This review contains spoilers
I have complicated feelings about FF7 Rebirth. While the rating on this review might indicate that I fully loved playing this game, it might be more accurate to say it reflects my deep respect and admiration for the craft behind it than my actual, personal feelings for it. It is not a game I love, but one that nonetheless deserves to be loved for its accomplishments and maybe even considered as a potential template for the future of FF at large.
In many ways this game is everything you could hope a sequel for FF7 Remake to be. It is large in scope and it both expands on the established systems while adding entirely new ones with just as much depth and polish as what was refined. It is filled to the brim with optional side content that is, for the most part, worth spending your time in and helps flesh out the world in ways the original game itself did not. It is hard to find fault with the game under the context of being the middle entry to a trilogy yet to conclude, the FF7-R's trilogy very own "The Empire Strikes Back".
It is only as a fan of the original game, and more so importantly a fan of its central themes, that my personal woes with the game begin to stack up. It is a narrative that is trying to fulfill two distinct goals: both a modern re-telling of the original's and a semi-meta sequel in the vein of the popular "multiverse" narratives that have become commonplace in today's media landscape, and while I appreciate and understand the creative drive of the development team to make something new and distinct from the original, these two goals are fundamentally incompatible, and consequently change the narrative of the original in ways that ultimately deviate from the thematic core that made it so memorable and enduring for me over the years.
It rarely cuts, but often edits and outright amends over the original in favor of integrating it into the "expanded universe" that started almost 20 years ago with the Advent Children movie. If 2020's FF7 Remake felt (mostly) like a celebration of the original game that ends with the promise of changes to come, Rebirth fulfills that promise by instead becoming a celebration of the "Compilation of FF7", a series of sequels and prequels to the original that expanded on the world and its characters in ways that were partially controversial in their day but that also served as many modern fans' original introduction to the FF7 world. Unfortunately for me, "their" FF7 is not "my" FF7, and Rebirth made the decision to focus its adoration on the former. It is not a decision that was unexpected or one that I personally resent, but it nevertheless renders the experience partially alienating to fans such as myself.
All in all, however, I can't find it in me to give this game any less than a near perfect score. I easily put over 100 hours into this title, completing every sidequest and objective just short of the more tedious requirements for the Platinum trophy, out of pure enjoyment for its gameplay loop. I dare say, freed from the expectations I brought into this one as a die-hard fan of the original, this could easily be your 5-Star game of the year. You'd do yourself a disservice not to find out for yourself.
In many ways this game is everything you could hope a sequel for FF7 Remake to be. It is large in scope and it both expands on the established systems while adding entirely new ones with just as much depth and polish as what was refined. It is filled to the brim with optional side content that is, for the most part, worth spending your time in and helps flesh out the world in ways the original game itself did not. It is hard to find fault with the game under the context of being the middle entry to a trilogy yet to conclude, the FF7-R's trilogy very own "The Empire Strikes Back".
It is only as a fan of the original game, and more so importantly a fan of its central themes, that my personal woes with the game begin to stack up. It is a narrative that is trying to fulfill two distinct goals: both a modern re-telling of the original's and a semi-meta sequel in the vein of the popular "multiverse" narratives that have become commonplace in today's media landscape, and while I appreciate and understand the creative drive of the development team to make something new and distinct from the original, these two goals are fundamentally incompatible, and consequently change the narrative of the original in ways that ultimately deviate from the thematic core that made it so memorable and enduring for me over the years.
It rarely cuts, but often edits and outright amends over the original in favor of integrating it into the "expanded universe" that started almost 20 years ago with the Advent Children movie. If 2020's FF7 Remake felt (mostly) like a celebration of the original game that ends with the promise of changes to come, Rebirth fulfills that promise by instead becoming a celebration of the "Compilation of FF7", a series of sequels and prequels to the original that expanded on the world and its characters in ways that were partially controversial in their day but that also served as many modern fans' original introduction to the FF7 world. Unfortunately for me, "their" FF7 is not "my" FF7, and Rebirth made the decision to focus its adoration on the former. It is not a decision that was unexpected or one that I personally resent, but it nevertheless renders the experience partially alienating to fans such as myself.
All in all, however, I can't find it in me to give this game any less than a near perfect score. I easily put over 100 hours into this title, completing every sidequest and objective just short of the more tedious requirements for the Platinum trophy, out of pure enjoyment for its gameplay loop. I dare say, freed from the expectations I brought into this one as a die-hard fan of the original, this could easily be your 5-Star game of the year. You'd do yourself a disservice not to find out for yourself.