Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

The remake trilogy pushes onwards, blowing up the middle chunk of the original to bigger and prettier screens.

The main flaw of the first part persists here. The game is bloated; story beats are too dragged out, elongated, never ending, like a sentence that just refuses to let that full stop get in there; onwards and onwards it goes, exhausting the reader, until it's assured that there will indeed be words after it and perhaps it is actually time to quickly wrap up. But, it works. Mostly.

One of the main strengths of the original is how it throws so much at the wall with such confidence. Perhaps this is because in its shift from 2D to 3D the devs were unknowingly setting so many standards, in the same vein as Wells with Citizen Kane. Some of it doesn't work, but that's ok. It's pure unabashed entertainment, with little meddling from above.

Rebirth emulates this, with its plethora of minigames, tone shifts and crazy sequences. Parts of Rebirth are now up there in my favourite gaming moments.

The section this part is adapting is a string of quests exploring individual character's pasts. So the pacing is, like the original, rather stop and go. This is an adventure game, through and through, with extremely well defined characters. Running around the different locations was glorious, simply glorious.

I am a little dubious of the game's final act. After going through the hellscape that is Kingdom Hearts, I'm tentative towards a plot of convolutions. While Rebirth did make Remake somewhat more coherent, I'm still a little weary of complications for the sake of complications. Unless they pull off some interesting narrative tricks in Part 3, I do find this a flaw of the remake trilogy.

Having said that, I like that it's technically a new story. The original is still there. If it was just a straight remake, the trilogy wouldn't nearly have the staying power that I hope it eventually has. I do hope for a remaster of the original though, the gameplay is still pretty fun but a remodel of the Lego people would be nice.

In a shocking change from Remake, the side quests were actually pretty decent. Even the ones that felt initially tedious tended to have something charming or memorable at the end. Some of the songs specifically designed just for sidequests (Bow Wow Wow) were as incredible as the rest of the soundtrack.

By making the world vast and explorable, they've spread out Ubisoft style objectives. Most of these are pretty perfunctory, giving the player an excuse to run around and experiment with the game's excellent combat. I did them all. Every tower, every unique battle, every god damn moogle minigame. And I never, not once, felt bored as I usually do with Ubisoft's approach. This is a testament for either my inhuman patience or how fun the game actually is.

As for the other minigames, I really liked the majority. Some people really seem to not enjoy them, but that's ok, culture isn't for everyone. From Tower Defense, to Virtual Bikes, and a Gwent-tier card game (strong words, I know) there is bound to be at least a few things each player can enjoy. All of them feel pretty fleshed out; the quality found here is just astounding. This is the first modern Final Fantasy to match the grand scope of the originals, both in its gameplay elements and world scale.

Rebirth is a step up in almost every way from Remake. The oppressive and moody atmosphere is gone (I still miss Midgar!), but in its place is a genuine feat that I can't believe actually got made. It's flawed, so very flawed, especially in its final act if Part 3 doesn't pull finger. But I'd rather a game be flawed with style - it's more interesting than a "perfect game" of the times. So many of those are lost to technological improvements. Final Fantasy VII has charm, and the remake trilogy brings it to the future.

It's a ... very rare thing, to be able to enjoy a piece of art and feel so profoundly much both joy and sorrow. There hasn't been many times that I can count, a game or film that changed my life in some way or another. Handfull few. I've cried before to games but I believe this is the first time i've actually full on ugly-cant-speak-cried. And i cried for about five hours straight in the two final chapters. This game, has officially, reached my top 3 rank of games, #1.

I can't tell you how much I feel when I play this game. I've enjoyed it so much during my first playthrough which is roughly now up to 115hrs and I will play it again. I've dived down the online community, discussions, videos and all the lore. Square Enix really made something different with this. It hits my heart, deeply. And i've played alot of jrpgs in my lifetime. This is different. And I just want to give my applauds to the team and a wall-nerd-rant on my instagram.

Thank you, truly, @finalfantasyvii @squareenix for the adventure and love. 🖤

TO THE MORE REVIEW PARTS; The gameplay is alot of fun, exploring the world is insane and you are rewarded for exploring it which is a big plus in Open world games. The bosses and battle mechanics are very easy to learn and not overwhelming, meaning you don't have to be a seasoned gamer to get it. The story archs are fantastic. Following this group of people has been a pure joy.

