade ago, they were able to realize in such an incredibly short amount of time (like how did they make this in only 3 years!?).

I love this world and these characters so, so much. FFVII is and always will remain my favorite game of all time, and this Re-trilogy is just solidifying the reason why.

A true masterpiece and easily one of my favorite games of all time. This trilogy has the potential to go down as the LOTR of videogames when the 3rd title releases in 2027. I am eagerly anticipating the conclusion to this amazing story and the catharsis that is going to come from all of the character's conclusions. I have no doubt they will deliver something extraordinary.

For more of my Final Fantasy VII reviews and thoughts, please see below:

PlayStation 1 Review
PC Review
PS4 Review
Remake Review
Crisis Core PSP Review

This is one of the greatest "sequels" I've played.

Just totally improves on the original FF7 Remake in every way. Literally the only downside this game doesn't have is hollow skies (unless I somehow missed it). The side quests are a lot better. The story is intriguing and leaves you wanting more.

I wouldn't say the game is perfect as it has it's flaws. I believe it has too many mini games and some of the mini games aren't that fun and that energy could've been spent more on the story perhaps

If you enjoyed FF7 Remake then you will like Rebirth even better.

I was initially going to write a long section-by-section review of this, but I'm going to keep it short and simple—7 Rebirth is absolutely fantastic, and one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Following on from Remake, which I already absolutely loved, it improves on practically everything that game did, from a more fleshed out battle system with more toys to play with, to hugely better side content and large open areas to explore (worthwhile ones at that!), and continuing to develop these amazing characters in ways inconceivable in the original game. I spent over 90 hours playing this masterpiece, which is shocking to me as it sure did not feel like that—not a moment went by where I thought "this game is too long". There is plenty of worthwhile new story content which fleshes out areas and characters that were underdeveloped in the original game, which this game just does significantly better than Remake in my opinion. Not to say there aren't sections that miss—the box throwing dungeon is the definition of overcomplicating gimmicks and providing an all around miserable experience—but they are simply so minor that it doesn't really affect my opinion of the game.

I also have to give a shoutout to the surprising amount of gay couple NPCs; sure, it would be nice to have actual side quests about them, but the amount we got left me frankly amazed, and very hopeful for the future of this series in terms of representation. Speaking of which, this game does not even attempt to hide the camp of the original, instead embracing it and amplifying it to such an unprecedented extent, it's brilliant. Moreover, there's so much fun humour, bizarre PS1/2 era style side activities full of absurdity, Rebirth really seems to understand what make Final Fantasy so fun, fresh, and entertaining. If I have one minor gripe though, I do wish the affinity system gave you choices rather than forcing whoever had the highest, that left a somewhat bad taste in my mouth when the 'personalisation of your journey' was personalised against me, lol. Granted, the characters in this game are so amazing, I'll take bonding with any of them.

I have to give a special shout out to how they handled Red and his section at Cosmo Canyon, one of my favourite parts of the original. Not only did they restore his missing characterisation from the awful og loc, but they went above and beyond turning it into this magical place full of philosophy and pacifism, and delivering an even more emotional conclusion to his story. And that doesn't even begin to cover other additions, such as a certain heart-wrenching bonfire scene that I'm sure minorities of all kinds can relate to, as well as a significant expansion of lore mostly left uncovered in the original game.

The soundtrack is probably one of the best I've ever experienced in a video game, with such massive variety and outrageously good bangers, even for the most minor of moments. It might actually be THE best video game soundtrack for me, which is saying something—though I'll need to wait for the honeymoon period to end first.

I don't want to say much on the ending, but I have ended up on the side that loves it, contrasting Remake where I enjoyed it but felt the execution was pretty messy. The emotional core this time was massively more successful for me, and it makes me ridiculously excited to see how they bring this trilogy, no, entire compilation to its conclusion. Honestly, the only reason I can't give this game a perfect score is because it is admittedly fairly reliant on the next part sticking the landing, and I have seen many stories push resolution of unreasonable amounts of plot threads onto their finale, pretty much setting it up for failure in addressing them all satisfyingly. I have a lot of faith in Nojima and the rest of the team to tie it up well, but I'll keep my expectations in check for now.

After all... no promises await at journey's end.

Freed from the shackles of traditional video game structure, the FF7 team went so far above and beyond that it's hard to fathom. No one is coming to this game without having played the original or Remake, so the heavy lifting in terms of story and characters is already accounted for. The game instead focuses its ambition entirely inward, creating the most expansive and compelling game of the AAA Open World Action-Adventure RPG genre -- by embracing Final Fantasy 7 to the highest extent.

They took the winning formulas of FFVII Remake's battle system, and overlayed 100 hours worth of quests, minigames, and exploration that consistently surprises and delights. While some elements may feel a little like chores, it never feels compulsary (unless you plan to 100% the game). Instead all of this adds up to constant new experiences that add color to the world. Even just walking through a new zone, seeing all of the unique assets created for the game makes you feel like you're feasting on the most premium digital world ever created. The most impressive thing about this is that the team didn't need to do any of this. They could have had a strict chapter structure like Remake with smaller cities a faux open world, and we all would have accepted that. But instead they wanted to make something vast and worthy of the ambition of a Final Fantasy Game. It's not a perfect game, but even when things don't quite works.... it works! It's the most imperfect game I would say is a 10/10.

Of course having such a big game take place in the first half of the second act of FF7, the story's stakes and character development is limited by default. There are of course plot twists and the big question everyone is wondering about what will happen to Aerith. It was obviously a challenge to keep a sense of forward momentum and keep the big conflict at the top of mind, but I think they did succeed, even when they made choices to delay some plot points. There is a lot of repetition but still feels well paced.

Part 3 still has a tall task ahead of itself, especially with the ways that this game raises the stakes above Remake. However I do have faith and I think we will all look at The FF7 Remake Series as a real pinnacle of long-form storytelling.

This game is all that I ever wanted to see when I was a child. Seeing all these amazing environments with our current tech was truly emotional for me (with Cosmo Canyon region being my favorite again). Besides nostalgia, the environments are so full of life and storytelling, that you can spend hours just exploring the cities and wilderness and finding new things that the devs put in there. The cities are very different from what we see today, showing the level of creativity of past games and how far we can achieve by using the power of today's consoles.

They managed to improve the battle system and enemy variation, it's awesome to see that each region has its own enemies and has a different style to play on battle strategy, traversability and side quests. AND YES, side quests in this game are MUCH better than its predecessor, its not perfect, but its in the right direction.

Feel free though to skip all the side content from the game and focus only on the story, you won't need to grind too much in this game to complete the story. By the end the bosses gets a little difficult but I'm sure you can handle it. Yes we have towers and filler open world contend, but I'm ok with as long as the game don't force you to do it (which I didn't feel as it forced). Some of the side content are really funny and other ones are just annoying (I'm talking about you, Fort Condor mini game), but overall, it's a really nice experience.

The graphics are a bit inconsistent, where there are areas with awesome lighting and composition, but there are others that the shaders don't behave well with the current lighting settings, creating weird shadows and artifacts (especially with hairs). This happen more often on caves and closed spaces that relies too much on global illumination, places that has a good amount of artificial lights (like the mako reactors) are very beautiful to look at.

Now the only thing that I didn't like too much was the end, that it was a bit confusing and I needed to watch a couple of times before fully understanding it (or I think I did), and there's one thing that I think it seemed a bit less important than in the OG (in my opinion). So much things happenend by the end of the game that the major happening of this part was a bit messy. Anyway, definitely try this game out if you are a fan of Final Fantasy and RPGs in general.

I was absorbed by this game for 2 months. On a personal level. I feel I felt more engaged in Remake, just because that game entire focus was on the main story. Rebirth the main story was a bit more of an afterthought. That doesn't mean they were bad or felt out of place, It just affected your pacing alot if you were committed to doing everything. So much so you had to remember were you were in the story when you finally got back to it.

I also do have criticisms on 10-round VR tasks. It felt like I spent a week slamming my head against a wall looking for the right approach, learning fights and with YT videos to get pasts the last few.

