80 hours played, 100% completion for what I can do in Normal mode, several crying fits, and 11 days. That's what it took to finish Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, on launch weekend I took four days off work and used my vacation time to absorb this game and it's world, I put 50 hours in during that vacation and it was some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. We all know by now how much I love Final Fantasy 7 and if you don't want to read the review that follows here's the verdict, the music is incredible, the story is incredible, the combat is incredible, the game isn't perfect but it does nothing to ruin my 10/10 score for it.
That being said here is the full review and I am not holding back spoilers so if you care about spoilers stop read here.
Rebirth opens pretty wildly, not with the demo that showcased most of the Kalm flashback, but rather with a section were you play as Zack. Many trailers and previews teased Zack in the game and so did Remake, it was pretty obvious at some point we were going to play as Zack in Rebirth but to have it be the first five minutes of the game got your head spinning. Especially because after this brief Zack segment you wont see him again for another 20 hours or so. After a short scene the Kalm flashback begins and the game really starts properly. What makes this section of the game so great is the detail within for long time fans. If you know the story of FF7 then the Easter eggs here are just incredible. Cloud's behaving not like himself, but clearly like Zack. The motion sick soldier in the truck has blonde hair and is voiced by Cloud's voice actor because well it IS Cloud. When Nibelhiem is burning down the soldier who really is Cloud is in front of his house calling for his mom. It's fucking beautifully executed.
And beautifully executed is how I would say the whole game is. Being the middle part of a trilogy is hard for any franchise, or at least any franchise with an actual plan. But it is exceptionally hard with a FF7 remake because considering this game is taking place merely to finish out Disk 1 of the original game, how do you motivate the characters and the player to go forward towards what can't be a real ending to the game. The answer Rebirth found was to focus on the characters. The vast majority of Rebirth is built upon the characters and building relationships with them. Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith, all have some relationship coming out of the Remake but they don't really know each other well. Add on Red 13, Yuffie, and Cait Sith and there is a lot of becoming a team that needs to happen and that's where Rebirth shines.
While the main plot is essentially the party following the black robed figures who seem to be heading somewhere at the call of Sephiroth, the party finds a lot of free time because these robed figures move very slowly. Which gives the space for the open world sections to shine and side quests to really flesh people out. Though the game isn't true open world, there are 6 open world segments each with their own look and massive collection of intel to gather. World intel is set up by Chadley who returns in this game, through him the open world activities happen via collecting "intel". Each open world section has the same grouping of intel activities to gather which boil down to Ubisoft towers, summon shrines where you play a memorization game that powers up your summon materia, combat intel where special monsters fight you with combat objectives to complete, Moghouses where you'll play a mini game to bring the moogles together, lifestream fountains which will provide lore for the region, and the protorelic quest which is the biggest quest in the zone.
All the world objectives are fairly simple on paper and in the first two zones Grasslands and Junon, they are fairly simple to complete. With the exception of the protorelic quest. The protorelics are great because each one requires something completely different, in the first zone you are dealing with Beck's Bandits from the Remake, in Junon you are sucked into the world of the Fort Condor mini game, and so on for each zone.
The open world areas become quite complex later, Gongaga's region and Cosmo Canyon especially where tricky due to the navigation gimmick. Each zone grants you a different Chocobo to ride with a different ability. In Junon the Chocobo can climb some vertical cliffs, in Cosmo Canyon it can glide off certain platforms and wind tunnel launch pads. These means of travel add to the design of each zone and makes them all feel different which I really liked, because it makes the world feel bigger than the segmented pieces it actually is, and to Rebirth's credit each open world zone is a lot bigger than it appears on the map.
Outside of the general open world content, there are side quests that become available which are always story driven and based around one of your team mates. Doing these quests builds your relationship with them on a personal level as well as bonding the whole party together. Barret has a confrontation with a father who is trying to break away from the funding of his mother in one quest. Tifa wants to help Johnny in another. Every quest ties into something related to a given party member in some way and they are all great. Remake had pretty boring and shitty side quests, and Rebirth mostly fixes that, though one or two have mini games that are just annoying.
