Final Fantasy VII Rebirth strikes me as a game that’s a little confused. On one hand, it’s a sweeping adventure in the spirit of the second act of the original Final Fantasy VII. That tremendous journey takes Cloud and his friends from the quiet town of Kalm and the sun-soaked beaches of Costa Del Sol to the peaks of Mt. Nibel, the valleys of Cosmo Canyon, and then some. Along the way, Rebirth faithfully honors numerous moments of the original game that take place in these iconic locales, all the while adding atop it and remixing things just enough to keep the most stalwart fans on their toes. It’s remarkably confident in the ways in which it blows up the world and pulls from existing threads to realize the quirks of every one of its characters and pit stops. It’s a mostly wondrous retread through one of gaming’s most iconic worlds…until it isn’t. Because on the other hand, Rebirth continues down the path that its predecessor, Final Fantasy VII Remake, laid out before it to some mixed results. Turns out that a new spin on a winning formula makes for a bit of an odd concoction.
Remake‘s whole deal was its metatextuality, specifically how in conversation it was with the original game and how it functioned as more of a quasi-sequel than a straightforward remaster or remake. Its name became quite literal as the final chapters made clear that Cloud and company were working against the fate outlined for them back in 1997 and were quite literally reforging (remake rolls off the tongue better) the events of Final Fantasy VII. This conclusion set my brain alight with the possibilities of what the next installment in the remake trilogy would be and how much more actively it could or would subvert expectations. Square-Enix has spent the past few years tamping down expectations that it will entirely zag, even outright saying at times that Rebirth would be much more faithful than Remake was to the events surrounding Midgar. Though I’m not at liberty to entirely say how, Rebirth inevitably does dovetail into the material that put Remake on the map, but it doesn’t really stick the landing. The aplomb with which Rebirth builds on most of the existing events of Final Fantasy 7‘s chronology almost suggests a level of assuredness I believed would be found across its numerous threads. However, when it matters most—and when Rebirth most tries to stand on its own—it stumbles over itself and shakes my understanding of the team’s grasp on this material. Where Remake once showed such promise, Rebirth now instills hesitance.
As I mentioned, Rebirth is far more successful when it’s playing the hits. I cannot understate the shit-eating grin I bore on my face time and time again as I revisited places and characters that I’ve grown to love over the years. Costa Del Sol’s whole deal is fan service of the highest degree, for example, but upon some reflection, it’s hard to pinpoint a part of the game that isn’t. After all, VII‘s shadow is long and immense, and why cast light on it when you can draw it out even more? And so Rebirth keeps much of the original’s weirdo second act intact, from the march in Junon to the offputting and bizarre dolphin minigame just below it. Rebirth opts for accentuating Final Fantasy VII‘s eccentricities rather than casting them off or rebuilding them in many of these instances, and by god do I love it for that. Especially coming off of the constant escalation and movement of Final Fantasy XIV‘s 10-year story that I’m still working through, as well as the overly serious and misguided attempts of Final Fantasy XVI, Rebirth‘s unadulterated spirit is a breath of fresh, untainted-by-Mako-poisoning air. It’s a game whose playfulness never fails to rear its head, whether it be in some ludicrous plot advancement, a side quest where you are forced to fight as a frog, or partaking in any one of Rebirth‘s many, many minigames.
That last bit cuts to the heart of Rebirth‘s greatest sin: it is incredibly excessive. For starters, it’s got a huge minigame problem. By my count, there are at least three shooting galleries and rhythm game sections, a playable piano, a boxing game, a space flight game, a revisit of the G-bike sequence from Remake, two different strategy games, a soccer game, the world’s best card game Queen’s Blood, a few different takes on an obstacle course and colosseums, as well as chocobo racing and flying, and I’m almost definitely missing something. At the outset, they’re a welcome distraction from the main story and a great way to break up the non-stop action of what turned out to be a 94-hour odyssey. Rebirth seeds these games throughout, occasionally turning whole chapters into occasions to fully experience all they have to offer, and tying them into what the game calls “world intel,” which are a series of objectives repeated over every one of the game’s massive zones. World intel breaks down into the same handful of goals, like analyzing crystals tied to regional summons that’ll consequently weaken them when you face the likes of familiar mugs like Phoenix and Titan to recruit them. You’ll scan lifesprings that’ll unlock the equivalent of an S-rank monster hunt for the area, corral a local chocobo that comes with its own traversal abilities, activate recon towers, and engage in protorelic hunts, which are curious questlines built around minigames like Fort Condor. But not all of these distractions are created equal.
The formulaic sequence of collecting the world intel begins as a comfort before devolving into a mind-numbing checklist. The protorelic minigames are exciting diversions at first, but grow into boring and poorly thought out executions of familiar ideas. And gimmicks become seemingly half the name of the game as they continue to break up the story in moments that don’t really call for them. This includes frequent detours that divide the party and make whole sequences out of the rest of the playable cast. Some, where you control the likes of tried-and-true characters like Barret, are better than others. Another at a particular point in the late-game is borderline sinful, and even that segment has a shoehorned gimmick that only makes it slower and grating.