All in all, I do like where they're going, eat up the theorycrafting and can't wait for the conclusion.

For all intents and purposes, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth AKA part 2 of the FF7 project is an outstanding remake that should be praised, critiqued, and enjoyed by fans of the original and newcomers to any JRPG coming from part 1. And for me I have a Midgar-size to unload. First, I’m no expert in determining if a remake and sequel to the first portion of Final Fantasy VII Remake with a massive AAA budget can succeed in its lofty ambitions or at the very least decisively conclude it is better than the first installment. My criteria differ from everyone’s standards, but I’ll try to fairly judge the awesome substance along with detailing what it could improve.

I do want to state before I start that I'm not a fan of FFVII(1997). Doesn’t mean I hate it or it is automatically bad. I favorably look at aspects they brought to the table by evolving from the past entries. What works, what doesn’t, offer evidence behind claims, critique, move on. The series core has a way of continually shifting and embarking on new journeys than retreading old familiar grounds. Sequels are the exception. For what it's worth, the seventh in the series is firmly within my top ten. And I've played over 23 titles in the IP. So I'm average with the lore, story, characters of the world. Devoured the connecting spin-offs, anime, film, and light novels. Heck, my first unofficial entry to the franchise is via Crisis Core for the planet's sake. As a result, I like quite a fair bit of the universe created. I say this early on to defuse any misconceptions of negativity. I’ll try to keep the following text as spoiler free as possible. Failing that, you have my explicit permission to call upon Ramuh to smite me down. Or Ifrit if you prefer scorched BBQ.

Bear with me as I put my mixed feelings first then move onto the good stuff. Merely concerns I had in varying degrees of quality tilting my head at various moments during my adventure.

I’m disappointed to say those who didn’t like the first entries' linear sections, make a dreaded return here. There’s so much padding nearly everywhere. I’m forced to overcome numerous obstacles through a straight path. Impeding my progress. Blocks on the road where I cannot move at my own pace from A to B. Unless I find a solution to my current barriers. Hurdles of screen of tutorials will display providing information on the unique circumstances to progress. From beginning-middle until endgame. The messages never end in both main and side content. Not all of them are frustrating, but I can’t for the life of me praise at least one during a mandatory plot segment. Use a mako vacuum to overcome an obstacle while walking unbearably slow. Rerouting power via cables, climbing passages galore, sling-like Tarzan with grappling wooden/steel beams. Where my buddies consist of a frowning, no-nonsense mercenary, an endearing flower girl, a thug with a gun on his arm, a bartender/pugilist, and a talking dog who must undergo these mundane annoyances. Don’t get me started with unwilling stealth zones in some mandatory and side stuff as well. Stretching the avenue in mindless work of what would otherwise be a normal route with some leeway to explore in a regular dungeon taking the fun and excitement out of my body. An illusion tricking my mind of the ‘ooohhh’ and ‘ahhhing’ of spectacle.

To be fair, I didn’t mind these obstruction elements early on, but when I'm grumbling to repeat yet another ascending rock, ninja labors, and new tutorials to solve my current dilemma. Though, I won’t call them ‘puzzles’ but more like mindless busywork solvable by process of elimination. In effect halting the pacing and making me groan internally once again. The first had these as well, and for what it is worth it's an improvement from XIII and XV’s iterations from the usual hallway simulators and open-world nature. However, I still didn’t like the beeline routes in the remake. Whereas in the original release. I didn't need to spend hours in a dungeon. For example, in one large layout without saying any spoilers. Took me over five hours to complete. In the initial game, the same dungeon took an hour - <- spoilers for the original game inside link. To complete everything. I checked the reported lengths to complete the game and users online said similar times. Not gonna link due to spoilers, but if you check YouTube on dungeon comparison in walkthroughs. Such as mine taking four to five hours to complete the same place. Likewise, one dungeon near the end feels so forced to play as one character and engage in yet no one's surprise a linear path. Taking the haunting vibes in favor of a frustrating if not cute atmosphere marred by boxes… Just no no no. Not to say every dungeon takes that amount of time, but it is something to note going forward. With that said I feel most of these large dense places need to be cut in my honest opinion. I didn’t come here to play a three-hour chunk to reach the next adventure beat.

Don’t get me wrong, Square Enix’s work on the title has already been shown earlier in the first part to detail not a 1 to 1 retelling of the same game. Kind of a sequel/modern/recreation/re-imagining take to the past FFVII compilation/universe. Designed as a way to give old and new players a fresh, but familiar take of the aforementioned classic from 1997. Rebirth and the preceding title stretch both the material in ways I'm still coming to grips years later for better or worse.

For comparison, I recorded my entire playthrough, dividing the main scenario, optional content, and dungeon sectors and I can only conclude the dungeons will take at minimum depending on how fast and how thorough you are in exploring and battling or running. At least an hour to three hours on average. For each dungeon. Coming from someone like me who likes to explore a lot and attain as much as I can, that's a pretty long time. When put side-by-side with the extra content I devoured against the story-only segments, I emerged with less than fifty hours for the story, and the rest were completing the countless minigames and non-base content. For a total of 88 hours. And honestly I was tired by the end. Partially due to the fact of the repetitive nature. Finishing 95% of total activities except 2 side quests(which requires mini-game completion), replaying the entire length on hard difficulty with post-game challenges as well. How Long to Beat & the trophy guide will show analogous data to attain 100%. Granted times will vary. Don’t take my hours as definitive. Playstyles will differ. In my case, I don’t idle. And I don’t rush. So the numbers given above are raw gameplay completing activities.

Perhaps instead of climbing, stealth, and other hurdles we face on repeat. I would’ve favored these aspects more if the developers Creative Business Unit I(CBUI) introduced new, unfamiliar, and fun obstacles to overcome than recycling and reusing the same old methods. Letting us use an elevator or slide our way to the top somehow. Instead of sneaky mode, implement a dialogue check at different points if they are disguised. There is already a relationship meter atop our characters' heads to reflect their current status to Cloud, changing depending on answers given to the recipient. Thus I can’t imagine it can’t be too hard to inject for one passage. Heck, it's kind of similar to passing the lie/truth side-scenario in the Dust Bowl. Since there is plenty of clambering, why not include an extensive platforming branch or puzzle tomb to get from one starting place up to the treasure room? Traversal and how to get there would’ve been a wonderful inclusion. Think Assassin’s Creed’s Ezio when hunting for relics in tombs, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or the titular character from Prince of Persia to avoid many traps. Moreover, the man with a machine gun arm could’ve demolished rock obstacles in my way not repetitively, but if I was trapped in a cave with multiple paths. Blasting different boulders atop could help stop a wave of monsters incoming on our positions. The talking dog could be used to enter smaller entryways to unlock a roadway for my allies. I could think of more possible ones, but I don’t want to litter pages here. Instead, this is to display how I could think of alternate suggestions I thought within 10 minutes. Imagine if everyone who played could say different ideas. Says a lot for an over hundred-hour game to constantly recycle the same old methods. Resulting in predictableness and dullness.

Would benefit immensely from a skip minigame option for both the story and optional content. I don't want to go through a boring repeating button segment. Hitting a specific combination on a controller or the same old solution moving a slowpoke of a cart again. Every single time I go and sync with a summon you have to hit a specific order of presses to bond. I have no idea why I have to do this three times on repeat. And there are more than eight in the game… Furthermore, anytime I have to receive regional lore concerning any place I have to press a timed button and again three times for each place. I need to repeat these mind-numbing routines in a handful of regions. A simple shortcut option would work wonderfully instead of forcing the player to engage with the systems. In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 I was able to skip their contrived restrictions of familiar button minigames with no sweat nor downtime. To the point, I earned a reward for completing the activity!

