Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024)

Rebirth is an enormous game — and enormity is both its greatest achievement and its central problem. The ambition here is genuine and at times staggering: a vast open world, dozens of distinct minigames, an operatic story, and one of the deepest combat systems in modern action-RPGs. The question is whether any of it was reined in enough to serve the player.

Rebirth bears the hallmarks of an unfettered director — brilliant in vision, but missing the editorial friction that turns vision into coherent experience. The Zack subplot, clearly meaningful to the director and to series devotees, lands as an interruption for anyone without deep Crisis Core investment. The game is nothing if not ambitious, but by the time the credits roll, spectacle has done most of the heavy lifting. And at times the sheer volume of content — minigames, side quests, systems — outruns the polish available to it. Rough edges exist. Most are minor; a few are genuinely frustrating.

Hard mode New Game+ is arguably the real game — which is both a genuine recommendation and an indictment.

But underneath all of this is a combat system of genuine, uncommon depth. Elemental weaknesses, stagger conditions, ATB management, materia synergies, well-timed blocks — the system rewards mastery in ways that few action-RPGs attempt. Crucially, it feels like a direct spiritual heir to the original FF7's combat — the DNA of materia builds, party roles, and tactical resource management is unmistakably present — but elevated into something that could only exist now. Where FF16 abandoned that inheritance entirely in favour of spectacle, Rebirth honours it and then deepens it.

The problem is that Normal difficulty lets you ignore almost all of this depth. The combat system only fully reveals its quality on Hard mode — a post-game unlock that most players will never reach. When it is at its best — a boss fight that demands real recalibration rather than brute persistence, built on a foundation you already own — Rebirth is as good as anything in the genre. Those moments justify the journey. They just require patience to reach.

Rebirth is much bigger than its predecessor, and it boasts many more environments which are beautifully detailed. Finally out of Midgar, where the entirety of Remake is spent, you go into the open world and have many nooks and crevices to explore along with beautiful towns and many characters. As per sequels, it's bigger and better, except perhaps better.

The biggest issue I have with this title is what others are saying: there are too many forced mini-games and side quests that are dull and uninteresting. At first, I didn't want to play the card game here that is called Queen's Gambit. After skipping it as much as possible, it came up later as part of the main quests and I was forced to play it. It did not further the story nor is it necessary for any reason except they make you. That is an idea of what Rebirth likes to do: it makes you do useless side quests as if it's actively trying to distract you from the main story.

Another example would be the Protorelic Phenomenon Intel side quests. One of them consists of making you defeat a boss in the center of the field while you attack it from four corners by spawning soldiers to attack it all the while fighting ads. It was confusing (but not the most confusing minigame) to me and it isn't even in the same genre of game that Rebirth is. I have no interest in playing this type of game nor do I want to learn, yet to finish this type of side quest I had to learn how to play this type of game. It highlights two issues: 1) I should just be able to press a button and collect the intel, IMO, and 2) as I said above, the minigame is a different genre than what I bought, so why add this in?

In the end, I just ignored this intel and never completed all of them. In another part of the game world, there is a similar intel where you play something called Fort Condor. All I know is that I would spawn soldiers and they would go to attack enemy soldiers that spawn, and I didn't know how to play it. I skipped the tutorial because of my sheer lack of interest, and I ended up quitting on this type as well.

Some side quests are optional and they typically involve fighting a monster, collecting an item, or both. Usually both. These are fine and nothing special, and perfectly optional, but unintrusive. What this game does force you to do that isn't story-related is typically uninteresting, boring, and makes you learn something that you don't care about.

It's all of this forced baggage that makes me say Remake is better than Rebirth. Yes, the world is much bigger and varied than in the first of the trilogy. Yes, the music is just as good if not better (Uematsu fucking cooked when making this). But the gameplay itself, because of forced side quests that they put in just because they can, makes the game less fun. Unlike Remake where I 100% of the game and put 116 hours into it, I did most of the side quests here, I beat the story once on normal mode, and then I called it quits.

I just don't care enough about all of the extra shit. There is plenty of it and it is dull, and typically out of my range of gaming (I don't do strategy games). It's sad, because the story is wonderful and has a great, beautiful, and possibly sad ending. It could've surpassed Remake, but too many side quests hamper the experience.

Just as many problems as with remake, if not more. The ending sucks balls and I'm not even attempting to get to the ending.

