Much like Remake FFVII Rebirth is a game of highs and lows. My biggest issue with Remake was the absurd amount of padding - Sections like the walkways before the 2nd reactor, the collapsed expressway, going to the sewers twice, that other underground area. Some very dull sidequests.
In Rebirth the main path of the game doesn’t feel anywhere near as padded, and although some dungeon areas start to outstay their welcome (Looking at you, Cait Sith’s unwieldy box throwing.) The fact that you’re in different locations, doing different things, and the fact that the combat itself is improved meant I was never truly bothered.
However, there is a lot more bloat and padding in Rebirth than there was in Remake, it’s just been reformatted to the open world. That makes it far more tolerable because you can at least choose to do it in your own time, on your own terms, but overall, the “world intel” parts of the game do feel like a missed opportunity. There’s a very obvious comparison with the Ubisoft style of open world where it’s mainly a series of things to tick off in each region that are mostly the same. As regions become more complicated to navigate simply finding the way to the tower/lifespring/summoning stone/protorelic becomes quite a challenge itself and one that’s not very fun. It’s always feels just within your reach of doing, but always takes a bit longer than you expect.
The protorelic quests are most unique to each region, but this ends up kind of backfiring because there’s always 4 parts in each region and whatever mechanic they have usually starts testing your patience around the 3rd one and really becomes a drag the 4th time. But they’re they’re the most rewarding in terms of what you receive and because they have some actual cut-scenes and character interactions to them. Cosmo Canyon for instance has the most compelling quest because it features some extremely cute Avalanche Flashbacks, but they’re locked behind the most obtuse and complicated minigame, which I soon looked up solutions for to get through it.
The lack of dynamic character interactions in the open world is a real sore point for me. You’re running around the open world with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, Red, Yuffie, and Cait, and for the most part… none of them are saying a word. Just a few moments of chatter and banter between them at certain instances, would have gone such a long way towards making exploring the world its own reward. Instead, what you get is Chadley, Chadley, and more Chadley, and then MAI his AI Girlsona. I didn’t want to ride the Chadley-Hate train because it seems too obvious, but it’s just… he seems to be the main character of the game. Like sure he doesn’t interact with the main story much, but I think he has more dialogue than any other character. And most of it’s just completely unnecessarily over-explaining things. I understand why this happens, his dialogue is functional, to explain mechanics and systems. But if this game adopted Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen’s romance mechanics every player would be going on a gold saucer date with Chadley.
What does determine the gold saucer date however is a combination of dialogue choices and bond quests. Which to me highlights another issue. The side quests are mostly much better than they were in Remake. However, they’re all focused on one character at a time, because it’s there to serve the “who do you go on a date with later.” Mechanic.
So, what will usually happen is you’ll talk to a quest giver in a region, then one other character will pipe up and say something, giving Cloud a reason to accept the quest, while other characters stand silently in the background. Through this quest pretty much the only interaction will be between Cloud, the character the quest is tied to, and any other NPCs involved. This is good in a sense that Cloud has some one-on-one interactions with different members of the group, but equally I’m left wondering why nobody has anything else to say during these quests. No words or thoughts for the current situation. It feels strange, and another missed opportunity for more chatter with the cast. This would have been the perfect time for it when the current stakes in the world aren’t so urgent and would show the group developing a stronger bond.
It's certainly not as if this doesn’t exist throughout the main story of the game, because what is there is good, but there could have been so much more.
Everything I’ve talked about is ultimately not the biggest deal breaker but optional or not, it does still account for a significant amount of the game. Its importance is diminished because it’s not the main course, but it can’t be dismissed either.
When looking at the more crucial elements, combat is absolutely top tier. I never quite clicked with it in Remake, but some minor changes and additions of synergy abilities have transformed this into my favourite combat system of any JRPG.
When the game is following the main story path it’s so good. There’s no game where I wholeheartedly love the characters and world beyond rationality than FF7. For the most part, the slight changes and additions make a lot of sense – Sephiroth appearing to make Cloud doubt Tifa was a smart change, and gives a good reason, why Tifa is reluctant to question Cloud on his telling of the Nibelheim. Yuffie and Caith Sith are improved characters with better justifications for joining the group. Red XIII I’m less sure about, I think they overplay his change post-Cosmo Canyon. There’s a middle ground to be sat between him trying to play the wise old sage, and him loosing up so much he becomes a silly, dorky little child.
