…Where to begin? Seriously, this game is crazy.

I haven’t had this many mixed feelings about a game since Last of Us part 2. Rebirth ran at varying extremes of quality in terms of its tone, storytelling, character development, combat, pacing, and side content from when I turned the game on to when I finished over one hundred hours later, and boy what a ride that was. Some story moments were compelling, others were impossible to take seriously; Some side-objectives were fun and rewarding, others were tedious and lame; Sometimes the combat was fun and engaging, and other times the game was making me play as Cait Sith. I remember thinking that the previous game had some issues with pacing and had maybe just a touch too much fanservice, but Rebirth helped me to realize how excessive it could have been.

I’ll say it right now, my favorite aspect of Rebirth is just that it made me appreciate Remake a lot more. I’ve always loved Remake, and I love it just a little more now that I’ve re-visited the original FF7 and can respect the wise changes made from the source material. I’ve also had the chance to play Rebirth and see what a bloated, unfocused, pretentious, self-indulgent mess Remake could have been. None of this is to say I hated Rebirth; it certainly had its moments, but as a man who will probably be re-visiting Remake many years into the future, I think one full playthrough of Rebirth was enough for me.

For the sake of being nice, I’ll start by talking about that this game does better than its predecessor (one paragraph should be enough). Queen’s Blood is awesome; best mini game of any of these games if you ask me. Some of the open-world exploration can be fun and rewarding even if it is a bit excessive, and of course the locations are varied and gorgeous. I suppose I can take Sephiroth just a hair more seriously in this game than the previous one, because his dialogue isn’t quite as painful and he’s better incorporated into the narrative. I like how each side-quest builds your relationship with a different party member, this mechanic reminded me of Mass Effect 2. I blush to admit I still liked most of the fanservice, even if some scenes are definitely guilty pleasures. Lastly, if this game gets top marks for anything, it would be the soundtrack. Rebirth has one of the best scores I’ve ever heard in a video game. There are so many tracks with such an effective variety of tones, each one fitting its respective scene perfectly. One-winged Angel may have lost its impact for me as I can no-longer take Sephiroth seriously(I’ll complain more about him later), but that’s ok, because Rebirth introduced the new greatest video game villain theme ever: I’ve been listening to Gus’s theme for weeks now; it was worth the price of admission alone.

It's a shame that I must rag on a game that clearly had so much hard work put into it, but the flaws of Rebirth are excessive enough that I can’t let them slide. Remake did an excellent job of keeping the main cast focused by limiting you to three playable characters at a time based on the story. Right out of the gate, Remake loads you up with five, adding more as you go. And, honestly, I don’t find any of the new recruits fun to play as: I always just picked among the four from the previous game if I had a choice.

The game’s pacing is awful, I feel like tens of hours can pass without meaningful story development: That problem is exacerbated by what a bad job the game often does balancing gameplay and cutscenes, said cutscenes can drag on so long I forget I’m supposed to be playing something and still add little to the following gameplay segments. The tone is very inconsistent as well; following a chapter about a town that was ravaged due to the tragic mistakes of one of our main characters with a chapter about the cast going to an amusement park. I stand by that some of the optional content is very fun, but some of the mini-games and challenges are slow and tedious to the point that they have me pulling my hair out: flying slowly through rings on choco-back is not fun, I hated every part of the quest to get the third protorelic, and whoever had the bright idea to have a colosseum challenge where you play as a frog should be turned into a frog themself. I’ll give Rebirth credit that our main heroes are very compelling, with strong voice work, meaningful stories, and a strong camaraderie; but the same can’t be said for the villains.

The Shinra executives served their roles as one-dimensional evil caricatures fine in the first game where they barely had any screentime, but their charm has worn off and they only really worked as side-villains anyway; None of them are strong enough to support the game’s plot, which is a problem because, just like in Remake, the game can’t seem to decide if they or Sephiroth are the main antagonist.

Oh Sephiroth, a big part of the reason why I wrote this was just to complain about you. I’ll say it, Sephiroth is the worst thing about the entire remake series thus-far. The game doesn’t do anything interesting with his design, his dialogue sounds like it was written by a middle-schooler, his appearances don’t make sense in the context of the story, his voice actor sounds like he’s falling asleep, and he appears so much without making an impact on that story that his presence has lost all meaning. In summary, he was more intimidating in Kingdom Hearts, and that’s not good!

To be fair, I blame Remake for his botched appearance more than Rebirth, but nothing in Remake can excuse Rebirth’s biggest sin; what happened when the character the series did the worst killed the character the series did the best.

I loved Aerith in Remake. She was spunky, expressive, supportive, and had great relationships with the other characters. She was a crucial part of why I loved that game so much, and I honestly wasn’t ready to see her die going into Rebirth. But it’s ok, because her death scene was botched so thoroughly that the only thing I could feel was confusion while watching it. Rebirth’s endgame sucked to begin with, most of it was confusing cutscenes leading to an underwhelming boss fight and it made me feel bad I complained about Remake’s endgame, but I’d forgive it if they hadn’t done our beautiful girl dirty like that. Much of my cynical tone in writing this is due to the bad taste the game put in my mouth at the very end. Still, I find myself wishing I could have played something that was good beginning-to-end.

Maybe my feelings about Rebirth will change with time. I’ll go back in a bit to get the platinum trophy, and perhaps I’ll find some more appreciation for the game. It gave me a lot to talk about, I’ll certainly give it that. I can now say I: loved Remake, couldn’t stand Intergrade, and don’t know how I feel about Rebirth, I don’t know what to expect going into the final chapter. I’ll play part three when it comes out with cautious optimism, but I’ll try to be ready for anything.

So, I played GoW 5 when it first came out, and it was the easiest 5/5 I ever gave. I didn't feel like my initial review did the game justice, but it was simply one of the most varied, polished, artistic, satisfying, and just damn fun games I had ever played. With a year having passed, I decided to consider the possibility that my opinion on what I thought was one of my new top-ten favorite games of all time would change if I played it again: It did, the game actually got a little better. It isn't a top ten game for me anymore, it's a top 5; top 3 isn't out of the question.

I found the performances even more compelling, the combat even more engaging, I unlocked a whole new tier of appreciation for the level design, and even the parts of the game I wasn't looking forward to as much weren't as tedious as I remembered them. I'm so glad the DLC came around to compel me to revisit this masterpiece, and you should definitely play that as well.

I don't think either of my reviews do this game justice, it is one of the greatest accomplishments in the medium of video games this decade in my opinion, but if even one person gives this game a chance because of either of my reviews, I'll be pleased with myself.