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth isn’t just a JRPG it’s a game spliced with Ubisoft Tower DNA. I kid you not I traveled dozens of these in regions to show nearby locations. I don’t have to unlock them, since you can stumble upon them if you stray from your main objective. But I felt I had to experience everything the game had to offer. Not purely for the story. The side content deserves to be experienced. In a YMMV area. And so climbing the tall structures is nearly the same for everyone. Usually with monsters nearby and barely any change in obstacles soaring to the top. Horizon Zero Dawn uses the same Ubisoft formula except with walking dinosaurs and every time you scale their appendages presents a challenge to get onto the robo-dino. I liked it. Was a fresh take on the formula. Part 2, doesn’t mobilize with creativity and at its most basic form clones the same functional schematic. I wish I could snipe it from far away to activate if something is blocking the antenna. Use a thunder spell, or slap fire spell to destroy vines forming an obstacle. One obstacle I liked was flying to my destination. Though, such an example only occurred in one region. Hence, I feel the developers could’ve created innovative endeavors rather than having to resort back to good old recycling. And I’ve played my decent share of Ubisoft tower games being over 12 entries. If players enjoy these types of rising to the top then I salute you. But for me, Square could do better.

This is relative in the world being a checklist and lifeless at times. All regions barely have anyone in their region to converse and interact with when roaming. Most if not all quest givers are located in their respective cities and towns. And yes there are other denizens within the settlements to converse with, but it is all located mostly with other people. This is painful to witness and experience when I am on the road and admiring the landscape and come across new mobs, but see the same types once I travel enough in a region. Expanding on the checklist most if not all side activities boil down to extermination monsters, fetch chores in retrieving an ingredient from the said place or creature, and returning to the employer. Variations will exist sometimes like following a person delving into one more stealth section or traversing on a mount. But most boil down to boring design. Some of which made me excavate using my chocobo’s senses to follow a trail and then dig for the item. One assignment had me use a sort of radar to find the exact location. No arrow at all except a circle pulsing. I think if the world was more populated adding in travelers. Not allocating all job-givers in a single location within settlements and introducing better sidequest implementation. The execution of which leaves a lot to be desired. Better investigations. Reduction in fetches in favor of already having the item in our stock or bartering for it while giving off a lore bit during discussion. Increase variation in fiend secondary objectives than the standard pressure, stagger, and kill everyone. Or remove them entirely. Such a lack of meaningful implementation leaves me filled with busy work and more like a chore than a fulfilling endeavor to look forward to. Leaving me in a state of confusion and bewilderment.

I did not like the restricted freedom in traversal, whether on foot or on mounts. Regions you encounter being large zones to freely travel there’s a steady amount of verticality to head towards whether above or low normal elevation. Nevertheless, I hit multiple invisible walls constantly as I tried to jump from a very tall cliff to the bottom since some places I traversed didn’t land where I was supposed to. I tried jumping off a cliff only to fail, thereby I had to go all the way around before finally landing on my destination. This is infuriating. Why can’t I jump from the tallest point and suffer an HP cost or none? The year is 2024 and I can’t believe I have to say this, but the game has no shortage of invisible walls. Pressing a button on your controller will help speed you down a sharp incline only if there are ‘steps.’ Without these you’re SOL. What’s baffling is two mounts circumventing these issues entirely, but my character, an EX-soldier can’t land from a high elevation? Square Enix please play Xenoblade Chronicles and take notes.

By extension, I don’t like having to manually gather materials anytime on foot or a mount. Yet when I acquired traversal vehicles later on I could gather them automatically. I’m again mystified why I can auto-pick them up through a mount but have to resort to manual pick-ups of materials I may need. The devs clearly knew earlier on. Except I'm forced once again to enlist with tediousness. And trust me the game litters the world with common, uncommon, and rare materials to freely transmute as if I'm some impromptu full metal alchemist. Good luck trying to get the right ones if you can’t find them for some quests requiring key items to be made.

Without saying spoilers. A new addition to the remake is Interlude sequences. These consist of playable sections using a certain character I won’t name. But suffice it to say I feel their global inclusion needs to be overhauled. Similar, but different from ones like FFVIII. There we could battle, earn experience, change our equipment, interact, talk to both the citizenry, and volunteer in fun activities. Here we barely interact with the world and are stuck in a linear pattern to complete before we're back on the main content. And this is a mandatory story. So you can’t bypass it. It is like teasing older veterans on you know what, but you actually can’t do much of anything. A missed opportunity to interest both old and new in the figure which I like quite a fair bit. Remember what I said previously about padding? We could use the AAA budget in the interlude, please. Not less than ten minute moments.

I feel the pacing and major villain suffer in consistency as I absorbed and devoured as much of the game. The former(pacing) is tangled in a web of Ubisoft towers with poor sidequest implementation coupled with an absence of quality of life regarding countless button assignments leaves me fatigued despite resting on days to embrace a slow-burn plot that doesn’t hit their strides until later on. The latter(villain) and extends to minor antagonists feel like someone teasing me from far away. As if “Na na na you can’t get me.” Accurate from the original yet becomes more infuriating with the lack of any real achievement upon fighting them. By achievement, only a small modicum of advancement, fluff, and perchance a bit of drama details emerge to move the group along and ascertain with one another “ All right so what have we learned, and what can we do better?” Reusing the same old trick again when moving on. Although, some segments do spice up the encounters to be different and unique. The fact I only saw their interactions change and the climax propelling faster near the endgame. And not in the middle of the game’s story. There’s a lot of focus on padding unnecessary content without giving proper characterization. One chapter takes place in a cave and after voice lines are given from an enemy encounter, I have control of my members only to realize they barely engage in banter. Calling out their moves sure and mottos yes. But nothing to extend their relationship further with bonds. Maddening to witness going through multiple sections with nothing but silence as my companion. While in reverse when finishing some side activities I am treated to some pure development straight from the heart. And here I am left wondering what in the gates hell is going on with my non-existent friendly banter. Did they run out of expenses for more voice lines? Or was it all used for Chadley's (a friendly NPC from the preceding entry) budget because his face is the most I’ve seen whenever I initiate any side activity… wish some of the money went into a M&*(New NPC) budget.

Perhaps the biggest offender to me is the motivation to complete the main story. Any game worth their salt needs to have a compelling plot. We can reduce this simple notion to some regular examples. Revenge, stop ‘x’ person, find out why I have missing memories, find a method for ‘y’ idea. Etc etc. Within the 2024 title, our task is to stop someone who-I-shall-not-name but you can probably figure out who. Along with the goal of saving the planet is sorely lacking. The turtle pace narrative walks instead of blazes. Out of the total 14 chapters, only the chapter [blank] finally moved the glaciers out of my way in my opinion. Some of which were merely a warm-up. By the end, I didn’t feel like I reached a definitive answer to my motivation at the start and was left helpless, confused, and horribly misled.

Lastly, maybe a hot take, I couldn’t help but feel a decent amount of camera work stayed too far on certain antagonists as if to give importance or impending doom. The former of which I don’t need to know the layout of a room before hitting the dude's clothing drip or his lips. The latter of which relates to my point on the villain as if poking at the player to remember they are still a grave and present threat looming over their heads. And the ‘headaches’ we receive frequently to distort our reality into a green filter television flashback in ala schizophrenia leaves me groaning every time I see it. I know the man is in pain. I know he is suffering. Yes, I will expect another occurrence again in the following cutscene. With minor variations in between. Makes me think of splendor shots as if the cutscene director wants their audience to embrace the spectacle. And to its credit, some very impressive moments took my breath away. However, not every shot or angle is up to par and I’m sad to report the camera work at times feels excessive to the point of unnecessary.

I hope my mixed feelings aren't a turnoff. Think of them as major concerns that severely impacted my overall experience. Merely trying to say the above text could be better and improved from what didn’t work out for me. Not to be taken as the ultimate egregious stain upon the landscape of gaming or JRPGs in general. And if some take that to heart well you have my permission to send Bahamut to obliterate me. Besides, the game could be far worse… like full of microtransactions, bugs, and crashes, improper balancing, nonsensical narrative, boring characters, a weak villain, etc. Yet I'm glad to report the game is nothing like those horrible examples. Anyway, now is the time for the awesome stuff. With our party exiting Midgar and embracing the wild wilderness outside the yoke of Shinra’s capital. To find answers and well hunt someone-who-I-again-shall-not-name.

