FINAL FANTASY VII - REBIRTH
You may want to grab a cuppa, or get a meal ready. This entry is over 3000 words, and will take a while to read.
You good? Good.
Let's start with a little backstory.
In 1997, Squaresoft(Sadly no longer in existence, as there was a merger with Enix in 2002-ish) released their highly anticipated sequel to Final Fantasy 6. Except it isn't, because Final Fantasy is an anthology series, and Final Fantasy 6 was dubbed Final Fantasy 3 in the US, making for even more controversy and confusion.
Square had decided to opt out of the N64, favoring Sony's newly released console, The Playstation, to much outcry (mostly in Japan).
As the first 6 games in the series followed a more or less tried and true formula, they were all limited to two dimensions. Square had massive plans for the seventh installment, and the added dimension was but one of them.
Final fantasy VI was massive for its time. Released in 1994 on the Super Nintendo, the title took nearly 60 hours to fully complete.
Needless to say, the anticipation for VII was ridiculous.
The game was announced for the Sony PlayStation, and was later revealed to take three discs. I don't know if you know anything about such things, but Six was a whopping 2,14MB. Yes, you read that right. Megabytes. Of course, this is possible because it's very low-res 2D sprites, a lot of text, and all the music is MIDI(which means it's basically text telling the SNES what arrangement it should produce).
Final Fantasy VII was a mind-boggling 1.317GB. Yes, that's four decimals, which is of course too many, but I had to emphasize the massive difference. It came on three discs, and to be fair, most of the space is the FMV sequences. But they were also a huge impact on the new generation, or what many refer to as the golden age of Final Fantasy. It was also the first title in the series to be a huge international hit. The back of the manual is also cheeky, sporting an ad for PS1 memory cards, with a text reading "Try beating Final Fantasy VII without it!". Do not try to beat Final Fantasy VII without it. You're gonna have a bad time.
In 1997, this lad was a mere 11 years old, and didn't own a Playstation. I didn't get one until 2000, but FFVII was my third title on the system. Tekken 3, Gran Turismo 1, and Final Fantasy VII. I don't think I got a new game for several months, because it was a massive undertaking. I can't tell you how much I played it, because it's 24 years ago, and between that, VIII and IX, it's a blur.
Until recently, it was cemented in a top 3 list of all time favorite video games. Too right it was. The story, the setting, the gameplay, the music, the serious, the silly, all things about this game was just breathtaking. And while it doesn't hold up very well, of course it doesn't, it's still one of my favorite games. Because it is a very good game, make no mistake. Ask anyone who played it, and they would probably agree. Now, before you say anything about it not holding up, remember: it had its fair share of bugs, it doesn't always hit the 30FPS mark, it was made for 640x480 CRT TV's and looks horrible on modern displays without scanlines and such. And yes, you can mod the hell out of it, but it will still have caveats. It's still good though. Moving on.
In the following years, there were a multitude of media releases following the massive success of FFVII. Advent Children, a feature film telling the story of the aftermath was released in 2005, to mixed reviews. It was a movie alright, but it told a completely unnecessary story, a story that almost made the ending of the game moot, and it was a completely jumbled mess. But it was cool. And in 2005, the rule of cool abso-fucken-lutely applied to movies. Edgelord McCoolface.
In 2006, Before Crisis was released on mobile, of all things (long before apps and touch screens, mind), which told the story of the Turks. A faction, not the people of Turkey. It was, however, released only in Japan, and in the form of episodic games. Getting ahold of it in Europe was impossible, so I don't know much about it.
Then, in 2007, Crisis Core, telling the story of Zack Fair, which released on PSP(read my blurb about it just above this post) and Finally Dirge of Cerberus for the PS2, Which technically released in 2006, but there's a release cadence going alphabetically here, for some unknown(Tetsuya Nomura is to blame) reason. It featured, of all things, Vincent Valentine, an entirely optional character in FFVII, but now with an even edgier take than simply being a shapeshifting vampire-thing. I never played it.
Come to think about it, I haven't played any of the spinoffs until Crisis Core very recently. I guess I didn't want the experience ruined any more than what Advent Children had already done.
However, a remake has been asked for online since at least 2005. And it didn't help that Square Enix remade the intro to FFVII running in real time on a PS3. Some fans would believe this was absolutely an announcement, but forgot that Square also did a FFVI Tech Demo for the N64, and a FFVIII Tech Demo for the PS2. They had already done it before, it was just that "nobody" asked for VI or VIII at the time.
CUT TO:
E3 2015.
While it was technically leaked a few days prior, I didn't know. Out of seemingly nowhere, there was a teaser trailer. A dove flying in the skies above a city. A city inspired by new york and punk. A playground. I knew exactly what it was, and shouted "don't you fucking play with me!"
And then the title dropped. "FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE". The crowd went wild. The internet went wild. My living room went wild. The wild went wild!
And then nothing for a long, long while. There were images, and a gameplay trailer released. But apart from that, it was very silent. At some point a press release stated that Cyber Connect 2, the studio responsible for developing the game was fired from the project. And hope diminished.
