Words can't describe how amazed I am by this title. This game has turned out to be one of my favorite games of all time, slightly below the original FF7. The strong attention to detail is remarkable, every single place, no matter where you go feels unique and not copy pasted from another area. The amazing story telling, jaw-dropping scenery no matter where you go and fantastic way of highlighting characters and their personal stories make up for a repetitive open world formula and technical issues such as slowly loading textures and a poor performance mode with washed out graphics. I dunno if this is caused because the PS5 is not as capable for what they want to create or squares lack of optimizing skills. Nevertheless, these flaws drop the overall rating for me only slightly.

This game is one of those exceptions that make me a believer. A believer that not all upcoming titles are created with one thought and one thought only, that is milking every penny of their customers. I gotta be honest man, I think that the golden era of gaming is long gone. And I am writing this after having such an incredible year with 2023, with masterpieces like Baldur's Gate 3. We are nowhere close to the level of quality of games released in the 90s and 00s. Games released in that time period were profit driven as well. But back then they were at least trying to deliver fully functioning products on day 1 and not releasing the bare minimum with the thought that they can patch the rest later on and sell it as DLC. Gaming companies were at least trying to create great experiences, experiences which players would enjoy so much that they would spread the word to get others to purchase it.

Games like FF7 Rebirth give me hope for the future; games like Elden Ring, Zelda Botw/Totk, Bloodborne, Super Mario Odyssey, Hades, these are exceptions. These games show me that there are still companies and developers out there who care about their products and how these products affect their customers, aka us gamers. Companies who are not solely after profit no matter the outcome, implementing microtransactions in full-price titles and testing their boundaries with how far they can go, shoving grindy and expensive battle passes with unintuitive rewards up our throats just to keep player retention and revenue as high as possible.

It is kinda sad that remakes are upholding the flag of being a great and enjoyable games nowadays. I enjoy my remakes, remakes such as Resident Evil 2 & 4, remakes such as FF7 Remake & Rebirth. And I am begging Square to release a FFX remake right after FF7 Part 3 and FFIX which is currently in development according to rumors.

But at the end of the day, let's face it, these videogames are unfortunately just remakes. Stories which have been told, characters which were already known. Worlds and areas already traversed. We are re-living what we've experienced just with better graphics, new gameplay mechanics and slightly altered stories. These games can never have the same impact as the original titles. Like FF7 coming out of nowhere in 1997 and conquering our little hearts, not relying on a story previously told, everything being created then and there by very talented people with incredible development abilities and unrivaled levels of imagination.

Yet here I am, talking about giving a 10/10 for a remake, viewing it as a masterpiece. Because it is nothing but a masterpiece. From my point of view, it has to hit an even higher ceiling than a new IP if it wants to be a 10/10, it has to be way better to deserve such a rating. And Rebirth has absolutely managed to do that for me. It is, by no stretch of the imagination, a perfect game. It has multiple flaws, some more severe than others, but it delivers so freaking many home runs in so many departments that the only rating it deserves is a 10/10.