Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Note: This review contains spoilers for Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake

Ever since the success of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the idea of remaking the original Final Fantasy VII (FF7) with the movie’s visuals had floated around at Square Enix. Fifteen years later, this idea manifested with Final Fantasy VII Remake (Remake), the first in a trilogy of games that would bring FF7 into the modern day. While the game received a mixed reception from fans, mainly due to its story changes, it nevertheless proved successful enough that Square Enix would release the second part of this project, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Rebirth) in February 2024 on the PS5, skipping the PS4 for the first time.

As someone who ended up loving most of Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and felt cautious optimism after playing Remake twice, I wasted no time hopping onboard with Rebirth so I could see where they would take the story (I even played the demo beforehand for the unique bonus of skipping the first segment in the full game). However, the time it took for me to reach the end point grew exponentially, both in calendar days and in-game time, due to juggling other games and biting off more than I could chew with the in-game content. Finally finishing the game months later left me curious how the third game would handle the rest of the original FF7’s story, though the new twists in Rebirth’s narrative and gameplay left me confused and a little worried about the project’s current trajectory.

Upon starting the game, you can view a recap of Remake, appropriately titled The Story So Far, narrated by Red XIII. Although this recap generally does a better job catching players up to speed with the major plot points than, say, Kingdom Hearts III or God of War Ragnarök, it still makes the most sense to someone who has already played the first installment. As such, I would still highly recommend playing Remake first if you have any interest in Rebirth for the sake of understanding the story and its unique twists on FF7’s narrative.

Once you actually start a new game, you’ll notice right away that Rebirth’s storyline is actually comprised of two. One is a direct continuation of the events of Remake, covering the events of the original FF7 from Kalm to the Forgotten Capital. The other is an original story set in an alternate future where Zack Fair survived the events of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, but AVALANCHE was captured by Shinra, with Cloud and Aerith rendered comatose.

Zack faces his own struggles in an alternate future.

Since the story is perhaps the most important aspect of the game, and I have certain opinions on its execution, I won’t go into that right away, as I usually would for a review. Instead, I’d like to talk about the gameplay and technical aspects (and there’s a lot of ground to cover there).

As expected, Rebirth takes the foundation established in Remake and expands on it. I won’t retread anything I’ve already covered in either of my reviews of Remake, but I will note that you can still preview certain settings on startup, which is always a welcome feature. As noted earlier, playing the demo lets you skip the Mako Reactor Investigation in Chapter 1 with no penalty, which lets you get to the meat of the game a bit faster. Gone is the Weapon Core system from Remake, which Rebirth replaces with Weapon Skills that let you customize weapons to suit your playstyle with next to no grinding involved (any equipped Materia will also automatically transfer when switching weapons). You can grind, however, by taking advantage of how enemies can respawn when you return to an area. As in Remake, you will also briefly take control of other playable characters at certain points with their own twists: Yuffie (and later Cloud) can traverse the environment with a grappling hook, Red XIII can carry objects in his mouth during Chapter 10 and Cait Sith can access small spaces, as well as throw boxes to hit switches (more on that later). Completing Chapter 11 will also add more optional content to the game and if you miss a major chest at any time, you can purchase its contents later from an appropriate vendor.

A pretty neat bonus for playing the demo prior to release.

Compared with the Party system in Remake, Rebirth revamps it by reviving a hidden Relationship mechanic from the original FF7 and not only making it more visible to the player, but also expanding on it. Cloud’s actions throughout the game, including dialogue choices, completing certain side quests and performing Synergy attacks (more on that in a couple paragraphs), will affect his relationship level with each of his allies, which can, in turn, affect certain parts of the story. Although the game makes this sound like it will affect a lot more of what you see (apart from one static ending), what this really does is affect dialogue in certain chapters, as well as your partner/“date” in the Gold Saucer at different scripted points and part of your team composition during mandatory fights in Musclehead Colosseum. In other words, don’t sweat it to much unless you’re going for a specific outcome or want the maximum relationship values for everyone (you can get an idea of your relationship levels at any time with a single button press).