Speaking of mini games there are 30 mini games in Rebirth total. Some are small and used just as a gimmick in one quest. Other's are quite expansive like Queen's Blood, the card game that has a main quest, a mini quest, several side quests, tournaments, and special puzzle challenges. Most mini games also have a hard mode version that get....really fucking hard. The thing about the mini games is that none of them are optional if you want to "complete" the game, you have to not only beat these games, but master their hard modes and it's ridiculous because mastering hard mode requires perfection and to me that's always going too far with a difficulty spike. You can't just be good, you must be perfect.
Overall I think the main story is fantastic though it's quite a bit different than the original game, but they had to add and change things from the original. I've seen a lot of discourse about changes on Reddit and Twitter and the like, but people don't realize that a lot of the places we visit in this game where original less than 2 minutes long. The chocobo farm in the original is a quick pit stop to pick up a materia and bounce. The Mythril Mines is three screens, two if you don't grab the option chests. Costa Del Sol is 15 seconds, you get there and you leave and that's it. Corel Town is just a screen to get you to the Gold Saucer. So of course they had to put story and events into these area's that were there before because nothing was there before. I think a lot of people don't remember how short FF7 originally was, and the vast majority of the story happens in only a couple locations and everything else is very little of anything. Hell Gongaga was nothing in the original game and now it's a beautiful story that connects with Crisis Core wonderfully.
Thankfully nothing they expand on is out of place, and a lot of it is quite charming. Especially Junon where you gather your troops to put on the coolest parade the world as ever seen. The story of Junon is pretty much completely different yet still falls in line with the original game because it makes sense to the sudden lack of Shinra influence once you leave Midgar. This is a cycle that repeats the whole game and while some stuff is more on beat for the original game, it's always more expansive. I think they did a beautiful job of making the journey feel good.
Though there is the ending, which has been alluded too as being bad. And I disagree, sort of, because the ending was always building up to some sort of clash of worlds somehow with Cloud and Zack coming into the same timeline. And that indeed does happen briefly, but it's not really a merge. Much like the confuffle of Remake's ending, the same thing sort of happens here except it's all against the battle of Sephiroth which is an epic fucking fight that has like 9 fucking phases. You fight in different worlds, different groups of party members are forced to fight at certain points. The final fight uses everybody in the game and it's awesome. Does it make a lot of sense? Not really no. But it's really cool and it changes nothing in the end. The party is forced to say goodbye to Aerith and it's heartbreaking. Though arguably in a different way. The scene is hard to describe but the impact of her death in the actual moment is not here because of changes but also not changes. Essentially Sephiroth comes down to do the old stabby on Aerith like the original game, but Cloud sees it coming and deflects the blade....but only in his mind, Aerith falls limp either way and in his head she's okay hurt but okay, in the real world her blood covers the floor and she's dead. There are a lot of Cloud's mental shenanagans happening because at this point in the game Cloud's losing control of himself, he is a puppet, and Sephiroth has a lot of control over him. Between that and the fucked up memories he has, Cloud isn't Cloud anymore and he isn't even the sort-of Cloud that's still mostly Zack from Remake and early in this game.
Admittedly it's very convoluted but the lore and timeline of FF7 in general is also very convoluted and anime-like. So you kind of have to roll with it. I disagree with the reviews that said it was bad and didn't make sense mostly because I don't trust IGN or any of those people to understand shit. If you understand FF7, I don't think any of this comes as a shock or is out of place, I think it works and is fitting together for a thrilling and fantastic 3rd game.
As for my gripes with the game, which are fairly minor. There are some annoying traversal bugs where sometimes you can climb a thing, but then sometimes you can't climb a thing that's the same size or lower, which makes moving around the world feel inconsistent at times. The requirements for the mini games is just bullshit and the hard modes for most of them are just outright unfair. Chadley talks way too much. There are a lot of visual and texture problems with the world, but supposedly a patch is coming to fix it.
