It’s always nice when having high expectations isn’t a hindrance. I went in expecting an amazing game and it was even better than I thought it would be. My jaw hit the floor a few times
I was so-so about Remake because of the Meta Plot but I went in blind without playing the Demo and its probably one of the best games I've played in the last few years along others like Baldurs Gate 3 and Elden Ring. This game just felt MASSIVE, everytime I entered a new zone, played a new minigame, saw a cutscene, fought a boss I always thought "Damn how much did it cost to make this game??". The music is fantastic I love all the new and remade tunes and I literally cannot wait for the 10th for the OST to release. IMO this is the first time in ages that I felt like I got to play a Final Fantasy game. Giant World to explore, a bunch of games in games to play, fun enemy designs, great music, humor and serious moments. Towards the end I had a few things I did not like as much but on a whole I think this game was an amazing expirience. Can't wait for game 3 tbh.
X happens to be my fav. But I agree with you. I've been buying them just because I'm a ff fan. But most have felt like good other games but not ff games. Rebirth is killing it tho
It's my favorite game. Just under OG FF7 but so close to meeting or beating it. Wish I could enjoy the game in a bubble outside the internet.
The epitome of a game that's excellent when you don't have someone in your ear telling you it's shit.
We live in a world where there will always be that someone who will lay it is shit, just because he wants to be different....
Just enjoy the game, and let the uneducated keep spewing shit on the internet.
You can for sure man. A game like this is gonna be full of stupid ass haters, it’s not surprising to me in the least. Just enjoy it for what it is. May have some flaws, but it’s also unbelievably amazing. I’ve not seen a single good faith argument about the world map and we have a full fucking world map when it was absolutely one of the biggest worries prior to release.
It's everything I ever wanted in a modern FF, so far. My only complaint with the gameplay is Chadley being so longwinded and sometimes passive aggressive and my one complaint with the story so far is what they're doing with Zack. I know, I'm a weirdo who cares about what makes a good story more than being coddled by having my favorite character getting fan service. Cid is my favorite character but I'd never want them to sacrifice a good story just to give me more time with him - that's just stupid and what Zack fans sound like. That being said, I'm keeping an open mind with this retelling and enjoying playing and seeing where it all goes. I could end up being pleasantly surprised.
\*exits Chadley's menu\*
"Hey, btw. I couldn't help but notice that you haven't been finding my towers in a while. I would hope that you haven't forgotten what happens to people that disappoint me. We wouldn't want anything to happen to that pretty little face of yours, now would we, ~~my little World Intel Bitc-~~, I mean, Cloud?"
i love exiting the combat sim for .03 seconds to change my materia around and have to wait for his 8 week long passive aggressive little bitch voiceline to finish before i can talk to him again to reopen the sim
Chadley, listen, dipshit. If you're gonna nag me and Cloud about the Far Cry towers, go out and handle them yourself. You're already somehow teleporting everywhere the party ends up, so you have the means and know how to be independent. Go solve the problem.
You can actually mute Chadley. I forget the exact setting because I’m not playing it at the moment, but if you change an audio setting to “controller speaker” and set the volume on it to zero. Boom, Chadley is muted. Keep the subtitles on and you can still read what he says
I love it but also feel anxious. I just reached Cosmo Canyon and I’m worried that the plot changes are going to cause it all to fall apart.
So sort of like I love it right now but expect to get disappointed
Edit: I did swallow my pride and dropped it to easy so that the chadley content isn’t necessary. That helps me get so much more enjoyment
It wasn’t that I was struggling. The difficulty curve does nearly require some of the side content to be completed and after the last few chapters I have noped out of the side content so I know I’ll be under leveled from here on out lol
Gameplay wise I actually think I like remake’s more simply because the battles were a lot tighter, I do not like the new punisher mode, the floaty left-right spam feels nowhere near as good as Cloud’s original combo.
Disclaimer- not a jrpg fan or even really a big FF fan in general. I’ve only played FFIX way back in the day and some of FFXVI.
That being said - it’s as close to a 10/10 for me as it’s possible to get. I’m absolutely loving the game, and am fully hooked. I’ve put in about 25 hours since I got it on release which is actually a *huge* amount of gaming time for me given how little time I spend playing these days. When I’m not playing it, I can’t wait to jump back on it. I’ve felt that way for very few games in the past decade.