Dialogue choices are one factor that influences Relationship levels.

Certain actions will also increase your Party Level, which will open up new paths in each character’s Folio. Folios replace the Weapon Core system from Remake, but the SP that each character earns (either through leveling up or acquiring certain manuscripts) is spent on Skill Cores that increase their stats and unlock new abilities, including their strongest Limit Break. You can choose which Cores suit your playstyle best, plus you can reset them at any time for a full refund so you can try different combinations. However, you can only augment Folios at Maghnata Books locations and automats, the latter of which you’ll usually find at Save Points alongside benches and vending machines.

Although Rebirth uses a very similar combat system to Remake, complete with Weapon Proficiency bonuses, choosing spell potencies when leveling up the appropriate Materia and everyone gaining EXP at the same time, it adds a layer of depth with the Synergy system. During combat, certain characters can team up and use Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities, both of which behave differently. Synergy Abilities, which you can select from the Abilities list, require both characters to have built up enough Synergy by activating other Abilities during the same encounter. Synergy Abilities come with beneficial buffs, such as powering up both characters’ Limit Breaks or temporarily gaining infinite MP, though repeated use increases their cost. Synergy Skills, on the other hand, are activated while blocking and only require a single input, holding a button or blocking at the right time, all without consuming ATB. Although this may not come up often depending on the chosen difficulty level, you can trigger a Backline Command while in dire straits, allowing access to a Synergy Ability from someone not currently in your active Party. On a more minor note, certain symbols mark Abilities that launch or work while airborne.

At certain points in the story, players will encounter a number of bosses, some of which veteran FF7 players would recognize. While the bosses were too numerous to fully list here, I noticed that the Midgar Zolom, now correctly translated as Midgarsormr, operated a little differently in the new battle system, as did Dyne. Among those that I recognized, I noticed that Gi Nattak felt more fleshed out with a timed instant death mechanic mixed in, though a part of me felt disappointed that you could no longer kill it instantly with an X-Potion (I actually tried this). On the other hand, the Forgotten Specimen worked exactly as I thought it would, which kept it exciting, and I appreciated the developers acknowledging a rather obscure enemy from the original FF7.

Gi Nattak's Doom ability also adds a sense of urgency.

Equipping the right items can give you an edge in combat, though the best ones aren’t always found or sold. As you gather items and raw materials throughout the game, whether out in the field, in chests, through combat or bought at certain shops, you can convert them into new or upgraded items through Transmuting. From my own frame of reference, Kingdom Hearts II fans would already have an idea of how this system works, but basically you just need to own the items and quantities listed in a recipe to perform the process. The first time you transmute an item grants EXP, improving your level of Craftsmanship and opening up new options, as well as lowering the number of required materials for the next time. If you need help locating certain materials, you can learn the appropriate Region by reading its associated symbol or pressing the TouchPad. Some items are exclusive to transmutation and may be locked behind collecting the appropriate transmuter chip at Excavation Points via Chocobo.

Transmuting provides an incentive for exploration.

By far the biggest difference from Remake, however, is the presence of an open world. The original FF7 featured an overworld, Rebirth features a more robust open world design with its level of interactivity. While roaming around, you can fight various monsters, and even strike first if you’re fast enough, as well as encounter Fiends, unique monsters that Chadley wishes to analyze, and complete multiple related objectives to unlock Combat Simulator trials. However, there’s a lot more that you can do besides fighting. For example, you can take on Odd Jobs listed on Community Noticeboards for some extra Gil or find caches among abandoned areas (opening all chests in each location will register them as complete). Stray Chocobo will lead you to Chocobo Stops that you can repair to either act as fast travel points (after wrangling that region's Chocobo) or benches at the cost of a (consumable) Cushion; you can even pet the stray Chocobo once you’ve repaired its associated Chocobo Stop. Also new to this game are Mogstools, which are home to Moogles and the Moogle Emporium, where you can exchange Moogle Medals found in the wild for various rewards.