Chocobos. <3 I also very much enjoy the Easy/Normal/Dynamic settings in the game. If I want a challenge I can have that, but if I feel I want to stay story-driven, I can set to easy mode. I enjoyed it alot. Not every game has to be a Souls-hard-beat game. I will play through the game again, probably on easy, just to enjoy the story.

The MUSIC and GRAPHICS are out of this world. Just a few simple notes and my heart is filled with love.

I definitely enjoyed Rebirth more before Remake but mainly because I prefer to have more control of my path and remake was mainly stick to their planned route. Rebirth makes you feel free, alive and on an adventure which is a big plus for me, but of course, Remake was the setup for a darker place, so it probably was that strict because of the storytelling decisions.

The more negative parts of the game is few, but if I had to mention another side of the coin as well in this review, i'd say that there were way to many mini-games, but also the games weren't that captivating to finish. It felt like the games themselves, were boring and not well thought out, just to flesh out the game a bit more wasting the gamers time.

The "romance" a friend, is a fun thing - however I dislike that there is so much story to each characters built into these sidequests, so it makes me have to skip it to ensure my fave character has the most likes. So.. im torn on this side. I'd like an option on each sidequest for the future so you can still do all sidequests in the first round, AND ensure the fave character still being there. If this is implemented in part 3.

I cant recommend this game enough. Play the Remake, play Rebirth. You won't regret it.

Great game overall. The combat was a step up. Characters and character relationships were fantastic. The world building was great as was the story as a whole. Graphics are incredible. The only thing that bogged this down slightly was the sheer number of side content and mini games. I know there were a lot of mini games in the original game, but this game, part 2 of 3, is already larger than the original game was. 90% of the game was truly amazing, but there were a few points where I just got tired of the mini games. I don't have the time that I used to for gaming, so the volume of side content and checking off open world boxes knocked this from a 10 to a 9 for me. Everything else was near perfect though. Seeing the scenes and world play out in high def graphics and with voice acting was an incredible nostalgia trip.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a behemoth of an RPG experience. My play through clocked in at over 100 hours, and although I made an effort to complete the vast majority of side content, there was still a surprising amount of material that I have yet to complete. I do, however, feel that I have given it more than enough time to give an informed review.

As my title suggests, this game is astounding on a mechanical level. The sheer amount and quality of varied content available to the player is easily this game's greatest strength. Mini games, world exploration, and combat mechanics are all virtually flawless, and I cannot praise the dev team enough for the evident love and care they used in crafting these aspects. While a depressing majority of modern RPGs fill their runtimes with generic fetch quests as side quests, FF7 Rebirth gives a plethora of great side missions and content that never got bland or repetitive. I would go as far as saying that in this regard, FF7 Rebirth is the standard to which future RPGs should be held. Square Enix outdid themselves in this category a thousand times over, especially in comparison to its predecessor on the PS4.

As far as the story goes, I will avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that I have some issues. FF7 original already has a hyper-convoluted story in typical JRPG fashion, but Rebirth dials it up to 11. A good chunk of changes made to the new game seem to require a decent amount of knowledge of other games, and I can't help but feel that players unfamiliar with expanded FF7 lore will find themselves confused on multiple occasions. The story still has a lot of strong moments, but longtime fans will likely be scratching their heads at some of the decisions the writing team made. It didn't ruin my experience, but I felt that many story elements were actively competing with each other, as well as with the otherwise very cohesive gameplay mechanics. Ultimately, it's something that everyone will have to decide for themselves.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend this game. It's story isn't a masterpiece, but the gameplay was so consistently and reliably engaging that these issues with the writing were minimal for the most part. Strong world exploration, variety in side missions, and a very polished combat system make this one of the best modern RPGs I've played, and I'll happily sing its praises despite its flaws.

Oh boy! What can I say about this game that has not been said already. This game has improved SO much upon the 2020 Remake. And even that game was fantastic. So to go from a game as great as FF7 remake, and to improve on it as much as it did is nothing short of impressive. There is so much to explore and do, and none of it feels like a chore. Also, though there are so many of them, the mini games are very fun. My personal favorite has to be the newly added Queens Blood. It is extremely easy to pick up as the game isn't very complicated. It also has a side story to it as you continue to play queens blood with different players throughout the game. I 1000% recommend playing this game. It WILL be worth it.