Combat is refind but man, Cloud can FLY NOW?!?!? But only in combat and cutscenes. Yet a fence and even a barrell is too much effort. It got even more anime and Kingdom Hearts as the first and I don't like it.

Still a 7 because the combat is still fun albeit with 2 majorly different difficulty settings (and adaptive), the graphics got an upgrade and the music is still nice to listen to. Is it out of pity for the people who DID their work well enough? I don't know but it feels wrong to rate it anything less. I think the ground floor developers didn't want a bad game and that Nomura is just a bad director outside of Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 Final Mix.

First off, huge spoiler warning. I cannot talk about why this game is scored the way it is without talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the storyline. My gameplay was nearly ~101 hours, all on PS5, and up until late game was all on Normal mode. That being said. Let’s get into it.

My overall hopes is that we get a very traditional final fantasy game for the final installment. We take something like Remake and give it the scope of Rebirth. Mostly, I need square to pull off a historic installment and demonstrate that they are still committed to telling compelling stories. I also would like to see the de-Ubisoftication of the open world in the next installment.

Previously had problems with FF7 Rebirth on PS5 causing very uncomfortable eye strain and headache, with even a few minutes of play.

This has resolved with the ~60 fps setting. While the game is not quite as lovely, I can now actually focus on moving objects and enjoy the combat and story.

If anyone else is having that problem, see if the smoother frame rate helps.

4.5/5

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is part 2 of the remake trilogy of the beloved Final Fantasy 7 from the PlayStation 1. Releasing a couple years after part 1, Square Enix was smart to include what is essentially a "Previously on..." video that recaps what happened in part 1.

Picking up where part 1 left off, Cloud and the gang can now begin exploring the world outside of just Midgar. The world opens up region by region based on what chapter of the story you are in. So while it's "open world", it's not truly open. Gameplay is basically the same as 1, with the hybrid action RPG and elements of the ATB of the past. One of the newer features are the different varieties of chocobos. Each region has chocobos with a specific skillset that you will utilize for traversal. Even when unlocking later chocobos, traveling back to the prior regions will yield using that specific region's chocobo for any movement or activities. This adds to the variety a bit and for the most part keeps things fun and interesting (minus those flying challenges and the awful controls around it).

The various regions in this entry all feel quite different from each other and have a distinct look, which is exactly what your mind pictured them as when you played the flat backdrop original versions on the PS1. Seeing these in fully rendered 3D never got tiring. This was easily one of the best looking next gen games on console I've seen yet.

While the first part had a lot of extra fluff in dragging some portions of the story out too long, thankfully they seemed to have learned their lesson for part 2 and fix this. You never really stick with one area for so long you get tired of it. Unfortunately because if one thing is removed they need to replace it, it's been replaced with so. many. minigames. Holy crap this is my biggest con of the game. You unlock a new region, it opens the map, and one by one by one map icons appear for all of the minigames/objectives that are now open to you. Most of these are pretty fun even if repetitive or not that different from other minigames, but they are a nightmare for anyone who is a completionist. I wish the game would keep track of time spent in mini games and compare that to overall play time, because it was not an insignificant amount. Again though, most of these aren't all too difficult or annoying, some of them even being fun like the newest Final Fantasy card game, Queen's Blood. What starts as a simple card game, you eventually realize has it's own crazy deep and dark lore behind it. These were fun battles and sometimes implemented into the main story. The only thing I wish here though was a little more difficulty. I basically only had to change my deck 3 or 4 times total to have a winning strategy for every battle.

Overall, this was another great entry in the series that does some new things with a story that has been beloved by so many for so long. I'm excited to see how they wrap this up in part 3 whenever it finally releases!

Finally finished this too-long game, and I'm not sure where I'll land on it just yet. The ending's bad, I think, and the overall plot is incredibly thin. Tepid enemy design undermines the otherwise-solid combat, and tedious checklists undermine the beauty of its world. But the cast is brilliant, the towns are lovely to explore, and all the goofy lighthearted bits really worked for me. I dunno!

Spoiler alert of course

I have spend about 80 hours in game for 100% completion ( roughly 1 month coz i have to work duh), why 100%? Because i know i would never have the time to replay the game again . might as well see everything it has to offer

For nostalgia alone , i would rate it 11/10.
However, actual rate i would givr is 8.5/10.

