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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth doesn’t just capture the magic of a JRPG classic—it surpasses it

8K View2024-02-23

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

9.5

ActionAdventureFantasySingleplayerStory Rich

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SHOULD I PLAY FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH?

Yes. Whether you’re a JRPG diehard who already loves Final Fantasy VII or a relative newcomer who just started experiencing the series with 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, you owe it to yourself to witness the brilliant way that Square Enix has rebuilt, expanded on, and played with what is probably its most popular game of all time. As the middle game in a trilogy, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth requires some degree of previous buy-in, but it also makes an extremely strong case for giving this reimagined epic a shot if you skipped the first volume.

The thing that’s struck me the most as I’ve played through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the thought that keeps echoing in my brain is simply this: Square Enix didn’t need to try this hard. Gamers had been scrambling for a remake of Final Fantasy VII for over a decade before 2020’s Remake arrived. Square absolutely could have pumped out a quick, easy, relatively low-effort game—something with improved visuals and maybe a slightly tweaked script, but that kept the overall gameplay and story exactly the same—and it probably would have sold just as well. But instead, the developers behind Rebirth chose a much more intimidating undertaking, not just retelling this past story but transforming it. They risked the legacy of Final Fantasy VII because they wanted to do something much more interesting than “just” a remake.

It was a crazy, audacious thing to attempt, and somehow, against all odds, these maniacs have pulled it off. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth cements this experimental trilogy of remakes as not just good, not even just great, but frankly an essential revision of Square’s greatest triumph.

[Review written by TapTap editor Kef]

TIME PLAYED

I am currently fifty-five hours into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Though early reports indicated that the game’s main story would take forty to fifty hours to complete, I’m only on chapter 11 of 14 in total. Part of that extended playtime is likely due to all the side content the game has to experience. While I haven’t been a total completionist—I was actually trying to beat the game before I sat down to write this review!—I have spent a good amount of time taking on sidequests, doing some world exploration content, playing lots of minigames, and especially enjoying Queen’s Blood, the new card game created for Rebirth. I’m guessing I’ll be past the sixty-hour mark before I finish (hopefully this weekend?!), but if you’re really interested in experiencing everything that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has to offer, I would expect to settle in for something closer to one hundred hours.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH?

• A greatly expanded, much more detailed world. Even Final Fantasy VII’s most ardent fans usually agree that the opening five to ten hours of that classic, set entirely within the dystopian city of Midgar, are when it’s at its best. With 2020’s Remake ending with Cloud and friends leaving Midgar, I was curious to see how Square Enix would build up the rest of a world that felt a lot less fleshed-out than this one city. Thankfully, they’ve done an incredible job.

Some early impressions have mistakenly called Final Fantasy VII Rebirth an open-world game, but that’s not exactly true. Instead, the linear story took me from one region of the world to the next, but once I had entered a region, I could explore a vast area at my own pace. From the Grasslands located just outside the gates of Midgar to the frigid mountains of Nibel, Rebirth features six primary regions, each of which can easily eat up a dozen hours or more if you want to fully explore them and unlock all their secrets.

My favorite part, though, is how much time and attention has been given to exploring the people of this world. Each area is packed with quests and side content found in the villages dotting the region, and these distractions build up a vision of how people live in this world. From the fishing village situated beneath the massive military outpost of Junon to the lawless gangsters running a desert settlement in Corel, every piece of the original Final Fantasy VII’s world feels much more thoughtfully explored, and there are even some completely new additions to surprise longtime fans.

• Some of the best JRPG party members of all time, but better. Barret, Aerith, Tifa, Red XIII, Yuffie, Cait Sith—if you have played Final Fantasy VII before, you already know why this crew is legendary. But this unforgettable cast gets even more time to shine in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. With the story now sprawling across three games, Square Enix spends a lot of time in this middle installment getting to know each party member. From discovering Barret’s soft side, to watching Yuffie realize how much more complicated and painful the world is than she thought, to a particularly fun twist with Red XIII later in the game, I witnessed so much growth from every core member of the party.

Tifa and Aerith deserve extra-special mention as the two who benefit the most from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s added runtime. While both of Cloud’s love interests were likable in the original game, they also felt confined to that love triangle, with Cloud usually talking to one or the other and little interaction between them. In Rebirth, though, Tifa and Aerith continue the trend from Remake, becoming genuine friends who have their own blossoming relationship, share secrets with each other, and even take the opportunity to poke fun at Cloud together. It’s a lovely development that feels genuine and well-done, and not just a cheap “girl power” grab.

• A story that respects the past but isn’t chained to it. Without getting into heavy spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Remake, that game’s ending carried a strong suggestion that the story going forward was going to be different from the original game. While I haven’t completed Rebirth yet—and lord, I am so eager to do so—I can say that in the first fifty hours, it sticks to that promise in a myriad of small, subtle, but satisfying ways. Beyond just having more space to expand on parts of Final Fantasy VII that weren’t fully explored, Rebirth introduces just enough surprises and new things that I was never totally sure what to expect next. Importantly, it also doesn’t go so overboard with the changes that it’s unrecognizable. This is definitely still Final Fantasy VII, but it’s a take on Final Fantasy VII where you’re not going to be able to guess at every single plot beat. For someone like me who’s played through the original many times, I appreciated that newfound sense of uncertainty.