As you explore the open world, you can also collect World Intel for Chadley, who will offer various rewards based on how many region-locked Data Points you complete. For the sake of gameplay, World Intel includes:

• Lifespring Surveys: Analyzing Lifesprings highlighted by Springseeker Owls will reveal new points of interest and unlock Region Intel. 
• Combat Assignments: Completing certain objectives in combat will unlock new Challenges in the Combat Simulator.
• Crystal Analysis: Analyzing Summon Crystals can give you an edge when unlocking Summons in the Combat Simulator and level up the associated Materia.
• Protorelic Salvaging: Complete a lengthy Protorelic side quest across multiple Regions for a unique reward.

Activating Remnawave Towers will also boost Chadley's processing power and reveal more of the map (and thus even more World Intel). Assessing and defeating Fiends discovered throughout the world will create new Combat Challenges, which can be completed for rewards like Summon Materia. Interestingly, battles in Chadley's Combat Simulator count for leveling up various Materia and abilities, plus the Enemy Skill Materia gains its ability from an unlocked Simulator challenge after assessing enemies in the wild.

To elaborate on Crystal Analysis, there are various Sanctuaries throughout each Region, highlighted by Guidestones. Once you reach the Summon Crystal within, examining it will reveal its memory matrix, which you must trace with the correct timing, much like a rhythm game. As previously noted, successful replication both strengthens the Materia and weakens its Combat Trial. Going out of your way to Max out a Summon Materia gives it a new and powerful Ability.

 

Outside of Chadley, there are still more things you can do. For instance, surveying a certain number of Lifesprings reveals a powerful Classified Foe that can drop a useful reward, although you cannot flee once you start the battle. You can also complete side quests for Snaps, a shutterbug who asks you to take photos at Scenic Spots. Although the rewards aren’t as useful as other side quests, each photo that you report to him rewards you with an additional frame for Photo Mode. Since you’re reading this, I’ll mention that although he wants a picture, you only need to open Photo Mode at the specified location (you don't need to actually take the photo/screenshot). As another point of interest, where lodging cost money in Final Fantasy XV, it’s free in Rebirth. Additionally, examining a certain chest at the beginning of Chapter 12 starts The Pirate King's Treasure, a treasure hunting quest.

Alongside its rather large map, which you can view with the TouchPad and view various Story and Discovery markers, as well as your own pinned location, Rebirth offers several methods of traversal. You can walk and ride Chocobo, but one region lets you drive around in the Buggy, which can traverse land and shallow water faster than a Chocobo. The main advantage to the Buggy, in this case, is that you can not only summon it to your location like a Chocobo, it will also also automatically collect any transmutation materials that you drive over.

On top of that, the game provides various methods of near instantaneous Fast Travel. In every region, you can fast travel between unlocked waypoints, including towns, repaired Chocobo Stops and activated Remnawave Towers. Renovating Johnny's Seaside Inn in Costa del Sol will also give you not just a fast travel point, but also a place to store Collector's Items. Not too long into the game, you can also start fast traveling between regions. Completing a side quest at Gabe's Chocobo Ranch, for instance, lets you fast travel between Junon and the Grasslands while a cruise ship will later let you travel between Junon and Corel, though traveling between regions usually costs 300 Gil. In the late game, you’ll also get to travel between ports and even across the sea.

At the end of Chapter 9, you’ll also gain access to the Tiny Bronco, an airplane piloted by Cid that lets you travel between airstrips. For story purposes, the initial trip costs 1000 Gil, but subsequent trips only cost 300. Traveling this way also grants the player some minor control over the flight thanks to the DualSense’s gyro functionality.

