This blog entry is going to be a little bit different to any I've done in the past. This is because this entry is about a topic that is very dear to my heart, and I thought I would try to make it a little bit special.
Here, I am going to detail my journey as I played through the 2nd part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, in the form of Rebirth.
As I was playing through the game, I constantly paused to write down reactions and thoughts. So in addition to my usual review and first impressions of playing the game as a whole, you can also select individual chapters to see all of those thoughts and reactions from when I was playing the game in real time.
Game Review
Now I absolutely love Final Fantasy VII, and my passion for this story and these characters has only been further stoked since the release of Remake back in 2020. The things that the original game did to me back in early '98 changed my outlook on gaming, and while it's certainly not the best game ever made, it's very much my favourite.
However, outside of the original game, expanded FF7 content has always been a little, how shall we say, odd. But for the most part, I've been willing to give it all a go.
So much so, that every console I have bought after the PS2 has been mostly due to this franchise. My PS3, that I picked up in July 2009, was something I only bought because I had ordered Advent Children Complete on blu-ray, and needed something to watch it on.
And my PS4, a console I was 6 years late to, only came into my life because of the approaching release of Remake.
However, both of those consoles had other things going for them, and other games I could easily see myself playing, so their purchases weren't seen as really big risks at the time.
The PS5 however, does not have anything else going for it. With the possible exception of the upcoming Stellar Blade, there is no reason for me to own this console, beyond needing one to play Rebirth. So in that regard, this game needed to be very very good in order for me to justify this purchase, otherwise it would end up being a very expensive piece of metal and plastic scrap.
And to heap more pressure on to this game, it's the first game I have ever pre-ordered, despite TotalBiscuit's old warnings still ringing in my ears.
Let's take a photograph, that definitely won't have anything to do with the plot going into the next game...
Tifa's so fast she's a blur
Let's get this adventure started
Doesn't look so Kalm over there right now
Like Remake before it, this game is a 3rd person action game, with some of the old turn-based elements retained for fans of the old, original game. Whereas Remake was confined to the main city of Midgar, here we see Cloud and the gang hitting the road, and going on adventures through a brand new, very impressive, and mostly open, world.
The gameplay therefore is fundamentally the same, though with some new features added in combat, allowing more ways for the characters to deal with very fast or flying enemies. In addition, the characters can now perform synergy abilities, which are powerful combo moves.
I never fully got my head around all of the new synergy systems, as there were so many new things to try and do. I mostly stuck to the combat as I knew it from before, only really bringing in the new techniques when the situation arose, such as for launching Tifa up into the air.
There are however some really cool looking skills that I barely ever used, such as for deflecting incoming ranged attacks, or doing some really cool counters. If I dip back into the game, which I am obviously planning to do in order to clean up some of the stuff I missed, I imagine I will start using these more, just like how I only started using the L1 shortcuts during my second playthrough of Remake.
So does this thing hold up? Or did I potentially buy a £400 piece of garbage?
Aerith! You're not supposed to be praying yet! Didn't you read the script?
Playing keepie uppie with an Orc
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Tifa don't suffer any rats
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Barret might sink if this is how he swims
Well, just like Remake before it, the game has many ups, but unfortunately plenty of downs as well.
The first thing that needs to be said, is that the game is a behemoth. This thing is huge. I've spent longer playing this the last couple of weeks than I have done on both of my Remake playthroughs combined. And by half way through this game, I decided I had had just about enough of all the side content, and pretty much pushed on with the main story. To fully complete everything would take ages.
And, at least in my opinion, this is one of the game's downsides. In the second part of a remake trilogy, based on a game that I love purely for its characters and story, should there really be this much filler pumped into the game? There are hours and hours and hours of side content, from playing cards and other mini-games, to exploring and analysing areas on the map, to taking photographs, to tracking and killing unique beasties, to spoiling the fun of little Moogles, to digging up loot with your chocobo, to playing piano. The list goes on.
Now here's the thing. Having all of this extra stuff in the game is certainly not necessarily a bad thing. What is a bad thing, is that the game seemingly is desperate for you to take part in everything. And not just take part, but excel.