Now, FF7 OG is my fav game of all time. its my 1st game when my mother bought ps1 for me 20 years ago. i have replayed it countless time and it shape part of my childhood (No kidding !).

I was excited to experience this masterpiece in HD but let me summarize it real quick:

I CANT THE FELT EMOTIONAL CONNECTION DUE TO THE MULTIVERSE CHARADE

Let the rambling begin..................

STORY AND WRITING =

• I hate what they done to the story that make it so convoluted and many plot holes without actually have proper explanation (probably in last part but still).
• The whisper, the multiverse, the altered fate etc. i didnt enjoyed it, and im sure im not the only one . But maybe for people who never played the original would not care.
• Im not gonna write whats wrong with the story coz there plenty of youtubers and review out there discussing but so many theories.... i wish they just stick to the OG
• Nomura and hamaguchi cant escape the stereotype of making garbage story telling that hard to follow and full of hole. let see if they can clear it up in 3rd part which i think will diverge greatly from original story.
• Like Zack said What the hell is going on???

GAMEPLAY =

• Im a sucker for turn based coz i grow up playing that genre, however FF7 rebirth battle gameplay actually on of the best action RPG kind for me.
• Cool effect and VFX, nice choreography, fast and fluid etc.
• Gate keeping the limit break to synergy skills were insaneeee
• lack of unique skills, i use the same one mostly since the beginning coz the later either useless or really hard to commit while not being worthwhile to execute.
• im surprised coz i find tifa and yuffie are the best playstyle of all . but i need red Xiii in the team coz only he can use synergy to level up limit break for all characters lol

MAP AND THE WORLD =

• Ahhh an open world game ... or is it? it just one huge dungeon of multiple regions giving the illusion of open world. But ive no problem with this.
• What i have problem tho is how they turn this into some generic rpg of exploration.... Go tower, activate tower, collect dadada for points and repeat through out the whole 7 regions. What the hell. wheres the fun part in exploration?? Its so tedious. Should just stick to unique scenrio like side quest and protorelic quest. But ive completed it all.. every single things coz im not going to touch the game anymore. and im not having fun doing it.
• Also STFU chadley . cant stand him pop up for every little things urgh
• Chocobo session the worse. so slow , so frustrating
• Luckily there plenty of fast travels points (Thank goddddd), which make it easier .
• F the gongaga and cosmo regions. very pain navigating. The pointer is useless coz dont tell whether its up or down, except for story pointer. what the hell.

MINI GAMES =

• You like mini games? i like mini games . but not in this one. The only one i excited for are the queens blade.
• Okay maybe the chocobo racing too . who can say no to that

WEAPON , ACCESSORIES AND MATERIA =

• You guys play the OG? you know theres like hundreds of weapons. but it suck you its very limited , u get like 6 per characters and later one has worse start then previous one? whats up with that?
• Accessories kinda okay-ish but it should go more than just defense and magic defense no?
• Trinkets okay i guess
• Materias also very limited. i found myself have many empty slots coz i dont know what else to put . lots of purple for sure. Customization limited coz i mostly find myself slot the same thing for characters.

GRAPHIC AND PERFORMANCE =

• Top Notch. im thankful to be alive so long to see Tifa and Aerith in HD <3 Very pleasing , tifa very beautiful in CGI cutscene.
• I had lots of stuttering and tearing and had to look up how to stablize the game. yeessh . Even new patch update still got some , but i guess maybe my rig not good enough

Im sure there some more i want to type but i cant remember. should take notes next time lol.

Overall, i just treat this game differently. its not FF7. Do i have fun? of course. I cant wait for the final trilogy of the multiverse charade. but im somehow not much excited like the ff7 remake. We all know these trilogies just to milk FF7 as much as they can.

i might.. i might.. play the OG with all the newer mods instead. Where Nomura should just stay as artist !

It's hilarious that Rebirth brings back gambits after like 20 years away, only to limit them entirely to a goofy one-off minigame. Dug it more than Fort Condor though, and the little Avalanche flashbacks you get as a reward were pretty rad! Whether it be for weird side content like this, or for main story beats, Barret's voice actor is consistently elevating every scene he's in.