On the subject of transportation, I’d like to highlight the massive overhaul regarding Chocobo, apart from the fact that you can now ride them. Gone is the lengthy and tedious breeding process that could potentially take hours or even days (or, if you follow the right guide, a mere 36 minutes) to obtain the best Chocobo. Instead, each region has their own special Chocobo variant, each with their own unique ability. To wit, Mountain Chocobos can climb cliff faces marked with garish graffiti, Forest Chocobos can bounce off certain mushrooms and slide on certain vines, Cosmo Canyon's Chocobos can leap from certain ledges to fly across the region with the aid of air currents and Ocean Chocobo can launch themselves from the water (they can also use a stunted version of this ability on land). Additionally, Chocobo Wrangling is now presented as a minigame, which you only need to complete once per Region, where you sneak up on Chocobo, occasionally throwing stones as a distraction or dodge rolling out of sight if spotted. Once wrangled, you can summon that Region’s Chocobo with a Chocowhistle.

Each Region's Chocobo has a unique ability.

While on Chocoback, you can dash and jump to more easily reach certain areas, but you can still open chests and picking up items is much easier (you can practice riding one in the Hustle de Chocobo minigame). Chocobo also have the new ability to sniff the air and follow a scent trail to discover hidden items, as well as uncovered buried treasure. For the first time, you can also customize your Chocobo’s appearance at a Chocoboutique with Chocobo Gear obtained at Tack Shops in exchange for Golden Plumes obtained by wrangling Chocobo or repairing Chocobo Stops.

Chocobo Racing operates differently from FF7, though I only know how it works based on the in-game Racing Simulator. Apart from the timed explosive start one would expect from a modern racing game, your Chocobo has three different gauges (Speed Level, Ability and Dash) that you improve or fill up by running through an appropriately-colored balloon (blue, red and yellow respectively) for different effects. Tracks are designed with jumps and drifting in mind and you can look behind you at any time to see where your opponents are. In addition, Chocobos each have six different attributes that affect their performance, which are also directly affected by the equipped Gear. Each Chocobo type has a unique ability they can activate during a race and different Gear sets grant unique skills that activate automatically when certain conditions are fulfilled. As such, you can save up to four Gear sets (three Racing and one World).

Chocobo Racing is more involved now.

As much as I enjoyed the updated gameplay, it’s at this point that I can’t avoid talking about the plethora of minigames, almost too many. Due to the sheer number of them, I won’t go into exacting detail on how all of them play and instead give a brief rundown, if only to give you an idea of how much content the developers stuffed into Rebirth.

If you want to explore all of the content on offer, you will find:

• Piano: An updated and rather robust piano simulation that uses both analog sticks. You can increase your song selection by gathering sheet music from pianos in each Region and also receive rewards for getting an A rank on each song.
• Fort Condor: A returning minigame from FF7R Episode INTERmission, but with static boards. You instead pick a Hero unit and strategy, the latter of which determines your Ally units. Deploying units of the same type as the Hero unit will fill their Deployment Gauge, which will let you place them on the field and unleash their Skill. Completing all four Fort Condor battles unlocks Hard Mode and rewards you with a Protorelic.
• Crunch-Off: A returning minigame from Remake where you perform sit-ups by pressing buttons in time with an onscreen guide. More advanced versions are available after the initial round, which add a glowing ring where you hold the button halfway down until a gauge fills, then press completely.
• Moogle Mischief: A new minigame where you round up Mooglets. Accessing a Moogle Emporium requires completing this mingame and each opened Emporium increases the Moogles' merchant rank, unlocking new items. You can also replay for additional Moogle Medals.
• Jumpfrog: A minigame in Under Junon where you avoid obstacles on a platform while the Toad status is active.
• Desert Rush: A similar minigame to one in Remake where you destroy as many boxes as possible within the time limit. Here, you can also destroy Shock Boxes to break Gear Boxes and move between floors via hit-activated elevators.
• Cactuar Crush: Similar to Desert Rush, but you instead fight Cactuar. Different Cactuar have different weaknesses and point values and new Cactuar are fought with each variation of the minigame.
• Making Your Escape: Honestly, this is just a turret section where you dodge certain attacks by steering, but the game classifies it as a minigame, so it’s in this list.
• Glide de Chocobo: A minigame in Cosmo Canyon where you earn points by gliding through rings.