There are some changes I think are less good, Dyne didn’t have as strong an impact as he could have had. The backstory for the Gi tribe in Cosmo Canon, I think was a promising idea in theory, but I think it might have added a complication that wasn’t needed.
The real thing I have to talk about is the way the meta-narrative comes into things. I wasn’t initially happy with the way remake ended, but over time I accepted that it does create some intrigue and tension that a straight remake wouldn’t be creating. There were even times in this game where some of the “meta-narrative elements” worked perfectly and made for one of the best chapters in the game.
But after the end of the game, my God do I wish they were just doing a straight remake instead.
The only way to cope with the disappointment is to tell myself, that things can be salvaged in the next game, but I also feel like the way they’ve gone already confuses a particularly crucial narrative beat in the next game. There are other ways it could resolve and hit a similar strong emotional note. But it’s hard to trust the writing team after this. Maybe something can happen in part 3 that entirely recontextualizes things, but I’m not sure that is a good approach when if Remake to Rebirth is anything to go by, we’re in for a 4 year wait.
Can already suspect how part 3 will go, it’ll follow most of the same beats, pad some bits out, have some new bits some of which are worse and some which are better, and ultimately end in a similar way to the original.
It’s frustrating because I feel this review is predominately focusing on the negative which I swear I’ve not been trying to do. I don’t think I can quite express how much I enjoyed this game. Just how emotionally invested I was in this story, world, and characters. It really hit home how important and formative the original game was to me at the age I played it. I don’t think there’s any form of media that I’ve cared about more. I’m not typically fixated on nostalgia and favourite media from childhood but with FF7 that’s just some irrational emotion it hits for me beyond what my critical eye could defend.
And this game has the fucking audacity to actually improve a lot of it. It breaks my brain to think that the same people are responsible for things I love and hate so much and act as if they’re the same. We all have good and bad ideas, but this team take it to another level.
.
In Rebirth the main path of the game doesn’t feel anywhere near as padded, and although some dungeon areas start to outstay their welcome (Looking at you, Cait Sith’s unwieldy box throwing.) The fact that you’re in different locations, doing different things, and the fact that the combat itself is improved meant I was never truly bothered.
However, there is a lot more bloat and padding in Rebirth than there was in Remake, it’s just been reformatted to the open world. That makes it far more tolerable because you can at least choose to do it in your own time, on your own terms, but overall, the “world intel” parts of the game do feel like a missed opportunity. There’s a very obvious comparison with the Ubisoft style of open world where it’s mainly a series of things to tick off in each region that are mostly the same. As regions become more complicated to navigate simply finding the way to the tower/lifespring/summoning stone/protorelic becomes quite a challenge itself and one that’s not very fun. It’s always feels just within your reach of doing, but always takes a bit longer than you expect.
The protorelic quests are most unique to each region, but this ends up kind of backfiring because there’s always 4 parts in each region and whatever mechanic they have usually starts testing your patience around the 3rd one and really becomes a drag the 4th time. But they’re they’re the most rewarding in terms of what you receive and because they have some actual cut-scenes and character interactions to them. Cosmo Canyon for instance has the most compelling quest because it features some extremely cute Avalanche Flashbacks, but they’re locked behind the most obtuse and complicated minigame, which I soon looked up solutions for to get through it.
The lack of dynamic character interactions in the open world is a real sore point for me. You’re running around the open world with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, Red, Yuffie, and Cait, and for the most part… none of them are saying a word. Just a few moments of chatter and banter between them at certain instances, would have gone such a long way towards making exploring the world its own reward. Instead, what you get is Chadley, Chadley, and more Chadley, and then MAI his AI Girlsona. I didn’t want to ride the Chadley-Hate train because it seems too obvious, but it’s just… he seems to be the main character of the game. Like sure he doesn’t interact with the main story much, but I think he has more dialogue than any other character. And most of it’s just completely unnecessarily over-explaining things. I understand why this happens, his dialogue is functional, to explain mechanics and systems. But if this game adopted Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen’s romance mechanics every player would be going on a gold saucer date with Chadley.
