Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - Review

 Genre: RPG.
Developer/publisher: Square Enix.
Platform: PS4/5.
Official Site: N/A

Release date: 29-2-2024.

 

With the exception right at the beginning I generally liked the story and it was fun

exploring the world, they added a lot of detail to where there was none in OG.

I mostly played this game in the evening whenever the switch was charging

which is why this game took me a whole month to finish.

 

Pro's

- Decent enough plot I guess...

- Nice to explore the world, a lot more detailed.

- I liked it when Cloud told Yuffie to STFU at one point.

 

Con's

- One too many minigames and gimmicks. Quantity over quality, most (but not all) were awful.

- Padding, pacing issues and thus ends up overstaying its welcome.

- Retry from current battle or this battle? the wording on the game over screen was poor esp in ch14.

- Gongaga & Cosmo Canyon are the worst areas to explore, in this essay I will...

---

 

Story is... mostly loyal to the OG FF7 except they're adding in elements

that weren't there before but I already knew that because of part 1.

What is really awful is that all these changes don't even really seem to matter???

The prologue of the game had me in confusion noises but then it was mostly

same as OG. They got rid of the stupid CPR minigame which I am grateful for

but instead we got a rhytmn game to impress Rufus. ' -' 

Could've done without the dolphin minigame too but it was cute...

 

I know OG FF7 had minigames as well but this game really went overboard and added even more.

For the first parts of the game it really felt like I was doing anything but the main

objective because it was just that bloated but then again they extended the midgard part

from 6 hours to 30 hours in the first remake so not sure what I was expecting. /Shrug

So now you get 40+ hours of disc 1 while the original PS1 release

was only 30ish hours as a whole. That's a world of a difference amiright.

 

Replace Rufus with SE and Mako with Minigames and its a mood.

Atleast the character interactions were mostly great as well as this NPC's dialogue

because it has all the energy that I had when I was done with this game.

 

Its not like I disliked everything, I did enjoy seeing certain parts remade.

Like Barret in a sailor suit😂 as well as a prettier& more detailed world.

So despite my complain-no-jutsu it wasn't all bad... in fact I had fun with it!

its just way too bloated which made the game overstay its welcome

hench why when I was nearing the end I just didn't like it all that much.

 

I still tried to do proto relics and clear up sidequests in chapter 13 but each area

had such a laundry list of things to do which was also mostly the same

and just repetitive so I had to limit what I engaged with. At the very least

there's always something to do so FF7 rebirth is one of those rare games

that can actually last a while if you want it to. However at the end of the day

IMO this game ended up being just fine, not great but it ain't awful either

its just that there are a lot of questionable design choices.

I'm not really sure if I want to play the 3rd remake because of this game mostly.

 

FF7 rebirth makes me appreciate the original with how simple and to the point it was

yet in the remakes they padd it out so much that I end up running out of steam quickly.

Also let's not forget the fact they make it seem like they're gonna change things

but then are like lol nope. They only make it more complicated than it really is

or try to make everything more epic while also making it longer than it needs to be.

**Gonna add to this that without part 3... I just don't know what they even want to do anymore.

6/10

 No thanks, for now I am done with the FF7 remakeverse because I think

they all just took a piss on it at the end just how this chocobo is able to float.

More rambles and complain-no-jutsu after the jump... but I think I have already made myself clear here.

 

Combat wise is where the not so fun stuff are for me. I didn't like the gameplay because

I am barely able to manage 3 characters at once so i'm generally awful at it

but not awful enough to play on normal. The AI is terrible so seeing them barely

even use skills or abilities is sad. You have to constantly switch, so not for me.

To get the AI to do anything you need materia like auto-cast paired with cure or auto-use ability

which actually makes them use the weapon abilities, however the latter is rare

and even if they have it on its not very reliable still. After Granblue fantasy relink

this was a real downer but I guess I shouldn't expect any other RPG to be able

to program party member AI as well as GBF. So I forgive. Heh atleast I got Cloud

to cast Haste on others sometimes when I wasn't controlling him so its working like intended.

 

FF7 remake combat is all about taking advantage of the system to get an advantage against

enemy's weakness which means constantly switching materia around which is so tiresome.

