Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth swamps its exhilarating tribute in open-world bloat

I had over two weeks to play Last Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and I spent many of the final seven days asking myself: Do I say that I liked this recreation, or that I hated it? It’s time to place pen to paper and the reality is, I nonetheless haven’t determined. I did love this recreation; I did hate this recreation. My waking hours not spent on my day job — over 90 such hours, by the point I noticed credit — have been nothing however this recreation. “A Lot” is a reductive however justified means of describing it, in each sense of that phrase.

[Ed. note: This review contains spoilers for the original Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake.]

Last Fantasy 7 — the unique — is a recreation with historical past. Hell, it’s a recreation that is Historical past, with a capital H. Broadly thought of chargeable for an enormous growth in gross sales of Sony’s PlayStation when it got here out in 1997, it was a three-disc behemoth with then-stunning 3D cutscenes, ridiculously detailed pre-rendered backgrounds, a fight system targeted round modular character constructing by way of materia, and a mid-game plot twist that’s now functionally synonymous with the phrase “spoiler.”

For individuals like me who performed the unique, the ghost of that final spoiler hangs over Rebirth’s head, sword of Damocles model, much more than it did for Remake: “Are they going to kill off Aerith?” Answering that query is a significant motivation for even enjoying the sport.

What’s extra, each “Compilation of Last Fantasy 7” launch has added layers of narrative complexity and rationalization to the surprises and twists discovered within the unique. This can be a proverbial genie that Rebirth merely can’t stuff again into the bottle. How do you make a Last Fantasy 7 recreation stunning in a world the place Aerith’s dying and Cloud’s actual identification have been extensively out there data for over 20 years?

Picture: Sq. Enix

This isn’t a priority for brand new gamers, however for returning ones, it’s an enormous deal, and Remake’s promise was that this new sequence of video games wouldn’t merely be a big-budget, fashionable retelling, however a brand new story. In spite of everything, the ultimate boss of Remake was, in a way of talking, a metaphysical pressure decided to maintain the story going because it was “supposed” to be.

It was the drumbeat query that saved me powering by way of this immense recreation, as a result of I actually wanted to know. Had been they going to take this someplace utterly totally different, or was Aerith’s destiny sealed it doesn’t matter what? My time with the sport was filled with livid makes an attempt to recall the minute-to-minute gameplay of an RPG I hadn’t performed since earlier than a few of my present college students have been born. Which moments have been lampshading issues that had been modified? Which non-player characters have been individuals I simply couldn’t bear in mind? Each Rebirth and I have been enjoying The place’s Waldo with my very own nostalgia.

I acquired my reply ultimately, however my concern is that by the point I reached it, I used to be exhausted. This recreation is immense, and never all the time in a great way. As with Remake, I feel probably the most obvious difficulty with Rebirth is that Sq. Enix desires, even wants, it to be so enormous in scope. Worse, it’s a pseudo-open-world recreation, that means that some sins prevented by Remake’s extra contained construction are allowed to run unchecked.

It truly is a disgrace, as a result of when the sport wasn’t making an attempt to get me to wander the world activating definitely-not-a-Sheikah-tower towers, or win a card recreation event on a cruise ship, or get actually sucked right into a nostalgically polygonal RTS board recreation, or do stealth minigames to seize regional chocobo variants, I used to be having a superb time. If studying that sentence made you’re feeling just a little drained, although, think about how enjoying the sport felt.

Picture: Sq. Enix

Rebirth’s construction is successfully a sequence of action-RPG set-pieces related by a sinew of open-world side-questing and “map actions.” Every new set-piece both introduces a brand new open-world area or provides you a cause to go away the one you’re presently in. Aside from a handful of occasions when areas are completely shut off or quick journey is disabled, you might be free to wander the countryside and do all of the actions you’ve been doing in different open-world video games for a thousand years already: struggle difficult variant monsters, do facet quests for NPCs, discover the map, and play minigames. So, so many minigames.

Even when the unique recreation was new, Last Fantasy 7’s density of minigames was barely controversial. Rebirth, nonetheless, takes it to a wholly totally different degree. Each new mundane activity you is likely to be requested to do includes a minigame now; probably the most egregious instance, to me, was after I was requested to do a lock-picking-esque minigame to decide a freakin’ mushroom, testing the elasticity of the factor’s segments so I’d know easy methods to safely get it out of the bottom. Severely, Cloud, simply decide up the rattling mushroom and let’s go.

Past this, most of the minigames from the unique FF7 have been given a brand new and typically deeply annoying coat of gameplay paint. The notorious parade-marching recreation in Junon makes a (not so) triumphant return as a rhythm-game-esque situation within the vein of Remake’s Honeybee Inn dance quantity, however with baffling and sometimes difficult-to-see visible cues that make success a problem, and inputs that aren’t truly on the beat of the music it’s set to.

Picture: Sq. Enix

That is Rebirth’s difficulty in a nutshell. The core narrative beats, the (to borrow a time period from the Last Fantasy 14 neighborhood) “principal story quest” set-pieces, the social gathering banter — all of these are compelling and attention-grabbing, however the recreation is full of recent open-world recreation design bloat. Nostalgia apart, I don’t assume the fixed minigames or Ubisoft map-icon cruft add something of precise substance apart from padding out the record of issues to do.

