14th December 2023: Prepping For A Rebirth
The rapidly approaching arrival of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth gave me a bit of a dilemma earlier this year. You see, in order to play it, I was either going to have to buy a PS5, which I didn't want to do, or wait quite a while and buy a DRM-infested version on PC, which I didn't want to do.
While the only real reason I bought the PS4 was for FF7 Remake, at least on that console there were a bunch of other games that I was happy enough to buy and play. On the PS5 there are literally zero other games I have any interest in, so potentially I would be buying it for just a single game.
That would be a very expensive game.
The only other game that has my attention is an upcoming game called Stellar Blade, which looks like a fun 3rd person action game much like Bayonetta, only with an actually attractive protagonist. Yet the jury's still out on it, as Sony have recently gotten more involved in its creation, and may have some unwanted input.
I mean, how dare any developers these days have the audacity to put a sexy female character in their game? I can't imagine Sony are on board with that at all. Not one bit.
Back to the point, at the start of October, I saw the PS5 was on sale, with a whole £80 off its original price, and also bundled with the Crisis Core remaster. Now I've never had much interest in playing Crisis Core, as from what I've heard it's got ridiculous characters and a ridiculous plot.
Add in that the other expanded FF7 media I've had experience with, namely Advent Children and Dirge Of Cerberus, were both massively disappointing as well, and I just didn't want FF7's legacy to be spoiled for me any more than it already had been.
Still, my weak will crumbled, and I bought the console, just to make sure I was Rebirth-ready. Besides, maybe I'll actually fancy trying Crisis Core out at some point. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

The Rebirth Machine
In typical Stebloke fashion, the console has sat up a corner these last couple of months just waiting for a chance to do something. And alas, the day finally came.
I grabbed the free PS5 upgrade for FF7 Remake, so that I could play the Yuffie DLC at long last. This little expansion only ended up costing me £5 instead of £16, as there was already £11 in my account from somewhere. Really not sure from where, as I thought I'd used it all up to buy FF6 and FF9 way back in the day. But whatever.
After some hassle having to update both consoles so I could send my PS4 save data to Sony (or Square?), so that they could convert it to the PS5 version of the game, I was finally in and playing.
I remember that on the PS4 there were some really dodgy graphics bugs that rightly got called out, but Square came up with some bull excuse that they were PS4 limitations, and the updated PS5/PC version of the game would fix them. So the first thing I did was load the base game at several points throughout the story where these shitty graphics were present. And as far as I can tell, they look no better at all. So what the hell, Square?
Into the DLC, which is called Episode INTERmission, and I was finally getting my chance to see what this ninja girl from Wutai was capable of. However, before I could get stuck into much combat, I was drawn into the little mini game called Fort Condor, which in the game's universe seems to be represented as some kind of board game.
Pretty cool idea, I thought.
Unfortunately, Fort Condor doesn't seem to be a very balanced game at all, as characters more experienced with the game seem to possess much stronger units and setups than characters who are just starting out. Didn't really strike me as particularly fair that better players also have better gear. I mean, how are new players ever supposed to win against veterans if that is the case?
That being said, poor AI allowed me to smash the tutorial and all three level 1 opponents on the first try. I also beat Jessie, my first level 2 opponent, first time. Roche handed me my first loss, but I shuffled some units around and beat him handily on the second attempt.
The one and only level 3 opponent, Wedge, was a frustrating fight. My first two times I played him I took him to sudden death, but couldn't quite manage the win. It was here I saw a possible strat that I was quite confident about, which I hoped was going to make the rest of this mini-game easy. I dumped in all of my facility units so they would pump out lots of cheap but weak troops. This strat worked first time, and very convincingly, against Wedge.
But then I went up against the final Fort Condor challenge in the form of Chadley.
You see, Chadley, the little shit, was using the same tactic I'd just settled on, only he had a better setup that let him kick out units faster. I played this guy five or six times, sometimes using "unbeatable" strats off the internet, and got soundly thrashed each time. I figured I'd spent enough time bashing my head against this brick wall, and wanted to get on with the story, so I just carried on.
A finished game was long overdue, after all.
It took me way longer to get comfortable using Yuffie compared with the characters in the base game. I was getting smacked around so much, even in normal fights, that I started to get a little miffed. I don't know what happened, but maybe I wasn't paying attention to the tutorials or something.