Rebirth is faithful and bold. Excelling in recreating some of my favorite spots back in the original and enhancing nearly everything from combat, music, cutscenes, bonds between friends, etc. I could imagine. The over-and-beyond soundtrack and great range in the countless voice actors to the satisfying combat are nearly the same as the first installment but the addition of synergy skills adds a new tactical layer of syncing up with my ally and delivering punishing blows. And the pleasing visual aesthetic of seeing Kalm, the first town you visit is breathtaking, but more so for every city/town you visit as well. Like by the lifestream seeing Junon with a big freaking cannon jutting out into the ocean still gives me shivers. Cosmo Canyon, a place if anyone ever visited the Grand Canyon in America is of a comparable breadth and scale except steampunked and teeming with monsters, but futuristic with windmills and strapped to the rocky cliffside and denizens living freely without the yoke of oppression from Shinra. Without a doubt, the locations are given maxed attention in both scale and exploration to freely travel between several layers of a city. Don’t get me started on the jungles of Gongaga. I embraced my inner gaga over there.

Characters by far receive adequate characterization and some of their development is hidden in their sidequests. The quality of which is just as satisfying to witness once you earn the end of a side objective. My man with a machine gun easily hits powerful lines almost every time he reflects or delivers passionate speeches. Played by John Eric Bentley, he delivers words like a critical point past midpoint and hidden within a cutscene delving deep into his past providing not only proper development but nuance in his self-reflections concerning others. Most of all he’s not afraid to say it and I deeply admire him. Making his actions later on with his comrades heartwarming. Briana White who voices Aerith equally delivers an emotional range from funny and wholesome to genuinely gripping me with her performances. I saw neither cringe nor an inadequacy of tone in any of my allies in general and as a result, the cutscenes pertaining to each of my comrades' screen time were enjoyable. Heck, the talking dog rises past mountains and bites the cosmos zenith delivering one of the funniest scenes in the game. To the point, I prefer this version’s take than the old one haha. And the sheer range they undergo, once I learn new facets of their personality, is both amusing and shocking. I also feel there’s a greater emotional spectrum at play here concerning the main cast. Tifa and Aerith’s budding friendship is heartening to observe as are the darker feelings my cabal undergoes when the narrative dips back into the dark hold of Shinra’s all-encompassing reach over the planet. For every nice moment my group encounters a looming shadow is stalking them. And I like how not all is fine and dilly dally. Makes the cast relatable and human. Although, I wish Cloud would emote a bit. His facial expression is too stoic at times, but when he does delve into more emotions oh it is a sight…

The cinematography is oh my lord exceptionally well done. I know I groaned about the slow burn early on, and some camera work being excessive but goodness, when you cross after the midpoint. The story cutscenes set the tone right - Clean sequences, no hard cuts constantly to confuse the viewer on the action moments and landing the poignant spots when needed. With the voice actors enhancing these scenes to the limit. Various points during the endgame were magical and beautiful. The flow of which offers a nice break from the usual humor and fluff from the side scenarios reeling back the curtain of the main adventure. But I must say, one long sidequest chain being proto-relics regarding the super boss is pretty sick and the attention to detail and care is lovingly crafted. Fans of the series will take special gratification in experiencing all their quirks and epicness.

No copy-paste for enemies and most environments. By the end of my journey I found a total of 230 unique enemies. No different colored variations or slight increases in HP and power differences either. These mobs will chew and spit you out if you’re not careful. On normal difficulty I found the balance to be justtttt right. Didn’t find battles too easy or too insurmountable. Environments for the most part didn’t repeat as if the 3D artists got lazy. Every area you visit, be it a city/town or a hidden place tucked away reveals something beautiful and mesmerizing. I can’t count the number of times I admired the land and embraced the call of nature. Screw the main assignment and subsidiary content. I’m becoming a photographer! Heck check out some of these shots.

No complaints whatsoever for part 2 shatters the limit break on soundscape design. I would equate it similarly to how FFXVI composition goes but differently. I can’t help but notice whenever I gather new intel the music would dynamically change. Specifically towers. Vocals and instrumentals are more fleshed out as you embrace more intel and my god almighty I'm reminded of whenever FFXIV introduces a new trailer for their expansion you don’t get the full trailer, instead you get a teaser before getting the full course meal. Essentially we listen to an adequate sampler then upon reward hear a better-improved version as I progressed in each region is incredible. And good lord almighty Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki the composers hit the baseball flying into a homerun reaching outer space. It's phenomenal. No copy-paste and recycling of old tracks. You will undoubtedly hear new remixes, arrangements, instrumentals, vocals and so much more while playing. Shifting and changing as I played more and more. Battles, sidejobs, new areas, main story, and cutscenes all have their unique flair of variety. Resonating with my ears. By the time I entered one weird region called Gongaga, I put my controller down and had my hands over my eyes. Silently listening to powerful emotional moments brought by flute wind and percussion instruments among others I can’t for the life of me identify due to screaming internally how a track touches my heart. For those who played a certain title in the FF7 compilation I 100% felt one person's spirit manifested and oh so pure. The feeling is Indescribable. And then I'm treated to a bow wow wow as if I'm suddenly transported onto a jolly happy place filled with children chorusing a heartwarming rendition to give me enough incentive to conquer anything and everyone in my path. Move over final boss. Once I’m listening to the beat of the bow wow I am unstoppable!

Pivoting to minigames, some of which are truly enjoyable to the extent I kept coming back. Out of more than a dozen to play around with. Without any contest. I must say Queen’s Blood(QB) reigns supreme. Fans of the series know about the Triple Triad, a 3x3 grid where you and one other player duke it out card style to win. QB is similar except we have a bigger grid to manage along with more cards to fiddle around with. Up to fifteen. I won’t go into explaining the mechanics, rather I want to say how satisfying it is to go through the side content and challenge QB players who have a passion for the cards. Bonus points for the team to cheekily take great notes from The Witcher 3’s Gwent pre-match camera angles cause man Cloud and whoever he faces offers a mean frowning “Come and get some!” face-off before entering the battle stage. And thankfully enough the difficulty is balanced I would say. There’s an interesting questline integrated into beating new and experienced veterans only to secure the thrilling conclusion near the end. Such care and thought only deserve every ounce of praise in my eyes. Rules feel fair, thankfully not overly complex. Large assortment of cards to collect and over thirty people to challenge and partake in special survival and puzzle matches too! Seriously makes me wonder if we'll face off a new big bad villain with a card game in the next installment. I can't wait! I need this version in FFXIV please!

Anyway, here are other fantastic ones to try. Leapfrog aka Frogger is a nice way to avoid the spinning beams. Fort Condor goes all out on low poly tower defense. Running Wild is like Rocket League, except with animals. 3D-Brawler is an awesome boxing game using poly characters of our members vs poly enemies. Galactic Saviors is an on-rail shooter ala star-fox kind. Can’t forget a full course Chocobo racing with separate tournaments to enter. Honestly, that one feels like its own game with different races to enter. Heck, there’s even a Wall-E-like Tower defense, but you can input your gambits. I could list extra, but I’ll refrain.

Despite what I said earlier about the padding of both story and optional content. To play devil's advocate against myself I do think on the flip side. The result of engaging with the subsidiary content reveals vital characterization for your companions. I touched on the notion with a machine gun guy. But to expand further without getting into the nitty gritty. If a player finishes all the main story content before moving into a new region and decides to complete remaining the side missions within the area. They are treated to an aftermath of story events prior about my friends. Mostly at the conclusion. Sometimes calling back to familiar NPCs we met and knew about in the past game. Making their presence feel more alive in developing their interpersonal relationships. We also get payoffs on some unanswered inquiries regarding our side-cast in the midpoint. Reveal startling lore bombs on what we know of the planet and as you dove deeper reveal further details. By endgame, I ultimately liked the ambition and deviations shifting outside the norm conceptually and with respect to certain areas to old material in a modern form. But can’t help but think their execution needs work to make it fun and gratifying. If I am treated to a tedious quest design only to reveal a paragraph of lines of development from the main cast to the side cast or vice-versa within the entire product to give me joy. Then I think something needs to change to make the long-term experience enjoyable and not half-and-half.

