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Forum - View topicGAME: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Video Game Review
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1257 |
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I spent about two months watching Vinny Vinesauce stream this game, and these points above are honestly incredibly accurate, even for someone watching someone else play it. It's made me want to do a run of the original for the first time in almost 20 years, but there's something about the bustle and chatter in the background of Remake/Rebirth that I'd miss. They did an excellent job just making places feel lived in. For all the sometimes corny anime moments, they really built a living world with these games. |
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b-dragon
Posts: 477 |
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For the love of Minerva, can we please get less Chadley in the next one?
I like a lot of the narrative shifts and inclusions. I'm not sure on the ending- my opinion on it is kinda dependent on what they do with it. Same as Remake, I guess. And as a general rule, I think its a bit bloated. Primarily too many minigames of...varying quality, and zones that were less entertaining to explore. |
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James_Beckett
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 282 Location: USA |
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Hey now, that's my fastidious robot son that you're besmirching, right there. He's a good boy, okay!? |
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b-dragon
Posts: 477 |
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I liked Chadley in Remake just fine...but like many good things, a little can go a very long way. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 334 |
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I really want to get this after watching a little of it being played and then playing the demo but I feel like I'll almost end up not pulling the trigger because man the amount of menus you have to go through to do anything is exhausting. I can only imagine the hassle once you actually get fully into it with more party members, more materia, this folio business. Sounds like a hot mess.
Seems like something I'll pick up later on down the line when the price drops a bit... |
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Farafra
Posts: 115 |
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No. Chadley should have more lines, more screen presence, and access to a time machine. |
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DKL
 Posts: 1956 Location: California, USA |
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Sill in the middle of my playthrough, but I like this game quite a bit. I was initially going to wait on the PC release that will probably take a million years, but since my PC broke, I just decided to dive in and I think it’s been pretty worth it and I was in fact missing out had I waited.
I can’t vouch for comparisons with the old game since my recollection of the original is hazy at best, but I think one of the most successful things this game captures is the lives of the people caught in the middle of whatever the main protagonists and antagonists are doing. The amount of detail in this area is wild and unlike anything I’ve ever played in a game. There was a scene in the first game with the gate guards and Wedge and it’s pretty interesting that a lot of the emotional impact of it from me was pretty much the one guard’s redemption arc where he went from just following his senior’s orders of being a toxic jackass to doing the right thing when it really counted. In this new game, they had that entire thing with the 7th Infantry division or whatever where I felt like a complete asshole for deceiving them the way I did, because it had a lot of build up to that where you learned a lot about the team (assuming you seeked out the optional dialog instead of clicking right away). I was honestly moved by the ending of it. Unlike a lot of games, I genuinely questioned what I’m doing when I just sat there and watched all the NPCs talk about their day-to-day lives. Things like how people couldn’t get to their jobs and pay rent because the trains stopped due to the ongoing beef between Avalanche and Shinra had a level of relatability that I don’t normally see in games since NPCs in most games are just window-dressing they tossed in that didn’t add much to the experience besides being a clickable object in the game world (I’m playing Stellar Blade right now and there are generally like 3 levels of minor NPCs in that game: my dick riders, my haters and a bunch of doomers). I’d go so far as to say that this attention to detail in this area was way more compelling to me than the main story, which I’ll leave other people to debate since I’m not probably not as invested in this comparison as others are. While you’re spoonfed most of the stuff in the game, this aspect of the game is entirely missable and I can’t imagine someone just watching their favorite influencer play (or hate on) it really understanding the depth of this area of the production where some NPCs actually have story arcs, like the two women in Kalm that were fighting over a man, but then started dating each other and made plans to go to the Golden Saucer. I guess it doesn’t help that they have a very obtuse way to obtain the optional dialogue where I’m playing fighting game footsies with the all the NPCs to hopefully activate all the lines, assuming there wasn’t another NPC in the general area that had overlapping hitboxes. I’m super invested in whether or not Middle Manager-kun will make it back to his daughter: https://youtu.be/NJCrJTblyHc?si=eZDG6kg94PjSHJ6j As for game mechanics, I’m a bit surprised that the reviewer found the folio tree more fiddly than the weapon upgrades from the first game. In the first game, I was just going to another menu every time to do the same thing (add materia slots), while in this game, it’s more straightforward since I just make a beeline for the useful skills, like elemental attacks (which is a godsend since I’m not locked in to just using elemental materia or MP to hit things with elementals… they gave Yuffie this in the first game and I’m glad they trended in this direction since I’m more flexible now) and synergy skills and I only have to do it inside one menu that I don’t touch for several hours after I’m done. I also disliked the first game constantly forcing parties on me instead of letting me play the