Welcome to our review of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, the second installment of the remake of one of the biggest games ever made.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is the highly anticipated new story in the Final Fantasy VII remake project, a reimagining of the iconic original game into three standalone titles by its original creators. In this game, players will enjoy various new elements as the story unfolds, culminating in the party’s journey to “The Forgotten Capital” from the original Final Fantasy VII.
The Unknown Journey Continues… After escaping from the dystopian city of Midgar, Cloud and his friends set out on a journey across the planet. New adventures await in a vibrant and vast world – sprint across grassy plains on a Chocobo and explore expansive environments.
An Evolved Battle System for you to enjoy and combine strategic thinking with thrilling action combat alongside your comrades, including newly added characters. Deepen their relationships to unleash powerful team-based combos . Beyond the Walls of Fate, in this standalone adventure for fans and newcomers, Cloud and his comrades venture across the planet, their fates unwritten, making each step outside the dystopian city of Midgar fresh and mysterious.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is a game that finally leads us on the great adventure of Cloud and his friends when they set on their final mission and catch up to Sephiroth. As someone who finished the original back on the OG Playstation 1, I was expecting massive boss fights, hardcore grinding and so much more “productive time-wasting” on a game. I was not disappointed with Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, however it had some quirks that I will get back to later on.
As this game is part of a beautiful trilogy, we are once again getting an amazing plethora of graphics, and well, this game is drop-dead gorgeous and might be simply some of the best remakes ever to grace our TV/computer screens. The game is as pretty as its story is basically a timeless classic. Sure, it is not a perfect 1 on 1 remake, but that is both the glory and the downfall of a game when it does not work out.
Luckily for the most part, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is quite the gem to play and I am feeling very blessed to have been able to play this game. This also leads me to bring up some of the best parts of the game and also some of the things I actually disliked. Yes, I did not find everything peachy and while that is totally fine, the positives will outweigh the negatives very easily. So let us start with the negatives, shall we?
For starters, I had issues with the lighting in some scenes, mostly from entering dark places, I felt like the lighting did not change fast enough and I often had to pause the game for a few seconds just for the overall lighting to adjust to my new surroundings. It is similar to entering a dark room on a very bright sunny day outside. While the interval is not like 10 seconds or so, it was long enough though to keep me from fluent gameplay at those times. This of course can easily be fixed in future updates but for now, it did bother me while playing.
That being said, I did encounter some places that had mandatory side missions, all part of the story, but like, there is this card game called Queen’s Blood, which I had skipped until I suddenly had to pass 3 games by winning them. Not having played a single game so far, this kind of got on my nerves. Yes, I realize I should have engaged a few times in games before, but honestly, I assumed they were not going to force me into a set of 3 games. I you’re focussing on the main story like I did during my first run, this really caught me off guard.
The victory in those games is luckily not the hardest and I did figure out how to play pretty quickly, but the fact that it was mandatory to gain beach wear to enter a beach, was weird. Not to forget the segway retrieval mission or the time you played Chocobo racing or Chocobo Rocket League. A lot of distractions that broke the rhythm I was having. I get that there are a lot of side missions and extras to discover but in my honest opinion, those should never be mandatory for those who like to focus on the main plot first.
And that is the entire thing, the biggest downside of this entire game is that some parts just break your rhythm. Sure, you may enjoy these side missions, but I found them to be distractions. Maybe it was my keen desire to keep playing because quite frankly, this is a teenage Timmy dream coming true, replaying this game on a modern console. I just love the entire game.
And it is more than just the nostalgia, it is a great RPG to boot. From upgrades to special attacks to befriending people and so much more. This game has it almost all. From Chocobo riding out in the fields to finding your way through a jungle (remember kids, this game has maps if you follow the annoying Chadley missions) and well, making your team even bigger.
Not to forget the ultimate tease in the first half hour, you get to play as Sephiroth in the beginning and damn, it sucks to say that Cloud is a softie compared to him when it comes to battle. There is just so much going on. Talking about playing as someone else, is another thing that needs addressing, you often split up as a team and very frequently end up with teams you do not have under your control.
Personally, I think this approach gives you a more hands-on feeling because you do not ignore anyone, from Red to Yuffie to Aerith, you get to play with them all. This way, especially during boss fights, gives you a better rhythm during battle and it doesn’t just make you specialize with like 2 characters only, but you will always have some experience with the others as well.
Rebirth really does a lot right and it shows once again why Final Fantasy is probably the GOAT of the RPG genre and quite frankly, well deserved too. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is a great, but not the perfect middle game to an amazing game that got an even better remake.
Now, my score, I am giving this game an 8.5/10. I know, rather low compared to the previous 2 Final Fantasy remake games (adding Crisis Core into the fray here), maybe it is triple F, Final Fantasy Fatigue, but the negatives experienced did a number on my enjoyment during the gameplay and I can not shake the feeling that I would be going 9 or up if those rhythm breaking side missions had not been mandatory. Aside from that, some minor annoyances, like riding the Chocobos isn’t the smoothest experience, … It all counts towards my final score.
In conclusion, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is the perfect middle game to a great game split into 3 awesome parts. Can’t wait to play the final one!