Then you have Queen’s Blood, an in-universe card game that adds cardboard crack to FF7. You’re given a 15-card starter deck at Kalm Inn and can build your collection by defeating other players and purchasing booster packs with set contents. You can even craft prebuilt decks once you have certain cards, or even build your own from scratch. Winning matches against other players can also open up more matches in different towns.

A look at Queen's Blood.

To give an idea of how this game plays, each player takes turns placing cards in one of three "lanes" on a grid-like board and each side of the board tracks the point total for each player in each lane. Each player can mulligan cards in their opening hand, but you don’t draw an extra card on your first turn. Placing a card not only adds its power (a yellow number) to your lane total, but also adds new positions to the board, as indicated by an image on the bottom of the card. You can only place cards on positions equal to or higher than their rank, indicated by the number of pawn icons on the card, so you can raise a position’s rank by overlapping a card’s position tile with one you already control. When one of your cards' positions overlaps with an opponent's, you claim that position (without affecting its rank). Certain cards also have special abilities that affect the flow of the game, such as increasing their power based on certain positions, "enfeebling" cards in certain positions or replacing Ally cards already occupying a position. Cards are destroyed when they have zero power, freeing up their position, but some cards’ effects trigger when destroyed or enfeebled. If you cannot place a card, you can Pass your turn and the game ends when both players Pass consecutively. When the game ends, each player earns points based on their score in each lane, but only if they scored higher than their opponent in that lane. The player with the higher total score wins, but in the event of a tie, no one wins.

As someone who regularly plays TCGs like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: the Gathering and Disney Lorcana, I liked playing Queen’s Blood and went out of my way to collect as many cards as possible, as well as play through the associated subplot. My enjoyment, however, didn’t last forever. Eventually, a sense of tedium set in when I realized what it would take to obtain a complete set of cards, not to mention how long the opponent’s dialogue lasts before and after a match. Not only that, I found that ranking up to continue the Queen’s Blood storyline didn’t feel as fun anymore the more I ended up restarting matches until I got the right combination of cards and RNG to win. At that point, I ended up abandoning Queen’s Blood and a number of other side quests to focus entirely on the main story. Still, I appreciate the effort that went into trying to create a new game with some amount of depth.

One thing I looked forward to during my playthrough was how Rebirth would expand on Junon, which occurred during Chapter 4. For the most part, I enjoyed the more immersive feel of the city, including the spacious shopping area and well-detailed stores and barracks. I even liked the reimagined ship sequence where the party blends in with Shinra troops (the game still references the original disguise). Apart from major story events, however, the main thing you’re expected to do is find troops around Junon for the sake of the reimagined Parade Formations minigame from the original FF7, which you can only play at this point in the game. Instead of the rather clunky gameplay of the original minigame, this version plays out a lot more like an immersive rhythm game, similar to the reimagined Honeybee Inn segment from Remake. The difficulty and inputs of this minigame also depend on your arrangement of troops, including the presence of Security Officers. While you do get rewarded for doing well, getting over 100,000 points is the only way to earn the Outstanding Performance award. Although I preferred this version of the minigame over the original, it’s still somewhat disappointing how much of my time in Junon revolved around it, compounded by the surprising length of time getting the Outstanding Performance award took me.

A sample Parade Formation.

This sentiment extended to the reimagined Costa del Sol. I enjoyed roaming through a more immersive version of the town, especially since you can move around faster on a Wheelie (although you cannot go up flights of stairs or into certain areas while riding one), which can actually earn you prizes. I even liked how you can now change each Party member’s costume between different sets of beachwear at a Changing Booth. Much like Junon, however, I felt less enthusiastic about how the backbone of the new content consisted primarily of minigames. You are even forced to participate in many of Costa del Sol’s minigame offerings through the team-based Costa del Amor events so you can obtain Companion Cards so you can exchange them for beachwear, which is required to access the waterfront, letting you actually advance the story. Even giving players the opportunity to play as and switch between Aerith and Tifa (with no impact on the story) doesn’t take away from the gradual tedium of dealing with the following:

• Card Carnival: A team-based Queen's Blood format where you earn cards for completing puzzles (Yu-Gi-Oh! players can think of this like a Duel Quiz). Gaining the Companion Card will unlock additional puzzles.
• Pirate's Rampage: A pirate-themed shooting gallery where you earn prizes based on your performance. Although you can toggle certain features during play, the lack of spam shooting (especially with Adaptive Triggers on) can get hard on your arm/wrist and I admittedly thought a mouse would have made things easier. This minigame gets updated later with additional stages.
• Piano Recital: A modified version of the Piano minigame where you play “Tifa's Theme” as Tifa.
• Cactuar Caper: Find four hidden Cactuar images around Costa del Sol and take a picture of each (you can view a map of their locations at any time).
• Wheelie Rendezvous: Find the red, blue and yellow Wheelies around town and put them back in their proper spot.
• Run Wild: A four team free-for-all. Chase a ball across a field as Red XIII and shoot it into your opponents' goals. This minigame gets updated later with additional challenges.

Keep in mind, however, that although you can change into beachwear at a Changing Booth at any time after Chapter 6, you will automatically switch to your default outfit upon leaving the area. You’ll have to wait until later in the game to remove this restriction.

Of course, Rebirth also brings back the Gold Saucer, one of the more famous sections from FF7, which formally introduces Cait Sith. I had described this portion in my review of the original FF7 as a digital Vegas and that still feels apt here, but now it feels more immersive than ever before. Navigating the Gold Saucer feels much easier thanks to its less cluttered design and the addition of Fast Travel between multiple areas via Guide Moogles. For the most part, each area within the Saucer has a level of detail that strikes a good balance between novelty and familiarity. As before, you can also earn Gold Saucer Points (GP) from various attractions, which you can spend at various kiosks for various prizes, including those that only boost your Completion percentage. You won’t get anything on the level of Cloud’s Omnislash or the W-Summon Materia this time around, but many of the prizes are worth the effort.

The Gold Saucer looks even more impressive now.

Navigation also feels easier than before.

For the sake of completeness, the minigames you can encounter here are:

• 3D Brawler: A returning minigame from FF7 with enhanced controls that incorporate the ATB and Limit Gauges. Different opponents have different strategies and require different types of blocks. As a neat bonus, the fighters resemble updated versions of the original PS1 models.
• G Bike: An updated version of the original FF7 minigame, now based on the motorcycle section from Remake and incorporating Point and Boost Panels, as well as a Nitrous Body Gauge. Although kind of fun, I found the bike a little too hard to steer.
• Queen's Blood: A variant of the game with unique Challenges (Support Cards, Gimmick Battlefields and Survival Challenges). Naturally, you also get unique cards this way.
• Galactic Saviors: An arcade-style rail shooter.
• Musclehead Colosseum: Battle against a variety of opponents in a two-person team. Items are not permitted, but you recover HP and MP between rounds.
• Loveless: An updated and expanded version of the play from the original FF7, but presented as the play that Genesis wouldn’t shut up about in Crisis Core and played more akin to a rhythm game where the player controls the outcome of the story. Although this minigame uses QTEs, they are presented closer to God of War III.

The re-imagined 3D Brawler.

Even more motorcycle action.

 

If you got to this point and felt some exhaustion reading about all the minigames, consider how it felt while playing the game.

Now, I did enjoy the gameplay overall and didn’t mind some of the changes from the original. Making Yuffie a non-optional Party member makes sense for the sake of the story and rendering Vincent and Cid non-playable didn’t bother me, as Red XIII wasn’t playable in Remake and I expect that they will be playable in the third part. There’s even a healthy amount of a post-game content that makes playing the game how you want a bit easier, like adding Combat Simulator challenges with Zack and Sephiroth, letting you choose your Gold Saucer companion during Chapter Select, which acts like a form of New Game+, or allowing freer access to each characters' costumes. However, the fact that the game slows itself down multiple times for no discernible reason, except to pad the length, gradually put a damper on the experience. I mentioned that Costa del Sol forces participation in many of its minigames to advance the story, but that’s not the only time this occurs and several minigames, like the Loveless play, drag on a bit long. Then you have cases like the new dolphin riding sequence, the optional Queen’s Blood tournament aboard the Shinra-8 (which has no effect on your QB rank), the aforementioned length of Queen’s Blood dialogue, a few forced expository walking sections and run-ins with returning characters like Roche. As with Remake, these slowdowns arguably take away from the urgency of certain parts of the story and I hope that the third part doesn’t include so much artificial padding.