way I want, even though it made sense from a narrative perspective. I would have to do this jank thing and switch out materia to the other team whenever they walled me into a team since, at the time, I didn’t have enough of the same resources to pass around. Since I wasn’t able to play hard mode since I was making a beeline for the second game, my main critique of the structure of the first game is that a lot of the scenarios you came across didn’t really force you to use a lot of the mechanics… mainly because most things died too fast before you could hit your godlike stagger setup or whatever. As it was, this was the hardest thing I had to do in the first game (barring some exploit that I’m probably not aware of since I haven’t checked vids out) since it’s something that actually took more than one try: https://youtu.be/b_KfS07-xlY?si=sg-AFiu0h73jXD8q But, actually, I have some insight on that: the developers knew what they are doing when they designed the combat system. The reason why they don’t have a lot of things in the game that demand this kind of accuracy is because they still want the game to be accessible. I am OK with this, but it would definitely be wild if every combat encounter was like this randomly hard box minigame where I actually had to learn which moves did the most damage and build it into my execution under time pressure. Anyway, this issue of things dying too fast was probably something that was remedied in the hard mode that I didn’t play, but it would still have that issue where I’m forced to tinker with things every time I got locked into a set team unless I grinded out a bunch of materia levels because specific parts of the story are just structured that way (unless hard mode did that thing where you can just use whoever during any part of the story… I’m unsure if this was a thing, but that would have been cool). The second game has allowed me to go with a waifu team, on a fresh save file, with minimal interference and the dynamic difficulty they give you at the start makes it so that I can actually use a lot of the mechanics regularly instead of just the larger fights. So I don’t have to wait for new game + to do all the cool DMC stuff to launchable scrub enemies. The commitment in character choice isn’t even that strict since there’s like party exp gain and whatever and you can just play whoever you feel like playing at the time without penalty. You even max out a weapon’s unique skill in a few battles, assuming you didn’t forget to use it while flailing. I feel like you’re more hard committed to materia choice, more than anything, since you only have so many slots to level up with. This is probably where the build diversity between different players actually is, at least early on when you’re not really farming AP. I find the combat in the second game to be quite a bit better because of the MP-less elemental attacks and allowing a lot more moves to be used in the air (so that combat is more than just button, button, button in the air) or having moves that put you in the air. The best part is that the execution requirement isn’t actually very strict. You can just pause the game in the middle of mashing the attack button and then make a decision on what to do next. You have a lot of time to choose, so it’s beneficial to always just freeze the game when meter charges up. You can hit things with some cool looking combos: https://youtu.be/T1M7GDnovDs?si=6f90T9reglJPN6ud And the freeze allows you to calmly make a lot of decisions during key parts of a battle, like how I failed this fight the first time, but then ran it back and then pressured and staggered the thing during its AOE kill move the next time I fought it: https://youtu.be/gJ0KNeCIrGs?si=7QCTQBO3IsS0S__q There’s even tryhard stuff like perfect parry (another Yuffie mechanic from the first game), which is cool, though not necessarily too ball breaking since the window for it is fairly large, at least compared to everything else I’m playing. That said, the Synergy skills are incredibly powerful (infinite MP, extended stagger, stronger limit attack, 3 ATB bars), but it hinges a lot on character switching and building meter quickly to have access during the times where it’s most beneficial. I imagine that most people will ignore this mechanic after the initial Sephiroth fight that introduces it, but I might be mistaken. But it does allow you to do a lot of cool things if you set it up consistently by building meter and using skills efficiently. I felt proud of myself when I hit a boss or whatever with that Ascension limit break move during stagger to kill it. Anyway, the battle system is quite good and I feel like the new game does a good job on capitalizing on the potential of what you could do with it. I’m actually kind of surprised at how much more refined it got in the second game since I was mostly expecting them to autopilot it and have the same weaknesses as first game’s combat. Overall, it’s quite a fun game. I also really dig a lot of the mood where, despite the pressure of bloated production values constantly looming everywhere, they actually took time to produce a lot of throwaway scenes that are charming and memorable and it’s not just front loaded to key story sequences: https://youtu.be/Q8vrh0QrVDo?si=PgFoE6opbKt9O43t The stuff money and talent was made to be used on. Lavishly produced games can actually be fun too. |
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 436 Location: PA / USA |
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It's really fascinating, I found myself liking Remake's constant blitz and advancement of story (outside of the sewers, lol) to be engaging enough to run the entire game front-to-back several times. I don't see myself doing a second run of Rebirth unless the PC version comes out at such a reasonable price that it validates more of my time - there's just too much to do. If you try to 100% Rebirth in your initial play, it mucks up some of the stellar pacing I thought that Remake had, but then missing sidequests in Rebirth means you're missing key story or party interactions that allow you to decode more of what it is happening in FF7's world. It's a very delicate and conflicting balance - one that reminds me of why after the 120 hours it took to finish the original PS1 game to 100%, FF9 and 10 wound up being more highly-regarded in my mind than the original FF7 was. Remake was hands-down my GoTY when it launched, but I can see some wiggle room to say that Rebirth inherits some of the things from the original PS1 release that remind me why I like FF9 and 10 just a teeeeeny bit more.