They also love to lock your team or decide who you play as. So I had to fix things constantly.

Playing on normal was hard enough but idk how much easier it was supposed to be on easy.

Brutha.

 

There is a lot of side content and perhaps too much side stuff because when I really

look at the main story it is so tiny and lacks focus to the point where I am constantly

engaged in optional content. All the chadley stuff was honestly really repetitive

like I don't mind subquest or hunts but the rest was all overkill.

I wish we could have found summons in the overworld, not having to analyze

random ruins it just felt so disconnected, this is not what OG was like.

Comparison is a thief of joy but idk... I can't help but think they changed/added too much.

The best minigame was queen's blood, the only minigame I found engaging.

I suppose the moogle minigame was OK but it was kinda boring and simplistic?

the later ones did make me want to strangle them furballs but the end scene

with them took away any sort of anger I had for the moogles.😅

The worst minigame? absolutely the piano one! I think it would be more enjoyable

if they focused on one panel at a time, my brain simply cannot handle button presses

that are for R and L stick at the same time in rapid succession.

Yes, I am like an old computer... it can function perfectly fine just with lower processing speed.

3D brawler was awful simply for not mentioning left is left and right is right, like

I was stuck in the tutorial for 30 minutes because I tried to evade to the right with the left stick.

Chocobo racing is great but it takes time to get used to the controls then it is actually pretty fun.

Run wild was dumb as hell and just clunky, I preferred the shooting minigame.

Glide de chocobo was awful, I like the idea but the camera was actively working against

the player and I just didn't want to do it, kinda made me sick but I tried for the questTM

so it was basically try to do the bare minimum and high-tail it outta there.

Cactuar crush was pretty fun but I had to lower the difficulty to easy for the fourth one

as I just didn't have the time or patience to get aeriths weapon with ray of judgment.

Fort Condor and Gambit or Gears were okay, they get more bearable when switching to easy.

Also good luck for anyone going for 100% because some minigames were downright ass.

I like to add that if you are having trouble, minigames are tied to difficulty

so don't feel bad about lowering it because some I couldn't clear on normal

so i'd just switch to easy and back to normal when I was done.

Why did they make Cloud such a yes man? like dude its okay to say no to half of this BS.

Also you can pretty much miss the gold saucer date in ch8, I didn't even get a prompt

so guess I just selected the wrong choices even though the swimsuit alligned raised Tifa's affection.

Well no value was lost cuz at the time Tifa and Cloud were by no means close enough 

to date they had other stuff on their minds. The mood wasn't right too

so I don't get the hype for the the first visit cuz all that was was them tagging along.

Also turns out it works on some stupid flag system like if Tifa is at the right rank

but Red is about to level up a rank you will get Red as your date in ch8. Wtf...

atleast people kept saying the real one is in chapter 12 and you got time but I felt baited

thinking i'd get a date but its not until later. Thankfully I did get Tifa in ch12

however they made it so you can get a standard version or a more initimate version.

I am like... why not both? I am not that young anymore where I got the attention span

to turbo half a chapter just for a tiny difference. Square Enix please.

Aww yea got my CloTi date~~

Costa del sol bothered me a little since they tried to be diverse too much so that classic bikini's

were a no go except if you were Aerith or Tifa! So when I saw a nice swimsuit that

an npc wear they had swimshorts. I chose the cute swimsuits for the girls but... yea I wish

square enix was better than this, the NPC girl with the blue frilly swimsuit and the chick

with the strings on her hips really didn't need those type of shorts. Holy shit I feel like such

a grandma shaking me cane. Guess Square Enix didn't want to get in trouble or something???

This is coming from a person that appreciate fashion and if it were me then I definitely

would not wear those type of shorts with the frilly swimsuit on the left.

Come on... like those girls didn't need those ugly shorts.

Another thing I hated was that both ch13 and ch14 were long as heck, now there

was enough time to pause in ch13 but ch14 was a real awful gauntlet with no breaks.

Also this made me realize the retry options were terrible, like retry from current or this battle?

like that reads as if its the same thing when its not also who the hell would want

to retry previous battles except the current one at that point? absolutely disasterous!