Then you have perhaps the epitome of this phenomenon in Cait Sith’s solo section. On his own, his movement speed is fine between running on all fours or rolling around to get through ducts, but the tedium stems from his frequent box throwing puzzles. He can’t throw the boxes himself and must use his Moogle, which has a really slow movement speed. When you finally get into the right position, you can throw the boxes with either the analog stick or TouchPad, but it doesn’t matter which method you use either way because where you aim and where the boxes actually land don’t always line up. When the box you’ve thrown inevitably lands in the wrong spot, you’ll have to go to a nearby spot where you can spawn another, grab it with the Moogle and slowly move all the way back to your throwing spot. It goes without saying that this quickly gets tedious, not to mention frustrating during a timed throwing section, and I felt relief when I didn’t see another box puzzle afterwards.

Prepare to dedicate too much time to this.

I also had some mixed feelings on the graphics and audio, though there is still a lot to love. The higher graphical fidelity compared to the original FF7, as well as the updated Remake models, brings the world to life in ways never before considered, but there are still clever shoutouts to the original PS1 models. I really loved the game’s attention to detail in ways that didn’t involve going in an overly realistic direction, like how Cloud pets each Region’s Chocobo differently, how the Temple of the Ancients chests have a different appearance and opening animation, Cait Sith’s lovable Scottish accent and how Chadley has unique dialogue for your undercover disguise in Junon. The composers did a great job respecting Nobuo Uematu’s iconic music while providing their own tracks that fit the tone and atmosphere that his compositions established, at times sounding somewhat similar to what you would hear in Kingdom Hearts. On a mechanical level, I also appreciate that you can toggle the controller speaker audio and thought the game used the DualSense’s unique features really well when picking mushrooms.

On the other hand, I came across a few imperfections and interesting decisions. There’s the occasional funny thing like Cait Sith's die roll continuing even after the battle ends or the occasional technical issue like a few low-res textures or very brief framerate drops in Chapter 9, but I couldn’t ignore other aspects as easily. For one thing, you can tell certain characters, like Regina Konigin for instance, were designed more recently, as they arguably clash somewhat with FF7’s prior art direction. Then there’s how Moogles now resemble koalas for no discernible reason, which feels like the game taking the “realistic” approach a bit too far. I’ll also mention that Rebirth won’t change your mind all that much on the “yellow paint” discourse, but it’s use is toned down here compared to other games.

I also found other interesting glitches.

 

Occasionally, the game will present stretches of traveling where the characters just talk. Although arguably a form of padding, this doesn’t feel much different from other AAA open world titles, at least on the surface. The real issue is how these segments interact with the Save system. If you Manual Save at any point during such a stretch because you need to take a break and then reload that same Save data, you won’t hear the intended dialogue for the whole trip, which made me miss out on some exposition once. If you need to take a break, but want to guarantee you’ll hear that dialogue later, you’ll need to reload an Autosave from the point the trip started or just do the entire trip in one go and potentially watch another cutscene afterwards, then Manual Save.

This uneven feeling across the game’s technical aspects brings me to the story, the real driving force of the experience. From what I remember of FF7’s story, Rebirth follows the same path from Kalm to the Forgotten Capital, but told a little differently. In this decompressed version of the plot, some existing threads and characters are expanded on. Yuffie is still obsessed with Materia and bringing glory back to her home country of Wutai, but her role is greatly expanded and continues the INTERmission interpretation of her motivation. Vincent is now a mandatory Party member and he’s worked organically into the story, although he doesn’t do much, at least for now, and his connection with the Turks feels relevant. There’s an earlier hint to Cait Sith’s true nature and he’s more likeable than in FF7 due to how much he helps the Party and the removal of a more contentious aspect of a pivotal scene (at least for now), plus there are earlier hints at the true nature of Cloud’s memories. Although some of the expansions make certain sections take longer than they arguably should, I did enjoy getting more out of the setting for the most part. That said, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the inclusion of modern slang in some of the dialogue (“Shoot my shot” comes to mind).

