Review: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A Much-needed reunion

Platform: PlayStation 5

Initial release date: February 29, 2024

Mode: Single-player video game

Awards: The Game Award for Most Anticipated Game

Nominations: The Game Award for Most Anticipated Game

License: proprietary license

Composers: Masashi Hamauzu, Mitsuto Suzuki

No matter how much you love Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is one of the best modern role-playing games because of its amazing scope, captivating gameplay, and poignant story. It’s a brilliant RPG that serves as both a sequel to Remake and an intriguing adaptation of Final Fantasy VII.

The fact that four years have passed since the release of Final Fantasy VII Remake is incredible. My all-time favorite game has been Final Fantasy VII ever since I played it as a child. Therefore, even though parts of the new plots from Remake made me feel a little uneasy, the prospect of seeing more of its innumerable iconic moments reproduced in Rebirth was enticing. Fortunately, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an excellent game that fulfills my desires as an RPG enthusiast and fan of Final Fantasy VII alike. It’s simply one of the best games I’ve played in a very long time.

Rebirth’s tale takes a very rewarding turn, in my opinion, honoring the main plot while adding new nuances that contribute to the development of one of the most recognizable gaming storylines. Like in the Remake, there are plenty of entertaining moments and surprises for fans of Final Fantasy VII Compilation. The voice acting is mostly outstanding, which contributes to the story’s overall excellent quality. It is fascinating, charming, and emotional in equal measure, both in the portions that strictly follow the original plot and the parts that go beyond it. While there are still a few voices that don’t quite match the traditional English ones, the great majority still sound great.

I adore the way Rebirth presents its core group of characters. I used to watch and listen to the main characters in Advent Children repeatedly as a child since that’s how I imagined them interacting with each other when I was younger and played the original game. Numerous enjoyable occasions now quench this identical yearning. The characters will joke around with each other about their ideas or current activities as you explore the area on foot or with Chocobo. It highlights each character’s unique qualities and gives the party the sensation of a true group of friends, adding depth to the narrative. In a similar vein, it’s unfortunate that Cid and Vincent don’t appear in this one more frequently. As someone who genuinely loves Cid, I understand that the most of their involvement is being saved for the third game, but I wish more of these small moments occurred with those two in attendance.

The way Rebirth replicated the experience of leaving Midgar for the first time in the original game was one aspect of it that really struck me. Even though open worlds and video games have become so commonplace and technology has advanced so far, Rebirth is still able to capture the sense of wonder and freedom that comes with venturing outside of Midgar for the first time. There are numerous large, open locations to investigate, each with a number of side missions and goals you can do at your own pace. The contrasting visual and aural elements of the various places give you the impression that you are embarking on a global voyage.

The action RPG fighting system is nearly flawless, blending fast-paced action combat with strategic RPG tactics to make battles just as thrilling as they were in the remake. I watched an interview where important members of the production team stated that one of the reasons they recreated Final Fantasy VII was to make Advent Children’s spectacular aerial fights viable in a game. They definitely succeeded in capturing that exhilarating style.

Although the game is never extremely challenging, you are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to exploit enemy weaknesses and the stagger bar. Even the most difficult battles feel entirely manageable if you keep chopping away at your opponents and strategically take advantage of their weaknesses, which can be discovered via the incredibly useful Assess skill. Rebirth contains sections where you take control of one or two particular party members so you can get to know them better. Every character is different and a lot of fun to play because they all excel in different areas while maintaining their own special traits.

It should go without saying at this time that the Materia system is still incredibly well-designed and enjoyable to use. You have complete control over how your party behaves by assigning each character a unique role based on your assessment of how they best match the situation. For instance, I had Yuffie ready to deal a lot of damage and debuff opponents, while Cloud was loaded with a variety of offensive spells. Each Materia increases in strength as you use it, giving you the ability to create new plans with a wider range of capabilities. It’s the kind of depth where you can lose yourself in an equipment system, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I took to refine and customize my loadouts.

There are a ludicrous number of side activities to engage in besides fighting. There are a ton of side missions that deepen the world of Rebirth and let you get to know each member of the party individually, in addition to an apparently never-ending supply of crevices and corners to discover in every area of the map. Every task offers you interesting rewards to advance, whether you’re scaling towers for Chadley or discovering the terrain through Mako deposits. There are many minigames to play in the vein of the original game, such as Queen’s Blood, a surprisingly easy card game that had me cheerfully battling every NPC I could. I never felt like I ran out of interesting things to do or things to do during Rebirth, which made the whole experience feel really new.

It’s true that the visual aspects of Rebirth have suffered somewhat, most likely as a result of the game’s extensive scope expansion. Character face lighting in Performance Mode sometimes appear a little off, but you’re never really stationary long enough to notice it, so I wasn’t too disturbed by it. It’s still a beautiful game overall, with a ton of unique settings and characters that look just like I remembered them from my childhood.

And lastly, the music. Like its remake, Final Fantasy VII’s music elevates the experience with remixes that will have you itching to fight, cry, or race Chocobos. It was already one of the best in the genre. Rebirth has a ton of songs that I will be adding to my own playlists, which is impressive considering how many gorgeous covers and remixes of these songs have been created in the 27 years since the original release.

Review Overview

Gameplay – 93%

Story – 95%

Aesthetics – 96%

Content – 90%

Accessibility – 85%

Value – 92%

Overall Rating – 90%

Outstanding

Summary: Rebirth is a fantastic sequel to one of the greatest role-playing games of all time, Final Fantasy VII. While planting some exciting new narrative seeds for the final edition in this trilogy, this new sequel simultaneously respects and builds upon the plot and history of the original game, appealing to aficionados of the genre. Even if it takes an additional four years, I can’t wait to get my hands on whatever comes next.