A triple ‘A’ JRPG remake of this caliber is a sight to behold. However, in my honest opinion, it could be improved a lot. Despite the praise I stated previously, it is not without imperfections. My numerous mixed feelings severely impacted my overall experience to the point I found underneath the splendor lies a stern absence of respecting the player’s time and freedom to participate in its padded nature. A shortage of quality-of-life features like a simple skip minigame(than a reduction in difficulty, from the latest patch) or lessening the involuntary barriers during linear slices. Would’ve done wonders to not forcibly engage with the long dungeons included thereby halting the pacing and breaking the momentum of the plot beats. And an ending I'm frankly disappointed at which I’ll explain more in a separate spoiler link regarding a breakdown why. Though I am glad many enjoyed this title greatly, I can't help but feel wary if I constantly fill the Square Enix’s CBUI heads with clouds of praise without fair critique. That is why I find this title enormously troublesome to rate fairly. After spending weeks bashing my head back and forth, plus reading what my friends had to say and reading those on the other side praising/enjoying/loving everything Rebirth has to offer. I am still shaking my head in distress. Furthermore, I don’t like being baited or teased endlessly, and inside the 2024 title clearly showed plenty. If you’re onboard with that and more such as exploding your suspension of disbelief at times then you will have no problem turning off your brain here. I’m still kinda looking forward to the last entry, but the bigger question I’ve been asking myself is if this remake/re-imagining is something all other companies will take heavy inspiration from and I believe they should for the right reasons. Left unsaid I hope my overall conclusion doesn’t deter the game from prospective buyers. My intention is never to be harsh on a game from which fans adore everything the remake offers. But to inform with evidence what worked well and what didn’t for me. And pray the information helps someone.

5.7/10

Additional Material:
FFVII - Rebirth Ending Analysis - good defense on why this works - ending spoilers
My spoiler thoughts on FFVII Rebirth. Every chapter breakdown - same warning as above

I had an absolute blast with this one. The amount of content on offer here is absolutely incredible. I can't even begin to imagine how much effort this must have taken to make.
Not everything is good (I really dislike Chadley), but the good outweighs the bad by a long shot.
Music is amazing. Gameplay is great. Graphics are top-notch. The open world is ...ehhh, I could have done with less of that. Some mini-games would be good enough to be their own stand-alone games (chocobo racing and queen's blood card game). You can easily find yourself trying to get the highest score, but you'll probably enjoy the game more if you don't do that.

Every character gets their own spotlight in the main story and all side-quests involve at least one of your party members in some way.

The cinematics are really beautiful and always a treat. Such a beautiful game.

Highly recommend it. I really hope the next game doesn't have Chadley or that at least there's less of him. I hate Chadley.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is truly a marvelous achievement, as is the ambitious project it belongs to. The already great cast feels better than ever before and the enormous world is full of unique and fun activities. The story is excellent with many high points, and while the finale is inconclusive, it gives a lot of food for thought regarding the next game. I believe that despite some minor faults, this is the pinnacle of an open-world, character-driven JRPG, and a truly enjoyable game, with a great OST to boot. Even if someone wasn’t a fan of FFVII Remake, I think this game does a very good job addressing some of its issues. It took me around 130 hours to finish the first playthrough and complete its side content. Highly recommended to fans of an action-packed game or an epic story and to those who love mini-games.

The full review can be read here!

I don't know what to feel about this game. On some aspects it's the game that I've dreamed of when I first played the original FF7 16 years ago, but on the other hand the game has some baffling narrative and design decisions that halted my enjoyment.

I hated the changes made to the story in FF7 Remake, however as time passed, I accepted these changes. I want to be clear that it's not the fact of that they were changing the story that I hated. What I hated was the direction that these changes were taking, that I don't trust Nomura as a coherent storyteller (kingdom hearts is a mess) and the rumors that you'll need to play multiple games to understand the story (like the mobile game and the battle royale).

Nevertheless, I came into this game curious where this could go, specially regarding to the events that occur at the end of Disc 1 of the original. Plus, the themes of accepting loss and the past, not letting this define your future and that you can always change who you are, are themes that can be as strong in your late 20's as they were in your early teens.

Finally regarding, the game itself. I will divide this into two sections, gameplay and story.

GAMEPLAY
Chapter 2 gives you a pretty good idea on how the template for this game is going to be. An open world area with side activities, that can be combat based or minigame based.

The combat is definitely the highlight of the gameplay. The combat is basically the same as in Remake with Synergy abilities. You do normal attacks, to fill in your ATB bar so you can use a special ability or a spell. When you do multiple abilities with two characters those characters can perform a synergy ability for increase damage or stat boost. The enemies are usually weak to a certain element and exploiting those weaknesses fills in the pressure bar staggering them allowing you to do increased damage.
Without going into much detail, I can say that every character feels unique and you have a reason to always switch your party around depending on the encounters.
The combat is accompanied by a great leveling and customizing systems, that don't feel overly complex.
The first system is a skill tree that unlocks as you increase your party level (this increases by doing sidequests, side activities and playing the story). In this skill tree you can spend points earned in combat to unlock new abilities and improve stats.
The second is the materia system, which is, in my opinion, the best customizing system Final Fantasy has. Basically materia, can be linked to your weapons and equipment, and materia can bring new skills and spells, augment certain stats, or linked with another materia to improve one another.
The final system are the weapons. Each weapons has unique stats, different materia slots and a skill. Once you used a weapon and a skill enough you can use that weapon's skill with any weapon. So you are incentivize to always use the new weapon until you mastered that skill, and then switch to one that has either better stats or materia slots to your liking.

Now the second part of the exploration, the mini games. In the first area you are introduced to three minigames, queen's blood, fort condor and the chocobo catching. Throughout the game you are introduced to more minigames to a total of 30. Now, there are some minigames that I heavily dislike, and that really impacted my enjoyment of the game, such as the Piano one, the sit ups, the 3d brawler. However, this is not my main problem with the minigames, that will be how many there are and how they are integrated within the game. To give you an idea there is an entire chapter dedicated to Queen Blood and on the next chapter the majority of it is to play different minigames to unlock a new area, and when you finally unlock that area a new harder version of those minigames unlocks. And these chapters are before the gold saucer, so when you get there you are expecting to spend a bunch of your time trying new minigames, but are already burned out on these, as you spent two chapters just doing minigames. Besides some gear is linked with the minigames so if you want that gear you need to master those minigames.
The amount of minigames, the way they are distributed and the need to master those made me feel like I was playing a Mario Party game and not a RPG. This is my major gripe with the gameplay. I feel like I've spent more time with these minigames then with the combat and leveling up.

STORY
I will be brief because of spoilers.
The retelling of the classic moments is where this game truly shines. It changes some aspects because Yuffie and Vincent are no longer secret characters so they have to be in the story, but these are the kind of changes that I understand and enjoy.
The story is truly timeless and the best moments of the original are heightened by the beautiful graphics and OST. Seeing these scenes makes you understand why so many people wanted a remake of this game. This story deserves to be told in a more cinematic manner. The dungeon design in the story is perfect, and when I was playing these I did not want to put the controller down.
However, the problems that I have with nomura's direction still hold. Everything to do with the Whispers is just confusing and sounds like nonsense. There are changes done to THAT moment, that I'm kind of mixed on it.

However, when I finished this game I felt an emptiness inside, like I was going to miss the time I've spent with these characters, and few games made me feel like this.
Will I want to replay it? The story missions and combat absolutely. The mini games never.

Flawed, unfocused, thematic whiplash, philosophically opaque ... but also wonderful, beautiful, emotionally honest, grandiose, empathetic and just ... such a great time. I have a lot of thoughts on this, I think it's filled to the brim with ideas and stories and themes that it doesn't manage to meaningfully connect or synthesize to a wholly satisfying gesamtkunstwerk, to the point that it sometimes feels like it actively works against some of the themes of the original. But I really honestly feel like in the end, once everything is done, once you fought your way through the 75 final bosses, you really do feel on a visceral emotional level what it's all about and why it's worth it to care, and what the game is trying to say about our world and our place in it.

