I Don’t Hate Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
It’s been months since the follow up to 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, Rebirth, has come out and I just now finished it. In my defense my wife and I didn’t start playing the game until halfway through March despite getting the game on launch day. And we’ve also been juggling a bunch of other things.
My feelings about Rebirth are complicated. There were times when I loved it. And time when I thought I’d make a sequel to my Kingdom Hearts III review. It’s a game that has plenty going for it, but also a lot of baggage.
Ultimately, I decided I wanted to write something about it. You can think of it as a review, but really I just wanted to get my thoughts out there about what I liked, and didn’t like about the game. And see if I can make sense of it all by the end.
SPOILER WARNING: I’m going to talk pretty freely about most aspects of the game. Some things I won’t go into too much detail about, but others I kind of have to. So fair warning if you don’t want to have that spoiled for you.
Things I Liked
The Characters (Mostly)
One of the best things about Remake was how much emphasis was placed on making these classic characters people already loved even better. And that continues into Rebirth. There are so many good moments between the core cast and the game does an excellent job of letting each of them shine. The writing was on point, and the excellent voice cast did a remarkable job of bringing these characters to life.
This game introduced some new main characters and some of them are amazing. I really like Rebirth’s rendition of Elena for one. We only get to see him for a little bit, but Vincent is incredible. Matt Mercer does an excellent job, and his introduction to the story is one of the best moments in the game.
Lastly there’s Cait Sith. I’ll be honest with you, I hated Cait Sith in the original game. You can either chalk that up to me being young and angry at him for his betrayal. The fact that he’s a goddamn weirdo. Or the fact that he sucked. But Rebirth does an amazing job of redeeming the character in my eyes. He looks incredible for one. He’s adorable. Hilarious. And is much better written. Loved him.
The Music
I think it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll find a better video game soundtrack this year. Much like Remake, Rebirth reimagines many of the classic tracks from the original. But there are so many different versions of a lot of the songs, and there’s such a diverse range of music here. Rebirth is a strange and quirky game and the soundtrack is one of the better examples of that.
It’s Gorgeous
Rebirth is a damn fine looking game. All of the important characters in the game are beautifully rendered and realized, with a ton of personality and charm baked into their expressions and animations. Much of the game’s world is equally as impressive especially considering the shift to open world. Unfortunately the rest of the NPCs in the game look pretty bad and that can be pretty jarring.
The Open World (Mostly)
I’m kind of surprised by this one myself, but for most of the areas in the game I really enjoyed exploring and tackling the various World Intel requests. It was pretty chill and for whatever reason I had a good time with it. Worth mentioning is the Excavation activity which has the best music in the game.
(Some of) The Changes To The Original
This one is a little mixed, honestly. But the fact is I did like some of the changes. Mainly anything related to Crisis Core I was a big fan of. I’ve mentioned this a few times over the years but Crisis Core might be my actual favorite Final Fantasy VII thing. So it was really hard NOT to like all of that stuff.
Meanwhile I found some of the changes to expand on the original to be fairly interesting. Examples of this include the Gi playing a (much) larger role in the story, and providing some more context for the Black Materia.
Another big one was the way they handled the Barret and Dyne stuff. That was always a cool part of the original, but they actually made it way more upsetting in this. Part of this has to do with Barret being the best character in the game, but also they just wrote Dyne way better. I teared up during the conclusion of this arc.
Sadly I don’t think this worked every time, and some changes seemed either confusing, pointless, or both.
Things I Didn’t Like
The Combat
Okay, maybe it’s a bit of a stretch to say I didn’t like the combat, but I’m pretty mixed on it at least. I think when Remake came out back in 2020, I thought the combat was pretty cool. But after spending another 100+ hours with a refined version of it I’ve come to the conclusion that I could take it or leave it.
I’m not sure what I would prefer here. I’m completely fine with turn-based. And I really liked FFXVI’s action combat. You know what else I liked though? Crisis Core.