I say this because, in most games that contain a lot of side content, such as the Witcher 3, the side content is optional. Completing a good chunk of the side quests in games like that will level you up a great deal, giving you a boost going into the end parts of the game. This feels almost like a reward. In Rebirth, I did a load of the side content at first, and over the course of the game I must have easily done more than half of all such content available. But when I got to the end game, I was only a single level higher than the recommended level for those last few quests.
So this makes me think, just how weak would my party have been, had I only played the main story (which I was constantly desperate to get back to!), and not done any side content?
And in addition, you had to get maximum scores on a bunch of different mini-games in order to unlock a bunch of different weapons. Now, some of these games were ok, but some I really didn't like, and some didn't control particularly well, making them frustrating to play. To hide gameplay mechanics behind these things, including such important and cool abilities such as Tifa's Starshower, or Aerith's Ray Of Judgment, really narked me.
Can my team mates stop wrecking other people's shit?
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Cloud lookin' a bit sketch, like he wants something from this bird
Holy crap, Red. Did you kill them enough?
Anyone else getting tired of analysing crystals?
The world itself was incredibly impressive, with wildly varied and very large open zones to explore. I obviously got way more used to it as the game went on, and skipped far more than I should have done, but to begin with, I was exploring everywhere, struggling a little bit to comprehend that this world and these areas even existed, and that I was walking through them. It was very enjoyable, and a massive nostalgia trip.
By far the main issues I had with this new world were down to continuity. If you compare this new map to the one from the original game, they simply do not match, and are not really anywhere close. In addition, there are technically two maps in this game alone, with one being a fully zoomed out view of the world, as well as a more zoomed in one for each zone. And to make matters even more confusing, these two map types, that are both from the same game, do not match either. It's all a bit strange.
How dizzy do you think this bird will get if I just stand here?
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Tifa and Aerith don't respect your box castle
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Magic teleporting chocobo
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Red having fun riding that chocobo mount
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In Remake, one of the parts of the game that I was most impressed with was the voice acting, and I'm happy to report that it's very much the same here. Pleasantly, Britt Baron as Tifa probably had the most to do in this one, at least in terms of having the most introspective and tender moments. Her voice is perfect for really getting over how gentle and sweet, but how determined and strong, Tifa really is, despite her fears. If there's ever been a fictional character that needs a massive hug, it's Tifa. Especially at the end of this game.
Cody Christian continues to put in stellar work as Cloud, and Zack's actor is much better than he was in Remake. I don't think Red's "teen" voice suits the character at all, but really shows the actor's range.
John Eric Bentley remains the one with probably the hardest job to do, in trying to bring to life this very over the top and dramatic character in the form of Barret, which he continues to do very well. There were some really good Barret moments in this game, especially the Dyne section.
I could just be remembering wrong here, as I tend to laser-focus in on Tifa, but as much as she suits the character, and as good a job as she does, I think this time Briana White didn't really have as much to do in comparison to the previous game. This is odd, considering how important Aerith is to this part of the story. I think maybe I would have felt different, had we ever got to see these little secretive meetings between Aerith and Tifa, but the game would constantly cut away.
As for the new actors, I really like who they cast for Elena and Cait Sith in particular. The only one I'm still not sure of is Cid, whose actor really doesn't sound like what I was expecting.
Elena doesn't stand much chance against Tifa's onslaught
Fort Condor shenanigans return
Smell my finger
Tifa's got a little frog in her throat. And arms, and legs, and body.
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Though the character writing is still good, and the voice acting is still great, there did however seem to be something a little lacking in a way, when compared to Remake. I think this is because most of these characters are fairly recent acquaintances, and the strong sense of camaraderie didn't seem to be as strong because of it.
The game felt like it really missed that close-knit group of friends we had in Remake, with how well Biggs, Wedge and Jessie used to fit into the original Avalanche team.
I guess it also didn't really help that for large chunks of this game, Cloud is not exactly himself, and this makes the other characters be a bit cagey around him. I am very much looking forward to the later parts of the third game, when Tifa helps Cloud recover his true self, and the whole team can be truly together as a close unit in their quest to stop Sephiroth.
As I alluded to earlier, and yes I am no doubt very biased, but Tifa was the absolute stand out character this time for me. Her friendship with Aerith, that really started to blossom in Remake, is one of the best character-driven elements of this game. It really comes across how much they trust in each other, and confide in one another. I just wish the game had let us see more of it.
