22nd March 2024: Fantastic Concern Reborn
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 Intro & Chapter 1 - Flashback Sequence Chapter 2 - Kalm & The Grasslands Chapter 3 - The Mines Chapter 4 - Junon Area Chapter 5 - Shinra 8 Chapter 6 - Costa del Sol Chapter 7 - Costa del Sol Area & Mt. Corel Chapter 8 - The Saucer Chapter 9 - Gongaga Chapter 10 - Cosmo Canyon Chapter 11 - Nibelheim Chapter 12 - The Second Saucer Chapter 13 - Temple Of The Ancients Chapter 14 - City Of The Ancients
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...
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.