At 87 hours, while accidentally skipping one side quest and a few mini-games, I have, at long last, finished Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth.
What an amazing game. I have never looked forward to playing anything else in the past couple of years since the announcement of Rebirth. Now, finally, I can relax a little, and start playing video games again for fun. I probably have at least three years before Part 3 is announced.
Those last bits of the game had been such an emotional roller coaster. Combat was fantastic. It feels so good to actually maximize the combat system, unlike in the Remake, which had a limited number of encounters. The addition of Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities were excellent additions that added depth and high-octane elements. Though, I confess, I often forget Synergy Skills exist. The new Limit Break mechanic is, in my opinion, brilliant. This way, we don’t just end up spamming all the powerful Limit Breaks and finish battles way too quickly. It also makes extended battles more fun and engaging. It’s also such a good feeling that battles do not drag, even boss battles.
As expected, each character gets their own arc. Unlike the original, each of the character arcs got a bit more fleshing out. It’s not perfect but it’s all right.
The game could work with less to-do checklists. You have towers, moogle shops, lifespring, combat stuff, phenomenal events, and summon collections. They were all stuff just to keep players busy for a long time. It’s text book taken from games like Horizon, Zelda, and most especially Assassin’s Creed. Zelda and Horizon, at least, made tower climbing somewhat fun. Assassin’s Creed just threw whatever it can at the player.
Some of the phenomenon intel stuff were quite horrible. Fort Condor and Gears and Gambits mini-games were awful. Just plain awful. Fort Condor was fun until it wasn’t. Queen’s Blood should have been given an FFVIII approach, where you could challenge almost anyone in the card game. Or at least have a nice bar where you can challenge everyone. I didn’t find it particularly fun to run around town, looking for the person.
Most of the maps in the game are fine. There could have been a ton of different ways to make exploration fun and rewarding, like, good items and rare Materia. Instead, you often get stuff like “Hi-Potion.” Come on. It just made me want to skip all those areas with loot lying around. It was only in the last dungeon where I opened certain chests and found some really good stuff I felt like playing an RPG again.
Overall, the best would have been better, I feel, if instead of a ton of busywork, we had good and interesting side quests. This game had them, but, only a few of them had some sort of emotional impact or were actually good. I think, more story-driven side quests would be better. I wouldn’t mind entire arcs of it, like what we get in the Elder Scrolls games.
Ultimately, I feel the game is less of an adaptation and really more of a remake. We were led to believe that, anything goes in Rebirth, right after that ending in Remake. But, stuff just continues to happen as is with the inevitable changes here and there. So, with Part 3, I think we’ll see get basically what we got from the original.
Little predictions for Part 3
- In a year, we’ll be getting a Zack DLC.
- I wouldn’t mind getting three DLCs that focuses on Zack, Cid, and Vincent.
- Part 3 will begin with a crash and everyone separated.
- Cloud will first meet up with Vincent or Cid, and in a bit, Cid or Vincent. This is so we can get acquainted to their game style.
- A certain character’s presence will continue to linger and even appear in battles at times.
- We’ll most likely get the same set of skills again, with one or two new addition. For Cloud, it’s bound to be Meteor Rain as an Ability.
- Barret’s final Limit Break will use the word Avalanche. Maybe Avalanche Rising? It makes so much sense.
- At least 50% of the world map will be reused and expanded upon. Zelda did it with Tears of the Kingdom. Square Enix can just use Weapons as a reason why some things are different. This should also, I strongly believe, would allow faster production. Instead of four years, maybe three?
Now that FFVII Rebirth is done. I can casually play it from time to time, along with FFXVI and Spider-Man 2. Maybe even Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring, finally. But now I’m in no such rush to do these things.
I’ve also learned a valuable lesson in all of this. I’ve learned better how to write. Project Ghost Sword is now on full speed.
Visceral Writings 