Probably the best game I’m going to play this year, and it’s only March.

For all Rebirth has its ups and downs, it consistently hits home runs in all the places that actually matter. A couple of chapters feel bloated, and they could really stand to be one or two boss fights shorter. Some of the menus (see: the game over screen, with all of its strangely-worded options…) are a little awkward. There are moments where certain characters act in ways that don’t entirely jive with their established personalities and motivations. In the end, though, none of those dips take away from how fun the game is to play (running around the map is amazing, and so is traversing via chocobo, and all of the new combat elements are such a treat! Queen’s Blood might be the best card game in the entire franchise!), and they definitely don’t touch any of the story’s emotional beats, which is where Rebirth really shines.

Being able to see these characters with such detailed models elevates FF7’s story in a way that, honestly, I never would’ve guessed possible. You can see their feelings written all over their faces, right down to the tiny micro-expressions they make, and that alone goes so, so far in a game like this, where so much is left unsaid. The voice acting does a lot of heavy lifting, too; it’s immediately obvious when characters are, for example, not being entirely forthcoming, which is something that happens often. The script is another slight low point (in English, at least), because the translation is unfaithful in pretty inopportune spots, obfuscating things that are clear in the original Japanese and contributing to the discourse that’s been going strong since 1997, but even then, it’s hard to be too mad at much in the way of anything when this game is as good as it is.