FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH REVIEW

[Sephiroth]

So, I played through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth 3 days ago.


Here are some of my thoughts.


Graphics, Technical issues:


It is no secret. Many people have been complaining about several graphical/technical/quality issues now. I noticed that in the demo already when I literally just for testing purposes went off rails and ran towards a body of water and I could see a messy looking water sheet including the seam that connected it to the rest. Most interestingly exactly that is still in the final product but obviously it is not the only thing. There are way too many in your face-issues on the graphical front where textures are too messy, objects do just not look PS5 quality and so on and so forth. One of the worst contenders for me personally is the trees. Trees are ordinarily made my nesting and overlapping objects to create leaves from several angles but in Rebirth you can see that so blatantly and often you can mask that with either some lighting - just like graphical quality - or better movement. And often that just does not happen. It is not by any means bad looking but it is PS5-not good enough-looking. I even had to switch to FPS mode within the first 2 minutes because I had almost instantly Frame Drops but trading that for graphics that make you feel they took it too serious with replicating the OG FFVII feeling is not the solution.


I also had a freeze in the first ~2-3 hours. That was fun.


Score:


The score is on par in quality with Remake 1. But some choices are hit or miss I feel. Masashi Hamauzu replicated too much of the Final Fantasy XIII feeling with some themes and I aready disliked that in XV where Shimomura-san had too much Kingdom Hearts in her themes. More FFX, less FFXIII in the score would have been fine. I love XIII but the themes just do not fit the world of
VII.


Also I am baffled at how some themes were not included, especially (SPOILER)Birth of a God properly. Boss themes mostly are a highlight once again.


Translation:


I just don't know why that is always done but apparently it is done on purpose. Final Fantasy VII is infamous for its translation and once again the translator just did not give a trout at times when nuances mattered. This will go down as another discussion spawning title where people insist on things being true because the non-Japanese version said so. I give up on that. Nobody cares anymore about anything which I have also seen with the actual changes in Rebirth. And I am not talking about the ending.


Non Main Campaign content:


I am fine with the size of the world. It is a bit too small for the ridiculous size the original Overworld Map was but it is okay. Also they finally fixed the Gold Saucer being next to North Corel. It was ridiculous to take a ropeway across half a continent.
The tasks however are as generic as can be. Yes, you cannot really leave out the obligatory beat those enemies or collect some stuff things. But it is incredibly formulaic with all of it being in each bigger area. It has cleaning the restaurant because you know the health inspector comes vibes. Final Fantasy was always stronger when it either had some bonus area or some good mini game and at least with the latter it can still shine. The other stuff might be ordinary busy work but some of it at least is thematically fitting for your summons or the Lifestream crystals/Materia.


Length:


The length for the main campaign is decent. I started it on normal and it took me about 47 hours - maybe 2 hours because I had to leave for a while and got back later. At that time I had done barely any side content but I must say that without side content some bosses are just artificially difficult. Not what the hell, how hard is that difficult, but there was a handful of bosses that I was actually even stuck on for a few hours and I could not even go and train because the story did not allow it.


Some areas are also padded out again. There is a section in Nibelheim where you control (SPOILER)Cait Sith and here, just like with other areas you notice that they wanted to give you the feeling of doing something which each character but sometimes 10 minutes less would have been enough.


Design choices:


- I am not happy with the Junon region being rearranged. About the Fort Condor I do not care but the Mythril Mines being right next to Junon feels so off. I can accept that with the Gold Saucer because that was always weird but here it feels wrong.
- I love that the final dungeon area was somewhere completely different on the world map. It was a big change but it had some "to the end of the world" vibes. They obviously did not place it exactly at the end as they just did not show the Knowlespole but it was still a pretty epic feeling to travel there and look at the world map to see it at Rebirth's end of the map.
I like all regions basically. Once again, they are super generic RPG areas but Final Fantasy VII has super generic RPG areas and for what the Overworld in FFVII was they put some effort into it. But they definitely butchered some sizes because in the Compilation preciously some things were simply bigger. But that they don't really care about design consistency I knew in 2007 when Crisis Core did not make the Shinra Manor look like in Dirge of Cerberus but more like a remade version of the original.
- I would have really liked seeing the areas at different night cycles or weather conditions. I was really missing dark Midgar in Remake-1 apart from the areas where it was scripted. And it is very similiar here. That you do not reach Cosmo Canyon at sunset or at least night is disappoining.

Enemies:

They did not exaggerate with the "every weird enemy is now a boss" and I am glad they did not. Most of them fit according to how they were in the original, even though I am disappointed to not have seen some of them. 1000 Turk and Shinra machine fights are getting on my nerves though.


