I just finished Rebirth and I needed to share my thoughts about it because I'm not sure it gets enough praise. It's kind of a stream of consciousness post, sorry for that. Initially I only wanted to write about Rebirth but it's more about both Remake and Rebirth.
I'm someone who never understood the fandom and love regarding the original game. I tried to play it but I never liked turn-based combat in games so the max I got to is blowing up the reactor but I just couldn't enjoy it. And I also thought the characters rendered during gameplay on ps1 were far from serious looking. But I always found the pre-rendered cutscenes awesome in FFs and was always dreaming of playing games that look like that.
Fast forward to remake reveal and seeing the modern version with real-time combat and graphics looking like the old prerendered cutscenes I was immediately interested and was curiously waiting to play it, at least to get a sense why is it one of the most important parts of videogame history. Also really loved XV so I liked all I saw in these trailers.
After I finished the remake I was really hooked into it, I liked all the characters and I understood why the original game was so close to many hearts. I couldn't wait to continue their story. The game was really solid in every way and I think it was one of the most technically impressive games on lastgen, delivering what I always wanted, to have visuals in gameplay that (in many ways) match the quality of those old pre-rendered cutscenes. To sum it up, I loved that game and never expected the sequel to be this much better, because it was already among the top games the industry could offer.
But Rebirth is much, much better and more. An unbelievable game that captured that magical feeling that is missing in most of modern games, that is hard to describe but those who have been gaming for a long time know well. So many unique parts, details, animations, everything. It always throws something new in your way. There is just so much unique content in every way that it seems like it was made by machines not people.
This is a true nextgen game in my opinion, the visuals are insane. Remake was already one of the best-looking games and they provide that level and more in open-world, which is quite an achievement. It's not obvious from trailers at first glance but finishing the game convinced me that this is something that would not be possible on lastgen in this form. Many times during cutscenes I was wondering if what I'm seeing is real-time or pre-rendered and was looking for graphical issues to see. For me this is an amazing feeling, that I got to experience real-time graphics that in some ways look even better than those old pre-rendered cutscenes.
The music is also beautiful, it's among the best videogame soundtracks I have ever heard. And it also has so many of these tracks and they are a joy to listen to.
The English voice cast is also superb, they really gave life to these characters.
So many unique enemies, I think more than 200? So many unique models and animations It's insane how much content there is.
The combat system is so deep with many characters which you can control that I don't think I have ever played anything like this.
Most of the side quests were also unique and added a lot to the characters and their relationships.
So I'm now also part of the fans it seems. I can't wait to continue this story and see where these characters go.
TLDR: I never liked the original game, but I became a fan because of the modern versions. Rebirth is a game that every videogame fan should try IMO