8.2/10 – 57 hours
7/4/2024
Playing this game goes a little like:
“I love it!
“Holy shit what a drag.”
“This game is beautiful and made with so much love 🥺.”
“What were they thinking??? Was this game even playtested?”
Both amazing and needlessly tiring. Its grand scale and worldbuilding creates some dissonance that makes me miss the more linear approach of Remake. Still really great! I looked forward to it for a long time, and I’m still very happy that I played it.
Combat/Exploration – The immensely satisfying combat of the original reaches new heights, with the addition of synergy skills to open up new strategies and aerial combat to make encounters flow better. Still feels as good as ever to spam cool weapon abilities and chain them with other party members to create godlike combos. Pressuring and Staggering a boss always feels amazing. Each character feels fun to play in their own way, with Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Yuffie, and the brief stints as Zack and Sephiroth feeling great, while the others not as much. I’m looking at you Cait Sith. Why did they force me to play as him for a whole half chapter when he clearly isn’t designed to solo?
Big applause to the boss design team, as most story bosses are extremely fun to fight. Successfully creating a strategy and walloping on weak points is always fun, and the dynamic battle cutscenes keep things intense. Some mini bosses and many summon fights are pretty crummy though. Phoenix, Odin, Yin and Yang, the final Roche fight, and the second phase of Jenova to name a few.
Upon leaving Midgar, the cast now faces the whole world as they chase down Sephiroth, and this means the game has now gone open world. In a market now saturated with these kinds of games it’s pretty difficult to make yourself seem unique, and Rebirth’s world is fairly typical in this regard. However, the impetus to explore is still there, as finding sites of interest allow you to unlock rideable Chocobos, confront summons more easily, and get exclusive materia. It’s very rewarding to explore, though it still doesn’t feel that open even with each area’s massive size. The trademark open world towers reveal all the interesting points of interest, meaning your curiosity alone will seldom lead you to find things. Hell, there are owls and glowy stones that spawn near places of interest and directly lead you to places. There’s no opportunity to find things on your own. You wouldn’t want to anyways, because nothing in this game feels snappy at all.
On a positive note this game is absolutely visually stunning! The PS5 is damn near pushed to its limit with the combo of smooth 60fps, gorgeous lighting and textures, and super detailed character models.
OST is not as memorable as Remake but has bangers nonetheless, like this and this
Unholy Filler – See, I’m fine with a little dilly-dallying for the sake of world building or narrative pressure relief, but this is too much, man. The first 60% of the game is littered with needless bloating by forcing you to do the seemingly endless side minigames. A lot of them are decently fun, but they seriously detract from the story. It’s just plain tiring. I did enjoy the second visit to the gold saucer though, which provided some intimate moments with the cast. I’ll also say here that nothing in this game feels snappy or smooth. Climbing is clunky and slow and most Chocobos have the turning radius of Pluto and are terrified of 2 centimeter drops. Most abilities are meh too, except for the Nibel one which allows you to jet around quickly. Also sucks how you get a buggy but can only use it in Corel 🙁 .
Story – The plot follows the same general sequence as the exploration portion of the original FF7 did, albeit with some events moved around. I’m not the biggest fan of the new story elements as they simply muddy the clarity of the events. Is Aerith gone or not? What do the Whispers do now? Why does Vincent even exist here just to do nothing? Why is Zack so important when I barely got to do anything as him? He’s on the cover of the goddamn game!! Sometimes the new moments would add tension but would later be resolved by absolutely nothing. (namely Cloud getting possessed and seeking the black materia. Also what purpose did possessed Cloud pushing Tifa into the reactor serve? Just for her to have a Mako acid trip?). It’s hinted that there’s an alternate reality plotline which is where Zack and the ghost of Aerith reside but it’s really muddy and sloppily integrated. Can’t say I’m a fan. I will say I do enjoy the extra cutscenes and quests that flesh out the cast.
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