Kai Arcos Jiménez

Thoughts

After finishing Final Fantasy VII Remake, I waited around two years to be able to play the second instalment in the remake series. In the meantime, I dove into both the original Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core. I had originally intended for the remakes to be my first experience of the story, but I just couldn’t wait!

Rebirth looked stunning from the start. I spent so much time looking around and taking screenshots of the environments and characters. The cutscenes are a work of art, and I genuinely cannot wait for the soundtrack to be available on Spotify. But that much was expected, right?

Something I immediately appreciated about Rebirth was the addition of progression hints. While playing the original Final Fantasy VII, I struggled with knowing where to go next or what to interact with. Despite its open-world nature, there is a good amount of linearity in Rebirth that worked better for me. Unfortunately, there were also a few moments where the story got pushed to the side to make space for secondary quests. At times, this heavily impacted the pacing of the story, interrupting tense or captivating moments with what felt like meaningless tasks.

The characters are very well written and developed. Yuffie is the most obvious example, with her getting a new arc and becoming more relevant to the plot. Even some of the secondary characters have been expanded on, and the main cast is more likeable. The modern graphics and the voice acting also bring out a lot of detail that could not be conveyed within the limitations of the original game.

The world is vast and beautiful, but the exploration can be a bit repetitive. I also found that there weren’t actually that many secrets to discover, because once you activated one of the towers, everything within its area would be marked on your map. Sometimes, it felt more like following a checklist rather than stumbling upon things organically. There is also room for improvement in terms of traversal, which is limited as compared to other open-world games. That said, the amount of content in the game is massive, and you’re bound to find something you enjoy doing. I ended up focusing on the tasks that I liked, and spending way too much time on the mini-games…

I can’t say I understand the direction Rebirth has taken with the additional bits of narrative and the approach to some important scenes, but it’s obvious that the project is full of passion and love for the original. It expands the world of Final Fantasy VII with a new perspective, and it might be one of the most obvious examples of how far the video game industry has come. Despite my few struggles with this game, I can’t wait for the next one.

Sneak peek

I took so many screenshots of this one! Choosing only a few was very difficult.