Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
An all-around improvement work based on 'Remake', reaching masterpiece-level performance. Mature and complete combat system, stunning visual presentation, deeply moving character development, the peak work of the FF7 remake trilogy.
Art Appreciation
Rating Breakdown
Deductions
Map guidance is poor, which gets in the way of completionist explorers.
Highlights
Building on Remake, it improves across the board in combat, gameplay ideas, model quality and more: a masterpiece!
The combat system finally gets room to spread its wings and becomes a proper action system. Synergy abilities expand what the combat system can do.
Chocobos are more believable: you have to catch one separately on each map, they're no longer your “pet mount”, and chocobos from different regions have traits suited to their environment. Very creative.
Probably because the party is bigger and Barret no longer has to be forced into it, Cloud can now hit airborne enemies without relying on Barret and keep the whole fight under his control; the feel is definitely an improvement over the previous game.
Deductions
Lighting flickers between bright and dark when transitioning indoors and outdoors, arguably the game's single biggest outright flaw.
Highlights
The map design is superb. I rode a scooter around Costa del Sol snapping photos like crazy, as if I were really on vacation in some Caribbean city. The Gold Saucer is stunning from the very first second you enter: dazzling, opulent scenery with just the right details. The best Gold Saucer ever.
The micro-expressions are a stroke of genius, conveying the characters' emotions vividly and adding to their characterization.
Deductions
Personally, I don't like the parallel-worlds thing; cutting between multiple worlds hurts narrative continuity. But there's no helping it: a remake that adds no new ideas and stays too faithful actually gets marked down by some outlets, which is baffling.
Ending at the Forgotten Capital is sort of reasonable and sort of not. Making it a trilogy stretches things out too much overall; ultimately it's because they couldn't fit everything in. Also left unfinished are Vincent and Cid: both have officially appeared, but neither is playable. A shame.
Same as above: it's the parallel-worlds premise that ruins it, wiping out the most iconic scene of laying Aerith to rest in the lake. You can imagine that under this premise, the final part of the trilogy will surely move into some happy-ending parallel world. How could the last part possibly have no Aerith to play?
Highlights
As I've mentioned before, I never recruited Yuffie in the original, so I never had any nostalgia for her. Here Yuffie is no longer optional and joins as part of the main story, bringing plenty of energy to the party; for me she came across as a vivid, fully realized new character. Through Yuffie's Wutai background, the remake also strengthens the story presence it clearly wants to give Wutai.
Rich, never-boring side quests fill in many anecdotes about the party and take overall immersion up another level.
How could the presentation be bad? Do you know how many years players waited for that kiss on the Ferris wheel in Tifa's route?!
Deductions
The minigames aren't that bad. The board game Queen's Blood is very well thought out, the kind I'd play if it got a physical release. Of course, since the story reaches the Gold Saucer in this installment, there are tons of minigames and a few are admittedly weak, but not enough to warrant a big overall deduction. Among the minigames tied to the main story, the worst offender is Cait Sith's moogle box-throwing, hands down the hardest part of the whole game; the deduction goes to that.