All it took was for me to watch the first part of a combat guide, just going over the basics, and something clicked. From then on, I didn't lose a fight for the rest of the game, from beating Ramuh all the way through to the Nero fight. I was loving it, dashing around all over the place, parrying way more attacks, getting my synergies with Sonon pretty much nailed down. It was ace. Can't wait for Rebirth so I can get Yuffie and Tifa in the same party for some mental combat goodness.
In terms of story, there wasn't really much going on here. Essentially, Yuffie and another Wutaian named Sonon have been sent to Midgar to steal some materia from the Shinra building. There, they get discovered by Scarlet, and have to try and fight their way out as Scarlet sends all manner of Shinra robots and weapons at them.
This is all set during the events of the base game, and while I think it's a bit of a shame that they've inserted Yuffie into the Midgar section of the story, I guess there was no evidence that she wasn't in the area during the original.
Though she's fun to use, Yuffie herself can be a bit irritating at times, just like in the original game, while Sonon was just there to be the straight guy to balance out Yuffie's eccentricity. However, I loved every second Scarlet was on screen. She's the kind of woman you'd hate to meet in real life, but as a villain in a game she's just so devilishly entertaining.
The worst thing about the plot of this DLC was the inclusion of Deepground, who first rocked up in FF7 lore during the travesty that was Dirge Of Cerberus. To be honest, I would have much preferred the entire remake project to completely ignore all of the old expanded FF7 content, and make any new expanded content better, and fit the game's world better.
As I was nearing the end of the DLC I checked through all of the media I had captured so far. It was then I realised that for some reason the PS5 doesn't capture video the same way my PS4 was set up to do. Instead of capturing the next moments, it rather saves the previous moments. So I had a bunch of videos that led up to something I wanted to capture, but not the moment itself. Stupid fucking Sony changing things. At least I realised and was able to get some vids from the later fights.
So now I'm all up to speed, I've been having a think about what might possibly come next. Now I'm no real expert in making predictions, especially when Square's insane writing is involved, but I can see two basic ways things can go down.
My first assumption is that the main characters will go through a journey very similar, if not exactly the same, as the one they went on in the original game. Any new story beats and events can then come from whatever Zack is up to in his reality/timeline. This will allow the writers to do new things, while also keeping fans of the original happy, at least until the timelines merge or interact in some way.
The second way things can go down is to completely change things up, especially going forward into the third game. Unfortunately for me, if you think about it from this Sephiroth's perspective, the most logical thing I can see for him to do is to kill a different character instead of Aerith. See, Sephy knows that killing Aerith didn't get him what he wanted back during the original timeline of events. It just put her into the Lifestream where she could be a thorn in his side.
But who was it who was trying to look after Cloud the whole game, never doubting he was the real Cloud even in the face of all Sephiroth's lies?
Who was it who finally managed to help Cloud get his mental issues in check, so that he could become strong enough to take Sephiroth on?
Who was it, during Advent Children, when a very ill Cloud had essentially given up, who constantly tried to encourage him and help him find his will to fight again?
And who is it, in one of the Rebirth trailers, who Sephiroth is already trying to turn Cloud against, when he did no such thing in the original?
Man, I'd be pissed, but it makes way more sense for Sephiroth to kill Tifa this time. Sure, it's highly unlikely they would dare do it, but it would definitely make an impact just like Aerith's death did back in 97.
And if you think about it further, in order for there to be a "good" ending to this franchise, in contrast to the original game's "bad" ending, I think Aerith really needs to be alive in order to help the people of the world live in sync with the planet and nature again. At the very least, she needs to leave behind a different legacy, to inspire the people of the world, so the planet doesn't get so pissed off at them.
Additionally, we know from the Lifestream Black and Lifestream White stories, that Sephiroth is damn near unkillable while Cloud remembers him. This could lead to a situation in the third game where Cloud learns of this, and sacrifices himself for the good of the planet. We would then be in an inverted situation, where Aerith and Zack are alive, while Cloud and Tifa die.
Ultimately though, whatever differences they've got planned will probably depend on Zack, and it's hard to even imagine at this point where his new story is going to lead and how it's going to fold into the adventures that the main party are having.
All we can do at this point is wait, and hope that they don't mess it up.