What does determine the gold saucer date however is a combination of dialogue choices and bond quests. Which to me highlights another issue. The side quests are mostly much better than they were in Remake. However, they’re all focused on one character at a time, because it’s there to serve the “who do you go on a date with later.” Mechanic.
So, what will usually happen is you’ll talk to a quest giver in a region, then one other character will pipe up and say something, giving Cloud a reason to accept the quest, while other characters stand silently in the background. Through this quest pretty much the only interaction will be between Cloud, the character the quest is tied to, and any other NPCs involved. This is good in a sense that Cloud has some one-on-one interactions with different members of the group, but equally I’m left wondering why nobody has anything else to say during these quests. No words or thoughts for the current situation. It feels strange, and another missed opportunity for more chatter with the cast. This would have been the perfect time for it when the current stakes in the world aren’t so urgent and would show the group developing a stronger bond.
It's certainly not as if this doesn’t exist throughout the main story of the game, because what is there is good, but there could have been so much more.
Everything I’ve talked about is ultimately not the biggest deal breaker but optional or not, it does still account for a significant amount of the game. Its importance is diminished because it’s not the main course, but it can’t be dismissed either.
When looking at the more crucial elements, combat is absolutely top tier. I never quite clicked with it in Remake, but some minor changes and additions of synergy abilities have transformed this into my favourite combat system of any JRPG.
When the game is following the main story path it’s so good. There’s no game where I wholeheartedly love the characters and world beyond rationality than FF7. For the most part, the slight changes and additions make a lot of sense – Sephiroth appearing to make Cloud doubt Tifa was a smart change, and gives a good reason, why Tifa is reluctant to question Cloud on his telling of the Nibelheim. Yuffie and Caith Sith are improved characters with better justifications for joining the group. Red XIII I’m less sure about, I think they overplay his change post-Cosmo Canyon. There’s a middle ground to be sat between him trying to play the wise old sage, and him loosing up so much he becomes a silly, dorky little child.
There are some changes I think are less good, Dyne didn’t have as strong an impact as he could have had. The backstory for the Gi tribe in Cosmo Canon, I think was a promising idea in theory, but I think it might have added a complication that wasn’t needed.
The real thing I have to talk about is the way the meta-narrative comes into things. I wasn’t initially happy with the way remake ended, but over time I accepted that it does create some intrigue and tension that a straight remake wouldn’t be creating. There were even times in this game where some of the “meta-narrative elements” worked perfectly and made for one of the best chapters in the game.
But after the end of the game, my God do I wish they were just doing a straight remake instead.
The only way to cope with the disappointment is to tell myself, that things can be salvaged in the next game, but I also feel like the way they’ve gone already confuses a particularly crucial narrative beat in the next game. There are other ways it could resolve and hit a similar strong emotional note. But it’s hard to trust the writing team after this. Maybe something can happen in part 3 that entirely recontextualizes things, but I’m not sure that is a good approach when if Remake to Rebirth is anything to go by, we’re in for a 4 year wait.
Can already suspect how part 3 will go, it’ll follow most of the same beats, pad some bits out, have some new bits some of which are worse and some which are better, and ultimately end in a similar way to the original.
It’s frustrating because I feel this review is predominately focusing on the negative which I swear I’ve not been trying to do. I don’t think I can quite express how much I enjoyed this game. Just how emotionally invested I was in this story, world, and characters. It really hit home how important and formative the original game was to me at the age I played it. I don’t think there’s any form of media that I’ve cared about more. I’m not typically fixated on nostalgia and favourite media from childhood but with FF7 that’s just some irrational emotion it hits for me beyond what my critical eye could defend.
And this game has the fucking audacity to actually improve a lot of it. It breaks my brain to think that the same people are responsible for things I love and hate so much and act as if they’re the same. We all have good and bad ideas, but this team take it to another level.
.