Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Remake pt.2)

one armed dwarf

I beat this a few days ago. Without a doubt, I still consider this one of the best Final Fantasies. It has this moreish quality to it and feels like it was designed on purpose to capture a specific feeling present in late disc 1 FFVII where you wander around the world and get lost cause the next story quest is unclear. It engages in dialogue with that original game in a much more interesting way than Remake did, I find.

It has its issues though, there are some story segments which are done bad by Rebirth. Some embellishments and character interpretations are excellent enhancements, they are laying interesting groundwork for part 3. But the new stuff that isn't good tends to stick out. The ending is also terrible, I really hate it. It doesn't ruin the game for me but it made me feel very bitter and annoyed by the whole thing for a few days. Rebirth in general is hard carried by strong moments and memories of the original but they still don't have a good method for carving this game up in three and having these stories work independently. The more wanderlust middle chapter is supposed to complement the pressure cooker of the Midgar chapter, and the fallout and multiple crises of the last chapter. They don't work when you cut them up, and a lot of the new invented plotlines run roughshod over the themes of the original in a way that I find impossible to be ok with

So I have to compartmentalise my feelings about how poor a job they do with that stuff, and recognise that the other 95 percent of the game is an unmitigated triumph and the fullest, most complete feeling Final Fantasy game since the 32bit era and a much, much better game than Remake. It's what I wanted that game to be. Even though it's a fairly cookie cutter ubisoft template, the strength of the combat mechanics and the interweaved progression between its quests make it not feel like such empty calorie gaming, cause you're always going to get a new materia which introduces a new approach into your party compositions, or learn a new thing about the world or its characters. That said, it's easy to fall into a zombie mode spiral and clean up icons and feel bored by it, but even here the game's systems are so well organised to pull you from out of the Ubi-coma cause you can go play cards, which requires you to activate the brain cells a bit more. Or exercise a different skill entirely with the minigames, a lot of which I enjoyed (I'm not really on the same page as others wrt the minigames being excessive, though some are rubbish). 

I beat all but one of the queen's blood players last night. I'm not exactly sure what beating the last one gets you, but this player is the Emerald Weapon of card players, you have to really explore your options and do all those puzzles to get a strong deck to theorycraft a solution, which I love. I reckon I'll get it done tonight, then I guess I'll focus more on protorelic

brady12

Chapter 7 around the mines is a big step down from other chapters imo( The end of it is good fun though 🤣🤣🤣)

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121878881#Comment_121878881

Protorelic stuff drove me insane in Cosmo Canyon. Have left it for a bit as I was getting irrationally annoyed....

Spooch

Fort Condor can suck a ****. Dropped the difficulty to Easy to cheese it. Queens Blood however is fantastic. Nearly better than Gwent for me.

RedXIV

All ye folks miles ahead of me while running around like a hyper child still in the grasslands :D

I may have to up my playtime beyond the 3 hours a week I seem to be getting these days

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121886984#Comment_121886984

Hahaha just ever so slightly, my playtime is at 75 hrs at the moment 🤣

RedXIV

May be slow but my brother and I have been chatting and while he's flying ahead of me, he couldn't beat titan at full might. Which I couldn't either until last night, but I cracked it! The battle system really is a lot of fun in this game, finally getting my head around the synergy things.

Grasslands intel done, on to the swamp!

Necro

I've made it to the Temple of the Ancients. I remember it being infuriating in places on the original.

Spoiler Warning

The red dragon fight is bloody awesome 😎

Sephiroth_dude

The guy in green reminds me of Rick flair 🤣🤣

RedXIV

So I'm in Junon now and flying around doing world intel stuff. I remember someone asking about the differences between the junon area in the demo and the full game. Just to confirm that the difference is the area you see in the demo is about 1/5th of the size of the one in the game (which is bonkers in my mind already) and that the combat challenges have moved around, while most of the rest of the world intel options aren't present at all. So you don't miss anything by skipping the demo. But have to say, I am really enjoying this :)

one armed dwarf

Edge gave this a 9, the highest scoring FF since FFXII

They gave remake a 7, XVI also. X got a 6. I think these are all fair scores (X is a bit harsh, but I must admit I felt similar about it on release), I'm still doing post-game stuff and learning new materia and party compositions and strategies, and enemy interactions (I never carried binding materia in 97 FFVII, but I have to have it with me in this).

Between the combat and the huge sense of auxillary scope in its surprisingly in depth minigames (gears and gambits does something really surprising, I won't spoil it) it is very close to being the best Final Fantasy imo. Only thing holding it back imo, is it's got sort of a nothing story, and of course that ending. But if that's what it takes to get a good Final Fantasy again, I'll take the **** ending, thank you very much, because it's been so long since FF felt this complete. Tthe last one that felt this in depth with gameplay mechanics was XII, but that didn't have any of this game's side activities, just hunts

Zero-Cool

Peta are mental.

https://twitter.com/GenePark/status/1770174187421814932?t=zuqOWQvV2s1yNnj-Vmp2Uw&s=19

Vicxas

Ok so i've played this a good bit and gave it some time to reflect on this VS the original.

