Wow, I have so much to say about this game, but it’s not easy without going into any spoilers. I’ll try my best, though.
First of all, the original Final Fantasy VII is still my number one game of all time, and I don’t think this will ever change. I consider it an absolute masterpiece, from beginning to end. FF7 Remake, in my opinion, was also excellent, as it managed to stay faithful to its source material but also expanded upon it, and brought some cool changes that made it worth playing for veterans, as well.
And now we have Rebirth, the second chapter in this gigantic remake project. We finally get to leave Midgar, and see the whole world for ourselves – and I’m sure you’ll be just as excited as I was visiting the more detailed, even more breathtaking, modernized versions of all the locations, and meeting all the funny, exciting or terrifying characters from the original game (and if you haven’t played that, then this will be an amazing, whole new experience for you – I kinda envy you!). I, for one, always enjoyed discovering all the hidden parts of a world map, collecting stuff, learning about the lore, stuff like that, so yeah, I loved this aspect of the game, and I didn’t mind spending time on all the optional tasks. The designs of all the different regions, the towns, the mines, the monsters… Hm, well, OK, a bit more variety in monster types would have been nice, I guess, but at least the battles are now even more dynamic, even more spectacular, with lots more options to choose from, like magic, individual abilities, limits, synergy attacks, summons etc. Of course, we’ll also get new playable characters, and you can switch between active and classic modes, or change the difficulty, so even oldschoolers, like myself, who prefer the good old turn-based systems can get something similar.
I’m aware that there are some complaints regarding the graphics and performance issues, and yes, I noticed all those, too, but honestly, they never really broke my immersion, so, as far as I’m concerned, the visuals were OK. DualSense support was great, and sound mixing wasn’t perfect, but still, I found the music (especially the remixes of the old tracks) and audio in general fine, too, and the English voice acting was superb, in my opinion. However, what I simply could not ignore, were the game-breaking bugs. There was one side-quest that I simply couldn’t finish until today when finally they released a patch for it, and at another time the enemy I was fighting simply became immortal, not taking any damage. And then, we have those nightmarish minigames… Listen, I know most of them are not obligatory, sure, and yeah, there were some fun ones (I especially liked Queen’s Blood and chocobo racing), but the rest were either meh or downright frustrating, and after a while it got simply ridiculous that everything was turned into a minigame, really, everything. Anyone that manages to get the platinum in this game has my utmost respect because that means they somehow finished all these terrible side activities with near-perfect scores.
That said, bugs can be patched, (most) minigames can be skipped… and if everything else was to your liking, then why only four stars when you gave Remake five, you might ask. Well, I can’t say much, because I really want to avoid spoilers, but I had serious problems with the plot. I mean, I liked the story and everything that was going on until the very last chapter. Rebirth is the middle part of a trilogy, and that is always the most daunting challenge for any writer, I’m sure. It’s the bridge between the beginning and the end, so you can’t tie up all the loose ends to keep your audience interested in the mysteries, but you should still answer at least a few questions so that your audience doesn’t feel totally confused. For me The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best example for how to do the second installment of a trilogy well, and Rebirth ultimately fails at this, I’m afraid. Honestly, the ending was such a chaotic mess, I had no idea what was happening, and if I hadn’t played the original version back in the day, I wouldn’t even know now what the fate of some characters were in the end. Some very interesting aspects of the story that had huge potentials were never really fleshed out as well as it could/should have been, we spent too much time with some minor characters and not enough with more important ones, and, let’s face it, most tragedies could have been avoided if Cloud and his friends didn’t behave as ten-year-olds most of the time. I’m not going to say more, when you get to the final act, I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean here.
So… Did this game do justice for the original one? Yes, until the last chapter where they messed everything up. Is it a good sequel? It managed to improve almost every aspect of Remake, so yeah, I guess it is, even if it fails as a second chapter of a trilogy. Did I enjoy playing it? 90% of the time yes, definitely. I just wish we didn’t have to wait so much for the last chapter, but I hope everything will make sense by the time we reach the end.
