What should've been a thoroughly enjoyable second part of this remake trilogy, with improved gameplay and a more interesting section of the story compared to FF7 Remake, is unfortunately overshadowed by often tedious and frustrating design choices that ultimately sours my experience of both this game and its predecessor.
The Good: Aerith Gold Saucer Chapter 12
- Voice Acting: As with the last game, all the voice acting is very good. There are few, if any, flat line deliveries, and the cast from the main characters down to background NPCs are all top notch.
- Visuals: Rebirth looks even better than the Remake, which is in part due to the setting it takes place in, as the dreary factories and slums of Midgar are less visually appealing compared to the dense forests and canyons prominently featured in Rebirth. But it looks great, nothing much to comment on really, its one of the best looking games on modern consoles.
- Characters: Rebirth effectively builds on the character interactions that were the highlight of Remake, and expands upon them by introducing new characters that fit into the dynamic of the main group. The main group are up there as one of my favourite core casts of characters in any video game I've ever played, and that is often in part due to the little things like random bits of dialogue and side quests.
- Core Gameplay Direction: I found that in Remake, most of the fights throughout the game wanted you to win by exploiting elemental weaknesses through spells. This often placed focus on having the right materia equipped, and setting up your party to efficiently hit spells (typically Aerith with a bunch of wards). However, I found that in Rebirth, they shifted away from this by nerfing the tier 3 magic spells to cost 2 ATB charges. Theres also more opportunities to pressure enemies outside of spells, such as dodging attacks or hitting ATB attacks at the right time. This focus on abilities over spells makes for much faster-paced and more interesting gameplay. Although, I will mourn the loss of melee Barret and spamming chi 2 Unbridled Strength with Tifa.
- Story: The story's great. I don't really have much to comment on, given that I've never played to originally and I don't know how the story ends, but it's really good. Thoroughly fleshes out all of our main characters and our antagonist effectively while providing enough story to the new characters that they are compelling in their own right. The chapters in Nibelheim are very good, and while there are some down moments and padding throughout the rest of the game (which I'll get to), for the most part, when the story's rolling it's very good.
- Music: From Tifa's Theme on the piano to new One Winged Angel in the last fight, all the music is great in this game.
- Queen's Blood: Once I got some good cards, I really enjoyed it. The only side quest type I actually had fun doing.
The Bad: I might have to go back and score FF7 Remake lower as well.
- Open World: After Remake was (fairly) criticised for being a hallway simulator, Square Enix decided to address this by introducing large open world areas that are prominent throughout most of the gameplay. In almost every chapter, you're introduced to a new map with it's own set of side quests and objectives, an exclusive Chocobo, and more.
But it all sucks. It all sucks. The objectives are a complete waste of time, from activating radio towers and analysing lifesprings to the irritating protorelic questlines, I was so thoroughly unengaged by the entire affair that I completely skipped almost all of it from Gongaga onwards. Traversing the regions is also annoying, as the Chocobos lose all momentum after bumping into anything and you're constantly interrupted by running across another pointless objective that doesn't take long enough so you feel compelled to complete it, but does takes long enough that you know you've just wasted minutes of your life. And in Cosmo Canyon, the traversal is made even more frustrating with the stupid flying and gliding range mechanics.
The entire open world concept only serves to drag out the time spent away from the actual fun things this game has to offer, and I honestly don't think I'll be able to play another open world game for at least 6 months after this shit.
- Boss Fights: Just like in FF7 Remake, and despite what I said earlier about the appreciating the change in gameplay direction, the boss fights in this are still annoying.
A good example of this is the Reno and Rude fight, as with Reno you're supposed to pressure him by dodging his physical attacks. The only problem is, he doesn't use them that much, mostly just after he's stunned you and you can't dodge anyway. He also dodges all your standard attacks. The only way I could really damage him was by hitting him with Fire attacks when he was charging the EMPs and hope it pressured him. This ended up being the point in this game where I dropped the difficulty down to Easy, and it became a 5 minute beat-em-up the rest of the way through the entire game.
Another example is the Rufus Shinra fight, which was the last straw that made me change over to Easy mode in Remake. The whole fight is so stupid I was laughing rather than yelling. You're supposed to dodge his attacks and attack him when he reloads. But if you stay too close he'll dash into your dodge path and stun you, dealing big damage, and if you stay too far away you can't counterattack long enough to effectively build the stagger bar when he's pressured. Sometimes he even recovers instantly after being pressured.
There's a few other instances I can remember, but I won't get too far into it. I am admittedly quite bad at action RPGs, so it is a bit mad-cause-bad. But given that Easy mode is such a walk in the park it's mind-numbing, and Normal mode is perfectly fine 70% of the time, I think it's fair to put some of the blame on the mechanics.
- Padded Story Missions: This was a problem in Remake as well, I just felt that often times sections of the main story missions were broken up by entirely unnecessary passages that completely fucked with the pacing. Anything that involved dragging a box around, splitting up the party for longer than 10 minutes, or setting up for the third mini-boss in this third of the mission did nothing but take my attention away from the best part of the game (the story) and focused it on the worst part (dumb shit).
All in all, I want to give this game an 8 out of 10, as there is an 8/10 game in here somewhere, but it's just buried under some really poor design choices.
