Game review 26 February 2024, 12:00

author: Giancarlo Saldana

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review: A Majestic Middle

Final Fantasy VII’s second act expands on the original in every way and brings with it more battles, mini-games, and classic moments that will tug at your heart strings.

The review is based on the PS5 version.

If I were to choose one word to describe Final Fantasy VII Rebirth it would be majestic. It’s crazy to think a game that came out back in 1997 could be reimagined, redone, and recreated in such a massive scale that it would need three individual games to fit it all in—but here we are in its second act. Remake set the groundwork for what a Final Fantasy VII remake could play and feel like, but it was just the beginning of a journey that has gotten better over time.

Expanding on what made its previous act so magical, Rebirth goes an extra step and gives us a world that feels fresh and familiar while letting us explore and take it all in a little bit more. It’s still a remake of a classic PlayStation game so players who grew up with it will connect with it in their own way, but as a next-gen sequel, the game feels deeper, more engrossing, and bigger than fans ever dreamed it could be.

A World Worth Exploring

Part of the reason Rebirth feels so majestic is because it takes place during the middle part of the original Final Fantasy VII that sees Cloud and his friends escaping the city of Midgar in hopes of tracking down Sephiroth to save the planet from destruction. A far cry from the gloomy slums and alleyways of the city, Rebirth soon drops you off in an open-world like continent as you make your way to your next destination. Run through the Grasslands atop a Chocobo or hike through the cliffs of Junon and you will instantly feel how big the game’s world spanning six regions truly feels.

Not only that, but you will also sense the planet’s humanity and what’s at risk if it were to fall. Each region has a unique look and feel to it, and some like the resort town of Costa del Sol feel blissfully ignorant to how their world is slowly dying. Each region is also expansive and some areas require the use of special Chocobos that let you navigate through their unique geography. As much as you sometimes want to just run around and make your way to every part of the map, their various landscapes and winding paths will sometimes lead you to have to find a different route making travel sometimes confusing. This isn’t an open-world game so don’t expect to jump or climb your way anywhere you want.

Its open-world design, however, does give you a break from its linear plot and a chance to catch your breath from all the action. Now you have the choice of heading straight to your next objective or taking some time to smell the flowers—which just so happens to be a real side-quest you can do! The game is still trying to tell you a story, however, so there will be moments where you are forced to play with specific people in your party as you make your way through main missions that end with a boss fight at the end. Rebirth follows this pattern of letting you have fun for a few hours and then throwing you back into its story.

Completing Quests and Making Connections

In very Ubisoft fashion, you can activate towers for Chadley, the friendly cyborg, who helps you upgrade your weapons and even lets you fight off against simulations of monsters to not only help you practice your attacks but to also unlock rare new summons. These tasks do get repetitive in how they are presented in each region, but because they give you more tools to play with in battle, they also serve a useful purpose. Additionally, completing these tasks as well as the many side missions you’ll find throughout the world helps increase your party’s level, making them stronger and unlocking new useful abilities.

In fact, everything you do in Rebirth—down to the most miniscule mission—has a purpose and a reward that helps you in battle. The various side-missions you can complete provide you rare materials and equipment and are more than just fetch quests. Most missions also involve a member of your party, allowing you to get closer to them or learn a little bit more about their past, their intentions, or simply how they view you. Your companion’s affection level will change depending on the missions you complete and how you answer certain conversations offering you some unique dialogue and insight into each one of your party members. In fact, Rebirth adds so much more backstory to the cast that everyone gets plenty of time in the spotlight and feels more fleshed out than ever before.

Even Sephiroth, the game’s villain, gets portrayed in a different light when the game begins with a flashback of his and Cloud’s mission together in Nibelheim. The original game could only show so much at the time, but now we have a fully voiced conversation that examines the origins of their relationship and shows us how quickly Sephiroth changed. These classic moments are portrayed so poignantly that you will often be looking forward to when and how your favorite scene will be shown. However, there is so much new content here that Rebirth breathes new life into the game’s story that it feels like a brand new yet familiar experience all in one.

Lots of Battles and Mini-Games

Returning from Remake, the game’s battle system maintains its action-hybrid combat but feels faster and more fluid than before. You still have to juggle between striking enemies with regular attacks, special abilities, and magic spells all while juggling your ATB gauge and magic points during battle. New this time around are Synergy Abilities that allow two characters to save up some ATB gauge and unleash a combo attack that can be devastating if you know just when to do it. These attacks not only look good, but they can also be especially useful when fighting off the game’s more difficult bosses that pack a punch.

Prepping before battle is still important as ever, and you now have even more weapon skills to master and materia to find and combine for the kind of character build you want. Similar to that of Final Fantasy X, the new Folio feature lets you use all those party experience points you get from quests and battle to unlock passive and active abilities for your characters to utilize in battle. This opens up more ways to attack and also lets you customize how certain characters play together. Newcomer Red XIII is a defensive attacker that counterattacks using his Vengeance mode to further increase his power. Cait Sith, on the other hand, is more luck-oriented and can summon a giant Moogle to ride on or perform abilities like dice-rolls that can have random effects. Because you will often be switching to different characters mid-battle, it’s great each character feels unique yet still manages to come with some strong and useful abilities that can help chip away at anything that may come your way.

In addition to just following the story and engaging in optional battles, Rebirth also features a plethora of mini-games that showcase its goofy side. From Chocobo racing, to a piano-playing rhythm game, to an impressive and addictive strategic card game called Queen’s Blood—Rebirth is filled with mini-games that will keep you busy and provide relief after more serious scenes. At times, though, the amount of mini-games the game throws your way can feel distracting when all you want to do is get to the next part of the story without having to perform a rhythm game or throw boxes onto switches. They don’t tarnish the joy of the story, but they do make you wonder if they were added to simply increase the game’s already lengthy playtime.

Final Thoughts

Final Fantasy Rebirth does a lot of things right as it tries to capture the magic of the original while continuing the story started by Remake a few years ago. It’s a massive game that offers nearly something for everyone while elevating the original’s presentation, story, and cast. Even its soundtrack, as timeless as it is, still manages to surprise you with new renditions of favorite themes and new tracks that further amplify the importance of various scenes and encounters.

Ultimately, Rebirth is a massive love letter to fans that grew up playing the original, but its plot offers enough fresh content for everyone to enjoy. All these additions and the game’s evolving format truly make you look forward to how everything will turn out in the end when this remake trilogy reaches its conclusion. While may stumble at times with balancing the amount of mini-games it throws your way, Rebirth excels in all other areas and feels magnificent when all its pieces click into place.