Compilation inclusions:


Nomura-san said the inclusion of CoFFVII material was a big assignment for them but honestly, I am not feeling it. Some things or characters are just there and that is it. They are not bad but they do not scream "major assignment." Also I have the feeling with Roche that they want to allude to Sephiroth taking his soul out of the Lifestream in On the Way to a Smile and creating Loz based on him.


Story:


That is a big one. The most important one.


There are some things that were pulled off absolutely beautiful. Better than in the original. Either as good expansion or by simply replacing something that was either not enough or really ridiculous in the original. There were simply moments for which they really stuck the landing and I have to give them credit for that. But then they legitimately have some big story changes that fundamentally change some of Final Fantasy VII's lore. And I am not talking about the ending. I am talking about several other things like Jenova cells suddently harshly negatively affecting SOLDIERs which was NEVER the case. The degradation process is from Crisis Core, sure. But SOLDIERs are not affected on the same level. That is why Zack was a failure. He already was a guinea pig. That is why the EX-SOLDIER WEAPON SELLER IN JUNON flat out puts on a robe in the OG but neither kills himself, nor gets a shattered mind. SOLDIER are partially affected by the cells but it is never like that. I do not know if that is a Nojima thing because then he either does no longer care even though he always was very consistent or it was a different writer because in the credits way beyond Nojima-san's credit many other scenario writers were credited but some of it happens in big scenes so it should be his doing and when I criticise my mentor that is a big issue for me. Generally they changed some things here and there that just removed certain meanings that already existed in the OG and that is very questionable. You should never remove to much fundamental things when remaking or rebooting, reworking, etc. because at one point it loses what it is.


The ending I personally think as pulled off beautifully. Yes, we do not see certain things. But I am quite sure they make use of that in the next installment. I am also honest, I still do not buy into the multiversal stuff that people insist on and where Sephiroth even talks about worlds. It takes away so much of the story and also is no solution to what Final Fantasy VII needed to end the Compilation, unless what it needed will be handled in a new installment after the third one. That still seems like preparation for oh, you thought it was this but it was that-moment, especially as the Feelers still do things that make me eaise my eyebrows as they would fit what I say. I still stick to these "many worlds" being of spiritual matter than pop-culture corporeal worlds. Whatever it is, Nomura-san lied because he said there 3 in Rebirth but we get the hint there are 5 because we see 5 Stamps (Remake, Terrier, Pug, another terrier or whatever but not the same but more blackish, and Johnny is also hodling a pulshie of another one). Anyway ... Sephiroth even flat out in Ever Crisis talks about the Lifestream converging and diverging. That reeks of "the interjection of worlds" and I am sorry but a story with a villain that is all about memories and that gets stronger through memories and how he will not become a memory makes way more sense to be about remaking memories so ge returns or gets licked out of Cloud's soul. It smells of Namine asking Riku if she should lock Ansem out so he will not return effectively remaking his memories and Chain of Memories is from around On the way to a Smile by Nojima-san. Even though I have to admit I am willing to get back to my very first assumption of 2020 that this is indeed only a remake and that is heavily expanded. But I cannot really believe that fully because the story has to properly end based on Sephiroth not being beaten and Gackt returning and them suddenly in 2027 when the next installment comes out announcing the true finale would make for an even longer project.


All in all I was still very pleased. There are some issues I had with it but I also shed my fair share of tears saying "this is Final Fantasy VII" even when some of it was butchered. But some was even better than in the original and considering FFVII is my number 1 that is the biggest compliment I can give.

[Dr. Acula]

Nice breakdown - seems like your experience was overall pretty positive, which is great. I'm a lot more optimistic with this entry than I was with the first, mostly because I was worried they were changing too much (and truthfully, I haven't trusted Square's writing for a while). I really want to play this one, but I guess I'll wait a while till it comes out on PC. :P

[Sephiroth]

Oh, they did change a good chunk of moments. It is just about how big those changes are, how much they retain of the essence and if it is for rhe better.

[Karifean]

Finished it just earlier today. Full disclosure, I'm still processing it, and it's very possible I end up changing my mind on some things as it goes. But I hope putting this all into text helps with processing it.

Overall, it was a very frustrating experience. The game has a couple major problems that crop up in multiple forms. One, nothing is ever allowed to be special. It overdoes every little thing. Two, this game is setup, all setup, pure setup, and doesn't pay anything off, neither its own stuff nor that of Remake.

I would say the game would be genuinely better if parts of it were simply removed outright. The exploration is like this a lot. The first time you come across a lifespring, it's a genuinely pretty great moment. It feels like a magical moment of discovery. When you realize there's three of these in every single area, it retroactively ruins that. It turns from an experience into a chore. I'm not kidding when I say the game would IMO have been better if there was only one lifespring ever, and the moment of discovering it was allowed to be a unique event.