And at this point, we still don't know how much they have confided in one another, but their secretive information sharing certainly seems to be helping Tifa get through to Cloud faster than she did in the original. And I really liked that she got more to do in this regard, and seemed to take on more responsibility than at this point in the original game.
After Tifa, I would say my next favourite character was probably Barret. He was nowhere near as over the top in this one, and also had some very introspective and deep moments.
Tifa sure likes kicking bird-type enemies in the face
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Aerith gets zappy
Chocobo points the way
Owl beast about to get kung-fu kicked
In terms of combat, by far my two most preferred characters were Tifa and Yuffie. I'd been hoping for the last few years that these two would be fun to use together, and they did not disappoint. They're both so fast, and have tools to dish out great damage in nearly any situation, that they were nearly always my team mates if I had the choice. It also really helps that they're really easy to use.
Barret and Aerith seemed very situational this time. For whatever reason, I felt like Aerith had been quite nerfed. I know I missed one of her weapons that would have given me Ray Of Judgment, but I felt like she had very little else to contribute when it came to dishing out the damage. I did really like her radiant ward which powered up her basic attacks. It's a shame that other characters also didn't get this bonus when in this ward, just like how they do when they are in the arcane ward.
I struggled a lot with Red, at least until much later in the game when I started to understand his play style a bit better. However, I'm not a fan of having to do so much blocking in order to build his stronger attacks. But I very much appreciated that there is a way to take him a bit more supportive.
Cait Sith was the weakest for me. I kept getting so confused with all the different things he's got going on, and was also not a fan of how a lot of his abilities are very random. Because of this, I really didn't use him much, but I bet when I play again I'd probably get more used to him, and tap into more of his potential.
There were probably fewer annoying fights in this game compared to Remake, but the ones that existed were annoying in their own way, and tended to contain some pretty big "aha, got ya!" moments. Usually, after getting caught out by these moments, and then being prepared for them, it would mean the fight was much more agreeable.
I know I only played on normal, but the only fights that were actually hard were ones that had been designed to be pretty annoying, rather than an actual decent challenge. And there were a few of these fights, where they were seemingly unwinnable without taking a very specific materia loadout, or having to use one specific type of tactic. When it comes to these things, I'm an old curmudgeon, and usually want to do things my way. Being forced out of my comfort zone can get me frustrated sometimes.
Show / Hide Spoiler Talk
As I'm in this almost 100% for the story, I think I need to vent a little. Unfortunately, it's here where the game was the biggest let down for me. Exactly what I feared would happen after playing Remake definitely seems to have happened. What I mean by that is just how ridiculous and convoluted the plot has become. It's honestly going to need a minor miracle for them to pull this back and make the story into something I will enjoy as an entire package.
And it should have been so easy to do right. At the finale of Remake, with the apparent defeat of the Whispers, they could have just led our cast on a different journey, with a different, good ending, as opposed to the "bad" ending of the original.
But instead, they had to go and add in alternate timelines, a theory that was posed after the events of Remake, which has turned out to be true. Here we find that there are multiple such timelines, each with their own version of Stamp the dog.
In addition, the Whispers are back, and still doing their thing, whatever that is in this game. And if that wasn't enough, there are now two factions of Whispers, which are fighting each other as well as fighting us.
Monster about to get punched up the arse
What did those little squirrel-moles ever do to you?
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Phoenix gets slashed
Are you here to arrest me, ladies? Because I will not resist.
And here's the main issue with all this crap going on in the background: none of it is ever explained, and nothing about it seems to matter in the long run. This is because the game leaves us in pretty much the exact situation we would have been in had we been playing the original game up to this point. But for some reason we just had to experience some really strange, different, and very convoluted and confusing events in order to get there.
And the game promises so much more from these alternate timelines. There are these constant minor "bleeds" from one reality to another, where one character thinks they can hear or feel something from another timeline, which makes us think there's going to be some serious cross over at some point.
Then we've got Biggs, who is seemingly the same Biggs from Remake, who has been taken by the Whispers over to Zack's timeline for some reason. What that reason is, nobody knows, especially Biggs, who is desperate for a reason to keep fighting. This thread completely dies out, having no reason to actually have happened.