A bit bummed out that FF7 Rebirth is giving me trouble in the eye strain/headache department. Choppy motion blur at 30 fps, and crunchy or washed out in 60 fps. So many tiny assets blurring by; it's like trying to focus on everything going by outside a car window at 60 mph. Every object in the fov has the same degree of focus. Adjusting camera responsiveness did not make a significant difference. Hoping they patch in a way to reduce motion blur at least.

Been wanting to play Cyberpunk 2077, maybe it will not share these issues.

PS5 btw.

A little disappointed in Queen's Blood after all the hype I've heard for it over the past year, the dominant strategy is much too repetitive for it to be very interesting. Cloud humming the FF victory fanfare to himself after he wins the big tourney is immensely cute though.

I guess my thoughts on it kinda mirror my take on the game overall so far: there's not a lot of depth to the combat, the story's barely hanging together, but everything's so breezy and charming that I'm still having a good time. It's really refreshing to play a big-budget game like this that's perfectly comfortable being lighthearted and silly for long stretches.

Just got to Cosmo Canyon. I'm still thoroughly enjoying my time with FFVII Rebirth. There is a lot of stuff to do in this game. There are places to explore, things to collect, and minigames to play.

The places to explore are rich. Some of them are overwhelming, like the last one I was: the jungle of Gongaga. Aesthetically, I adored this area, as I'm a sucker for jungles and rain forests in general. But when it comes to navigating and exploring, it was disorienting. The sheer number of objects on screen also didn't help my frame rate and I had to reduce my resolution for that area to keep a solid 60.

As with my previous thoughts about the game up to that point, I still think that while riding chocobos is a cool idea, the clunkiness of it gets to be grating. But then again, I would imagine that riding an animal is somewhat clunky in practice as well.

I like the exploration and completing the map markers for the most part. The obnoxious commentary from Chadley and the Death Stranding-esque cutscenes of his phonecalls that follow completing an objective make me want to rip my eyebrows off. I'm glad I can skip them, at least.

I struggle with minigames by default, since they are necessarily deviations from the core gameplay of the game. But I've been exceptionally patient with Rebirth's offerings, even though there are enough that are frustrating, either in design or because I suck at them, to tarnish it. The piano minigame and the chocobo gliding course come to mind. It would be one thing if they were short games but the are tediously long.

The storytelling and plot have held their hooks in me without wavering. I have no doubt that I'll see this one through to the end. I know there's probably quite a bit of game to go, and I can tell I'm nearing the point of fatigue where I'm starting to feel the itch to skip some stuff to get to the next bits. Part of the problem is my own personal life, where it's hard to find uninterrupted time to play this game. It's not the kind of game you can pick up for ten minutes, which is about as long as I get before something interrupts me. I have 77 hours in game according to Steam, but I guarantee 12 at least were spent in the pause menu. That's just being an adult but it's easier to manage with some games. This just isn't one of them. It's the point where I'm almost considering taking PTO because it feels like I'm never going to finish this fucking thing otherwise.

This game is the monkeys paw of I'd like a great final fantasy game. I really didn't enjoy my last 20 hours with the game. In my first 40 I thought it might end up as my favorite game of all time. Really strange experience.

Movement,

The main issue I had was movement in the engine square are using feels really 'floaty'. It's like they made a game using the horse from elden ring as a base... for the characters. The lack of a jump button really makes moving around in the world feel super weird. They went to incredible efforts to give characters all automated movement animations, but here is the thing. I want to do the movement. These two factors combine to create a sensation that your character is just slightly out of your control, and it actually made me queasy times.

Performance,

PS5: 60 fps mode is blurry. Graphics mode is stuttery. This is probably the game with the worst performance on the PS5 yet, still good but everything else has been great.

The open world,

The first zone in the open world is really fun to collect all the items and was really balanced. I then did the second open world section and it was the exact same. I did the third and it was the same again: climb a tower, scan a rock, slap 'flying enemy copy 2' and 'Gorund enemy copy 2'. This Happened 4! more times. The most annoying part is really good features are gated behind 40-60 hours of mini-games.

Side Quests,

This was perhaps the best part of the game and the worst. Depending on the quality of the mini-game connected to the quest you got. Almost all had story, so if you were locked into the world unlike me I can imagine this being incredible.

Combat,

Combat is excellent, from a certain vatange. But is fundamentally undermined by some significant balance issues. One party move is far too strong and undermined every other strategy. I one hit every mob from hour 15. I felt like I had more time to think and plan in the last game, non-boss fights in this one seem to end in 4 seconds. Enemies don't feel unique.