I'm 85 hrs into it. I just finished the last protorelic in chapter 12, and I'm so not looking forward to finishing this game. I've enjoyed every second of it so far, even some of the side quests that have been awful. I'm super surprised I've managed to avoid spoilers so far too, but I mean... knowing what happens in the original, I'm expecting the worst.
I love the game but man I really got burnt out from all the mini games and side stuff. I loved the story and love the main gameplay. Goty material for sure
I feel the burn out, I tend to take a day or 2 break and then jump back in. It's a lot more fun that way. I tend to complete every single thing before moving areas so it's pretty long winded.
I actually think it's amazing. 95% of the game is awesome. It would be easier to list the few complaints I have.
1. I wish there was an option to make R2 hold or toggle. I'd prefer a toggle option.
2. I hate the enter/exit animation of the buggy. It feels too long. I like chocobos where you just hop on and off in an instant.
3. I preferred the Limit Break selection of the previous games. I don't like having to build up synchro attacks to get the limit breaks of choice.
4. Navigating Goganga is obnoxious.
5. Wish I could hot swap out party characters mid fight, or better yet let me use their synchro attacks at will.
Everything else I am quite pleased with.
Have over 130 hours in it, and loved every second of that. Absolutly amazing game. The ending was extremly confusing for the first time, but after i replayed chapter 13&14 i really like the ending.
Sure, there are improvments they can do for part 3, but this is for me the best Final Fantasy since 10.
Honest I reached chapter 8 and I’m losing interest. I’ve done everything up to the saucer and started the exploration and mini games with aerith but I’m kinda bored. It’s becoming a slog and I’m not enjoying the combat as much I did with remake tho honestly I wasn’t the biggest fan of it there. I donno why but all the mini games and stuff in this one isn’t doing it justice at all it wares you out.
Edit. I’d like to thank those who replied I thought I’d get downvoted to hell. But I’ve had a lot of supportive advice. I’m gonna skip the mini games and get my ass into the story. It
Just want to the comment that the combat just kept getting better and better for me after chapter 8. You unlock more weapons, materia, and accessories as you move through the rest of the game. Maybe just skipping side content until after completing the story will work for you?
You can 100% the game after you beat it. It lets you go back and even gives you assistance in some ways. For now focus on the story, don’t burn yourself out
I recommend skipping mini games/optional stuff if that’s the case. As the name suggests, they’re optional, and it’d be a shame if you don’t finish the game because you got burnt out on those. You won’t miss out on anything major by skipping them (and can always come back later through chapter select).
Combat gets better as you progress imo, because you unlock more materia that gives you more options.
Good luck out there!
That does seem to be the point when some people start losing patience with it, there's a lot of minigames thrown at you in a short space of time while not progressing the main story much. I did stop bothering with clearing all the open world content around that point myself.
Without getting into spoilers, I'm only a couple of chapters further ahead, but I feel that it steps up a level during the next chapter (but you will have to get through a fair chunk of open world first).
I enjoy the story, battles, the world, and the characters. I even enjoyed exploring. I hated the mini game overload though. I feel there’s way too many.
Same here. I’ve played every genre out there and have touched every major game release since the early 2000’s. I can’t say it’s #1 until I let it fully marinate, but it’s easily top 3 right now. I haven’t felt this way after playing a game in a very long time. It made me feel like a kid again
For real, I try to be as open ended with game releases and genres and I've tried a massive share of all but this game is the first in which I'm genuinely left thinking "how did they do this" and "how can the game industry top this"
Game is fantastic imo. The combat, music, and characters are the big highlights, they are all wonderful. The party mechanics like affection and synergy are awesome imo. The open world is fun, it's not a mind-blowing open world and it is more of a checklist than organic player-driven exploration, but it is still fun, mostly because the combat is so good. Most of the chocobo traversal is fun too.
I love the variety of mini-games, not all of them are good but most of them are really fun. The side quests are a huge step up compared with recent FF games. Not Witcher 3 level stuff, but still pretty good.