First of all, the original Final Fantasy VII is still my number one game of all time, and I don’t think this will ever change. I consider it an absolute masterpiece, from beginning to end. FF7 Remake, in my opinion, was also excellent, as it managed to stay faithful to its source material but also expanded upon it, and brought some cool changes that made it worth playing for veterans, as well.
And now we have Rebirth, the second chapter in this gigantic remake project. We finally get to leave Midgar, and see the whole world for ourselves – and I’m sure you’ll be just as excited as I was visiting the more detailed, even more breathtaking, modernized versions of all the locations, and meeting all the funny, exciting or terrifying characters from the original game (and if you haven’t played that, then this will be an amazing, whole new experience for you – I kinda envy you!). I, for one, always enjoyed discovering all the hidden parts of a world map, collecting stuff, learning about the lore, stuff like that, so yeah, I loved this aspect of the game, and I didn’t mind spending time on all the optional tasks. The designs of all the different regions, the towns, the mines, the monsters… Hm, well, OK, a bit more variety in monster types would have been nice, I guess, but at least the battles are now even more dynamic, even more spectacular, with lots more options to choose from, like magic, individual abilities, limits, synergy attacks, summons etc. Of course, we’ll also get new playable characters, and you can switch between active and classic modes, or change the difficulty, so even oldschoolers, like myself, who prefer the good old turn-based systems can get something similar.
I’m aware that there are some complaints regarding the graphics and performance issues, and yes, I noticed all those, too, but honestly, they never really broke my immersion, so, as far as I’m concerned, the visuals were OK. DualSense support was great, and sound mixing wasn’t perfect, but still, I found the music (especially the remixes of the old tracks) and audio in general fine, too, and the English voice acting was superb, in my opinion. However, what I simply could not ignore, were the game-breaking bugs. There was one side-quest that I simply couldn’t finish until today when finally they released a patch for it, and at another time the enemy I was fighting simply became immortal, not taking any damage. And then, we have those nightmarish minigames… Listen, I know most of them are not obligatory, sure, and yeah, there were some fun ones (I especially liked Queen’s Blood and chocobo racing), but the rest were either meh or downright frustrating, and after a while it got simply ridiculous that everything was turned into a minigame, really, everything. Anyone that manages to get the platinum in this game has my utmost respect because that means they somehow finished all these terrible side activities with near-perfect scores.
That said, bugs can be patched, (most) minigames can be skipped… and if everything else was to your liking, then why only four stars when you gave Remake five, you might ask. Well, I can’t say much, because I really want to avoid spoilers, but I had serious problems with the plot. I mean, I liked the story and everything that was going on until the very last chapter. Rebirth is the middle part of a trilogy, and that is always the most daunting challenge for any writer, I’m sure. It’s the bridge between the beginning and the end, so you can’t tie up all the loose ends to keep your audience interested in the mysteries, but you should still answer at least a few questions so that your audience doesn’t feel totally confused. For me The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best example for how to do the second installment of a trilogy well, and Rebirth ultimately fails at this, I’m afraid. Honestly, the ending was such a chaotic mess, I had no idea what was happening, and if I hadn’t played the original version back in the day, I wouldn’t even know now what the fate of some characters were in the end. Some very interesting aspects of the story that had huge potentials were never really fleshed out as well as it could/should have been, we spent too much time with some minor characters and not enough with more important ones, and, let’s face it, most tragedies could have been avoided if Cloud and his friends didn’t behave as ten-year-olds most of the time. I’m not going to say more, when you get to the final act, I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean here.
So… Did this game do justice for the original one? Yes, until the last chapter where they messed everything up. Is it a good sequel? It managed to improve almost every aspect of Remake, so yeah, I guess it is, even if it fails as a second chapter of a trilogy. Did I enjoy playing it? 90% of the time yes, definitely. I just wish we didn’t have to wait so much for the last chapter, but I hope everything will make sense by the time we reach the end.