Sever the wrong link back to a whole generation of players' precious childhood memories and bang – an explosion of angry tweets and one-star user reviews. Formative years tarnished, hearts broken, fists shaking in the air. Nervous work.
The classic JRPG Final Fantasy VII for the PS1 really meant that much to people in 1997. Turn-based combat was nothing new – players had politely waited their turn to hit someone on the head with a sword in six previous installments. But what felt new was the scale and the bombastic storytelling. This was a game that didn't fail narratively, in which main characters died – like, dead dead – and where it felt like every location was thought about by very clever people for a long time. Consequently, Cloud Strife and his band of rogue warriors entered the legends in gaming folklore.
But before we get too comfortable in 1997 and start calling people ‘our kid’, let’s return to the present: Rebirth is the second of a planned trilogy of Final Fantasy VII remakes from Square Enix, loosely retelling the original story via fully overhauled gameplay and visuals that will make you fall to your knees and cry in front of your OLED TV.
The first part, 2020’s Remake, set the bar high. Sure, it had the advantage of going first, which meant there was a giddy excitement in simply seeing Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others in modern triple-A finery. But it didn't rely on flashy graphics – combat, now in real-time instead of turn-based, was fast and spectacular, and despite taking 50 hours to tell about 10 hours of events from the original game, it followed with plenty of environment variation and a steady flow of new gameplay elements. One minute you were in a motorcycle chase. Next, picking flowers with your crush. Which finally brings us to Rebirth, an extremely difficult game to review. Because although it is still just as beautiful to see, and the combat is just as fast and spectacular as in the last game, this time it doesn't feel as special.
And that is probably because it is so massive. In comparison, Remake feels like a quaint little demo. This isn't exactly an open-world game, but every hub you visit feels large enough to qualify as its own quasi-open world. They vary beautifully between prairies, sprawling cities, tundras, and ruins of urban shells, and all are universally gorgeous. And they are packed with side quests. If you want pure value for money, that’s a good thing.
But if we can direct your attention a few paragraphs back, let’s remember that the PS1 original was such a seismic event because of the way it told its story. And although finding faults in a game this polished and massive feels like second-guessing a birthday gift from an elderly relative, it must be said that storytelling is not Rebirth’s strong suit.
It is truly inevitable. Split one epic game into three equally epic games and an element of dilution will appear. Rebirth certainly doesn't run out of premise – the world is more than aware enough for you to spend many hours in it. Interactions between your party are a constant delight, backed by some of the most likable and memorable voice acting you will hear in games and top-tier animation work. Similar to Square’s modern JRPGs, Final Fantasy XV and XVI, a lot of pleasure comes from the feeling of living through an adventure in real-time with your close friends, enjoying the small things of survival in hostile lands.
No, what it lacks is plot. There is so much friendly friendship between your group, but fewer moments of real narrative impact between all the trekking, Chocobo riding, countless minigames, and random encounters.
Here it is important to pull the reins and say that none of this should stop you from playing Rebirth. It is an incredible achievement, especially when you look around the gaming landscape and realize how few blockbuster titles have managed to hit the market in anything like this state. It has the almost impossible task of completely overhauling everything that made the original game special without losing the feel, the intangible atmosphere, and somehow it succeeds. If you can reconcile with the fact that the plot is stretched like a tile over the vast landscape of hub worlds and secondary activities, you are richly rewarded with a very modern JRPG that can be silly or serious, and hold your attention so long that you start dreaming about it. Still, it doesn't tell its story the way it told it in ’97, so if you were expecting to dive into a warm nostalgic bath of school days, Oasis radio hits, and Titanic hype, you’ll have to settle for just Be Here Now instead.
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