That was kusoge level of game design and this game definitely needs a patch to fix it.

I still managed to beat it but it also has too many unskippable cutscenes especially in the

last phase of the final boss, you die right at the end? well gotta watch that pre-battle scene!

Final Thoughts?!

 Idk how I feel about this game but I am not impressed, which is mostly because

of the bloat like I was doing minigames or side content more than following the story.

Its like 70% bloat and 30% story. Dunno why I bothered shoulda known.

The story itself wasn't terrible, sure there were liberties because its a remake

but it was still pretty loyal to the original except when it started to focus on Zack.

Zack section's sucked cuz I was always confused and its like 5-10 min's at most

which only leaves me with more questions than answers for the majority of the game.

**Now I actually wanna play crisis core again because Zack is awesome and there's not enough of him.

What a fever dream, I think the writer was tripping...

There were highlights like the flashback arc, junon but at times especially early on it

felt aimless that taking on odd jobs or playing card games don't sound like a bad idea.

 I think I prefer FF7 to be more condensed and not so bloated. I do appreciate the detail

in this game though because all of the open-world environments were really gorgeous.

The funny sidequests were probably all in Gongaga but they were also partly annoying, especially 

the chicken one but it didn't feel as brainless and it was just so funny at the end. 😂

The only nibelheim side quest I did during the story was the chocobo one and the one about

Tifa's cat because if I hadn't done the latter I probably wouldn't have gotten her as a date...

 

Minigames or gimmicks are all fine and dandy but really they were so in your face I got tired of it

to the point I could barely follow the plot anymore so I had to force the story.

This game was definitely interesting I just kept forgetting what it was supposed to be about

due to being overwhelmed by content. So I only really did side stories and eventually stopped

doing things like Queen's blood, Towers were only done if I was nearby for a quest

but its just so easy to get sidetracked and spend hours playing card games or anything else.

I got really tired of the towers by Gongaga and Lifesprings were just boring after number 10. 

Speaking of Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon were absolutely the worst areas to explore

cuz they made it so complicated like the layout, corners and depth of the valley... aaaa~~

But hey! atleast it wasn't a boring open world with nothing to do. My problem was that

there's just too much and somethings just get old fast, so once I reached Nibelheim

I was 45 hours in and just wanted it to be over with but noooo the Nibelheim mansion

was bloated with gimmicks that made me almost want to drop the game. They also love

to force characters into your party and the only time you can free-form was when

doing open-world stuff. Story segments were kinda lengthy as well so I

 was frequently stuck playing as characters I wasn't even good playing at.

Sadly Nibelheim was far from the end, it took even longer before I reached the credits.

In chapter 13 I was ballsy & decided to try and finish off any quests I didn't do and boy

I regret it because the cosmo canyon ones were the worst ever, if not for the

siliconera guide I would have never finished absence of a sign. THANK YOU.

I didn't like finding the last proto-relic in gongaga either cuz I could barely even

see the passage leading to some ruins which was the back-door entrance. >_>

Overall its fine however it is the most  bloated RPG I have ever played and I hope to never

come across one again, it made FF15 seem fun and for all its flaws atleast it didn't force

9000 minigames on me. Also you know I said i'd play Kannagi no Mori after this game? well

I finished FOUR routes while playing this game. FF7 rebirth made me want to peace out and chill.

I'll be blunt, I don't like the remakes at this point because its like they make it seem

like they're gonna change things but at the same time it isn't and you're basically

getting the same thing except way more convoluted. Yea no thanks!

6/10

I'll be wary from now on of any RPG that tries to pull these same stunts, someone 

once told me that too much is never good, this applies to everything in life.

I play these games for the story, not a 1-2 hour solo segment to throw around boxes.

Roasting chapter 11 here because yes.

Its obvious Square Enix is milking the FF7 cashcow just like otomate does that Hakuoki horsebird.

/Shakes cane.

I'm sorry but I am just gonna recommend OG FF7 instead, sure it not as pretty

but atleast it is one game and can be finished in reasonable amount of time

with side activities being well you know actual side activities.

**Of course OG FF7 had minigames too but they didn't force them on you all the time.