Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - A magical experience

It's an absolute masterpiece.

It's sad to hear some people trying to nitpick or saying the game is bad because some minor nonsense, such bad taste this days..
The game is a cynical, corporate cash grab, cobbled together from lifeless iconography and worn design tropes.

The story adds nothing, the world feels smaller while the game feels more of a slog, and the entire experience plays out like a big ol' theme park.

Assets and side content are copy-pasted from one place to the next, making everything feel artificial and indistinct. The art direction is entirely at odds with the lore, rendering a version of this sombre, tired world (from which the life is literally being drained) as teeming biosphere, chocked with excitement at every turn; while down-at-heel towns buzz like small scale cities.

When the art direction isn't cocking it up, focused -tested design is - adding ridiculous vertical highways for your mountain chocobo to climb, with massive fucking arrows in case any poor gamer might to stop and think a minute...

And they would: they'd have to wonder who the fuck was building and maintaining chocobo highways in a place where only one spiky-hair fuck is bothering to use them and why the fuck they wouldn't just build these highways for the regular bikes and cars that everyone seems to have.

And like I'm just scraping the surface. Game is a miserable 5/10 experience and I hate that corporate slop has managed to lower the bar so much that a cynical merchandising ploy from a bloated corporate entity like SE can be taken seriously.
 
I get where you're coming from, and judging from some of the comments here there seems to be a lot of fluff. So if I end up getting it I should probably mainline the story.

That'd take 130-140 hours easy.

They are full length games.

It's funny because I've heard this complaint since the first game was announced 10 years ago.
 
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And they would: they'd have to wonder who the fuck was building and maintaining chocobo highways in a place where only one spiky-hair fuck is bothering to use them and why the fuck they wouldn't just build these highways for the regular bikes and cars that everyone seems to have.
Literally every game falls apart when you put logic behind it

Every. Game.
 
That'd take 130-140 hours easy.

They are full length games.

It's funny because I've heard this complaint since the first game was announced 10 years ago.
I've got no problem putting that kind of hours into a game if it has good gameplay, interesting systems and meaningful interactions.

Is it really that outlandish for people to want to wait for the story to be finished before deciding to jump in?
 
As a huge fan of the PS1 original, I'm not in love with the remake/rebirth. I would of much preferred it to be similar to Expedition 33 than what it is.
 
I love that they made it open world. It was a question aftet remake. "How are they going to handle the overworld?" They made the entire thing 1:1.

Ignored all side content. Turned off the mini map and it was amazing.

I loved the ending, i didnt get multiverse vibes just mysterious afterlife vibes more or less. I like how they made Cloud more psychotic.

OG will always have a special place in my heart. Remake/Rebirth/ReMIXbbs256÷2days is a nice tribute to it.
 
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OP, this whole post sounds like something I'd expect to hear from someone who ended up playing the original game and enjoying it after all. Did you/do you plan to go back and do that, or is the turn based combat really that much of a barrier for you? The remake's combat really is not that different, except that you are doing busy-work combos against damage sponge enemies in between using your skills.
 
It was about the time I had to ride a dolphin to advance the story that I realized this game is for mindless retards.

It's easy to identify them now though since they praise this lava shit disaster of a video game.
 
Is it really that outlandish for people to want to wait for the story to be finished before deciding to jump in?
I don't think so. I apply this to TV shows and fantasy books now - if a series is finished and still good I'll check it out.

If FF7 part 3 delivers, then mainlining all three back to back will be amazing and probably around ~150 hours of high quality content. If they have no idea where they're going with this and the new elements of Remake and Rebirth are essentially rendered meaningless then you can probably just not bother with any of it.
 
I dunno, neither of them felt incomplete to me. Sure, it's incomplete in the sense that it doesn't have the full story as the original game but they are not different than other franchises, like the Mass Effect games for example.
Pretty much my experience, they managed to make it 2 full games, rather than one game cut into 3 pieces.
 
I have no doubt that each episode/part is it's own thing with an overarching story. And I know that it's expensive and time consuming thing to re-imagine this story in 3D with up to date graphics.

But still, I'm not paying $70x3 to experience a remake of a game I already own and love. But I don't harbour any hate for the remakes either and happy that people are enjoying their journey through them.

