Rebirth
There’s a lot I could say about this game. I’ll get this out of the way now though: it didn’t disappoint. They managed to take the Remake formula that was already given high praise and improve it in just about every way. Having more room to play around with game mechanics and story beats solely due to us being free of Midgar adds so much to the experience, and while I think there were some hiccups here and there in the transition to a semi-open world format, it really does feel like they’ve made something special here.
Let’s start with what works. The regions themselves are all diverse and I think they managed to capture all the locations in this part of the story from the original very well. Some standouts were Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon which both felt a lot livelier than they did in 7. The combat in this game just feels like it got a face lift from Remake that I didn’t even realize it needed until I played it. The introduction of Synergy attacks/abilities and the addition of things like aerial and (limited) ranged options coupled with the new party members was very refreshing and makes Remake feel almost ancient in some ways even though it’s no slouch in that regard.
Something else it did really well was the characterization and making previously lacking or uninteresting characters feel truly alive with how they’re portrayed here. I continuously sing the praises of one character as the poster child for that, Yuffie, as compared to her original portrayal she’s just so much more of a presence here. Going from optional party member in the original to not only being a staple of the gang, but one who is both full of personality and has a ton of relevance to the overall story just feels so amazing. She had arguably some of my favorite scenes in the game and her combat style made her a mainstay in my party at basically all times. Plenty of other characters got more attention than OG 7 gave them also and I hope to see that carry over into the finale.
The story here is probably going to be the most divisive aspect, particularly the final few chapters and how the narrative was handled to set up the third game. There were plenty of things throughout the game that either played out differently than the original or were added/removed and I would imagine purists would probably hate that about Rebirth but I personally found most of the changes to be positive. There were a few things about the ending specifically I’ve gone back and forth on but for spoiler reasons I’ll leave that for another day I think. Overall though I’d say the narrative did a great job of capturing most if not all of the iconic moments from this middle section of OG 7 and I’m excited to see where they’re going with all of this given what the implications of this and Remake seem to be hinting at.
As for the bad, there wasn’t a ton but I did have some gripes. A big one for me was the pacing. It wasn’t bad necessarily but I’d be lying if I said some of the chapters in this game felt like they dragged on just a bit too long and had certain aspects of padding like chapter specific mechanics and some forced crawling segments (which those last couple chapters were particularly bad about). Another thing was the sometime bloated-feeling open world. I did effectively all of the optional content found in the regions and while I didn’t mind doing it most of the time, there were moments when I realized the sheer amount would be a turnoff for a lot of people who just wanted to experience the story and that’s fine. I’d say overall it’s worth doing but there were a few times when my completionist brain made it hard to justify doing anything main story related before I was done with map exploration in a given chapter. As a side note though, Queens Blood was a great addition and that’s coming from someone who rarely interacts with in-universe board games in most titles like this.
A few other nitpicks I have exist like a few characters feeling somewhat shoehorned in as nonplayable party members near the end of the game, having a bunch of repeated weapon abilities that required mastering again, and some bosses in the latter half of the game having some frustrating attacks to deal with that I’m sure will be a pain and a half to deal with when into Hard mode.
That was a lot I know, and honestly I could keep going but I’m still kind of marinating on my thoughts since beating it last night, but for now I think that about covers it. All in all, a great game I’m glad I got to experience at launch without spoilers and with the collective excitement of others playing it and I’m more than ready to see what they’re cooking for the finale (of which I shudder to consider the scale of given how massive this one was).
There’s a lot I could say about this game. I’ll get this out of the way now though: it didn’t disappoint. They managed to take the Remake formula that was already given high praise and improve it in just about every way. Having more room to play around with game mechanics and story beats solely due to us being free of Midgar adds so much to the experience, and while I think there were some hiccups here and there in the transition to a semi-open world format, it really does feel like they’ve made something special here.
Let’s start with what works. The regions themselves are all diverse and I think they managed to capture all the locations in this part of the story from the original very well. Some standouts were Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon which both felt a lot livelier than they did in 7. The combat in this game just feels like it got a face lift from Remake that I didn’t even realize it needed until I played it. The introduction of Synergy attacks/abilities and the addition of things like aerial and (limited) ranged options coupled with the new party members was very refreshing and makes Remake feel almost ancient in some ways even though it’s no slouch in that regard.
Something else it did really well was the characterization and making previously lacking or uninteresting characters feel truly alive with how they’re portrayed here. I continuously sing the praises of one character as the poster child for that, Yuffie, as compared to her original portrayal she’s just so much more of a presence here. Going from optional party member in the original to not only being a staple of the gang, but one who is both full of personality and has a ton of relevance to the overall story just feels so amazing. She had arguably some of my favorite scenes in the game and her combat style made her a mainstay in my party at basically all times. Plenty of other characters got more attention than OG 7 gave them also and I hope to see that carry over into the finale.
The story here is probably going to be the most divisive aspect, particularly the final few chapters and how the narrative was handled to set up the third game. There were plenty of things throughout the game that either played out differently than the original or were added/removed and I would imagine purists would probably hate that about Rebirth but I personally found most of the changes to be positive. There were a few things about the ending specifically I’ve gone back and forth on but for spoiler reasons I’ll leave that for another day I think. Overall though I’d say the narrative did a great job of capturing most if not all of the iconic moments from this middle section of OG 7 and I’m excited to see where they’re going with all of this given what the implications of this and Remake seem to be hinting at.
As for the bad, there wasn’t a ton but I did have some gripes. A big one for me was the pacing. It wasn’t bad necessarily but I’d be lying if I said some of the chapters in this game felt like they dragged on just a bit too long and had certain aspects of padding like chapter specific mechanics and some forced crawling segments (which those last couple chapters were particularly bad about). Another thing was the sometime bloated-feeling open world. I did effectively all of the optional content found in the regions and while I didn’t mind doing it most of the time, there were moments when I realized the sheer amount would be a turnoff for a lot of people who just wanted to experience the story and that’s fine. I’d say overall it’s worth doing but there were a few times when my completionist brain made it hard to justify doing anything main story related before I was done with map exploration in a given chapter. As a side note though, Queens Blood was a great addition and that’s coming from someone who rarely interacts with in-universe board games in most titles like this.
A few other nitpicks I have exist like a few characters feeling somewhat shoehorned in as nonplayable party members near the end of the game, having a bunch of repeated weapon abilities that required mastering again, and some bosses in the latter half of the game having some frustrating attacks to deal with that I’m sure will be a pain and a half to deal with when into Hard mode.
That was a lot I know, and honestly I could keep going but I’m still kind of marinating on my thoughts since beating it last night, but for now I think that about covers it. All in all, a great game I’m glad I got to experience at launch without spoilers and with the collective excitement of others playing it and I’m more than ready to see what they’re cooking for the finale (of which I shudder to consider the scale of given how massive this one was).