Sephiroth hints at big things also, saying something along the lines of believing these realities will all merge. But then at the end of the game, have they actually merged? It certainly doesn't seem like it.
The only real action we get is Zack's little "hop" into the main timeline to help fight Sephiroth, though this also ends up being pretty irrelevant. I mean, I was hoping for some real story juice, but he barely gets a chance to talk to Cloud at all, and then I don't think either one of them is entirely sure it even happened once the moment is over. And he doesn't even get to see Aerith at all, let alone speak to her.
Red! Get down off that... erm... thin air, right this second.
Even Red can appreciate
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Cloud's such a poser
I do sometimes wonder what would happen if Dyne hadn't been driven mad with rage and grief
Then when all's said and done, there's no real explanation as to what the hell is actually happening, and who is now in what timeline. Or have all the timelines merged like Sephiroth hinted they might? And what the hell happened to Zack when he got sucked into the Lifestream at the end, only to wake up in the church again? Did he just shift timelines? I mean it's all very confusing. And that's why it annoys me.
There's just so much teasing, and seemingly no payoff.
And now we've got to wait another few years to see if they'll somehow be able to pull a miracle out of the bag. To be honest, this one should not have taken this long to make, and therefore the next one shouldn't either, as they've already got so many of the assets made.
Cloud bustin' out his best dance moves
Tifa and Yuffie with some high-flyin' high jinks
That, oh wise and powerful Weapon, is Yuffie. She's a little weird, but she won't hurt you.
Time to steal a crown
They could have easily left out some of the very repetitive side missions, and made the game a shorter, snappier experience. Seriously, whichever dev it was that said Witcher 3 had been an inspiration for the side content needs their head checking. The only time I thought Witcher 3 was a direct influence on any quest was that stupid chicken quest, which mirrored the goat and Pellar quest, yet was somehow even more dumb.
And what in the world does the "Rebirth" title signify? The developers have stated that all three of these games are named for very specific reasons. The reason was obvious for Remake, as not only was it a game remake, it also promised a story remake. But for Rebirth? The main theory going in to this was that Aerith would die in the main timeline, then wake up in Zack's timeline. But by the end of the game, it seems Aerith is most certainly gone, and Zack's timeline becomes pretty much irrelevant, seemingly even destroyed by Meteor.
Oi, Cait. The enemy is behind you. Turn that moogle around.
Where's this incredibly tall shepherd taking us?
Like many, the Disgorgon is weak to Tifa, but for a different reason than most
Yuffie wrecking face with one of my favourite abilities in the game
Alternate timelines, time travelling, multiple realities etc... All these things are story tropes I don't really like. They always, without fail, introduce confusion and plot holes.
I know my opinion doesn't mean a thing. But there are a few options they could have taken, to have me feeling more confident going into the final game.
- Just tell the same story as OG, just updated in the Remake style, with the better writing and VO etc...
- If they really wanted to tell a different story, and have a different ending, then using the Whispers how they did in Remake was not a bad shout. But what should have happened after we fought them is that the Whispers should have been defeated, and would no longer appear. So we would still have a single timeline, but destiny has been defeated, and this new timeline could now change for the better or worse.
- At the end of Rebirth, all of the branching timelines should have come together (after explaining how they were possible), and now we are back to a single timeline.
Simply put, I'm not feeling confident that all this timeline spaghetti can be woven into a clear, concise and fully satisfying story going forward. I truly do fear that we are too far gone, especially with the people writing it, and what they are known for doing over their last few games.
That being said, there's still hope, I guess. But I feel more worried now than when I first finished Remake, and I was already pretty worried back then.
Come on, Square, don't let us down.
Doesn't matter what kind of pussy you're afer, Corneo. You're not gonna get it.
Nice pink gun, Elena
It's very difficult holding back these Whispers, Cloud. Could you maybe not stroll so casually?
Come on, Zack. Let's chop this freak's hair off.
Well, it's been a week since I finished the game, as it's taken me that long to get this blog entry together. But I guess I'd better re-activate my gaming thumbs, and get back into the game. All that extra stuff isn't going to play itself, after all.