Party - the major sin

The large party size makes zero sense with the current systems. You effectively pick 3 characters to be your base, and the other characters only get used when they are forced on you. This is because a significant volume of progress is locked into materia development.

My cloud is optimised to all hell, but other characters don't really feel like they have a significant reason for existing. The characters just are not as interesting as you would like.

Narrative,

The game is a theme park of interesting plot and engaging side content. Excellently animated and modelled to create a world that feels a little like a new reality. I recommend skipping all side content and focusing on the story.

Major gripe,

This is not a criticism of the game per say, but it is very frustrating how long it is taking to play and finish effectivly one game over 8(?) years. Like, I have an attention span but... "who are you" is too common a thought.

Overall,

This game was so close to being one of the greatest ever, but had just too much scope. It was flying close to the sun but not close enough to crash a burn. If you don't feel the filler in the game, I expect you will have an amazing time.

For me, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a game of highs & lows. When this game is good, it is GREAT! But the lows have been very low… Lower than both FFVII Remake & FFXVI. The best way to summarize it is that I like the combat and… most of the story, but the open-world stuff & abundance of minigames kind of dragged the whole experience down for me and made this game feel longer than FFXVI, even though I actually finished Rebirth in less playtime than FFXVI (a few minutes shy of 40 hours for Rebirth vs almost 52 ½ hours for FFXVI).

Starting with the gameplay and… to its credit, Rebirth’s combat is a big improvement over its predecessor. The action side of this hybrid combat system feels more fluid and responsive than Remake, with cool new additions being made, like Cloud being given a gap-closer similar to FFXV’s Warp Strike or the ones in FFXVI, for example. I like FFXVI’s combat more, but Rebirth’s combat is close enough to FFXVI in quality that I won’t judge people for preferring it. Especially with Rebirth being much more difficult than FFXVI and having more extensive RPG elements.

But it’s when we get to the stuff around the open world that we start to reach the issues I have with this game. I can definitely see what they’re going for, but it just didn’t work for me. Rebirth’s approach to an open world is very much inspired by games like FFXV, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Xenoblade & [INSERT UBISOFT OPEN WORLD GAME HERE]. So you’ve got a lot of towers & side activities to do throughout the open world between main story segments. Except Rebirth has a lot more minigames. Personally, I found this stuff mostly tedious to do, but at least the majority of this stuff is optional. Although there are a lot of minigames in the main story, which will either be news to your ears or be a cause of dread depending on your preferences. Personally, I found that the number of minigames (especially in the first half) got grating after a while (especially the entire half-chapter dedicated to Queen’s Blood), but that seems to vary depending on the person as I’ve seen some who are happy about this. Queen’s Blood in particular is fun if you’re into that sort of thing, but I just wasn’t. Chocobo racing was fun too, but racing against real people in FFXIV is more fun. The sidequests are fine. The ones I played mostly just felt like standard open-world game stuff, with some good moments that flesh out the characters.

As for the story, my feelings on it can basically be boiled down to “great second half dragged down by a meandering first half that outstayed its welcome.” It got off to a good start with the prologue & Nibelheim flashback, but the section between Kalm & Gongaga felt very meandering and like it was padded to extend the runtime up to around 40 hours for a main story-only playthrough. The final dungeon (just like Remake’s) also felt like it could have been trimmed back a bit. Again, there are some great character moments here that made me laugh and/or cry. But there are some parts where not much really happens, or there’s some severe mood whiplash that takes away from some very emotional moments (ex: A goofy boss fight coming right after a big emotional scene)... As for my thoughts on the ending… without wishing to spoil much, the big emotional moment hit for me, but it nevertheless left me with a lot more questions than answers and speculating what might happen in the inevitable third & final part of this trilogy.