.....and yet, that means Rebirth is a success in capturing FF7's magical world once more. It is most certainly alive, and most certainly worth saving. I'm excited for the finale that is likely coming in 2027/2028, and I'm happy to have been able to spend around 130 hours 100%'ing Rebirth on Normal with no accidental spoilers, but I also don't think I'm going to be re-running it any time soon like I couldn't stop doing with Remake. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6087 |
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I had to do a double take when I saw “Game Review” for this.
Like I know there’s probably been a lot of things happening hence why this review is just now going up but damn. |
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getumbuck
Posts: 198 |
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I loved nearly the entire game. My only issue is I felt like they ruined "the big moment". I remember that scene very well, when I was a kid, playing FF:VII for the first time. It was the first time, I ever viewed a video game as a work of art, but in this version, I was just confused and it really hurt my head.
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Gem-Bug
Posts: 1257 |
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I loved that whole section and am really hoping that in the next installment, when spoiler[you end up with the airship/Highwind, that they join you and man it as it's crew]. I'd really love that. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 334 |
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That's Tetsuya Nomura!™ *audience laughs at camera* |
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mrsticky005
Posts: 126 |
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I CAN imagine how Square could top this:
Final Fantasy 2 Artistic Revision I mean really any FF 1-6 artistic revision and it will be awesome but FF2 is my favorite. However while it is my favorite I also feel like it would benefit the most from a revision. Artistic Revision means I want it to look as close to Amano's art as possible with a bit of a colorful but yet melancholic and sad vibe. I want expanded story lines for the side characters but to follow the same original plot. That is to say a character like Josef would still die the same way but there would be more build up towards that moment. I think it would be cool if you could do side missions while you have that character and you could be rewarded with new items but when the character dies those new items are possibly no longer available. But at the same time while you do side missions the empire is destroying towns and if you are able to liberate those towns they can reward you with items. I want the character deaths to really impact the game play. I also want an updated version of the key word system. But there also spies for the Palamecia empire and you have to be careful of what you say I like the idea of "use it or lose it" in the leveling up system. Though maybe a bit more balanced. I also think it would be cool if your party could spar and train with each other. Another thing that I think would be really cool is if there was an option to play as Leon while he is a dark knight for Palamecia and to be able to form a party and even have Borghen join your team. I think it could be that when you're sleeping as the Wild Rose Rebellion Party you can switch and play as the Palamecia Empire. Palamecia would still be villainous and the plot would remain the same but you would get to see more of both sides. You wouldn't meet the Wild Rose Rebellion Party while playing as Dark Knight Leon but you can meet the side characters and if you wanted to kill them with the twist being that when you as Leon turn "good" and join the Wild Rose Rebellion not everyone is just going to forgive you. |
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GNPixie
Posts: 314 |
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Nojima actually. Nomura's gone on record saying he wanted it to be a faithful remake with some expansions here and there. Its Nojima who went off the rails. |
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Touma55
Posts: 238 |
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I am still shocked that so many people have no clue that most complaints people have about Nomura aren't even Nomura's doing but Nojima's.
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