"No Promises Await at Journey’s End"
I've put 90 hours into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and I absolutely loved 95% of it, from the world to the combat to the characters to the music, it all works so well and it's such a fun time to just be on this global adventure with this group of characters I've grown to love in Remake.
From gameplay perspective, Rebirth easily surpasses Remake, it may feel unfocused narratively a lot of the time but the variety in gameplay is on a different level. I was actually having the least amount of fun in the linear dungeons akin to Remake, while they have improved on their level design, they just feel like more of the same and usually drag on for a bit too long. Apart from the set piece and boss fight moments in the main story, the open world regions is where Rebirth shines most for me. Admittedly, it is a very Ubisoft-like repetitive checklist design but as a fan of the world and wanting to learn more about it, I loved exploring every inch. It works best when you don't activate any of the towers and just find stuff naturally. The variety of chocobos for each region also keeps it somewhat fresh. Most importantly, a lot of the side quests are finally good, fleshing out main as well as side characters. Another big part of Rebirth are the minigames, most of them are really fun and not just gimmicks, especially Queen's Blood, Chocobo races, and the piano. Do they sometimes get in the way? Yeah, but I honestly don't mind. Combat is as great as ever, I think I appreciated it a lot more this time, managing the party and materia, switching the characters in real time, combining different ATB moves and synergy abilities never gets old.
So then, what is the 5% that I didn't love? It's the entirety of the finale. In fact, I despised it. It's a few hours of terrible fan fiction. It genuinely pains me how bad it is and it's almost ruining the entire experience for me. The build up throughout both games was intriguing, I loved the idea of making the Remake trilogy basically a sequel, but the execution in Rebirth is absolutely terrible. Who tf let Nomura or whoever tf cook? Anyways my rating is still high because I'm clinging on to the experience I had for 80+ hours of this game, but I could honestly see myself liking it less with time because the ending leaves such a bad taste in my mouth...
I've put 90 hours into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and I absolutely loved 95% of it, from the world to the combat to the characters to the music, it all works so well and it's such a fun time to just be on this global adventure with this group of characters I've grown to love in Remake.
From gameplay perspective, Rebirth easily surpasses Remake, it may feel unfocused narratively a lot of the time but the variety in gameplay is on a different level. I was actually having the least amount of fun in the linear dungeons akin to Remake, while they have improved on their level design, they just feel like more of the same and usually drag on for a bit too long. Apart from the set piece and boss fight moments in the main story, the open world regions is where Rebirth shines most for me. Admittedly, it is a very Ubisoft-like repetitive checklist design but as a fan of the world and wanting to learn more about it, I loved exploring every inch. It works best when you don't activate any of the towers and just find stuff naturally. The variety of chocobos for each region also keeps it somewhat fresh. Most importantly, a lot of the side quests are finally good, fleshing out main as well as side characters. Another big part of Rebirth are the minigames, most of them are really fun and not just gimmicks, especially Queen's Blood, Chocobo races, and the piano. Do they sometimes get in the way? Yeah, but I honestly don't mind. Combat is as great as ever, I think I appreciated it a lot more this time, managing the party and materia, switching the characters in real time, combining different ATB moves and synergy abilities never gets old.
So then, what is the 5% that I didn't love? It's the entirety of the finale. In fact, I despised it. It's a few hours of terrible fan fiction. It genuinely pains me how bad it is and it's almost ruining the entire experience for me. The build up throughout both games was intriguing, I loved the idea of making the Remake trilogy basically a sequel, but the execution in Rebirth is absolutely terrible. Who tf let Nomura or whoever tf cook? Anyways my rating is still high because I'm clinging on to the experience I had for 80+ hours of this game, but I could honestly see myself liking it less with time because the ending leaves such a bad taste in my mouth...