It takes very long to get there and there are large stretches where nothing much relevant happens (or, and this is my biggest criticism, where the game is implying all sorts of different threads and ideas that it then doesn't really follow up on), but it does get there. And what I got to play in-between is one of my favorite JRPGs ever, with what might be my favorite combat system of all time, some phenomenal environment and creature design, series-best character and cinematic direction, very clever structure and mission design, a never-ending stream of creative and unique ideas ... and genuinely one of the best soundtracks of all time. Holy shit, the music in this is so good, it's unbelievable how a soundtrack this versatile and this inspired, one that has to do so much heavy-lifting both in terms of background music and emotionally leading a scene, can be so consistently great. Good stuff.

Hot take: Queen's Blood isn't actually all that great. Sorry!

No Promises Await at Journey’s End

— Exposition —
I wasn’t a fan of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The story felt outdated and confusing, the pacing was all over the place, and the visuals and music were underwhelming. The only standouts that kept me playing were the characters and the combat. The game’s difficulty and balance were also a massive point of pressure for me.

— Introduction —
105 hours later (triple the length of my Remake play through), Rebirth improves and fixes almost every single thing I didn’t enjoy about Remake and then some.

There’s so much I could go into about this game, but I’m gonna try to compress it as much as possible. (Skip to conclusion at bottom for TL;DR)

— The Review —
Over three times the playtime, an open world that rivals some of the biggest I’ve ever seen, and one of the best stories I’ve ever experienced.

From the very start, I was immediately captivated by the story so much more than the original game, and by the end, I was in tears. While it was still huge and confusing, I never truly felt “lost” with the story. And oh my god these characters. I love them all so much and feel every single emotion they go through in this game.

The score is phenomenal though it still doesn’t rival some of Square-Enix’s other games for me. Aerith’s theme though will probably make me cry every time I hear it.

The game’s visuals and art direction are breathtaking, especially in comparison to the first game and the tech advancements behind it are even more impressive.

The open world is one of the largest, most diverse, and fun to explore in all of gaming. Almost all of the side content is really fun and engaging though does lack much in the realm of reward besides experiencing some really cool little side stories. There is a bit of an overabundance of side content in my opinion if you want to 100% complete the game. However, I really think you can skip the large majority of it and not miss out on much.

After all of this, is it a perfect game? Absolutely not. Unfortunately, my number one point that I did not enjoy about the game was one of the biggest issues I had with Remake as well. The difficulty and balance is awful and all over the place. One second I can be walking through enemies left and right, the next second I’m getting one shot by a boss and the only resolution is switching to easy difficulty. I can rant about this topic all day but TL;DR is that I really wish the game had more accessibility settings and more settings in general.

So if the game isn’t perfect, how is it a 5/5? Well, very few pieces of media are ever truly perfect masterpieces. Video games as an art have so many aspects to them that labeling one issue that caused me some minor inconvenience doesn’t negate the fact of how unfathomably good this game was; especially in a game as massive and nuanced as this one. Breath of the Wild’s lackluster narrative doesn’t make it any less of a masterpiece, y’know?

— Conclusion (TL;DR) —
Rebirth is a monumentally incredible sequel. A game that truly capitalizes on its prequel in unprecedented ways. A full package experience with nearly every single aspect nailed. Story, characters, pacing, visuals, game loop, combat, sound design, and score all come together to make for an emotionally devastating, epic, roller coaster of a journey that I will never forget. It’s hard to see how the third and final installment of the VII Remake trilogy could possibly live up to this game’s grandeur. But after the glow-up of Remake to Rebirth, I have faith that Nomura can wrangle the fate of this series and finish it out strong.

I think I could write a book on my thoughts, good and bad, for this game but I'll try to keep it short. I really liked it and enjoyed this game a ton. It's easily my favorite final fantasy.

The combat is stellar, the music is awesome, and the cast is great. As someone who doesn't like mini-games (especially when games force it in the story), I surprisingly enjoyed the mini-games with maybe only 2-3 exceptions. The boss fights were also amazing especially the final boss.

While I liked the ending, for the most part, unfortunately I think the story is a bit all over the place with pacing. It's still an enjoyable story but the pacing is weird and sometimes not good. Despite that, the fun gameplay and great character moments made up for it so it wasn't too much of a bother.

The open world was unfortunately very generic. I don't think it's bad but when I saw people hyping it up to be one of the best open world games ever, I was a bit disappointed. It's a generic checklist open world with a very predictable formula. Again, it's not bad but it just left me disappointed. Still enjoyed it though since there are some great moments with characters from doing the activities.

I'm excited for Part 3 and hopefully addresses my issues with this game (and I wouldn't mind if they went back to linear like remake or just did semi-open world).

FF7 Rebirth has a much larger scope then it's predecessor and for the most part that pays off, with a fun to explore world and an amazing combat system. It's also filled to the brim with side content and mini games, though I'd argue there's too much here, with some of the side content and mini games feeling half-baked and just there to bloat the game. The story for the most part is still engaging, though in some moments the plot feels aimless, likely due to stretching a segment of the original game into a 60-100 hour adventure. Still, it's a great time, if a bit overstuffed.

Oh man, where do I even begin with this game? I'll preface by saying that Final Fantasy VII Remake is one of my favorite games in the series. It was a title that understood how to create a humanist experience that genuinely makes you care about its world and inhabitants with excellent narrative, character writing, and world-building through its side quests.

It was also a tight and focused experience that culminated in an ending so staggeringly ambitious that I still think about it often.

So, it's no surprise that I was looking forward to the follow-up, especially since it has most of the same cooks behind the sauce of Remake.

However, after finally finishing Rebirth after what seems like an eternity, I'm left confused and ambivalent.

The big red flag for me was when, during an interview, one of the game's directors highlighted the Horizon as an inspiration for the game's approach to open-world design.

Man, they weren't lying.

Rebirth begins with a linear, story-focused segment that lasts a few hours before thrusting you into one of the most insufferably prescriptive open-worlds I've ever played in a video game.

You spend around 15-20 hours doing the most fucking pea-brained busywork imaginable for Chadley, who has to berate and interrupt your progression at every possible moment. It's built upon the most mind-numbing tasks imaginable such as "activate tower," "kill a group of enemies," and "interact with a McGuffin and play a minigame where you either play Simon Says for morons or time a button press."

The world is absolutely bursting with these menial activities, and they take a fucking Mossberg to the game's narrative pacing. I shit you not: there was a good 15-hour block of this game's early hours where not a single piece of narrative occurred.

Maybe this would have been easier to stomach if the characters had interacted when navigating the open-world, but they aren't even there outside of an occasional comment. This issue is especially true for characters that are outside your active party. I legitimately forgot some of them existed even though they added the "backline" into the game's combat system, where non-active characters still stand at the edge of a combat encounter doing what I assume to be chip damage.

When I finally completed my Chadley Chores, I progressed to one of the game's more linear segments where some goddamn plot finally happened and was reminded of why I was still playing this in the first place. In these segments, characters feel alive with interactions heightened by curated moments, a complete 180 from the dozen or so hours prior.

However, it wasn't too long before I was shoved into another open-world area filled with the most boring fucking slop imaginable. I know the original Final Fantasy VII had a decent chunk of minigames, but Rebirth takes this to an unimaginable extreme.

It feels like there is a new minigame around every corner, and these things range in quality from pretty fun to complete dogshit. And look, I can appreciate a shitty minigame here and there if there is some rhyme or reason to its existence. I liked playing frisbee with the dog in Gravity Rush 2. I may as well be a shitty minigame connoisseur, for fuck's sake.

I think the biggest issue is that there is just too fucking much. Full stop. Too much side content. Too many fucking minigames. This game is just the most padded fucking experience I have ever had, and most of the content fucking sucks ass.

I usually try to keep a flow of thought in my writing, but I don't know where to put this, so it's going here. Let me tell you about this motherfucker Chadley. I've never hated a character in a video game as much as I do Chadley. Not only is he an intolerable, passive-aggressive, and holier-than-thou little Young Sheldon ripoff, but his mere existence is a manifestation of all my problems with the game. He's going to pop up on your stupid ass little cellphone, stop you in your tracks, and mansplain the most basic shit ever to you like you've never played a fucking video game before.