I dunno, it’s fine I guess. I’m sure they’ll make even more refinements for the third game, but either way it’s good enough to get the job done I suppose.
Cid
Alright. Let’s talk about Cid. I think that I’m fine with how this Cid looks, and his voice. That’s not really the problem. I wouldn’t even say his personality is bad either, it’s just pretty watered down. No, my big problem is how they butchered his story.
No Rocket Town, No Shera, and presumably no Space. One of my favorite parts about the original FFVII is Cid and his backstory, and the events that lead to you actually going into space. Instead we get a Cid who is just a glorified taxi for hire and I guess he’s indebted to Aerith’s mom? It sucks!
The Temple of The Ancients / Black Materia
This one isn’t that important, but I was really disappointed they changed the nature of the Black Materia actually being The Temple of The Ancients. And how Cait Sith had to sacrifice himself to shrink it down. Instead we get a more impactful sacrifice from a much improved Cait Sith, but the temple is just collapsing instead of shrinking. Lame!
(Some of) The Other Changes To The Original
Aside from The Temple of The Ancients there are some other changes made to the game that I was either disappointed with, or thought were kind of dumb. The two really disappointing ones were the way they handled the Seto reveal in Cosmo Canyon, and the execution of the Shinra Manor. Both of these parts were WAY better in the original game.
Things I Hated
The Mini Games
Look, when the game first came out and people were making a big deal of there being too many mini-games, I dismissed it. I thought people were just being bitter, after all mini-games are a staple of the Final Fantasy series, and it was VII that really made that apparent.
However… there are way too many fucking mini-games. Almost every section of the game is broken up by numerous mini-games. Not only are there a lot of them, but you repeat a lot of the same types over and over again.
Now, they’re not all bad. I think Queen’s Blood is decent, there’s just way too much of it. There are some other fun ones in there to be sure, but again, still way too many.
But then there’s the rotten ones. I’m talking about the required stealth missions to sneak up on the chocobos. Fort Condor which is initially pretty neat, but then it gets way too fucking hard towards the end. And Escort missions.
But the two biggest offenders that almost drove me to quitting the game, or insanity — whichever came first were the Cosmo Canyon Chocobo Gliding, and Cait Sith’s Crate Throwing. Video games don’t usually get under my skin too much anymore but my god man I was gonna lose my shit with those.
Gongaga Jungle / Cosmo Canyon
Speaking of which, the lowest point of the entire game for me was the long middle section where you’re exploring the Gongaga Jungle and Cosmo Canyon. I already covered how much disdain I have for the Chocobo Gliding in Cosmo Canyon, but Gongaga was putrid.
The combination of confusing jungle terrain with too much verticality and the mushroom launchpads (AND THE MUSIC!!!) were driving my wife and I insane. We were there for so long. If this were any other game I probably would have given up. I’m glad I didn’t, but still. Fuck those Chapters.
Gilgamesh and The Protorelics
This one isn’t without its merits, but I have to say one of the most tedious parts of the game were the Protorelic side quests. There’s way too many of them, and a lot of them have to deal with annoying mini-games. And as much as I love Gilgamesh, he started to get pretty annoying.
There’s also those horrible battles you have to do at the end of the quest line. Particularly the Odin / Alexander one. The quest line ended on a high note, and Battle on The Big Bridge is always a jam. But yeah, I can’t say I was a big fan of this stuff.
Yuffie / Red XIII
Alright, so this is a big one. And probably the “hottest take” I have, but these two suck. Which is a huge bummer since they were both really good in Remake!
I’ll start with Yuffie. I never liked Yuffie in the original, or in Crisis Core for that manner. She’s fucking annoying. However in FFVII Remake Intergrade they did an excellent job of redeeming her character. I actually found her to be pretty endearing there and really enjoyed that DLC.
All of that is gone in Rebirth. As soon as Yuffie is introduced to the story she becomes annoying again. I don’t know why she reverted to being an immature idiot kid who is entirely too one track minded with her materia hardon.