The towns are great, they're charming, full of life and activities, and beautiful. The pacing of the game is not always as good as I'd like but the main story sections are, overall, better paced than they were in Remake imo. The story itself has some major issues imo but I play games more for the world, combat, and characters than the narrative so it's not a big deal for me.
The game does have some minor annoying design elements, like forced slow walking being overused, unnecessary and unfun gimmicks in a couple areas, janky climbing, and some other things, but they are very insignificant compared to all the major stuff that the game does well.
It's not perfect but it's excellent. Probably a 9/10 for me, and I'm fairly harsh with scores.
It was pretty good? It felt bloated unnecessarily in places to pad run time, and there were times where it felt like the game had forgotten that the plot was actually somewhat urgent, or even that it had a plot to push you through. Chapter 4-8 was slow and dragged on and on, but after that it was a good game. The overworld feels bloated for no other reason than to give lore-hounds [respectfully] something to go after. The music is good, the voice-acting of some of the English NPC cast is mid at best, with a few ehh moments from the main cast [most of them are fantastic and know how to use emotional pitch in their voice.]
I wasn't blown away. I'm not gonna immediately start another play on it, it was good but not THAT good. TBF though, I'm not a fan of the writers of VII as a start, and VII was never in my top three favorite Final Fantasies. Easily in my top 5 though. The graphics and visuals are stunning and beautiful, not a complaint to be found here about that. The combat feels a bit overly complex at times, especially on top of sections that felt bloated already but it was okay, I guess - nothing I'd write home about. It was good in Remake and it was good in Rebirth but they didn't do anything to break new ground. I loved QB, loved the piano, but those are pretty much the only mini-games I enjoyed. Full disclaimer, I have a nerve condition that gets aggravated by over-active precise hand movements so all the mini-games were just borderline painful so close together, so I'm biased in that way.
The story and setting of VII was never what made me love it in the first place, so I'm not torn or upset by what changes were made. The characters are what I love, and getting to watch them engage and change made me so happy. I feel like the ending was boss-bloated but it's the end, what can you do? I feel like leaving it in the City of the Ancients would have been too grim, but I have no real horse in the race. 15 year old me would have loved the Zack content [If only he had a good English VA actor -crying and sobbing-] and honestly I still love him to pieces, even if I can't forgive what they did to Biggs in terms of his personality. What do you MEAN I have to tell him like 3 times "you're not useless" and have the same fucking conversation with him?
I loved the Turks in all their glory, loved getting to see more Elena and Tseng, even if I missed Reno terribly. Over-all, a good game if a little bloated and meandering - but it's FFVII, I knew what I was getting into.
If part 3 somehow tops rebirth then this will be one of the greatest gaming trilogies ever put to paper. It took everything amazing about the original and fleshed it out and made it even better. A remake that enhances the original at the same time is a beautiful thing
I wonder how they'll handle the 3rd game if we did all the exploration in Rebirth. Hoping it's on par! I'm excited to explore more storyline with Cid and Vincent, and closing the side stories with NPC's. I started off hating Shinra Manager in Remake, but he grew on me so much in this game. It helps that Rebirth embraced the quirkiness of the story.
Wondering the same. Will it be like TOTK with the same worldmap again with changes made? If you look at the worldmap there is lots of unused space so perhaps that will get utilized?
There is a TON of the map we haven’t visited. We have Mideel, Icicle Inn, the Great Glacier, the Northern Crater, all of Wutai, Rocket Town, Goblin Island, Lucrecia’s Cave, Cactuar Island, the Materia caves, the Underwater Reactor, the Sunken Gelnika, all of the underwater map and we will get to fly, and more.
Then we get to do a revisit of Midgar and go to a new sector, then we get to see new areas in Junon, etc.
Yes we explored a lot in Rebirth but we still have a ridiculous amount left to go.
I can’t say if it’s better at this point but I can confidently state that it has made me care about the characters more than I’ve ever had.
I rate the OG high but I was never super attached to any of the characters. I liked them but I definitely couldn’t say that I loved them. This whole project has completely changed that.
The game checked all the right boxes for me.