The music’s great, though. The entire team behind this game’s soundtrack did a great job. But the highlight, of course, was No Promises to Keep. This contribution by legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu & Greatest Showman singer Loren Allred is a stellar & emotional song that encapsulates Aerith’s arc & beliefs perfectly while also providing for one of the most emotional scenes in the game. Overall, I’d rank FFXVI’s battle & especially boss themes, above Rebirth’s, but the field themes are a bit better. Gun to my head, I prefer FFXVI’s OST, though. But maybe I’m just a Soken fanboy…

On the topic of audio, let’s discuss the technical aspects of Rebirth. There were no problems with the audio overall. The sound design was great, and the English voice acting was better than Remake’s (albeit not quite reaching the heights of FFXIV (post-ARR) and FFXVI’s English VAs). But the graphics aren’t without fault. On one hand, the game mostly looks great thanks to a combination of great art direction and skillful use of Unreal Engine 4. But on the other, there are some big shortcomings to this game’s graphics. Like the blurry image quality in the performance mode or the way the lighting handles going from a dim interior to a bright exterior (the latter, in particular, got very distracting at times and made me yearn for some Ray Traced Global Illumination similar to games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Metro: Exodus (both the original PC port & the Enhanced Edition)). Overall, Rebirth is a good-looking game and feels current-gen in its presentation, but I’d personally sooner use FFXVI as a showcase of modern hardware than I would Rebirth (I also just generally prefer FFXVI’s art style).

Conclusion:

My time with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was filled with peaks and valleys. At its best, Rebirth rivals FFXIV & FFXVI for some of the best moments of any FF I’ve played so far, with difficulty that makes use of its stellar combat system & incredible music. At its worst, Rebirth was just an utter slog infested with mini-games that are mostly tedious to play through, even when focusing on the main story. The open world was… fine, but didn’t do much that hasn’t been done in games like FFXV, Horizon: Zero Dawn & the Ubisoft Open World games aside from littering the world & main story with a shit-ton of mini-games… more of which were misses than hits.

I enjoyed Rebirth on the whole, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t less excited for Part 3 now than I was for Rebirth after finishing Remake. Or that I didn’t prefer FFXVI or even Lightning Returns to an extent over Rebirth.

Ratings

Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 7.5/10

Technical score (graphics, audio, performance)): 8.5/10

Business Practices score: 8.5/10 (a time exclusivity deal for PS5 detracts from some great consumer-friendly decisions like shipping Rebirth on two discs to ensure it’s playable entirely without an internet connection, something that feels increasingly rare in this era of Day 1 patches & games like COD & Starfield shipping either incomplete on disc or with a disc that’s basically a license to download the game)

Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, does not consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 8/10

An excellent follow-up to Remake that is at times incredible. It's like a 4.5/5.

• Continues to be a captivating re-telling of FFVII. Complete with unexpected twists and surprises.
• Very good combat. Expands on the combat from Remake and improves it further. Open-world format gives you space to engage with it fully.
• Open-world is massive, but individual quests have care put into them and are typically more fun than expected.
• Graphics are sometimes breathtaking... but due to the scale of the game the visuals are inconsistent. Characters are incredible, distant landscapes are frequently mediocre.
• Doesn't blend open-world with the main story well (or at all, really). This is a disappointment compared to the original. The OG is rudimentary, but exploration in the world is part of the core experience. In Rebirth you gear-shift between main story and side stuff, and the two shall not meet. It feels like there are two games here, and it calls into question whether rebirth really should be open-world at all.
• The story beats near the end feel quite rushed.
• At a couple crucial points, the game has quite poorly-designed cinematic boss fights. The fights themselves are fine, but the game will put you into surprise boss-gauntlets with no pauses in-between and no way other than trail-and-error to learn the bosses. It couples this with indulgent cinematics that you can't skip. It destroys the pacing when you fail, and it forces you to leave your PS5 on lest you have to restart the gauntlet. The very end of the game is guilty of this and left a bad taste in my mouth. Which is a shame because I loved most of the game.
• Overall, this game is great but less consistent than Remake. For much of the playtime it is a great improvement over Remake, but I can't shake the feeling that it's too big for it's own good and it didn't resonate quite as well. I still whole-heartedly recommend it.

This game has changed my outlook on what games can be forever. Playing through was not just a streak of gaming sessions; it was a magical ride through a wonderland of awe, emotions and joy from start to end.

As a little 15 year old boy, i remember having saved enough money from putting pocket money and birthday money aside to buy myself a playstation. As i set it up to the old PAL tv i was gifted from a family member, i sat there in awe, playing games with a quality never seen before. Then came a long FF7, i had heard of this game ofcourse, as i had already played some of the older entries in the series on the NES/SNES, but this was something else, something new, something 3d and magical. That game, while finishing it from start to end a dozen times, bloomed in me a life of being an avid gamer, ever seeking to experience more of those magical games.

