FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH

The first part of the remake of Final Fantasy VII, one of the greatest JRPG's of all time (if not the greatest), was marred by several issues in the PC version. On the one hand, the game was released exclusively on the Epic Store for some time and at a very high price, factors that significantly reduced the number of potential players, and on the other hand, Square Enix's port was not the best possible, with several performance issues (mainly stuttering) that still persist to this day.

Its release on Steam six months later didn't drastically change the situation, although it did make FFVII: Remake accessible to more people. However, Square Enix, seeing that its revenue wasn't enough to cover the exorbitant costs required to develop a game (let alone an RPG) today, decided to stop making exclusives in the Sony ecosystem, as it had done until recently. The consequence of this was, in the first instance, the release of Final Fantasy XVI last September, and in the second, that of FFVII: Rebirth, meaning that the second part of the remake trilogy would appear on our PCs, in all its glory, a year later than its original release.

By the expression "in all its glory", we mean that FFVII: Rebirth enjoys a much better treatment than its predecessor, on a technical level. That is, it is a "normal" PC game release, including most of the features that any modern AAA game ought to have, i.e. 4k resolutions, upped fps up to 120, well thought out textures, lighting, DLSS support, etc. Of course, according to reports from various users, this port also experiences some issues with traversal stuttering, however these are found on an overwhelmingly smaller scale than one would expect. Our experience proved to be most satisfying, and having finished the previous game on PC myself, with all its problems, dealing with Rebirth seemed delightfully comfortable.

In terms of gameplay now, FFVII: Rebirth takes on the unpleasing role of the "in-between", where it picks up the story right where the Remake left off, but at the same time without going somewhere. Undoubtedly, the game is clearly aimed at those who have already played the Remake, otherwise they will lose any trace of familiarity with its magical world and its remarkable characters. On the other hand, if you played the original Final Fantasy VII and have vivid memories of it, then you'll probably manage to get into the spirit of Rebirth, however, we insist that it's better to have experience of the Remake as well. This is because, although the narrative and flow is similar, there are some changes to the storyline that may lead to differences in the conclusion of Cloud and Sephiroth's story when the final installment of the trilogy is released.

However, FFVII: Rebirth begins right after the events of the Remake and after our protagonists have left the twisted megalopolis of Midgar. The main difference from the Remake is that due to the nature of the story, where our heroes are practically seeking for Sephiroth, the game becomes open-world. As a result, the team will visit many different places, which in turn will provide the appropriate amount of space for further character sketching in the game. It's something that becomes apparent throughout the nearly 40-hour adventure that Rebirth spends a lot of time delving significantly into its characters, something the original Final Fantasy VII was unable to do due to the limitations of the era.

This is something that will certainly please fans of the game, but we can't overlook the fact that sometimes, the story gets a little more out of hand than it probably needs to. Sure, very interesting backstories of Red XIII and Yuffie, however there is an ultimate goal, where somewhere along the way, it seems to be pushed aside - thankfully without going overboard. Nevertheless, we shouldn't forget that we're playing a JRPG, which means that occasionally there will be silly moments, either for the sake of relaxation or just because.

Being an open world game, unlike the more linear Remake, Rebirth inherits most of the elements of those games, with all that implies. Commonly, aside from the main campaign, there are a few more side activities, which reward you with plenty of XP, equipment, etc. The bad thing is that the majority of the side quests lack inspiration and are limited to simple fetch quests, which can get quite tedious. And the existence of Chadley, who urges us to deal with the dozens of "dots" on each map that are waiting patiently for us to act, each for a different reason (finding primary crafting materials, battles with special monsters, summons and so on), cause... horror just hearing them, considering the time needed to "clear" them all. All the more so when the menu includes... towers waiting to be activated (Ubisoft, is it you?)!

In general, we would expect some better implementation in this regard, however there are some exceptions, with some quests having writing and performance worthy of the regular story and one wonders why the developers didn't limit themselves to just those. Probably because the unwritten laws of open-world games dictate so, I can't explain it any other way.

However, if you invest a little bit in the side missions and focus on the main campaign, you will find that the game has a good pace and as it progresses, it becomes more and more interesting. Helping this, apart from the excellent direction and dozens of impressive cutscenes, is its combat system.

For those who don't know, the battle system is not turn-based, like in the original Final Fantasy VII, but action-oriented, with the action stopping every time we want to execute a command (abilities, spells, items), but after the ATB bar is full, which gradually loads as we press the attack button on enemies or dodge/block. Unlike the recent Final Fantasy XVI, here we're controlling a team of up to three, with each hero having their own unique abilities, and thanks to the new addition of synergies, where two or more heroes combine their powers into a more powerful attack, tactics are taken up a level. At the same time, the game doesn't completely take us by the hand, as it offers the ability to customize our team in any way we want thanks to Materia, in conjunction with the Folio system (aka passive skills and/or abilities).

So with the right combination of these, we can designate any character we want as a healer, a tank, etc, although some are naturally better in a role, as it is obvious. We'd say that FFVII: Rebirth is a lot more... RPG both than its predecessor and FFXVI, which is entirely welcome, and it's worth noting that the difficulty level, at least on normal (there's also easy and dynamic, where the latter creates level scaling of enemies), is relatively increased, especially in bosses. This means that any attempt to approach battles with seamless button mashing, without careful management and exploitation of team resources, amounts to a certain game over.

In general, the battles are the strongest element of the game, being enjoyable from one point onwards, while it would be unfair not to emphasize the fact that the developers of the game have included many quality-of-life features to make our "stay" in the game as enjoyable as possible. From the several fast travel points and the possibility of using Chocobos as a ride, to the existence of dozens of mini-games, some of them quite imaginative and entertaining (there's even a Rocket League clone!), with Queen's Blood, of course, standing out, being the... Gwent of Rebirth. This one in particular can carry us away for hours, but also make us spend significant in-game money on booster packs to become the best in the game.

The existence of a relationship tracker between Cloud and his companions, with the corresponding romance (with Tifa and Aerith, obviously), is an extra touch, giving a glimpse of "freedom" to the player's decisions, but the actual impact on the story is non-existent, apart from a few extra cutscenes (e.g. in Gold Saucer). Obviously, the original story doesn't leave room for many changes, but we guess that since Square Enix decided to break it into three parts to include more material, they could have been more daring. Although I'm not so sure that the game's biggest fans would let it go so easily, here already for some small changes (e.g. Zack's role), there are a lot of complaints, let alone if, for example, following our misbehavior, a hero would leave our team.

As for the technical aspects, we made some mention at the beginning of the review, but we must stress that the result is excellent in every respect. Whether during the cutscenes or in action, FFVII: Rebirth leaves an great impression on the player, with the superb realisation of its world and characters, the impressive colour schemes and the attention to detail. In the same vein is the soundtrack, which is, without hesitation, masterful (try playing with headphones on), while the voice-overs are flawless, even if you choose to play in English. Really, we have no complaints and we'd say that FFVII: Rebirth is easily in the top ten most beautiful games we've seen on our screens in recent years.

To sum up, as much as possible of course, as the content of FFVII: Rebirth is so voluminous that we would need many "digital" pages to describe it all (triple-digit hours to explore everything), this is a game that JRPG fans and not only will definitely enjoy. The fact that it assumes knowledge of the events of the Remake and tells a story without actually completing it, somewhat diminishes its final value, and we would definitely like to see some things improved in the conclusion of the trilogy, such as in the implementation of side quests and the over-supply of map-cleaning type activities. Nevertheless, this is a high quality title, superior to the Remake, and well worth every euro you'll spend on it.

We would like to thank CD Media for providing the review code.

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