Growing up, I always knew that Final Fantasy 7 would get a remake. True, that was because of the PS3 tech test that wasn’t actually a game announcement but let’s ignore that. Instead, let’s talk about Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, a game that joins my short list of most time I spent playing before finishing.
You don’t put that many hours into a game unless you have a bad addiction to it or it deserves that amount of time. This is the latter in one of the best possible ways.
Developer & Publisher // Square Enix
Platforms // PlayStation 5
MSRP & Release Date // $69.99, February 29th, 2024
Reviewed On // PlayStation 5
Track Down Sephiroth
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth picks up where its predecessor, Final Fantasy 7 Remake left off, with Cloud and company hunting down Sephiroth. They know he has dangerous plans for the Planet and must stop him while avoiding Shinra’s hunt under their newly ascending leader, Rufus Shinra.
Along the way, all the classic party members eventually join their cause. It starts with Red XIII’s commitment to them as thanks for saving him at the end of Remake. A few chapters later, it expands to Yuffie, the star of Remake’s DLC, Intermission, Cait Sith, Cid Highwind, and Vincent Valentine.
This chapter in the story expands upon the original story with closer looks at each character’s life story, rectifications of past plot holes, and a lingering sense of distrust. Thanks to Remake’s endgame, we know that things won’t happen exactly how they originally did, and that adds a good hint of unpredictability to the game.
Simultaneously, this game does an incredible job of recalling various moments from the core Final Fantasy 7 releases. Famous jokes, classic designs, and copious Easter eggs reward anyone who’s played past games. One such example gets a renewed plot purpose here. Thanks to decisions like these, new fans shouldn’t get too confused, despite the granularity of detail to some callbacks.
Everything’s Not Flawless, However
Everything said, the narrative still suffered on two points. First, the story criminally underused a handful of characters, namely Zack Fair. As revealed at the end of Remake, Zack Fair lives. The originally doomed SOLDIER here follows the fallout back in Midgar from the previous game’s event. That view only appears sporadically, where Zack mostly does the smallest errands for Aerith’s adoptive mother, Elmyra.
When you play as him, you only get two times where you get any meaningful playtime as Zack. He plays much like Cloud, so you’re not missing much mechanically. However, he has such a notable role in the story that deserves more playtime.
Next, without spoiling much, the ending gets fairly confusing. Even though the spectacle of the endgame fights and levels land very well, the narrative leaves more clarification questions about what just happened than driving questions about what’s next. It doesn’t ruin the experience, but you don’t want to leave an experience with those types of questions.
Rebirth Builds off Remake’s Praised Combat System
Anyone who played Remake in 2020 will mostly know the combat system. Once again, it mixes real-time action with timed combat options using a modern take on the Active Time Battle (ATB) system. Characters can take free attacks to build their ATB gauge and spend the ATB charges on abilities, spells, and items.
What Rebirth brings builds off the expanded traveling group. The Synergy System lets characters combine for attacks and defense. These range from quick, free attacks (known as Synergy Skills), to powerful, charged-up Limit-like moves (called Synergy Abilities). Add in help from the backline (comprised of all non-active party members) as a last resort, and you have a fleshed-out system that tackles the challenge of a bigger party head-on.
Players that want to unlock more Synergy options can update Folios. These leveling trees are unique to each character and provide a more streamlined system than Remake. Where the previous release tied leveling to each weapon, Rebirth ties it directly to the character, removing the unnecessary busywork of unlocking skills every time you get a new weapon.
That’s not to call weapons static, however. Each weapon has Weapon Skill slots that boost character abilities or skills. These are specific to each character and can be set to auto-equip as you get new pieces. While these slots are fine, it feels confusing to update these at first (more on that later).
Rebirth showed Square Enix still has ideas in the tank for remaking FF7. Synergy shows an excellent system that balances the traditional three-party lineup with the reality of traveling with a group nearly thrice the size.