In some aspects the storytelling is great, fleshes out nearly all of the characters (including the dreaded Cait Sith), it actually feels like you're chasing the ghost of Sephiroth across the planet. Side quests for the most part interesting, apart from that Chicken one in Gongaga which ill never speak of again.

My biggest gripe is the whole Assassins creed/ Far Cry version of the open world. Go to this tower, unlock it. Go do the things it unlocks. I felt that it detracted from the game and made it more of a chore to progress the story as leaving without doing them would make you severely underlevelled. I hated the Whispers in Remake, thought they were bringing the game down a very bad path, but my opinion of them seems to have balanced out in Rebirth, but ill reserve judgement.

Sephiroth_dude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121914914#Comment_121914914

What's this about?

Sephiroth_dude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915709#Comment_121915709

Ya I think just gonna finish the story and forget about the side stuff, I enjoyed it to a point but was trying to do a side quest last night that involved you trying to round up chickens with bucket on a string and I was like feck this and just gave up. I'm really enjoying the game though.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915900#Comment_121915900

Feel the same way. It’s great at the start but the longer I get into it the more I find myself pushing though areas because it just seems like a carbon copy of the stuff I’ve done previously.

If there was a bit more uniqueness to each areas quests , and maybe more hidden queens blood players I would probably be more inclined to explore.

Necro

I got pretty much all the side stuff done bar one protorelic in Cosmo Canyon cos that minigame drove me mad. Didn't do a lot of the Golden Saucer stuff either as it was a bit repetitive. Agreed on the chicken mission though I was rolling my eyes at how stupid and pointless it was and just wanted Red to eat the chickens tbh!

Zero-Cool

New patch.

https://twitter.com/Genki_JPN/status/1770650238161977440?t=9sKcTgisc1tuQrwIvLLSLQ&s=19

Underground

Yeah, I empathise with some of the frustration in the comments here. I'm generally enjoying the game but I'm not sure I'd be persevering here if it weren't part of the FF7 remake. Unfortunately I don't think the padding has improved all that much from the first instalment. I'm 52 hours in to my playthrough (fifty fcking two!) and I'm only at Cosmo Canyon, and that's after starting from Kalm!

Like others I'm at the point of tiring and giving up the side content (towers, enemy intel, divine intel, protorelic missions etc) and just ploughing on with the main story. My fear is that I might not be able to do this because I've been doing all the side content up to this point and am only 1 level above the recommended level for the main story mission.

The pros and cons here mirror the first instalment pretty closely for me. The visuals, the music, etc are all exceptional. I still have my gripes with the combat system but for me the pacing and the padding is just too much. We have the 97' original being stretched out into three games, and each of those three instalments are being stretched out to 60 hours+ to justify their own existence and their price. Everything is elongated, every little inconsequential mini boss from the original is stretched out to this bullet sponge 10 minute + battle.

One example that really stuck out to me this time is the Midgar Zolom (they call him something else this time around). Will spoiler just in case.

Spoiler Warning

In the original, the whole point of going through the Chocobo ranch rigmarole of learning how the chocobo lure materia works, buying your greens, learning about the tracks and how to catch a chocobo etc is to completely avoid the Midgar Zolom giant serpent guy. If you try take him on at that point in the game he wipes the floor with you, so you catch a chocobo to move quickly across the swamp. You go through the Mythril Mines and come out the other side and see the Midgar Zolom has been fckin impaled by Sephiroth. It's a cool way of telling the story and really builds up the Sephiroth threat nicely.

Contrast that with the approach in this game, whereby you go to the Chocobo ranch and get your chocobo (and probably spend 6+hrs on the filler side content) and go through the swamp only to be forced into fighting the Midgar Zolom at the end anyway. What was the point in getting the chocobo?? The answer was "to transport you around while you did the side content". There was no story reason to get the chocobo.

Also, not only does the zolom not wipe the floor with you like he would in the original, you go toe to toe with him in a bullet sponge boss fight for 10 minutes and then Sephiroth takes him out in a cut scene. This is so, so much worse than the original and it really annoyed me.

Sorry for the rant here so I'll wrap up 😝.

I'm seeing other comments about people not liking the ending which i haven't made it to so I can't comment. One thing I will say is that probably my favourite aspect of these remakes is the changes they make to the story and how they are playing around with timelines. It would have been very easy for them to do the normal remake thing of just making the game again in a shiny new engine and calling it a day like every other lazy remake. I like that they're taking risks here and changing it, even if it ends up not paying off I respect it.