I think I would still recommend this game, as I'm glad I played it, but with caveat that you will be slogging through a decent amount of filler content to enjoy the amazing story and characters.
The Good: Aerith Gold Saucer Chapter 12
- Voice Acting: As with the last game, all the voice acting is very good. There are few, if any, flat line deliveries, and the cast from the main characters down to background NPCs are all top notch.
- Visuals: Rebirth looks even better than the Remake, which is in part due to the setting it takes place in, as the dreary factories and slums of Midgar are less visually appealing compared to the dense forests and canyons prominently featured in Rebirth. But it looks great, nothing much to comment on really, its one of the best looking games on modern consoles.
- Characters: Rebirth effectively builds on the character interactions that were the highlight of Remake, and expands upon them by introducing new characters that fit into the dynamic of the main group. The main group are up there as one of my favourite core casts of characters in any video game I've ever played, and that is often in part due to the little things like random bits of dialogue and side quests.
- Core Gameplay Direction: I found that in Remake, most of the fights throughout the game wanted you to win by exploiting elemental weaknesses through spells. This often placed focus on having the right materia equipped, and setting up your party to efficiently hit spells (typically Aerith with a bunch of wards). However, I found that in Rebirth, they shifted away from this by nerfing the tier 3 magic spells to cost 2 ATB charges. Theres also more opportunities to pressure enemies outside of spells, such as dodging attacks or hitting ATB attacks at the right time. This focus on abilities over spells makes for much faster-paced and more interesting gameplay. Although, I will mourn the loss of melee Barret and spamming chi 2 Unbridled Strength with Tifa.
- Story: The story's great. I don't really have much to comment on, given that I've never played to originally and I don't know how the story ends, but it's really good. Thoroughly fleshes out all of our main characters and our antagonist effectively while providing enough story to the new characters that they are compelling in their own right. The chapters in Nibelheim are very good, and while there are some down moments and padding throughout the rest of the game (which I'll get to), for the most part, when the story's rolling it's very good.
- Music: From Tifa's Theme on the piano to new One Winged Angel in the last fight, all the music is great in this game.
- Queen's Blood: Once I got some good cards, I really enjoyed it. The only side quest type I actually had fun doing.
The Bad: I might have to go back and score FF7 Remake lower as well.
- Open World: After Remake was (fairly) criticised for being a hallway simulator, Square Enix decided to address this by introducing large open world areas that are prominent throughout most of the gameplay. In almost every chapter, you're introduced to a new map with it's own set of side quests and objectives, an exclusive Chocobo, and more.
But it all sucks. It all sucks. The objectives are a complete waste of time, from activating radio towers and analysing lifesprings to the irritating protorelic questlines, I was so thoroughly unengaged by the entire affair that I completely skipped almost all of it from Gongaga onwards. Traversing the regions is also annoying, as the Chocobos lose all momentum after bumping into anything and you're constantly interrupted by running across another pointless objective that doesn't take long enough so you feel compelled to complete it, but does takes long enough that you know you've just wasted minutes of your life. And in Cosmo Canyon, the traversal is made even more frustrating with the stupid flying and gliding range mechanics.
The entire open world concept only serves to drag out the time spent away from the actual fun things this game has to offer, and I honestly don't think I'll be able to play another open world game for at least 6 months after this shit.
- Boss Fights: Just like in FF7 Remake, and despite what I said earlier about the appreciating the change in gameplay direction, the boss fights in this are still annoying.
A good example of this is the Reno and Rude fight, as with Reno you're supposed to pressure him by dodging his physical attacks. The only problem is, he doesn't use them that much, mostly just after he's stunned you and you can't dodge anyway. He also dodges all your standard attacks. The only way I could really damage him was by hitting him with Fire attacks when he was charging the EMPs and hope it pressured him. This ended up being the point in this game where I dropped the difficulty down to Easy, and it became a 5 minute beat-em-up the rest of the way through the entire game.
Another example is the Rufus Shinra fight, which was the last straw that made me change over to Easy mode in Remake. The whole fight is so stupid I was laughing rather than yelling. You're supposed to dodge his attacks and attack him when he reloads. But if you stay too close he'll dash into your dodge path and stun you, dealing big damage, and if you stay too far away you can't counterattack long enough to effectively build the stagger bar when he's pressured. Sometimes he even recovers instantly after being pressured.
There's a few other instances I can remember, but I won't get too far into it. I am admittedly quite bad at action RPGs, so it is a bit mad-cause-bad. But given that Easy mode is such a walk in the park it's mind-numbing, and Normal mode is perfectly fine 70% of the time, I think it's fair to put some of the blame on the mechanics.
- Padded Story Missions: This was a problem in Remake as well, I just felt that often times sections of the main story missions were broken up by entirely unnecessary passages that completely fucked with the pacing. Anything that involved dragging a box around, splitting up the party for longer than 10 minutes, or setting up for the third mini-boss in this third of the mission did nothing but take my attention away from the best part of the game (the story) and focused it on the worst part (dumb shit).
All in all, I want to give this game an 8 out of 10, as there is an 8/10 game in here somewhere, but it's just buried under some really poor design choices.
I think I would still recommend this game, as I'm glad I played it, but with caveat that you will be slogging through a decent amount of filler content to enjoy the amazing story and characters.