This Open World Game Needed the Second Disk
Any halfway decent open world game needs some sort of variety between locations, and Rebirth absolutely delivers on that front. Each region, from the opening Grasslands outside of Kalm to the rocky Cosmo Canyon later on, carries distinct personalities and activities. All have a regional Chocobo breed with different feather colors and abilities, along with distinctive musical motifs.
Additionally, you don’t need to long for things to do. Each region has a litany of activities to do from monster fights, to treasure hunting with Chocobos, to side quests, minigames, and more. Speaking of minigames, Rebirth is rife with them. Headlined by now-fan favorite Queen’s Blood, the game showcases a litany of small things to do throughout, and that’s excluding the Gold Saucer.
The combat is very familiar with a major new addition.
That said, “longing for things to do” does turn into open-world bloat at times. It’s not the worst appearance of this issue since you can mostly do everything in a region before moving on with the story, but it’s still there. Part of this stems from a riff on the “Ubisoft Tower” mechanic where you climb a tower, activate it, and see what there is to do around you.
Visually, these regions are great and diverse. They stand out with their looks and what unique activities they have, especially Cosmo Canyon. Red XIII’s rocky home, paired with a cowboy-like overworld music, especially stood out. Mechanically, they fall straight into a repetitive cycle very quickly.
Final Fantasy Music Remains Timeless
Final Fantasy historically nails each soundtrack, and 7 is no exception. Much like Remake, we get elevated orchestral versions of the original PSX release. Unlike Remake, however, Rebirth goes the extra mile.
One of the other ways regions distinguish themselves from each other is through their musical variations. You’ll hear classic tracks in each region with a specialized theme. The overworld theme in Junon doesn’t share the Cosmo Canyon’s cowboy-western-like theme, nor does the Corel region’s tropical Chocobo theme match Nibel’s flighty variation.
Additionally, Rebirth has a unique theme, “No Promises to Keep.” Written by Nobuo Uematsu and performed by Loren Allred (in-game by Aerith), this powerful theme captures the Remake games’ core themes and Aerith’s headspace leading into the final chapters. Anyone who wants to go to Final Fantasy’s symphony tour, Distant Worlds, can look forward to this in future tours.
Anything Not Human Looks Great. Humans can Look…Okay
The previously mentioned beautiful sights don’t consistently extend towards character models. While core cutscenes polish up the models, looking at characters in the wrong light while playing can feel ripped from the uncanny valley.
Part of it comes down to a lack of detail. Most character faces don’t have any wrinkles and make for an oddly smooth look. Also, many of their eyes have pseudo-bags resting under them that makes them look gaunt.
This isn’t a framerate issue either. I toggled between the two visual modes (graphics and performance) while playing and the issue remained. The trade-off was a silky smooth framerate experience for better texture pop-ins. Framerates rarely dropped, and the recent tech upgrade did minimal to address the issue.
Many Small but Poor UI Design Choices Build Up
The final point to talk about revolves around smaller issues that comprise a bigger problem. There’s a lot of quality of life (QOL) missed opportunities in Rebirth. Sometimes, mid-combat menus with detailed information feel hard to read because the background doesn’t contrast enough with the text.
Another QoL issue: you can’t tell what magic and abilities aren’t available to each character here.
Also, the affection trackers above everybody’s head doesn’t account for multiple characters at the same color grade. There, people pleasers can have a hard time telling who they’re highest ranked with when it comes time for the affection-dependent plot beats.
These are two small examples of an overall frustrating issue. It’s not just that these lower the experience but handled these issues right in Remake. That makes it all the more frustrating that they regressed on something that wasn’t broken.
Conclusion: An Epic Yet Imperfect Tale
Anyone who played the original Final Fantasy 7 must check out this game. Likewise, anyone who enjoyed Remake back in 2020 should continue that story here. Rebirth serves many roles very well. It excels as a JRPG, a sequel, and a modern-generation video game. We may still be early in the year, but this is an instant Game of the Year contender.