Otherwise, I loved it. Going to replay it now.
That being said here is the full review and I am not holding back spoilers so if you care about spoilers stop read here.
Rebirth opens pretty wildly, not with the demo that showcased most of the Kalm flashback, but rather with a section were you play as Zack. Many trailers and previews teased Zack in the game and so did Remake, it was pretty obvious at some point we were going to play as Zack in Rebirth but to have it be the first five minutes of the game got your head spinning. Especially because after this brief Zack segment you wont see him again for another 20 hours or so. After a short scene the Kalm flashback begins and the game really starts properly. What makes this section of the game so great is the detail within for long time fans. If you know the story of FF7 then the Easter eggs here are just incredible. Cloud's behaving not like himself, but clearly like Zack. The motion sick soldier in the truck has blonde hair and is voiced by Cloud's voice actor because well it IS Cloud. When Nibelhiem is burning down the soldier who really is Cloud is in front of his house calling for his mom. It's fucking beautifully executed.
And beautifully executed is how I would say the whole game is. Being the middle part of a trilogy is hard for any franchise, or at least any franchise with an actual plan. But it is exceptionally hard with a FF7 remake because considering this game is taking place merely to finish out Disk 1 of the original game, how do you motivate the characters and the player to go forward towards what can't be a real ending to the game. The answer Rebirth found was to focus on the characters. The vast majority of Rebirth is built upon the characters and building relationships with them. Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith, all have some relationship coming out of the Remake but they don't really know each other well. Add on Red 13, Yuffie, and Cait Sith and there is a lot of becoming a team that needs to happen and that's where Rebirth shines.
While the main plot is essentially the party following the black robed figures who seem to be heading somewhere at the call of Sephiroth, the party finds a lot of free time because these robed figures move very slowly. Which gives the space for the open world sections to shine and side quests to really flesh people out. Though the game isn't true open world, there are 6 open world segments each with their own look and massive collection of intel to gather. World intel is set up by Chadley who returns in this game, through him the open world activities happen via collecting "intel". Each open world section has the same grouping of intel activities to gather which boil down to Ubisoft towers, summon shrines where you play a memorization game that powers up your summon materia, combat intel where special monsters fight you with combat objectives to complete, Moghouses where you'll play a mini game to bring the moogles together, lifestream fountains which will provide lore for the region, and the protorelic quest which is the biggest quest in the zone.
All the world objectives are fairly simple on paper and in the first two zones Grasslands and Junon, they are fairly simple to complete. With the exception of the protorelic quest. The protorelics are great because each one requires something completely different, in the first zone you are dealing with Beck's Bandits from the Remake, in Junon you are sucked into the world of the Fort Condor mini game, and so on for each zone.
The open world areas become quite complex later, Gongaga's region and Cosmo Canyon especially where tricky due to the navigation gimmick. Each zone grants you a different Chocobo to ride with a different ability. In Junon the Chocobo can climb some vertical cliffs, in Cosmo Canyon it can glide off certain platforms and wind tunnel launch pads. These means of travel add to the design of each zone and makes them all feel different which I really liked, because it makes the world feel bigger than the segmented pieces it actually is, and to Rebirth's credit each open world zone is a lot bigger than it appears on the map.
Outside of the general open world content, there are side quests that become available which are always story driven and based around one of your team mates. Doing these quests builds your relationship with them on a personal level as well as bonding the whole party together. Barret has a confrontation with a father who is trying to break away from the funding of his mother in one quest. Tifa wants to help Johnny in another. Every quest ties into something related to a given party member in some way and they are all great. Remake had pretty boring and shitty side quests, and Rebirth mostly fixes that, though one or two have mini games that are just annoying.