What’s worse is that the game forces her into almost every scene for the remainder of the game. It’s like they were trying to compensate for her being such a side character in the original. And as a result I got real fucking tired of Yuffie having a huge presence in nearly every scene for the second half of the game.
Also while you’re doing the Chocobo Gliding stuff in Cosmo Canyon she totally torments a trauma victim because she’s too fucking stupid to know any better.
Then there’s Red XIII. Man, this one is actually worse, probably?
For whatever reason the Rebirth devs decided it would be a good idea to change Red XIII’s entire personality and voice for the second half of the game. Red XIII is one of my favorite characters from the original, as well as his introduction in Remake up until you get to Cosmo Canyon.
He’s a dumb kid, and he sounds like a fucking weiner. I see what they were going for here, I think. They wanted to portray Nanaki as the young cub he is, but I strongly disagree with what they did. It ruins his character from that point onward. What a fucking bummer.
Things I…. Didn’t Understand
The Story (MAJOR SPOILERS!!!)
Alright, so this last section is just here to talk about the story before I wrap things up. I gotta be honest, I don’t know what they’re going for here.
The original premise of Remake, at least as far as I thought, was that this was going to be a trilogy of games that drastically differed from the original Final Fantasy VII. That’s the whole meta narrative about The Whispers and Fate in the first game.
However… It just seems like Rebirth pretty much followed the events of FFVII, but added and changed a bunch of the journey to get from point A to B.
Furthermore, I think some of it is just bad?
Let’s take the character Glenn for example. He’s fucking terrible and I don’t know why he’s even here. He’s from Ever Crisis I guess? And they wanted to make Shinra’s war with Wutai a bigger deal. I guess? Maybe? The dude is a fucking clown though.
Also, what’s really going on with Cloud? I know Cloud has issues. He suffered terrible trauma, was exposed to mako for years, and the degradation. He has an identity crisis. And he’s subconsciously succumbing to the Reunion.
But he’s like, way more unstable in this game than in the original. And also I’m not entirely sure what’s causing all of this. One of the weirdest things in the game is the implication that Tifa is a fake. And because of that it really strains their relationship. Tifa in general is just… weird in this game.
Cloud keeps seeing Sephiroth everywhere he goes, mainly when it comes to dealing with the black cloaks. But also other people seem to sometimes see them as Sephiroth too?
Why does he still have the Black Materia? He traded it back and forth with Sephiroth like 9 times or some shit. Does he have it? What happened to the White Materia? Why does he see Aeirth after she dies? How does he already know about meteor and the Northern Crater?
Is he still under Sephiroth’s control? Was he ever really? Why is he such an asshole and a cold blooded murderer? There’s just a lot of unanswered questions here and the game just makes things more complicated.
I think the point of the remakes at this point is that there are multiple alternate dimensions where things play out differently? But where is Zack now? And is Aeirth not actually dead but in another world too?
It hurts my brain to think about all of this. Maybe I’m too dumb, but I don’t think that’s the only problem. I think the game just gets very convoluted.
And to serve what purpose exactly? I was sure there was going to be some crazy twist at the end of the game. Remember when people surmised Tifa might die instead of Aerith? Or what would it be like if Aerith didn’t die?
In the end we leave Rebirth at pretty much the same state as Disc 1 of the original game. With the inclusion of a multiple worlds theory. And then a bunch of weird convoluted bullshit. Nothing really changed that much. I thought the whole point was to change things?
I’m curious if people are happy that it’s largely sticking to the original game’s progression. Or if they think it’s bad. I’m not really sure what I think about it. Mixed? I guess?
Mixed pretty much sums up my thoughts on the game in general. I enjoyed the game for the most part, but it has a lot of irritating problems and things I didn’t like. I’m admittedly less excited about the third game at this point. But of course I still want to play it and see how things end.
I definitely liked Remake a lot more though. And Rebirth is yet another game I was really excited for this year that left me feeling a little disappointed. I’m still glad I played it though.
