Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Impressions – First Day of Play
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth carries a massive burden. This is Square Enix’s second installment in remaking the 1997 J-RPG, following 2020’s Remake. After eight hours of open-world exploration, Synergy movesets, and many rounds of Queen’s Blood, players will know they’re in for a massive experience that should dwarf its predecessor.
Editor’s Note: Early Rebirth spoilers and hints to original spoilers in the final section.
Unlock Chocobos, Then Explore
Unlike Remake, Rebirth is open world with levels that sprawl for miles. As such, once you get to the open world portion, travel to undiscovered places takes a long time. Good news, however; you unlock Chocobos a few missions in.
For those unaware, Chocobos are the ever-present Final Fantasy steed in place of horses. You ride them at much faster speeds than Avalanche can sprint, they sniff buried goods better than Red XIII (by his own admission), and race with them. This is the one thing I wish I knew before starting out because this open world is massive.
Travel time doesn’t take super long with the Chocobos, but you still recognize that these maps are gargantuan. Each Chapter has a slew of side quests, collectibles, and secrets to discover. These activities can feel generic (especially when they use the Ubisoft Tower mechanic), but they’re not so bad as to detract from the overall package.
Synergy Attacks Take Time to Blossom into a Beautiful Mechanic
Rebirth introduces Synergy Attacks where two characters team up for a stronger move. Most Synergized attacks are simple moves for a quick hit, but the stronger moves require a deep economy. These stronger moves have their own charge requirement. Each charge fills when you use most Active Time Battle (ATB) moves, and the stronger moves require that both characters have three or four charges filled.
This design keeps the strongest moves out of lower level encounters because enemies just don’t have enough health to withstand all the ATB moves needed to charge up for Synergy. One workaround, however, lets players speed up their ATB regeneration with the smaller Synergy attacks. You need to unlock each Synergized move (more on that later), but once you have a full arsenal Synergy earns its flowers.
Queen’s Blood Will Consume Me Whole
Like many Final Fantasy games before, Rebirth introduces a brand new card-minigame. The two players take turns placing their cards on the 5×3 grid, trying to score the most points in each row. Whoever wins a row gets their points added to the final score, and ties reward no points to anyone.
Rebirth has players throughout the world while Avalanche explores. There’s way more depth to the rules and gameplay regarding where you can play cards and how you can play the strongest cards, but that’s not important for now. Here’s what’s important: anyone with an interest in Gwent from The Witcher will fall in love with Queen’s Blood.
Queen’s Blood, in the few matches I’ve played so far, hooks you in with strategic gameplay that continually bread crumbs you through the first main Chapter.
Final Point: Square’s Thought a Lot about Rebirth’s Plot
If a developer wants to redo a classic video game across three different installments, then they need to flesh those out as full as possible and address any plot holes. So far, Square’s doing both.
Rebirth opens with Midgar’s first day after Remake’s finale. Thanks to the scenes we see, it must be (to me at least) a separate timeline from the original game and the modern game. I am deeply fascinated to see where they go with this structure, knowing that the core story goes directly against this opening.
Said story’s Chapter One, for those who didn’t play the demo last month, retells the infamous Nibelheim mission. A young Cloud and Tifa watch Sephiroth’s villainous origin up close and personal. However, playing through the original game makes you realize a couple of plot holes. Here, in Rebirth, the first scenes after Cloud finishes telling that story addresses two major ones. One gets a full answer, while the other hints at something big later down the line.
I’m writing this now, the night of launch day, knowing full well I’m about to plug another fours hours in before going to bed. We don’t have a full review yet, and we won’t until someone fully finishes the game on this site. Yet, whenever we do, we hope that it meets or exceeds the standard the first eight hours set.