Speaking of mini games there are 30 mini games in Rebirth total. Some are small and used just as a gimmick in one quest. Other's are quite expansive like Queen's Blood, the card game that has a main quest, a mini quest, several side quests, tournaments, and special puzzle challenges. Most mini games also have a hard mode version that get....really fucking hard. The thing about the mini games is that none of them are optional if you want to "complete" the game, you have to not only beat these games, but master their hard modes and it's ridiculous because mastering hard mode requires perfection and to me that's always going too far with a difficulty spike. You can't just be good, you must be perfect.
Overall I think the main story is fantastic though it's quite a bit different than the original game, but they had to add and change things from the original. I've seen a lot of discourse about changes on Reddit and Twitter and the like, but people don't realize that a lot of the places we visit in this game where original less than 2 minutes long. The chocobo farm in the original is a quick pit stop to pick up a materia and bounce. The Mythril Mines is three screens, two if you don't grab the option chests. Costa Del Sol is 15 seconds, you get there and you leave and that's it. Corel Town is just a screen to get you to the Gold Saucer. So of course they had to put story and events into these area's that were there before because nothing was there before. I think a lot of people don't remember how short FF7 originally was, and the vast majority of the story happens in only a couple locations and everything else is very little of anything. Hell Gongaga was nothing in the original game and now it's a beautiful story that connects with Crisis Core wonderfully.
Thankfully nothing they expand on is out of place, and a lot of it is quite charming. Especially Junon where you gather your troops to put on the coolest parade the world as ever seen. The story of Junon is pretty much completely different yet still falls in line with the original game because it makes sense to the sudden lack of Shinra influence once you leave Midgar. This is a cycle that repeats the whole game and while some stuff is more on beat for the original game, it's always more expansive. I think they did a beautiful job of making the journey feel good.
Though there is the ending, which has been alluded too as being bad. And I disagree, sort of, because the ending was always building up to some sort of clash of worlds somehow with Cloud and Zack coming into the same timeline. And that indeed does happen briefly, but it's not really a merge. Much like the confuffle of Remake's ending, the same thing sort of happens here except it's all against the battle of Sephiroth which is an epic fucking fight that has like 9 fucking phases. You fight in different worlds, different groups of party members are forced to fight at certain points. The final fight uses everybody in the game and it's awesome. Does it make a lot of sense? Not really no. But it's really cool and it changes nothing in the end. The party is forced to say goodbye to Aerith and it's heartbreaking. Though arguably in a different way. The scene is hard to describe but the impact of her death in the actual moment is not here because of changes but also not changes. Essentially Sephiroth comes down to do the old stabby on Aerith like the original game, but Cloud sees it coming and deflects the blade....but only in his mind, Aerith falls limp either way and in his head she's okay hurt but okay, in the real world her blood covers the floor and she's dead. There are a lot of Cloud's mental shenanagans happening because at this point in the game Cloud's losing control of himself, he is a puppet, and Sephiroth has a lot of control over him. Between that and the fucked up memories he has, Cloud isn't Cloud anymore and he isn't even the sort-of Cloud that's still mostly Zack from Remake and early in this game.
Admittedly it's very convoluted but the lore and timeline of FF7 in general is also very convoluted and anime-like. So you kind of have to roll with it. I disagree with the reviews that said it was bad and didn't make sense mostly because I don't trust IGN or any of those people to understand shit. If you understand FF7, I don't think any of this comes as a shock or is out of place, I think it works and is fitting together for a thrilling and fantastic 3rd game.
As for my gripes with the game, which are fairly minor. There are some annoying traversal bugs where sometimes you can climb a thing, but then sometimes you can't climb a thing that's the same size or lower, which makes moving around the world feel inconsistent at times. The requirements for the mini games is just bullshit and the hard modes for most of them are just outright unfair. Chadley talks way too much. There are a lot of visual and texture problems with the world, but supposedly a patch is coming to fix it.
Otherwise, I loved it. Going to replay it now.