I honestly think I would rather individually pluck each one of my ass hairs out with tweezers than have to listen to Chadley flap his fucking gums at me. Sometimes, I think the developers are aware of how bad he is. For instance, during one of the game's better moments, the Queens Blade tournament, Chadley becomes one of the later opponents. After taking the fattest fucking dump on him—I'm talking like shutting him out and dropping 120+ on him and giving me an overwhelming feeling of catharsis—I spoke to a couple of other people about it. They all managed to crush him similarly, which makes me think the balancing is tilted heavily in your favor for the Chadley battle, which kind of rules.

If you have enough brain rot to still be reading my semi-coherent rambling about this game, you're probably asking yourself, "Man, why the hell is this dipshit still playing a game he clearly hates?"

That's because interspersed throughout all of this dogshit are genuine moments of excellence. Everyone is going to mention how good the Bow Wow sidequest—where you escort a dog accompanied by an insanely catchy song while Barret lets his emotional walls down to vent about how worried he is about Marlene's future and his role as her father—is and they should because it's fantastic.

These are things that Remake had consistently and in spades, and it's a testament to how great this cast of characters is and how great the writing can be when the bloat doesn't get in its way.

By the time I had completed all of the open-world monotony—like 100 hours into the game, lol—I could finally enjoy something close to my experience with Remake. I could approach sidequests that were still good despite rarely reaching the highs of the previous game without worrying about the mundane busy work.

But even then, this game just can't fucking help itself. After hours of Protorelic quests that teased Gilgamesh, ranging in quality from excellent to alright, I thought I was finally about to confront the goofy wandering swordsman. Lol, fat chance; enjoy four boss fights of insane difficulty that require you to grind levels because you are too weak. Get fucked nerd.

I won't say much about the combat because it's as excellent as Remake's. However, this time, there is more focus on encounters as puzzles with specific solutions, which I enjoy but don't necessarily prefer. But it's still an often frantic and satisfying mix of ATB and real-time combat that rewards strategic party composition and setups. I ended up settling on Cloud, Tifa, and Cait Sith as my main party because they could max out the stagger modifier and crit chance, resulting in jolting amounts of damage.

The last two chapters of the game did solidify the reason I persisted through this bipolar experience. Once you reach the game's point of no return, you're treated to about four to five hours of pure joy, and the game ends on an incredibly high note that brings out the best in its cast and writing.

There’s plenty of fantastic stuff in this game, you just have to climb a mountain of shit to get to it.

For the first time in my life, I genuinely don't know how I feel about a game. I beat this last week, and I've been thinking about it with mixed emotions since then. It's one of the most maddeningly polarizing pieces of media I've ever experienced, and I can't tell you if it's bad or good.

I can’t even give this thing a score because I literally do not know how to quantify my opinion of this game.

I usually do some pretty heavy editing to my in-depth assessments of games that I've played, cutting out plenty of sections that don't fit, but I'm just going to say fuck it and post this just like Square Enix did when they released this shit.

Have some fucking self-control for the next game. Either way, I’m only playing that shit if you let me crucify Chadley.

Also, if you made it this far, check yourself into a psyche ward because you're just as insane as I am for finishing this game.

As the second part of the three-game reimagining of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is dealt with the carried expectations, risks, and ambitions that its predecessor, Remake, started with. And like Remake, I don’t believe I’m the person to be able to qualify how well it does or doesn’t do that - though I’d also argue that it might be impossible until the trilogy project is completed. It’s equally impossible to also not really start some discussion that this project isn’t simply just a reimagining in name, it’s just as much a tribute, a representation and reflection of the original game’s significance and influence, and very much a continuation of its greater compilation’s story. I tend to call this genre a “rebuild” - e.g. “Rebuild of Evangelion” - and it isn’t a popular one. Personally, I’m fascinated by it, not just due to it being very much an insight into how people - developers, players, history, etc. - see Final Fantasy VII, but because I think, whether or not you believe it succeeds, you have to at least respect the direction of something different in an industry where remake culture tends to be unimpressive high-definition renderings or lesser versions of a similar game. And I’m not saying this strictly as someone who is on board with the project’s direction, though I admit that since the end of Remake, I’ve given it time and, truth be told, my sentiments are of a positive curiosity. One lesson I do think is lost upon many is how Remake both exemplified and stated why it wasn’t necessarily possible to make a one-to-one ratio remake to capture the original game’s experience. This isn’t a statement to say that this series should be exempt from polarized criticism, merely that I think it’s something worth considering in the big picture sense. But I digress, I did like Remake as a game, though I did feel it had some hit or miss elements. I can safely say, after over one-hundred hours, that Rebirth is an incredibly notable improvement as a product even if it doesn’t eliminate all of those issues - but everything Remake succeeded in has been examined, enhanced, and thrives.

The greatest strength this series has thus far is recognizing the characters the best since the original title, as far as capturing and extending their roles. While liberties are taken, many of them seem to mostly extenuate intrigue to how this party should have depths of companionship whilst still reflecting core thematics as identity and the journey on an individual level. Between the tension of Cloud’s unstable mind, Aerith’s conflicted optimism, Barret’s worries about the future, and so on. Between banter and scenes, there has been evident care insofar as characterizations. Admittedly, I do believe the side cast can be hit-or-miss, particularly characters that are found from the extended compilation, though with the focus on the main crew and their journey, this isn’t necessarily an issue.

What makes talking about Rebirth’s storyline is that it’s still reenacting or building upon events of the source material, albeit it’s being done with the expectation that players are familiar with said events already. There’s the obvious dramas of asking how these things are done and, because I prefer to keep these writeups spoiler free, there’s not really an answer I can provide for how I do feel - for the lack of a better word here. What’s equally complicated is how I perceive the relationship between remakes and originals - that a ‘remake’ is either a reimagining with variations or it is an active improvement on the original’s system. It’s evident that they went with the former at this point, but that also makes it intricate for me to say what I fully think given I don’t have the full picture on the narrative changes. What I can say is that, again, in comparison to the original, there are inevitable hits and misses. I’ve already said my piece on the characters and how I adore the new content regarding them. I find the scene directives compelling or at the very least, I approach them with cautious optimism - which is my sentiment on the ending itself. I’ve mostly positive views on Rebirth, I just don’t believe I can fully explain why and be concise - and these writeups are long enough as is.

However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that there’s two aspects that are definite misses for me: The first is the game’s pacing. While this isn’t Rebirth’s fault exclusively, given that the same issue was in Remake as well, it must be said that many story segments do overstay their welcome even if charming because they incorporate scripted walking segments and interactions. While I’ve seen far worse, it’s noticeable just how many chapters simply have time go by in long stretches. The secondary problem is some tonal dissonance. While this game captures its emotional beats effectively, there are moments where it doesn’t let you breathe and transitions to some emotional whiplash. This can be compounded with a loss of some important thematic subtleties from the original title.

To give one example, take the confrontation between Barret and Dyne. While the scenes and direction still work in their own way, it is inherently inferior because the juxtaposition between Corel Prison and the Gold Saucer has been lost in the setting of where the bout takes place and, even worse, because Shinra forces and Palmer interrupt at the end, transitioning into some slapstick comedy courtesy of the latter right after an emotional climax of one of the game’s prominent leads.

The story aspect aside, the real meat of Rebirth lies in its gameplay and content. The most obvious piece being the open world. I freely admit that I’m not genuinely into this kind of thing, but I can respect it when it engages me. The crux of how Rebirth adapts the world map is by categorizing areas into regions, often in the form of large field-esque design. I’d assert it’s a valid criticism to say that with how the maps work with set icons that it becomes more of a checklist than exploration - and that it can be tedious at a point - yet I think what makes it succeed partially is that the regions differentiate by having traversal options change. Some maps encourage puzzle solving to find set pathways - and rewards for finding them are encouraging. At the very least, this is the first game the series has had in a few years that captures what an ‘adventure’ feels like in regards to exploration. I definitely think it can be done better though. Part of the problem I believe is that it was a mistake to have worldbuilding done through Chadley, in part because it becomes a data exposition task instead of setting immersion because, even with the changes between environments, you are still activating the same towers, finding the same icons, etc. with small permutations. This isn’t a negative, it’s just something that could stand for some improvement, as the map layouts are still distinct. On a small scale, dungeons are well-made for their mob sections and occasional puzzle-solving, though nothing exceptional - and some, despite their quality, are an exercise in time.

