On Feb. 29, last year’s winner of the most anticipated game at The Game Awards was released. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the sequel to Final Fantasy 7 Remake, had high expectations upon its release. It is the second of three games that are being released as a remake for the beloved 1997 game, Final Fantasy VII. The new games have extremely updated graphics, more side quests, new plot points, and much more. The first of the remakes was a hit. Fans of the old game were happy to relive parts of the original and new fans were enjoying the game as well. People were excited to see what the makers of the game, Square Enix, would do this time. I absolutely loved the first of the remakes and the original, as we can tell from the posters on my walls, so I too was beyond excited to play the new game. After having nearly 70 hours on the game within the first few months it has been out, I can say everyone’s expectations were exceeded. The things the open world gave were amazing and the story is great but there were still a few flaws in the game.
Open World
The open world was one of the biggest additions to the game. In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you walk around and do side quests, but you were constricted to the city of Midgar. There weren’t really any exploration aspects. It was like walking through the city to get to the next part in the story. But in the new game, there are 6 regions to explore. Each has followed relatively the same pattern. There are combat assignments, where you fight mini boss enemies and complete combat challenges, lifespring pools that provide you with information about the region you are in, towers that you unlock that show the locations of the activities you can complete, and much more. And I can’t forget chocobos, which are basically big cute chicken horses that you can ride around the regions. You get a different one for each region, each with a different ability that will help you explore the region and their different terrain. The exploration gives so many hours of content that you can complete. If you are anything like me and are super invested in the story that you skip a bunch of the content to continue the main quest, you can go back to the regions and complete the exploration and side quests so there is no need to worry about missing anything.
Speaking of side quests, the new game has 36 side quests, 10 more than the previous. They all give plenty of exp to level your party, some give nice rewards, and overall are just a fun way to get to know the characters. Each region has quests that you can find scattered throughout.
Fantastic Story
The story in the original game was already amazing. Plot wise the story of Rebirth is relatively the same as the original, but aspects are rearranged, expanded upon, and added. Characters that eventually join your group, like Yuffie, Cid, and Vincent, all have expanded stories and earlier appearances giving the player more time to get to know them. Chadley, though he may not be a fan favorite, has a massive role with the exploration and side quests. Backstories to explain some lore aspects were also added to the new game, helping players understand where things came from better. There is one major thing added to the game though and that’s Zack Fair, who was a very minor character in the original only really appearing for flashbacks. But here, he is a playable character during parts of the main story. He is a beloved character that fans learned a lot about in his game, Crisis Core, so playing as him was an amazing surprise. While the development he got in this game was nowhere near close to his game, the things we learned about him in Rebirth were great.
Flaws Within the Game
Though I loved the majority of the game, there were still a few things I wasn’t the biggest fan of. Many people didn’t like the amount of mini games there were. While I personally enjoyed them, I can see why people didn’t like them. While you can choose to play some of the mini games if you want throughout the world, sometimes you are forced to play them in the main story. The biggest example I can think of is during chapter 5. You and the party are on a boat heading to the next location, but you have to complete and win a Queens Blood tournament. Queens Blood is a card game that can be played with different players scattered throughout the different regions. You can collect different cards to play and level up. While I enjoyed playing the game, I didn’t like how during this chapter the tournament was over an hour long for me. I just wanted to get to the new area and next part of the story, but I had to play through this in order to continue.
Another thing I wasn’t the biggest fan of was when you were forced to use certain characters in combat. During the Vincent Valentine boss fight for example, it made you use Cait Sith, who isn’t a bad character, but was very slow against Vincent’s fast attacks. Sometimes you could only use 1 character for story reasons as well. I understand that story wise, fighting as certain characters at certain times makes sense, but it tends to be difficult, especially on hard mode. But in the end, I enjoyed the game a lot and I can say it was one of my favorite games. I can’t wait for the last game to come out, whenever that will be.