But then, like an oasis after crawling through the desert, hope was renewed. Square Enix had been busy making the game instead of teasing the crowd. The game released in April 2020, to good reviews. It was a solid action RPG, but it was also revealed that the game would only be part 1 in a larger compilation, and the first game would only feature Midgar, a city that was 4-5 hours of the original 97 release. And they managed to spread it out to last about 40 hours.
It was good. It wasn't great. It made sure you knew fairly early on that this wasn't a shot for shot remake, and that changes would absolutely be made. For better or worse, it wasn't a remake, it was more of a retelling. They took the story we all knew, and changed it. Not to the extreme(except for the ending), but they changed it.
However, the changes made me very cautious about the next installment, which brings us to REBIRTH.
Rebirth picks up right where Remake left us. Your party left Midgar, and are now in an inn in Kalm. Cloud, the main protagonist, is telling everyone the story of what happened in Nibelheim 5 years ago, to bring everyone up to speed on why Sephiroth should already be dead. Fans of the original game will know this is how the story goes, so no spoilers there, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Until Tifa points out afterwards that Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim. Which, of course, if you've played the original, isn't out of place.
We dabble a bit through Kalm, re-learn the basics, discover all the progress from Remake has been reset, all our gear and doodads are gone, and like all sequels, we're basically back at zero. This is normal, and fine, as 4 years later, I don't remember how Remake plays, so it's not a problem at all. After being reintroduced to the core mechanics, there's some basic sidequests and minigames before we get to the first wow moment of the game.
They take everything I hated from Remake, the closed corridors, the room after room after segments and in general just railroads and throw it out the window. Welcome to the wide open vastness that is REBIRTH. And holy shit what a moment. Having a massive region wide open before you was a breath of fresh air, and already now, after a few hours of gameplay, I can tell that this game is gonna be lightyears ahead of the atrocity that is FFXVI. During Kalm, we're already treated to iconic music, silly fun, and a reminder or ten, that this is absolutely Final Fantasy again. Forget 16, this is what's up.
Let's just address the elephant in the room already.
Yes. This is absolutely a final fantasy game. All the issues I had about FF16 are addressed here. There's chocobos en masse, moogles en masse, silly up the wazoo and it's all exactly what you would expect from the series. Even 15(which I did enjoy a lot) would give center stage to Rebirth, who knows exactly what it is. A title worth of both its namesake. Final Fantasy, and VII.
Because let it be absolutely clear. This is a remake. It isn't, and it is. And that's about as clear as I can make it without treading on mighty thin ice, as far as spoilers go.
After you leave Kalm, your next stop would be the Chocobo Ranch, and it still is. After that, racing through the swamp to avoid the midgarsormr. Still there. Yes it takes liberties, and yes, it deviates from the original, but not to the extent that you don't know the story happening before you.
The game is divided into regions. So while not completely open world, the regions make perfect sense, and are based on areas of the original game's map. The first part to get to the mines? Grasslands. The next part featuring Junon and Fort Condor? Junon region. Makes perfect sense, and all regions are huge undertakings.
But speaking of regions.
It's an absolute colossal undertaking to even attempt to rebuild these regions and cities and towns and what have you. It is also completely bonkers that 27 years after, and now in glorious actual 3D, I can still find my way around places by pure memory. Now that's something to behold. How it's completely different and in an additional dimension, and somehow still familiar enough that I won't get lost during certain dungeons and towns.
Take a moment to let that sink in. They somehow managed to make it familiar, while at the same time completely different.
Of course, some sections are completely reimagined, but so was Midgar and all its nooks and crannies in Remake. I don't mind the reimagined sections. The mako reactors in Remake for instance, are a lot more sci-fi inspired in Remake than the steam punky interiors of the OG, but it works.
Same goes for towns and areas, but at no point in my 74 hours of play time did I stop and say "that's just downright wrong". One location from the end of the game being geographically wrongly located, but it also didn't make any difference whatsoever to anything. So I'll let it slide.
There's side missions of course, everything from "help me get my chicken back in their coop" to optional story missions. There's also the addition of world Intel, which has you climb literal ubisoft towers, but also find key points of interest, fight unique fiends and so on. As is tradition, you travel the world on choco back, and to honor the OG, there's absolutely different colored species that do different things.
Hunting down world Intel also helps you develop new materia, and open up new challenges in the combat simulator, which makes a comeback from Remake, that gives you new challenges, as well as great rewards to make the rest of the game easier. There's a bunch of returning characters from Remake, as well as brilliant takes on characters from the OG, and they all just work within the world that's built here. Yes some of them are ridiculously silly, but they always were. It's just harder to convey in late nineties 3D and text bubbles. But let there be no mistakes : FFVII was silly. Rebirth knows this. More than Remake (or intermission, the dlc for Remake that lets you play a side story featuring Yuffie) ever did, and it still works. Speaking of Yuffie, however, she was an optional character in the OG, but she's front and center here, and I love every second with her.