• Maybe the best card game in a Final Fantasy ever? Final Fantasy is no stranger to card minigames. Final Fantasy VIII had the beloved Triple Triad, which has now made its way into Final Fantasy XIV, while Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy XI had the much less adored but still interesting Tetra Master. I personally think Rebirth might take the crown though, thanks to the utterly addictive Queen’s Blood card game.

Without getting too mired into the details, I’ll just say that Queen’s Blood is a card game set on a board with three rows and five columns. You have to place your cards in such a way as to increase the number of cards you can play on new spots and, whenever possible, take spots away from your opponent. As I progressed through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I was able to keep purchasing new booster packs for Queen’s Blood, and what started as a simple but fun distraction soon grew into a much more complicated game of wits, with new mechanics introduced almost like they would be in expansion sets for a real card game. Villages in the game were full of weird characters to take on, and there are even some surprising narrative elements added to Queen’s Blood that I won’t spoil. I really hope Square Enix expands on this, though. Stand-alone Queen’s Blood mobile game please?

• Action-packed combat with just enough depth. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s combat system carries forward the basics from Remake, which is a good thing. Fast-paced real-time hack-and-slashing kept things moving fast, but I was also able to go into slow-motion with the tap of the button and select items, spells, or abilities from a menu. Combat has also been expanded with synergy moves, super-special attacks where two party members team up, inflict a bunch of damage, and give the party a huge buff, such as unlimited magic casts for a short time. I had a blast discovering the different synergy moves possible between different party members, as well as unlocking new ones through the game’s “folio” skill tree.

• It’s not afraid to be extremely weird. I loved Final Fantasy XVI last year, but of all the complaints some players had towards it, the one I empathize with the most was that the game was simply too self-serious. Its best moments were the rare times when it let go and did what I like to call “ridiculous anime bullshit.” That’s an academic term from my English major days, FYI.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is like the inverse of XVI in that way. It has moments of deep seriousness, of course, but it’s never afraid of being too over-the-top. Some of the sidequests I encountered included being turned into a frog and forced to survive a Fall Guys-style obstacle course; rescuing a gym full of muscle heads from wildlife attacks and being challenged to sit-up competition as a reward; and trying to find treasures hidden in the desert while being stalked by a massive sand monster who couldn’t quite keep his form.

It’s not just side content either. The absurdity is baked into the very structure of the game. If I were journaling about my journey through the game, one night’s entry might look something like this:

Dear diary, today I decided to infiltrate the enemy army before the president’s big parade. Unfortunately, while doing so, I got drafted into the marching competition and had to pull together troops to help us put on the best show possible and win the presidential commendation. We did it, though! Too bad that after all that, my friends and I got framed for an assassination attempt. We decided to blow town, but on my way out I accidentally stumbled into a secret underground arena and had to fight off a guy who used his motorcycle like a sword. He blew me a kiss after I beat him though, so that was pretty cool. Then we got on a cruise ship and I entered a card game tournament. I’ll let you know how that goes tomorrow!

In other words, it’s ridiculous, and I love it.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH?

• The minigames can get to be a bit much. I love that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is full of little oddities and minigames, all of which offer great rewards for mastering them. But somewhere between picking mushrooms using the DualSense controller and piloting a flying chocobo through a bunch of hoops to get a high score, I started to get a teensy bit tired of all the distractions. A lot of these are optional, but sometimes they are not. When I hit a point in the middle of a dungeon, fifty hours into the game, where I had to learn a new minigame involving tossing boxes as Cait Sith, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I suspect these will be a lot less annoying once I’ve reached the end, though, since part of the problem is just how eager I am to get through it!

• The gang’s all here, but only sort of. While Final Fantasy VII Remake only featured Cloud, Barret, Aerith, and Tifa, with Red XIII getting added toward the very end, Rebirth adds the full original Final Fantasy VII crew to the mix before credits roll. Be warned, though, that two fan-favorite members of that party are not actually playable. To be specific, Vincent and Cid show up in Rebirth but cannot be used in combat. It’s been strongly suggested that they will have bigger roles (including, presumably, being playable) in the third entry of the trilogy, but some players might be bummed that their personal favorite is taking a back seat for now.

• Status effects can bog down combat. I remain impressed by the way that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth blends a modern action-focused combat system with some of the more strategic elements of the original game’s “Active Time Battle” system. With that said, some of the game’s monsters—particularly in the late game—use a lot of status effects like sleep, paralysis, and petrify. Many of the attacks and spells that inflict these effects are difficult to dodge, and sometimes I felt like they sent my momentum crashing to a halt. The game’s not overly difficult on the whole, so this shouldn’t be a major problem for most players, but you may need to watch out for little jerk enemies who want to turn you into a frog or a statue.

• The structure of the open world starts to feel formulaic. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is bound to get comparisons to Ubisoft open-world games like the Assassin’s Creed series. After all, this is a game where you climb towers and activate them to reveal the location of activities on your map. While Rebirth’s zones are large, they never feel quite as overwhelming or full of a checklist of things to do as the Ubisoft approach. On the other hand, though, the way the open world is handled here does take away some of the mystery of exploring.

Every time I entered a new region, I knew that I was going to find a certain number of lifesprings, visit a certain number of summon shrines, take on a certain number of combat challenges, and so on. Of course if that structure really annoys you, you can also ignore ninety percent of it and just keep on zooming through the story, but you'll be missing out on some great lore tidbits, gear upgrades, and so on.