This excess bleeds into countless facets of the game. Rebirth is replete with systems, most of which find some place, and others that beg the fundamental question of their inclusion. A social system that measures your attachments to individual party members based on how you answer to them and side quests that you complete is an example of the latter. Its effect on the outcome of anything in the game is limited, and it ultimately feels like a half-baked attempt to capture the essence of contemporary RPG mechanics that have been found in other series like the Persona games. Other systems, like additions made to Remake‘s best-in-class combat, are much more appreciable.
Rebirth being a bigger game means that there’s an excess of combat, but mercifully it’s much more of an unabashed home run in this department. Remake‘s hybrid of real-time action and slowed down tactics remains my favorite combat in any RPG ever, and though it’s been sparingly tweaked, it’s entirely for the better. The biggest evolution on the formula are the expansions made to synergy skills and abilities, as I noted in my preview of Rebirth‘s opening hours. Using the weaker and more low stakes skills tied to holding the right bumper and using the face buttons filled a gap somewhere between MP-wasting spells and weapon abilities that required ATB charges. Using abilities that waste ATB charges fill gauges, and once duos of respective characters have filled theirs, they can unleash comically overwrought and flashy super moves to devastating effect and unleash buffs that are often more rewarding than the damage dealt. Planning which buff to make use of, like unlimited MP for a limited time or lengthening the stagger effect on enemies, adds another layer to combat that made me feel like a masterful tactician once I’d nailed it. Across the board, I began to appreciate the effects of the skills I had available more than the damage or flashiness of it all, and began finding the synergies between it all that made short work of foes that overwhelmed or outranked me.
Elsewhere, the desire to make “more” of everything gives the characters a lot of material to work through, to both great and detrimental effects. To give the game its flowers, it retains a lot of the core points of Final Fantasy VII‘s middle section, which is famously character-driven while the party ambiguously hunts for any clues about Sephiroth, and blows up a lot of moments into full-fledged episodes. Barret’s history in Mt. Corel, for example, is one of the better uses of the greater screentime Final Fantasy VII Rebirth allows for. Characters like Aerith—who is beloved but has always felt like a bit of a caricature to me—massively benefit from new dynamics they are able to have. A particular high point of these revisions is actually her relationship with Tifa, which becomes a constant source of light and playfulness, even when things get dour. They break away from the others and giggle to each other as they have girl talk, and it’s a vision of their relationship fans have never been able to see. VII didn’t necessarily pit them against one another, but its refusal to ever foster any real relationship between the girls—other than make them the objects of fascination in an amicable love triangle back in 1997—has always informed the way that fans, who have frequently debated the series’ romances, talk about them. Instead, they are the best of friends here, and I relished every time they came together to poke fun at Cloud and make him increasingly uncomfortable. In bending the nature of realities, Zack even comes to play a part in the events of Rebirth, and the writing team finds more explicit ways to trickle elements of him throughout. Red XIII undergoes one of the greatest transformations over the arc of Rebirth, and manages to do that while pulling double duty as its comic relief. If you’ve not already seen him in a uniform on his hind legs, just wait. And for what it’s worth, Cait Sith annoys me less this time around, although this game does Yuffie no favors, unfortunately.
“More” is a double-edged sword around these parts though. For the increase in scenarios to better realize these characters, there’s also a familiar bloat in the narrative and design of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which carries over from Remake before it. A number of decisions made, particularly in the final chapters, are head scratchers that call into question whether Final Fantasy VII, a game that is pretty compact despite fitting in a lot, really needed to be expanded so indiscriminately. But the question of necessity when revisiting a work like this is hard to weigh objectively. What works for me might not work for another and vice versa, and faithfulness can be as much of a boon as it is a crutch. Additionally, restraining oneself from remixing the series of events as we know it might feel like a waste of the point of this undertaking. And how we as players and fans choose to view the objectives of the remake trilogy colors the answer to that question too. Is it the responsibility of the thing to honor the original as much as it possibly can, or should it stick by its guns and function as a reexamination of the source text’s failures and successes set against a story of characters defying the predetermined fates they and the dying planet are hurtling to? Rebirth can’t entirely seem to make up its mind about this, and tries to have its cake and eat it too. There’s more to ponder about Rebirth and with more questions comes more burden on it to come up with meaningful answers it doesn’t feel entirely prepared to offer.
And so we wind up with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, a game that’s seemingly confused about how best to straddle the line between old and new. That doesn’t necessarily make for an inferior game, though, just a more curious one. As a matter of fact, I prefer it to Remake, which felt tamer and less interested in its own world and characters until its final act. Rebirth‘s world is gorgeous and fun and quirky, even if the delivery of its stories can feel a bit stilted and rote, and it turns the finale of Remake into the impetus to re envision a phenomenal cast in ways I adore. Along the way, it becomes big, perhaps even bigger than Final Fantasy VII ever needed to be, but that excess provides quite a bit to love. Though I wish it landed more firmly than it ultimately does, there’s nothing left but to see how this fascinating journey will end now. Til the day we meet again, Final Fantasy VII.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is developed and published by Square Enix. It’s available for the PlayStation 5.
Moises Taveras was the assistant games editor for Paste Magazine. He was that one kid who was really excited about Google+ and is still sad about how that turned out. Dude works at Kotaku now; good luck, buddy!