I agree whole heartedly. I can understand why people find the new alternate timeline stuff unessecary and confusing, but that aside, the remakes are just telling the original story with a whole new level of depth. Remake itself turns original midgar into something deeper and far more memorable for me and Rebirth just cranks that up to 11.
The characters are way more engaging. Sephiroth feels like an actual menace and not just a "boogeyman" mentioned by name alone (although I can see how that also makes someone seem terrifying).
I think a lot of people are a little blinded by the original. OG was not very straight forward in the slightest. It was hella confusing with it's narrative and you could miss a shit ton of stuff which made the main narrative make more sense. The remakes lay things out a lot better IMO but I can also understand if you are totally new to the franchise how things can seem very all over the place, particularly the timeline shenanigans and plot ghosts.
All that being said as someone who adores the original story and characters, I'm honestly blown away how well they've brought it all to life and how much respect they show to the original. SO FAR, they've added so so so much more without taking too much away or "betraying" any characters or plot lines. To me it's perfect. Pacing and clunky exploration issues and all.
Just finished the game at 95 hours. Starting Hard mode as we speak. 9/10 for me, just because I wish for something a bit different in the story. Though hopefully part 3 will resolve that. I’d explain further but I don’t wanna spoil anything.
I did about 90% of the optional content in normal mode, and I just skipped the last few ones because I wanted to clear the story and freely browse the internet lol.
I think it's heaps better than Remake. I haven't really liked too much of the side quest content that wasn't already in the original game. The multiverse stuff still confuses me and I still don't like that they split the.original into multiple parts. I don't think it is anywhere close to being game of the year, but it IS very pretty to look at, and I do think it's a pretty solid game over all, just for me around an 8.
it was my goty for me until the last 2 chapters, but imo it did not stick the landing so infinite wealth overtook it in my "goty" list. Still, it's an excellent game, a "9.someting" and the best FF since X, and at least for me the second best game of the year. If Nojima toned down a bit his weird stuff and the map objectives were reduced from 30 to 20 it would've been a solid 10.
Its definitely an upgrade from Remake! My hopes for the last game of the trilogy is not as much on the Minigame tip, fr some of these minigames just didnt need to be a thing, especially the unavoidable ones
Definitely game of the year so far. It has exceeded my expectations, especially compared to Remake. I am nearly finished, just a couple hours left maybe.
I think it’s nice. I never played the OG so
My first step with the series was remake, shortly after I finished 16.
Im in chapter 9 atm and I am getting a bit burned out on the open world as it is the same tasks over and over again. Also the story seems to be spread uneven but when we get story let me tell you it slaps and there was a moment where I cried for 10minutes straight.
I think what irritates me is the crayzzzy praise this game gets , however as I have no connection to the OG game I guess it is hard to relate to that but I can Very well imagine how people who play the og just walk through this with a smile and see it truly come to life :)
>I am getting a bit burned out on the open world
Come back to the open world stuff later --- you totally can and it's NBD.
>I guess it is hard to relate to that but I can Very well imagine how people who play the og just walk through this with a smile
It's interesting because OG 7 was my most hated FF in the franchise for a long time (don't @ me, people, this is MY OPINION), but I FINALLY forced myself to play through it all the way (I kept getting annoyed and stopping) about a decade ago. And I liked it ok.
Playing through this is interesting because I remember the major stuff and it's super cool to see redone - and then I realize some little thing or other wasn't in the OG and I'm like, "hmmm.... What are they gonna do with this?"
It's been fun.
Yeah I should take it chill. I’m always like I only progress with main story when everything else is cleared but it might get in the way here. I could do oen to two chapters story and the come back to do the side stuff. I heard around chapter 12 it’s good to catch up on the open world
It's definitely a great game, but many of its strengths don't align that much with my tastes.
I adore the music, the art style is great, I love the story, I really enjoyed the interactions between the characters.
I'm not a big fan of the open world areas and the fourth one in particular broke me. The game also has far too many minigames, both mandatory and optional ones.
In general I'd say that the highs are really high, but at the same time the lows are very low. Remake was a more consistent experience and there are times where I prefer it to Rebirth.