Worse, whereas they are often considerably ignored, not partaking within the open-world content material will ultimately depart gamers underleveled for the primary story. Most minigames have fight merchandise rewards — weapons, gear, materia — that may make a distinction, however in nearly each case these rewards are locked to getting the very best attainable rating, and for some video games, that “highest attainable rating” means enjoying making zero errors of any variety. A lot of my playtime was taken up with sitting at a minigame or VR fight problem, doing it over and over to get it completely proper and nab the prizes. Problematically for Rebirth, a recreation demanding perfection could be simply as exhausting as senseless open-world content material. Typically extra.

A minimum of facet quests, that are distinct from open-world busywork, aren’t terribly quite a few and normally pleasurable. As a substitute of fight rewards, the payout from facet quests is time together with your social gathering: The “hidden” relationship mechanics from the unique recreation are specific in Rebirth, and facet quests are a significant approach to construct and deepen your relationships. Both sides quest (there are between 4 and 6 per area) includes Cloud and one other social gathering member doing a little form of activity and interacting within the course of.

I loved this time with the social gathering, as a result of Rebirth retains what was endearing about them from the unique and from Remake. The characters stay wholly themselves, however with the extra buttresses of banter, higher (or at the very least extra up to date) writing, and expressive voice appearing to flesh them out. In comparison with his portrayal in Remake, Barret specifically now feels far more like an individual than a strolling racial stereotype, and Yuffie stays an pleasurable ninja bomb ready to go off in somebody’s face, a lot as she was in Remake Intergrade.

Picture: Sq. Enix

These relationship mechanics additionally affect the one main change to Remake’s motion fight system: synergy abilities and skills. Relatively than acquiring main character skills from Remake’s weapon-based system, which recalled FF13’s Crystarium, every social gathering member has a “folio” much like FF15’s ability bushes, with nodes unlocked utilizing ability factors gained by leveling up or by buying SP-providing books.

Constructing and increasing on an analogous mechanic present in Remake Intergrade, synergy assaults are unlockable nodes present in these folios, and so they contain two social gathering members attacking in tandem for various results. Synergy abilities are freely usable so long as each characters are within the social gathering; synergy skills are far more highly effective however require every social gathering member to have spent numerous ATB segments (three every to start out) on different spells or skills earlier than they can be utilized.

Synergy skills specifically are very highly effective and very flashy and enjoyable (such because the assault the place Aerith dons shades to assault with Barret, the hilariously named “Candy and Bitter Salvo”), however their utilization necessities are so stringent that they are going to solely see actual use in prolonged fights like boss battles. Nonetheless, they added a little bit of what twin techs did for one more older Sq. RPG, Chrono Set off: present a way that these characters are an more and more tight-knit buddy group, out to avoid wasting the world collectively.

Picture: Sq. Enix

After I lastly wrapped up the sport — after, admittedly, ignoring endgame facet content material and powering by way of on to the tip, as time was operating brief — I used to be left with a jumble of conflicting impressions. Rebirth is a beautiful, cinematic, nostalgic romp with one of many style’s most iconic units of characters, in an action-RPG framework that, whereas typically irritating (dodging has by no means felt good in these video games), is a strong basis.

Rebirth can be, nonetheless, a juggernaut time-sink filled with actions that always tried my persistence whereas offering little else. I’ve to ask myself: 45-year-old me in 2024, with my day job and historic, drained self, discovered that content material exhausting. Would 19-year-old me, skipping class (unwisely, since I do know my college students are studying this) to play the unique FF7 and being completely absorbed by its birth-of-a-style newness, have the identical response?

That is the knife edge Rebirth is strolling. The success of Remake means that older, returning gamers brimming with nostalgia are on board, however the degree of padding and busy work in Rebirth is magnitudes larger than it was in Remake. Youthful or newer gamers might really feel much less burdened right here — fashionable open-world video games have been doing this for years at this level — however is the sport compelling sufficient by itself with out the nostalgia engine driving it?

What I can say is that my time with Cloud and firm was as filled with aggravated sighs and pissed off groans because it was whooping cheers and teary-eyed laughter: a posh and typically contradictory expertise. Nonetheless, in some ways, that battle is emblematic of a technology of Japanese RPGs that the unique helped to usher into the world, and which I performed after I was youthful with reckless abandon. In that sense, Rebirth continues that legacy into the trendy period, flaws and all.

Rebirth is price your time, however I’m unsure if it’s price as a lot of your time because it asks for. It’s a recreation that does many issues proper and does proper by its weighty legacy — nevertheless it additionally makes it clear that for the longer term closing installment, Sq. Enix ought to rethink how needed it’s for these video games to be so massive. Rebirth’s most pleasurable and highly effective moments come from nostalgic feelings and cinematic model, not from clambering up a radio tower to tick one other field on a guidelines. A recreation that has extra of the previous and fewer of the latter appears like it will stick the touchdown the remake sequence has been making an attempt for.

Last Fantasy 7 Rebirth might be launched Feb. 29 on PlayStation 5. The sport was reviewed utilizing a pre-release obtain code offered by Sq. Enix. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. You will discover further details about gamerjive’s ethics coverage right here.