Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth - A Spoiler-Free Review
This game is fantastic, except when it isnt. (6/10)
This was a hard one to score, because I wanted to love it. So bad. I loved FF7:Remake, and the interlude with Yuffie was a good time also. But wow…there were active times I genuinely hated playing this game. That’s not an understatement. It wasn’t challenging in the ways it should be either. It was absurdly designed, overly-difficult mini-games by the shit loads. Every new area was indicative of new ways to experience the pain of repetitive stress disorder.
Combat, Movement
The fighting is great….when there actually is fighting. And until the last boss. I still have PTSD from the Hard Mode version. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say the last boss has 6 phases, you get randomly assigned characters to fight with for the different phases, unskippable 30-60 second cutscenes, and there’s no way to save or try a different loadout with restarting the ENTIRE fight. Most phases start with a one-hit kill move against the entire team and just do not get any easier. If you’re making a boss run on hard mode, you need 3+ hours for this at least - and that is if you’re an expert at combat and you’ve already maxed out a whole lotta materia.
The movement in the game is much improved from Remake. You explore a vast world, run around on Chocobos and the massive world just looks and feels amazing. The annoying part here is that fast travel is pretty much locked behind weirdly painful slow travel until much later in the game and game+.
The Mini-Games
These have to be discussed. Its a problem. At first, you’re like “this is great, I get a cool card game to play too?” and then its “wow, some fun little plot-minigames”, and finally “for f—— sake another f—— mini game?!?! I just want to play f—— Final Fantasy not spend 2 hours leaping over a clock as a frog or attempting a strenuous and horribly complicated piano simulator to family of f—- cats.”
I love the attempt at making a world with unique stuff. But the mini-games are so over done this game’s title should actually be Final Fantasy 7: The Mini-Games Collection. You will spend more time in mini-games than the actual game. By far. And not even because you want to. There’s literally 2 entire levels (and 3/4 of a boat ride) where you just play mini-games to get through.
Leveling/Upgrade
The leveling system of folios and upgrades is nice - but also - isn’t. Its really big, and its really expansive. But guess what? It’s tied to mastering mini-games. I wish I was kidding. Oh, you want to unlock a cool materia or helpful item? Go spend 2 hours becoming a savant at a mini-game you’ll literally never play again, because it isn’t enjoyable and it physically hurts to actually complete.
The materia leveling was also too extreme. Let me put it this way - I completed the game on normal, then hard, and always had an HP plus materia on the entirety of the game and never got it leveled to grade 5. For context, this materia is meant to increase your character’s health, and gets EXP every time you defeat an enemy…so all of the enemies in the entire game twice - including side quests was not enough to level this up to max level. This is also probably because you spend the entirety of the game in pointless mini-games rather than actually running around fighting stuff.
Graphics
It looks really good. In game+ you can throw on some different outfits for everyone and that’s fun. Graphics are great. The game looks and feels great for a PS5. There are a few areas, where the skybox feels like a skybox - but the artistry is still top shelf.
Plot
The plot is great. Phenomenal. It mirrors a lot of FF7 plot elements, as it should - but it adds a lot of depth. When playing on game+ and skipping minigames, this game feels great and at its best.
Overall
Look the game is good. It has a lot of really cool and good moments and I spent a week lost in this world. But the flippin’ mini-games are horrendous. Parts of this game should just be called Chadley’s Checklist.
If you’re a long time of the series, its worth a play. My recommendation however - is not to try to master it.