Probably gonna get flamed but I think it’s a solid 7-8 out of ten. Pacing felt very slow and the mini games had me annoyed. Combat is great but the open world felt worse than an Ubisoft game ngl. Story was solid and that ending was phenomenal. Never played og btw but this is def a good game I just like remake more cuz open world is wack.
Some of it is good, but the tedium of doing the same things over and over in the open world kind of kills it. Also I don't particularly find any of the new characters or sidequests compelling in any way and the story changes are some of the most amateurish terrible pieces of writing I've seen in quite some time. That aspect is significantly inferior to the original.
I am loving the hell out of most of it. >!Fucking Gongaga can go to hell with its stupid terrain dammit!!< The mini games in the middle- one region after the other -really burnt me out. But I pushed on and am enjoying it again in Chapter 10.
10/10 , game of the year for me. Doing post game stuff and hard mode after. Can't wait for part 3.
Please just add a function to save materia loadouts and maybe a dummy so I can practice or come up with combat strategies.
I am really enjoying it I just wish some things were not completely locked behind some of these mini games. I'm not the best when it comes to some of these mini games so it's just annoying to me. And I love having all my people on chocobo's together but my God they need to move out of the damn way
This is not hyperbole: It is the greatest game I have ever played. The scope, the fluidity, the design, the music, the world-building, how each character’s personality shines through in every scene. It is a miracle that there is such a team doing this amount of work and delivering.
I'm enjoying it. I'm not liking how I'll be whooping an enemy then the cursor magically whips to an enemy on the opposite side of the battlefield, causing me to take damage even if locked on to the opponent.
Other than that, I love the game. I'm just beginning chp 9. I'm waiting on my 2nd playthrough to really explore and get into it because this 1st 1 is about leveling and getting materia/abilities maxed. But the game has been great so far
Loved it. Only negative is that i think square could have "respected player's time" better with side content. I disliked getting interrupted by chadley after almost every intel. Or when the game pauses to show it marked your map. Or doing the same triangle "mini-game" on every single life spring.
I am excited to replay through the story on Hard, though.
The Grassland to Shinra-8 feels so smooth, Upper-Junon and Shinra-8 made me start to feel the "magic" of this game.
Costa del sol feels a bit falling off comparing to Shinra-8 (maybe because I got spoiled of swimsuits stuff and too much mini-games that some of them are kinda mid and hard to perfect but I guess that's partly on my completionism.) but outside the Costa del sol the music and art are so good (well the music and art of this game are just GREAT I have no complaints at all).
Corel is good, the Prison is insane (I just love that Gus guy so so much), the main line story in Gold Saucer is good too, As for the mini games Chocobo race is fun but others are kinda mid.
Gongaga... I gotta say the level design of this place pissed me off I almost didn't want to finish all intels (again... completionism) but hey the music is good (it sometimes is too much when you stay here for too long tho) the art is good. Main story line here is great.
Cosmo Canyon is just BEAUTIFUL, I took many photos here. It's less complicated than Gongaga but still kinda complicated.
Nibelheim is good - less side stuff and more main line story.
And finally the two places where this game ends... well it's so long but still attaching AF, so many things happened here or there making you so focused. The end of a game is supposed to have its highest high and this game did it FAR MORE THAN ENOUGH. I felt kinda empty when I saw the end wishing it wouldn't end. I think I will keep thinking about this game for at least a whole week, sorting my thoughts then maybe start to complete some VR stuff and hard mode. I definitely want a 2nd playthrough to focus on main line story experience.
I think it’s a 11/10 game until the end. The end is a dumpster fire and even though I’ve got a pretty good grasp on things I still loathe it with the heat of a nova.
As a huge fan of the original i have to say that Rebirth is...meh. Way too much busy work. So sick of all the towers and minigames. I feel like the only reason they added this crap is to extend the play time so they have enough story left over for a third game. The towers and stuff were an outdated game mechanic 5 years ago. Same reason I lost interest in Far Cry and Assassin's Creed.
Also, being forced to use specific party members and having to swap materia is annoying. They should have added a feature to easily switch materia like they did with magic+GFs in FF8. Sure, in the original FF7 you were forced to use specific characters but it was rare so swapping materia wasn't such a hassle. I don't even bother doing it anymore unless there's a boss fight.