In regards to content itself, there is an abundance here. Sidequests have inventory incentives for completion despite their fetch-quest attributes, though the character interactions make them more endearing. The protorelic substory in particular involves the eccentric series stape Gilgamesh and some of the title’s better minigames. As for minigames themselves, it is certifiably impressive how almost all of them are refined, though, like many things, I’d definitely say being forced to complete so many in the main story hurts the pacing. And even outside of that, it can be excessive just how much there is. Still, the systems implemented here in some of them, particularly Queen’s Blood - which they really want you to play - indicate the developers wanted these to be enjoyable.

However, what I would say is Rebirth’s greatest achievement mechanically is the combat system. Remake introduced a real-time action-based approach to the series’ ATB systems, giving players specific character combat to encourage proactivity for meter management whilst heavily encouraging team-based strategy by switching members and customizing them to handle various scenarios. Personally, I felt that these ideas worked though the two issues lied in how much wait time there was between ATB usage and how enemies often felt like static figurines. Suffice it to say, Rebirth not only addresses that, it also asks, “Why fix what isn’t broken?” and builds upon it.

The single best change is the incorporation of the synergy abilities, split between shortcut-based instant commands specific to the controlled party members or the special menu-based paired moves that can affect player options - such as giving temporarily unlimited MP. To simplify why these things are significant, if ATB meter was built through character actions, then there needed to be fixtures both offensively and defensively. Furthermore, while teamwork was prevalent in Remake, these abilities encourage it more than before as special synergy abilities can only be done when a set amount of player skills are used by both characters. Secondly, useful tech, such as shortcut synergy commands, will teleport characters across the field to another, allowing you to manipulate positional advantages, while building meter. There’s even unspoken benefits, such as switching to another character while guarding with another - and this will instantly teleport your new party member to the locked on enemy. If proactivity is rewarded, then adding more ways to do so is a good thing. Other specific combat improvements include implementing perfect guards, more active attack input bufferings, more accessible aerial options (which was missing in Remake), additional ATB abilities that expand movesets, and adding ranged moves for melee characters to use. And, even if you don’t wish to experiment with a full time, the game does offer enough options for you to stick to one character provided you understand the systems here,

To counterbalance so many changes, there’s been modifications to the enemy design, namely as far as managing their stagger meter. While said meters have become a commodity in the franchise the last decade, this trilogy has been on the stronger side of handling them for my money. The greatest reason why is influences players have on ‘pressuring’ enemies, creating a state where enemies can be vulnerable to hitstun or exposed to easier stagger. While many of Remake’s pressure states were made through basic elemental weaknesses or excessive damage, Rebirth adds new routes: from effective guards, to damaged body parts, to scripted patterns. Normal enemies in Remake often could feel like regular statues, though that doesn’t feel like the case with the re-tuning. Of course, this means enemies themselves also have new tricks, from playing with environmental attacks to being able to temporarily remove party members. Some enemies will even change attacks according to their aggro or successful hits. All of this applies even more to bosses because, like Remake, this is where the combat truly shines. Bosses truly bring out the strategical side of the game, having the teeth to punish players who want to treat this as another action RPG. Remake’s major encounters enforced the notion that playing like that isn’t how you maximize your success nor your enjoyment - and Rebirth enforces this more than ever. You’ll need to pay attention to enemy patterns, specific weaknesses, allocate according to the team lineup - and methodically reverse the intensity placed on you to take them out. Hard mode and the simulator challenges take this to the next level as crutches like items are taken away - your resources must be managed through your build to be ready for enemy encounters even in endurance-based sections. The fact that, even in weaker encounters, every fight offers so much variety in a relationship of lineups between party and mobs means this an impressive leap in enemy design for my money.

It’s a testament to how much this game has that I cannot talk the playable characters in much depth, so some general comments:
-Cloud’s counter-based offense remains as useful for an aggressive melee fighter, though Prime Mode and charged-based synergy skills add quicker routes for high damage without needing to stagger or use braver/infinity’s end. Buffs to Punisher Mode’s combo length and his long range attacks give answers he didn’t prior.
-Barrett’s status as the party tank is maintained, though his melee options expand through AoEs with smackdown or his long-ranged options get more buffs with Bonus Rounds.
-Tifa maintains her status as my favorite to play and remains mostly unchanged. Her melee options still deal with rushdowns to build stagger and quick meter for buff-based offensive combos. Her combo options and damage output through Unfettered Fury only expands her role as the speed-based melee fighter.
-Aerith’s ability to teleport between wards and craft barriers always made her an unbelievable support member, though her own offense was conducted through magic that was difficult to build meter for. Her new abilities make her arguably the strongest character in the game, as Radiant Ward turns her into a weapon of mass destruction (whilst making spells casted uninterrupted) and Transcendence, one of the most devastating tools in the game.
-Red XIII’s gameplay is a mix of support between managing his Vengeance Gauge’s unique specialties and elemental-based melee skills. Managing Red’s moveset, I found, was conducted upon recognizing how his defense and health operated accordingly. Reaper’s Touch, for instance, is a desperation skill only available at critical health, yet Nanaki’s Vengeance Gauge is handled around recovering vitality if need be.
-Yuffie is, frankly, cracked. She is easily the most versatile character of the entire game, having numerous recovery offensive options to escape getting stunlocked, active buffs and assists to keep freeflowing in battle, and easy access to magic without consuming meter. Between Aerith and her I really don’t know who is more powerful - in combination, they’re absurd.
-Cait Sith’s style is based around managing the Moogle’s quirky offense and Cait’s RNG-gambles. I admit I haven’t quite figured him out compared to the others, but being able to separate from the Moogle to create a decoy, actively increase teammate stats, or trade between long-and-short range abilities makes Cait Sith surprisingly more than just a luck-indicative character.

At risk of making this writeup any longer, I want to stop here. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an incredibly ambitious game, given some burden of legacy to navigate that, again, would require more time to discuss than I’m willing to give time here. There’s certainly inconsistencies in its final result, including a pacing issue across the entire board that makes me unsure how many non-RPG players it would be for. It’s for that reason that I think for others, it’s whatever you want to make of it. For me, I committed over one hundred hours to this title - and I simply don’t do that often. I can call this game an experience I won’t forget, conflicted feelings or not beyond what I expressed here - just the fact that I enjoyed my time and that it’s remained fresh in my mind means I will be back for the third part regardless.

4 years later and I still can't believe they're 'remaking' this.

It's certainly a better game than Remake, but ultimately the mantra of Rebirth is pretty much the same as Remake... It's good, but not nearly as good as the original.

That's not to say the game isn't great in it's own right. The characters are more fully developed than ever and seeing these relationships blossom is incredibly endearing and entertaining.

Since the beginning of the 'HD-era' of video games starting with Xbox 360 and PS3, Square Enix has struggled to produce a game that has hasn't felt compromised in some serious ways.
13 was lacking the open-ness the franchise is known for. 15 was lacking a satisfying combat system. 16 lacked an ensemble cast of party members.
Compared to their golden era of games (widely considered to be somewhere between 4 and 10, depending on taste), each entry has been lacking in different staples of the series.

Rebirth is the first game in well over a decade that feels like a classic Final Fantasy adventure. Arguably the first big budget JRPG that features an overworld, vehicles and an ensemble cast. There are moments in the game that had me shocked that they were able to accomplish this type of game again.

Hopefully with the next game they can push themselves even further, but honestly I'm more looking forward to this team potentially working on a brand new game, because it seems like they finally have their groove back and there's nothing more exciting to me.