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18 hrs ago


Clearin is now playing Digimon World

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2 days ago






Clearin finished Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

This review contains spoilers

I bet they really regret using the reunion subtitle on the Crisis Core remake now.

The good thing about Rebirth compared to Remake is that the open world and much more varied locations allow a lot more chances to pad out a relatively small portion of the game without feeling totally forced. There's still some moments that seem to exist just to make the game longer, but I wouldn't say there's things as bad as that one chapter in Remake where you fall to the bottom of the lab just so you have to spend an hour climbing back up.

Certain actions like climbing up cliffs feels very slow and clunky though. Having to move crates is slow. And the chapter where you have to pick up and throw boxes as Cait Sith is agonizing. Then there's forced walking sections and having to hold down R2 and L2 to make small movements. These are all relatively few compared to the size of the game, but the fact they still exist is quite annoying. Luckily open world areas allow for large portions with mostly uninterrupted gameplay if you choose to do them (except for Chadley talking in your ear every 5 minutes).

With them no longer needing to masquerade the game as a faithful remake there's also a lot of changes. The story beats are the same, but many parts are basically fully rewritten. I don't really get this because wasn't the idea that only Sephiroth was aware of the "original" timeline and thus it was only his changes that made Remake different? Now it feels like ever character is taken in massively different directions from the original game with no explanation. I don't really care that they did it, I just don't understand the whole concept of this timeline stuff and the whispers.

I do think they did a fantastic job at making all the areas feel distinct and have their own personality, especially compared to the original game. But the way they're all siphoned off from each other definitely makes it feel more like large levels than a connected world. It's especially bad in this regards in the way nothing you unlock later has any use in earlier regions. You can do 100% of a region on the first visit (except for those 2 intel's in Corel which for some reason are unlocked in the late game). Every region has a unique Chocobo which have their own abilities, but you can't take them out of that region and thus can't use Nibel's Chocobo with its power to basically fly above water and use it to find cool collectibles in earlier regions. Even the grappling hook which is a traversal item you unlock mid-game is used almost exclusively in that region, with maybe 1 or 2 uses afterwards.

So I do like what they did with the world, I just think they could have made it feel a little better to make it feel less like a one and done checklist and more like you get the items and methods needed to fully explore over the course of a game.

People complain about the vast amounts of mini-games, but I don't mind them. Only a few of them truly sucked imo, and most of the time the worst parts of them are completely optional. Some of the games I even liked and wish they had more chances. I'd take Fort Condor (which has actually been simplified from its Intermission version!) or Gears and Gambit over Queensblood as the main minigame.

Chocobo racing is fittingly more like the Chocobo GP game that came out a few years ago.

Keeping Cid and Vincent non-playable hurt the game a bit. I mentioned in Remake that I loved how every character had their own distinct playstyle, so I was excited to try more. In this game we only really get Red XIII (who was a non-controllable fighter in Remake already) and Cait Sith. Yuffie was spoiled in the Remake DLC. They could have even added a new party member or two with all the chances they made, but they didn't do that... outside of 2 very brief exceptions. Could have let us play as Cissnei if they're gonna add her to the plot anyway.

There's too much about this game to really talk about off the top of my head, but I don't think it holds a candle to the original game except obviously in graphics and presentation (which are fantastic). While I think it did much better than Remake in regards to not wasting the players time, there's definitely still purposefully slow stuff mechanics.

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