Rebirth ends roughly where disc 1 ended back in the original.
If you played it, you *know* where that is. If you haven't, expect the game to take you roughly 40-70 hours. I know that's a wide spectrum, but it depends on how much of the optional content you want to partake in, and believe me; you do.
Some bosses will stop you dead in your tracks, and working out the materia system and having the right gear can be the difference between life and death.
The battle system is refined since the last outing. It's more or less the same, but more tight, and with more characters. So more styles. Red XIII, Yuffie and Cait Sith are playable characters, and the game will absolutely force you to play as them, so you understand their strengths and weaknesses. Yuffie is my personal favorite, doing long range and close combat almost effortlessly and rapidly. Red XIII is a vengeful god of destruction, and Cait Sith is just as weird as you think he'd be. Aerith has been upgraded a bit since Remake too, and is a tad more offensive(attacks, not verbally).
While Cid and Vincent do make appearances, like Red XIII in remake; they're not playable, but probably will be in the finale.
Gone are the days of ATB battles where you wait your turn to just hit attack or any other commands, and very welcome is an excellent blend of old and new. Real time battles build an ATB gauge, and when you hit X(confirm), time goes to a super super slowmo(seriously slow motion. Like, Slow mo guys slow), which let's you assign commands in peace. The only stress you will have is switching between characters constantly to build up the aforementioned gauge. But it's an absolute pleasure to play. Pair it with the excellent materia systems, one of, if not THE best systems out there, and you can become a lean, mean killing machine in no time at all. I love the combat system in X, but this is definitely pole position. A perfect blend of old and new, without compromise.
Now, let's talk music.
Back in 97, the mastermind Nobuo Uematsu wrote a soundtrack so good I still know all the tracks, I often still listen to them, and every now and then, it pops up in my brain. Alongside most others he did, but 7 has a special place in my heart.
Granted, Uematsu didn't do the remake/Rebirth soundtrack all by himself, he was more of a mentor, but almost all 400+ tracks in the game(an insane amount), are based off of old classics. From the main overworld theme to temple of the ancients. From Cosmo Canyon to Cid's theme. They're all here, and in great variation. It seems like no two battles are alike, as the current region music is usually overlayed and blended perfectly into the battle theme. It also depends on who you're playing with in your current party. They took some liberties, but every time the main theme of topic x is required, the game goes out of its way to show you it did the soundtrack justice and then some. There are some expanded areas/sections of the game with entirely new compositions, Salmon the dog's theme, stands out as a personal high note. Completely new, but simply brilliant enough to not rush through the mission just to enjoy the music.
There are of course remixed versions and rearrangements of all the classic tracks, and for the most part they're done perfectly. A few tracks make a return from Remake, and I didn't care for the jazzy tones back then, or now. But that's simply a personal preference. You either like it or you don't.
Minigames are also back, and my lord are there a lot of them. The classics all make a splendid return to form, as do the new ones. You like card games? I sure as hell don't, but apparently Queen's Blood is an excellent card game. It's optional of course, but if you love deck builders, there's a solid one. There's squat challenges, chocobo racing, a football variant, some shooters, a space shooter, fighting games, fort condor makes a comeback, and other tactical mini variations of other games are present. There's so much mini games it makes me think that they spent so much time and energy on the mini games there simply wasn't any ideas left for FFXVI. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit in the Gold Saucer, which is gloriously recreated, in such glorious detail it's enough to make a grown man cry.
Now, I could go on and on how tropes are fulfilled in Rebirth, but if you played the original, just imagine that, pumped up to 11. It has all the tropes and then some. It's Final Fantasy VII, for Pete's sake. While its predecessor left a lot to be desired, Rebirth pulls out all the stops, and leaves every FF title in the last ten years in shambles.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an absolute maniac of a title. A grand finale, without being a finale. It's the second title in a trilogy that leaves you wanting more, and VERY strong second act. As mentioned before it ends at the end of disc 1 of the OG, which of course would mean that the final title would have a hard time wrapping things up, but both disc 2 and 3 were small fry compared to the first disc, and the main reason there were 3 at all, are the cutscenes. I have faith Square Enix will finish the title perfectly, if that means straying off the path entirely from here on out. There's still a few regions to explore, and a helluva lot more story to be had.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a 10/10 masterpiece, and I'd recommend playing Remake just to get to Rebirth.
Now a little side note:
If you haven't played the original game, you may be tempted to play the new games. That's fine! It's made for old and new fans alike! These games stand on their own just fine, and deviations from the original story are crafted in such a way that fans of the original will have questions, but newcomers will just enjoy the story. I know this because a colleague hasn't played the original, but loves the remakes. However, if you wish to play the prequel "Crisis Core", please note that it is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII, and not Remake or Rebirth. As such it contains massive spoilers for either games, and will only serve you well if you played the original game. Do not, I repeat NOT play crisis Core if you haven't played Final Fantasy VII.
But if you have played the original, absolutely play Crisis Core before attempting the remakes. It'll only do you good.
-Tom out.