Necro

I've finished it myself since last week but holding off discussing the ending as I'm conscious lots have yet to even get over halfway through given the sheer size of the game.

I've a funny feeling it's dynamic levelling so if you skipped side stuff you likely won't be under levelled if you wanted to just do the main story. What I will say is that in the main the busywork of each area has some payoff in most cases, it deepens your bond with team mates and also in some cases provides closure (or clarity, at least) on unfinished stuff from Remake.

There's never going to be enough Queens Blood though. I did the full quest there and I dunno if I really enjoyed the pay off as it meant I'd no new players left to play. I think I'd have preferred them leaving it as an open ended game where you find new opponents in each town/area.

Fionn1952

Cosmo Canyon Theme...for me, that would've been enough to redeem it even if it was a heap of sh*te of a game.

It'll never reach the heights of what the original was for me, but I've greatly preferred it to Remake, even if the mini games were a bit OTT

RedXIV

I am making progress! I'm just about to explore the gold saucer and have to say Upper Junon was a particular good variation on the original, I am a sucker for mini games and enjoyed costa del sol. Corel was good too and I think well needed after a third round of world intel. I am about 45 hours into it now and really enjoy some of the more tricky challenges. The full might summons are always a fun distraction for a bit and I'm petty enough to want do things like get the stars on the piano challenges.

There are enough tweaks and changes to the plot too to keep me on my toes which I'm enjoying also. Only thing I'm aware of is the game is so massive, I reckon I'll want to pack it away for years after playing it, unlike remake which I played through a few times.

Vicxas

Finished the game last night and have some thoughts on the ending.

Spoiler Warning

I thought they weren't gonna kill Aerith off and when Cloud blocked Sephiroth's blade I was fuming, then i saw the blood and thought that it was a clever bait and switch.

Aerith saying goodbye to everyone in the final cutscene was genuinely sad, i didnt think it would still hit me knowing that she dies for the last twenty odd years, but i thought they did that REALLY well.

Whispers are still shite though.

Underground

So I’m finished this now. 72 hours play time all in. I generally enjoyed my time with this but like Remake I also can’t see myself playing through this again. The padding is simply too much for me. Thoughts on the ending:

Spoiler Warning

Having read a bit about negative fan reaction to the ending I was expecting something big to happen. More than once they hinted at making big changes, for a while I thought they’d kill off Cloud and make Zack the main character in part 3. There was another part after the Temple of the Ancients where as Cloud they make you chase Aerith down for the black materia. I thought they were going to do a “not only does Cloud kill Aerith but we’re going to put you in control while he does it”, which would have been very interesting and I’d have understanded fan backlash if so, but it’s not what we got.

In the end I found the ending a little bit nothingey, which is probably par for the course really if we’re talking about the middle game in a trilogy. It’s a bit disappointing as I thought the ending to Remake was so interesting and promised a whole new adventure with an “unknown journey” but it’s not really what we got here. I think they’ve played it a little bit safe after all the talk of flipping the script in the Remake.

Hard to score this one objectively as a FF7 nut as I loved the visuals and the music in this. If I take the rose tinted glasses of on this I think it’s hard for me to give this anything higher than say a 6.5/10.

El Gato De Negocios

Been playing this since last night, about 5 hours or so. I'm absolutely in love with it. Have spent the bulk of my time wandering around in chapter 2 collecting plants and opening up the map. For a game that is as expansive as this, the visuals are truly breathtaking and feel properly next gen. Queens Blood seems to be fairly straightforward and fun, the transmutor is a neat little feature and some of the combat combo pieces are cool.

Early doors of course but it's on track to be my favourite FF of all time (currently that spot is held by 12 / 10, depending on the day)

RedXIV

I know you're all way ahead of me in here but I just need to say the gongaga jungle theme music is amazing. I never appreciated how well bagpipes could fit into a soundtrack….. That honestly sounds like a pisstake but I'm being serious!

Underground

Yeah the sound track is class in general but that one was a highlight alright.

Retr0gamer

I love Nobuo Uematsu but the talent square is using for their soundtracks since he left have been phenomenal. The only company matching them for soundtracks is Atlus or possibly Matsuno when he isn't phone it in.

Necro

Soundtrack is awesome alright but the mono tones of FFVI are still my fave. I may have them on my Spotify list🤣

brady12

Soundtrack unreal but more so the first 50% the game .

I've started to get really annoyed by the bloat now in chapter 13 . I had intended to go back and play some side stuff i'd left but now this chapter is really taking the p**s . It's going on forever . I can't remember was it chapter 11 or 12 where you were firing boxes at moving objects and I was like wtf are we doing here square enix!!??? Taking piss out my time now . I've dropped it down to easy now and try and finish it because I'm loving Dragons dogma 2 .