The chocobo powers had the same issue. It very quickly became formulaic into finding the chocobo that would be crucial to exploration in the new region in some form or another. If instead the areas were generally designed with exploration on foot in mind first and foremost, and chocobo upgrades were few and far between but instead transferable to different regions in a sort of metroidvania way and allowed you to find new stuff in earlier regions too, they would have actually felt meaningful and special every time you got one.

There's also sidequests that are really just chores that should not exist. If the chicken sidequest in Gongaga did not exist, the game would be a better game. Full stop. Enough is enough at some point, more is not always better just because it's optional.

Regarding point two, there is a lot this game builds up, but none of it leads anywhere, and none of it ever pays off, and this also includes things set up in FF7 Remake before it. Rufus's new vision for Shinra, as well as him seeing the whispers where others cannot. The budding war with Wutai. Sonon taken by Nero. Cait Sith clearly working for us a lot more than in OG. Everything with Cissnei. Cloud's memory of Zack drowning in the river. Tifa seeing the Weapons in the lifestream. Vincent attacking us over us entering the room of S samples. It goes on, and on, and on. There is so much this game teases or builds up, but there's never any narrative or emotional payoff to any of it.

There was a growing frustration at this slowly building over the course of the game, and obviously all this is shadowed by this still being the second part in a trilogy, but it didn't change that ultimately it was pretty miserable and some things really didn't inspire confidence that the things they're building up are even leading anywhere at all. Chief example of that being Cait Sith. The game doesn't hide his involvement with Shinra, he photoshops our wanted posters, Cissnei seems quite trusting of him despite having left Shinra herself, Tseng already teases in Junon (before we ever meet Cait) that they're having us under constant surveillance. Everything feels like it's setting up that Cait is not going to betray us this time. I didn't even expect it to be a particularly satisfying or meaningful reveal - maybe they just had a tracker on Red XIII instead, would have maybe been stupid but it would have been *something*. But it was even worse - the resolution was nothing at all. Cait just still betrays us. We just took 20 extra turns to arrive at the exact same place, and all the teases at him possibly not were just trolling anyone like me who thought they were going somewhere with this.

And perhaps "that was the idea", ending up in the same place, and that's certainly how I'm taking it now. It just feels pointless, doing all this, but it ultimately only ever amounting to the same thing as the original, except far less straightforward. There will be an audience that appreciates this about the Remake trilogy, but I'm not one of them. When I imagine that with all these extra plotlines, with Wutai, with Rufus, with Zack, with whispers, with Tifa, all of it, will still only lead us to fight Sephiroth *again* at the end of the third game (same final boss in three games in a row huh) to save the planet and it's not really adding anything to the ultimately simple narrative of FF7 it's really just disappointing, like wtf is the point.

Really, if the ending of the game had at least ONE narrative thing it simply paid off and let you experience without being more setup to be paid off later at some undisclosed point, maybe it would have felt better. It's insane to me how absolutely nothing felt or was even allowed to feel satisfying.

Brings me back again to just how much this game overdoes things, to a really ridiculous degree. Again, it just left me feeling empty. The final boss gauntlet has what, something like 10 different phases? It went on for almost an hour, and each portion of the fight demanded that you pay attention to it, now all of a sudden there's a barrier, now all of a sudden there's a shift gimmick, now there's Heartless Angel which requires having healing ready beforehand, now there's unblockable attacks you need to dodge away from quickly or get "command grabbed", etc etc, it's good ideas in isolation on a micro level but the macro effect of putting them all together like this just makes it so absolutely none of it feels good or can even be properly appreciated.

So that's kinda where I'm at - it's a game that doesn't pay anything off, but overcompensates by overdoing everything. Just leaves it feeling hollow.

There were parts of the game that were good, Junon was a highlight, but overall all that is as of now greatly overshadowed by all the frustrations. I really liked FF7 Remake, and FF7 Rebirth was a disappointing followup. It fixed none of the issues of FF7 original, I would argue it adds nothing to the narrative of FF7 original, it fixed none of the issues of FF7 Remake, either, and it hardly at all progressed the narrative unique to the Remake. It feels like a filler arc, or a regression even - Cloud and the rest of the cast felt like their character arcs were more complete at the end of Remake than Rebirth.

We'll see how my feelings on this game evolve with time I suppose. For now while I'm sure there's a lot of details about the ending I missed, I don't really care much. Again, unless any of it goes somewhere, it feels pointless to delve into.