When Square Enix announced the FF7 remaster project, the excitement and anticipation was unreal. After a long wait FF7 Remake released, and playing that game rekindled so much of those old memories, it was awesome and amazing and i thought that was the pinnacle of what they could do with ff games. Boy was i wrong.

The moment Rebirth starts up it throws you right into the action, largely confused as to the sudden change in storyline, it then throws you into one of the most defining scenes in gaming history; The Nibelheim sequence with Sephiroth, but this time it's all super HD, has even more amazing music and the developers made it somehow even more immersive. I was just sitting there, trembling in my chair as Sephiroth had his infamous flame scene. The memories, the joy of playing through this again and all the amazing changes and additions they did, it hooked me in like no game has done before.

After this, the game opens up into a semi-open world setting where you're left to explore each new zone in a myriad of sidequests, landmark events and minigames to be completed at your leisure. For me this ment doing every side-objective, quest and exploration available as i immersed myself in the amazing backstories and sights to be seen, the new zones look jawdroppingly good. Throughout all this is a red line of story that largely follows the events of the original game, but adds so much to make it even better. All the famous moments of the original game are still there, but most of them are enhanced or lengethened in some way that gives a more deeper understanding of what is going on at each point in the story.

At some point near the end of the story, there are some drastic changes, as was to be expected with the setup that Remake did. The game still plays out like it did in the OG, but there are some Nomura-esque additions and changes that some might consider 'too much'. I did enjoy the changes they did, as this is a remake and not a remaster, and the way they did it left me still very satisfied and hungry to continue with the story in part 3.

What elevates this game to such heights, in large part is also the music. The reworks of the original pieces are incredible, and the new music they added is as well. Square has always mastered the art of making game scenes better with just the right music playing under them, but in Rebirth they absolutely took this to the next level. The orchestral music in some of the cutscenes is good beyond belief, and more than once i was just stood still, listening to the amazing music for minutes, before continuing to play an area.

Not everything in the game is 100% amazing, which would be quite impossible. A few of the many minigames aren't very fun, and especially in the hard modes some of them need pixel-perfect movement to get the required scores. This however gets made up by a plethora of other minigames which are fun to play, and can be played whenever one choses to do so. The few annoyances i had were all very minor though, and didn't really frustrate me, or were just overshadowed by how amazing the rest of the game is.

All in all, for me, this game is defining of what Final Fantasy is now. Years and years of game titles have led to this, the ultimate form of what a FF game can be. If i could, i would give 6 stars to this game. I'm super excited about were this will go in part 3 and can't wait till it releases.

There are so many minigames and activities, and outside of a couple, they were all great. I especially liked the Johnny quest which made you collect trinkets from all over the world, some from mastering minigames, some from tough challenges, or some from random exploration. The flavour text on a lot of them was really nice too, and it acted as a nice sort of completion list. Another one of my favourite parts was the Protorelics and their overall quest. They are all references to 7/Remake, and I appreciated them bringing back Fort Condor since I thought Queen's Blood wasn't that great. Just like the previous game, the sequel is very easy, even with dynamic (just level scaling?) for most of the time, so I do wish they would just give a harder difficulty from the start...Also, like the remake, the last chapter here kind of gets a little too crazy, and I was equally confused as to how your party members get picked for each phase. It turns out to be set, and it looks like it will be a lot easier when I replay in hard mode. Despite that final chapter, the rest of the game seemed pretty faithful, hitting everything with only a few glaring changes (Gi storyline expanded, Cid introduced & handled differently, Tifa lifestream). The extra postgame challenges and hard mode in general (I assume from Remake) were a nice way to end the game and get rid of the memory of Grasslands (I hate that zone so much now). Though I understand it is much harder to justify for a lot of people with how large this game was (even if they give you more time playing as Sephiroth and Zack).

Did they tease Zack way too much? Yes, but I loved seeing Cissnei and hearing the music in Gongaga.

Could they have deleted grasslands since it is a terrible zone? Yeah, but the later open world zones are much better because you're forced to explore more with your chocobo.

Could they have cut or split another zone like Corel? Yeah probably, Corel being in two different locales at two different times in the story really helped with the pacing.

Could you cut 90% of the things Chadley says? Yes