Luckily, if the game is as good as some people claim, it will be just as good in 2030. 😁

One question - How are you finding the open world design of part 2? I'm a bit allergic to the busywork modern games fill these with to pad content. I've heard some negative feedback of this. What's your experience? Does it feel meaningful?
Unfortunately, I can't praise the open-world aspect of it either. I mean, if you generally hate it in games, then you will hate it here as well, I think. But if you like the characters, the combat system, the music, the scenery it is enjoyable. But yeah, don't expect anything better in this aspect than any other open world game.
 
rebirth might be the most overhyped FF game ever. such a disgrace, but ig people like to look past serious issues as long there is a slop ow to explore
 
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

I'm in the same boat OP. Never played the original and dove in with Remake. Currently, I'm on chapter 11 of Rebirth. The game has been great so far but seemingly never ends - haha. Seriously, I'm at over 150hrs according to the in-game timer. Rebirth is a lot better than Remake Intergarde. This time we have more backstory and characterization which makes a huge difference. You can tell how much effort the devs have taken, it's just unreal. I've never seen so many mini-games in a single player game in my life outside of the Yakuza franchise. I've been seriously blown away by the quality and quantity of content. Now, please let the end come quickly - I have such a massive backlog of games to get through…
 
I'm on chapter 11 and i'm with you...but the 3 flaws for me so far are incredibly jarring and annoying. Like ...who designed the Gongaga and Corel regions?! And i'm on a Caith Sith section where you have to throw crates to progress...omg? This is incredibly bad. No one in development said "this is trash and boring"? Did they test this with gamers and no red flags were raised by anyone?

Why did i mention these 3 points? Because without them the game would be a better experience. And the level design of those 2 parts i mentioned, they last for hours and take all the fun of the game and exploration of those open world sections.

Besides these 3 things, so far it's one of the best games i played since TLOU2 back in 2020 for sure. Without these flaws i mentioned? We could've been looking at of of the best games since like 2010 for me.
Yeha Gongaga especially is notoriously tedious and inconvenient & shatters the pace of the game. I was loving it doing all the sidequests and mini games up to this point then the fatigue kicked in & I wanted to rush to the finish, which still took a lifetime to get there.
 
Unfortunately, I can't praise the open-world aspect of it either. I mean, if you generally hate it in games, then you will hate it here as well, I think. But if you like the characters, the combat system, the music, the scenery it is enjoyable. But yeah, don't expect anything better in this aspect than any other open world game.
Is it really an open world though ? Like it didn't feel like it, just several big locations where you can travel with a Chocobo
 
OP, this whole post sounds like something I'd expect to hear from someone who ended up playing the original game and enjoying it after all. Did you/do you plan to go back and do that, or is the turn based combat really that much of a barrier for you? The remake's combat really is not that different, except that you are doing busy-work combos against damage sponge enemies in between using your skills.
I would really like to see how the original story unfolds, how the locations looked etc. but the gameplay and its old age is deterring me from playing it.
 
So far we have a first act and a second act of a story. Large parts of both are rendered nonsensical and meaningless without a third act to make them make sense and be going anywhere.

I believe the Rebirth marketing even suggested it was no problem to just start with Rebirth, which I understand why they said, but I think it's absurd advice.
 
Is it really an open world though ? Like it didn't feel like it, just several big locations where you can travel with a Chocobo
Open region I guess? Doesn't really matter because the problem is the same whatever we label it: it's filled up with shit Ubislop filler content.
 
So many unique enemies, I think more than 200? So many unique models and animations It's insane how much content there is

and the devs team manage to develop this game in mere around 3 years.

usually this kind of AAA scale of open world game would took 5-7 years
 
The game is a cynical, corporate cash grab, cobbled together from lifeless iconography and worn design tropes.

The story adds nothing, the world feels smaller while the game feels more of a slog, and the entire experience plays out like a big ol' theme park.

Assets and side content are copy-pasted from one place to the next, making everything feel artificial and indistinct. The art direction is entirely at odds with the lore, rendering a version of this sombre, tired world (from which the life is literally being drained) as teeming biosphere, chocked with excitement at every turn; while down-at-heel towns buzz like small scale cities.

When the art direction isn't cocking it up, focused -tested design is - adding ridiculous vertical highways for your mountain chocobo to climb, with massive fucking arrows in case any poor gamer might to stop and think a minute...

And they would: they'd have to wonder who the fuck was building and maintaining chocobo highways in a place where only one spiky-hair fuck is bothering to use them and why the fuck they wouldn't just build these highways for the regular bikes and cars that everyone seems to have.

And like I'm just scraping the surface. Game is a miserable 5/10 experience and I hate that corporate slop has managed to lower the bar so much that a cynical merchandising ploy from a bloated corporate entity like SE can be taken seriously.
What...?
 
I'm in chapter 10. There's so much good mixed with so much bad.

Combat, graphics, enemey designs, main story, boss fights, and to some extent music (but I prefer OG ost). The combat simulator is a decent addition, and Queen's Bloood is a fun mini game.

What I don't like is the repetitive open world stuff. The new characters don't anything good, and story changes are meh but tolerable. Some things don't make sense. Some tracks are good, but some aren't great. Too many forced mini games that are annoying.

It's a solid game, and I think they can use the foundations to create a good Final Fantasy XVII.
 