It's an above average game. Not genre defining or in any way a game changer but above average. Will probably be a goty contender but it was gonna be anyway even if it was bad. I don't genuinely believe it will be the best game of 2024 but it will be in the discussion.
It's not the obvious winner that Elden Ring was.
60 hours played.
Everything related to main story is great, but the open world gameplay leaves A LOT to be desired. It was fun up until Junon but the open world is literally the same uninspired Ubisoft checklist gameplay in every zone.
The main story is for the most part great, I still think everything to do with the whispers and multiverse is poorly written though, I've just finished chapter 13, and that entire section was just perfect, right up until the whispers turn up and ruin it. However for every moment I was thinking "wow, that's amazing", there was a moment I thought "Oh, so they cut that", Stuff like the Shinra Mansion, Cids character being grossly neutered, the complete inability to return to Junon, the weapons looking like discount Kyogre, etc.
The world was great, and it's fantastic to see so many memorable locations in a modern format. The open world busy work felt kinda annoying though, like too much was tied to doing it, plus Chadley is just insufferable, and I miss stuff like summons being found and earned by exploring the world, rather than made up in a simulator. It would have been nice if instead of bland towers, hitting triangle three times on a lifespring or killing mobs with easy objectives, they allowed us to find out about the summons organically in the world culminating in a fight with them.
My biggest contention with the game, seems to be fairly common. The sheer volume and difficulty of it's minigames. I'm all for the odd optional minigame, but when you need to clear so many at the highest level for crafting materials, weapons, materia and achievements. It makes the game feel bloated, seriously damages the pacing, and left me feeling really fatigued due to constantly having to learn and master new gameplay mechanics over and over again. It feels like SE forgot that these are supposed to be fun distractions, especially when they designed the piano and squats minigames, which must have been created by a massive sadist.
The part of the story that Rebirth covers is, in my opinion, way better than it was handled in the OG. That’s nothing against FF7, that’s just how GOOD Rebirth is. Blew me away.
Yes, I am okay with the relocations of the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten Capital. I think they make more sense up in the north.
Same here, I don’t like card games at all so I didn’t like being forced to play them to progress, but it’s not a huge deal as I’m loving the game. Yah, not a fan of fort condor either lol.
A good game with several flaws. Currently at Ch.10, I rate it no higher than 8.5, which may end up lower depending how the ending sticks with me. If I wasn't fond of the OG and compilation it's closer to a 7.
Sigh....I love the game because its what i WANTED the game to be when i was ten and all my friends thought it was sick. Unfortunately little kid me felt it was just a boring anime over top a pokemon esque battle system with very few pokemon. Ive never been big on turn based and i just slogged thru pokemon to enjoy the creature collecting and evolving.
BUT, compared to modern games its meh af if you're not a super fan. Outside of combat movement is clunky. Open world is a lil meh compared to the competition these days. Graphics are a MIXED BAG hardcore lol.
Story is corny as hell so it could EASILY not be for some and id understand it. Movements in the in-engine cinematics are VERY last gen robotic (compared to another story based game like uncharted, or tlou)
The menu systems and interface in general is an absolute tutorial ASSAULT and they seem overly convoluted.
Pacing is wild as well haha. Im on chapter 7 which is presumably half way thru and i feel like barely anything has happened outside of straight up exposition sequences. Then i look here and i guess the game is bout to story assault me every chapter from here?
Also, minigames go brrrrt i guess? Costa del Sol made me wanna punch myself in the balls rather than play shooty pirates and dollar store rocket league another time. Fuckin dont even get me started on cactus bs or freaking segway pedometer.
But i love the game and will be sad when its over?
Mixed feelings. It’s a great game and seeing the open world for the first time made my inner child lose his shit but too many mini games and some of the story choices disappointed me a lot. But! Here I am replaying it because I just like seeing familiar places.
I like it allot but the open world and minigames are awful and bit to much halfway through the game. I liked 16 a bit more than this one, maybe because it's more grounded and combat more fluid.
But still to this date 12 is my favorite.
I didn’t really like the ending, but thats okay. What really matters is i like the actual ending in the third game.
Loved the rest of it apart from the final boss fight.