Vincent is now mandatory, but he doesn't do anything (yet).

Of course, since this is the Remake timeline, Rebirth does follow up on some plot threads established in the first part. For example, the Robed Men have an expanded role in a way that works them organically into the story. Characters introduced or named in Remake also come back, although this game won’t really change your opinion on them one way or the other. We even get a glimpse of Nero the Sable, though it didn’t really go anywhere right now and it’s unknown at this point how the Dirge of Cerberus elements will manifest in the third part.

There’s also Zack Fair’s extended involvement in the game’s second major storyline. I won’t spoil anything if I can help it, but, as I mentioned before, the player will periodically control Zack in an alternate timeline. This storyline starts off rather interesting, even though it slows the pace of the game overall, and presents itself at the potential outcome of Zack surviving the ending of Crisis Core. His character development goes in an interesting direction, especially with the idea that he’s unable to enjoy spending time with the girl he loves, as Aerith is in a coma, and must figure out his place in this new world.

By the end of the game, however, a number of elements collide, illuminating the true meaning behind each of them like a codex. There’s a subplot where Aerith hears a mysterious voice throughout the journey, which ties in with her connection with Zack. The Temple of the Ancients portion is also greatly expanded with a larger dungeon and multiple obstacles, but also character development for Aerith and Cloud. Cloud periodically suffers from symptoms of mako poisoning as a SOLDIER, or at least that’s what he thinks is going on. Sephiroth also appears more often than he did before, taunting or manipulating Cloud without a physical presence. All of these seemingly disparate elements, including Zack’s alternate timeline, come together the moment the game commits to a rather famous scene, but executes it a bit differently.

This execution at first feels like it will remain just as impactful as the original game, maybe even played even more emotionally like the ending of the Temple of the Ancients section. However, we instead get a very cinematic sequence that includes a lengthy series of boss fights and adds new implications to the story’s direction for the third part in its attempt at explaining the dual timelines. I will admit that I found this sequence of events very visually stunning and enjoyed the unique approach to combat. However, I found the inclusion of a particular form of Sephiroth from FF7’s final boss fights and a shout-out to a rather iconic shot from Advent Children a bit impatient, like they prioritized visual spectacle and unintentionally trapped themselves into escalating the final battle in the third game even greater than ever. It doesn’t help that while the fights against Sephiroth include a new variation of “One-Winged Angel”, “One-Winged Angel – Reborn”, it didn’t have as much of an impact as “One-Winged Angel – Rebirth” from Remake.

As a result, the rather famous moment has much less of an impact than it could have had if the game committed to the shock of how sudden it felt for the characters. Instead, the game ends with a large amount of scope creep (I guess Sephiroth’s attempt at destroying the entire planet with Meteor wasn’t enough anymore), a new twist on Cloud’s character development open to speculation and fuel for the theory that the Remake trilogy is actually a sequel to the original FF7 and not just a mere reimagining. Although this ending may leave many fans hyped for the third entry, in fact, it already has, I’m left wondering where exactly the story will go from here and whether or not the narrative endpoint will have the same impact (and if it will do away with silly lines like “Let’s mosey”).

Despite my caution over the third and final entry, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth really is a great game. There’s plenty to love in its story and gameplay, at least whenever it’s not slowing itself to a glacial pace, and it’s great to get a closer look at the world of Final Fantasy VII with Advent Children levels of fidelity, if not greater. Really, there’s no real reason I can’t recommend it to people who enjoyed Remake, I’m just hoping now that the trilogy can still stick the landing.