I am in the chapter where RedXIII suddenly starts talking in a different voice. I believe it is chapter 10 but not sure.
For me, it is not the magical experience the previous game was and that is due to the technical issues. It is a Unreal engine game doing his usual Unreal things. And that is massive stutters that kicks in after 20-30min playtime.
I am playing on a PC with 9800X3D and RTX 5090 FE. I have tried the Fantasy optimizer mod that didn't help. Some advised to turn off Rebar in Bios but have not tried yet as I am balls deep in Kingdom Come Deliverance. Will pick up Rebirth after KCD.
 
I started to hate it more and more as I played. Its for starters not the full story. But the open zones are as cookie cutter as you can get. I especially disliked navigating around the jungle. The world does feel small, because its all separate sandboxes with a single gimmick in each. What I really hate about it is that each games reverts you to level 1, with a basic weapon setup. This just isn't correct. You've gone through a lot, fought a lot of high tier enemies and found a lot of gear. I can't imagine wanting to replay this trilogy in one go. Rebirth is a slog on itself already.

I just stick with the original. Its atmosphere and pacing is 100x better. And the combat is ultimately quite fun if you build around limits, or lucky 7's. You can really abuse it with certain materia setups.

I think Rebirth is a slightly better experience if you do the grasslands, and then ignore the rest of the busywork (and zone out/skip cutscenes involving Roche etc). you do miss out on lots of excellent materia, but to beat the game you don't need that much. The less busywork and the less chadley the better. This game rather has you activate towers and do moogle houses than finding hidden Summons or weapons for some reason.
 
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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.

My fav part is that for half the game you don't get to control the characters you like because the plot arbitrarily for no reason decides they should split up, this only gets worse the further on in the game you get. My fav point was the final back to back boss fight where the game gives your zero warning before yanking control away from you completely and adding in random teams that you now need to materia to all be generalists.

Wow such excellent game design... making me have it so all characters need to be generalists just incase a cutscece yanks control away from me 5+ hours on my party makeup and I don't want to fiddle around my materia set up every time this happens and then switch is back afterwards.

I much prefer the first entry, it still happened but not to this level. It's not how you should end a game... because that's all I remember is being frustrated with the fact Aerith is the worst character to play as by far, and you are forced too for the most key point in the game.
 
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It absolutely should have had multiple loadouts for materia so you can mess about with the arrangement for special circumstances without trashing your default setup. Oddly they do offer this functionality for the card game.
 
An absolutely superb game of this generation. I had a blast playing it for a full month and was just giddy with joy every time. 2027 can't come soon enough where we hopefully get the conclusion
 
I really enjoyed it.
The combat is still the best in any FF IMO, the presentation and music are great and I liked how they embraced the more silly and fun side of the original.
The open areas with the repetitive Ubisoft checklist style objectives could have been better, but I did at least appreciate how they don't go overboard with it. and many of the activities at least build towards something fun (a unique optional boss battle in every region, unique materia, making the summon fight easier, etc).
I also enjoyed the minigames, many of the side quests/objectives might not have compelling narratives, but I do like how they at least tried to make many of the mechanically unique.

The only part I still don't really like is the story. Pretty much every time it deviates from the original it just sucks.
The ending in particular sucked IMO they took one of the most iconic scenes in gaming and turned it into a convoluted mess
 
The game is a cynical, corporate cash grab, cobbled together from lifeless iconography and worn design tropes.

The story adds nothing, the world feels smaller while the game feels more of a slog, and the entire experience plays out like a big ol' theme park.

Assets and side content are copy-pasted from one place to the next, making everything feel artificial and indistinct. The art direction is entirely at odds with the lore, rendering a version of this sombre, tired world (from which the life is literally being drained) as teeming biosphere, chocked with excitement at every turn; while down-at-heel towns buzz like small scale cities.

When the art direction isn't cocking it up, focused -tested design is - adding ridiculous vertical highways for your mountain chocobo to climb, with massive fucking arrows in case any poor gamer might to stop and think a minute...

And they would: they'd have to wonder who the fuck was building and maintaining chocobo highways in a place where only one spiky-hair fuck is bothering to use them and why the fuck they wouldn't just build these highways for the regular bikes and cars that everyone seems to have.

And like I'm just scraping the surface. Game is a miserable 5/10 experience and I hate that corporate slop has managed to lower the bar so much that a cynical merchandising ploy from a bloated corporate entity like SE can be taken seriously.


Your post is a soul less, non corporate attention whore cry, full of nonsense tropes etc etc
Please don't bother decent people with these rants.
 
Won't spend so much time against so poor an attack to FF Rebirth.
It's a forum: either provide compelling arguments to the contrary or shut the hell up. This isn't a place to start shaking your pompoms for the corporates. You have Resetera for that.
 
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