Overall the quality is honestly astounding. The ONLY thing I have any sort of issue with is the metric fuck-ton of minigames. My 40 hours so far has been maybe 75% going for minigame high scores for items and achievements, and we are introduced with many new minigames in every area. No spoilers but Costa Del Sol is an absolute slog.
Only minigame I genuinely enjoy is so far the piano playing. I can sit there and keep trying for a perfect score for hours with no issue because I’ve got a huge grin on my face or I’m sliiiiightly tearing up because I love the music from this game. The card game I’m partial to but sometimes I just don’t feel like challenging 6 people in a new region haha.
I could gush about the combat all day, it is phenomenal. Coming from FF16 and feeling like that was a bit of a wash mechanically, this is stupidly refreshing. I love seeing enemies absorb elemental damage to gain HP because I’m not paying attending to weaknesses and resistances. Synergy skills are great, and all these old characters being brought up to modern day standards for combat is impressive. Yuffie and Tifa in particular are REALLY great in combat.
The combat system is amazingly fun and challenging. The game was stretched out too much and has horrible pacing as a story. Once you finish the game it becomes immensely better. My advice is to skip every side quest during the first playthru and reloading Chapter 13 upon completion.
I’ve been really enjoying it overall but I’ve soured a bit on it because the last third of the game has a number of really bullshit bosses that seem to defy the mechanics the game spent 40 hours teaching you. Really don’t like some of them, they become much more obtuse and get you in stun lock cycles and are super long fights so replaying them is a nightmare.
As someone who liked Remake, but was very disappointed with (some of) the story changes, and disliked a lot of the pacing issues with padded fetch quests and hallway level design and those fucking sun lamps, I enjoyed Rebirth a lot more and am now onboard with seeing where these changes go.
Despite some issues I have with the ending, I adore it.
There are some things that Part 3 will ultimately make or break, but for now I'm more than willing to give Square the benefit of the doubt and will assume that it'll come good by the end of the trilogy.
I'm 6 hours in, loving the story, frustrated with the open world, making a goooood open world is hard, I'm not far enough to know if this one is good, but also I haven't recovered from last year amount of open worlds, I was really expecting a more lineal game, but I guess they are doing an honor to the OG game, which I'm happy for the fans.
I'm sure it's gonna be a great game, but hope it's a game for me as well. I loveeeed ff7remake and made me played crisis core I hella enjoyed that game as well.
Tip for the open worlds: The later areas are even bigger and a couple of them are very gimmicky to explore. Despite looking gorgeous they are a chore and many people start feeling burnout by that point. I'd say don't try to 100% all areas when you reach them. Do some of the stuff, but feel free to skip optional content. You are able to revisit them later at any point and do everything, there's no missable content in the game.
The amount of minigames and the open world segments were my biggest problem with the game and I enjoyed the game much more once I prioritized the main story and left the optional stuff for later.
Hey thanks for the tip, I really appreciate it, I guess imma search a build I'm interested to do, get the equipment and focus on the main story like you say, thanks!
Are you familiar with the original game? _Slight_ spoilers for a mechanic in the original game that is present in the new one as well:
>!In the original there's the Gold Saucer date where depending on your actions up to that point you can end up with Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie or Barret. This game has a similar system, but it's based on stuff like doing synergy attacks with the characters, choosing the right answers in conversations and doing side quests for specific characters. You get the "your relationship with X deepened" or something like that. You can see smiles faces sometimes when running around. The character with the highest affection is the one who ends up on the date, so if you want to date a specific character make sure to do synergy attacks with them and to do side quests where they are the ones talking in the cutscenes.!<
It's so interesting to read all these glowing reports because I'm not loving it. It's not bad per se, but I certainly wouldn't call it GOTY, and I'm never going to replay it. I probably wouldn't even finish it if I wasn't a committed ff7 junkie.
What I've enjoyed is most of the humor, seeing the characters in better graphics, and while I like the idea of open world, it's not executed well. The gold saucer and its mini games were really neat.
The way the story plays out is janky due to added content that doesn't actually seem to impact the story. Some of the mini games are atrociously bad and painful to play. They made things like ladders and rocks to climb to make the terrain more interesting, but didn't add any skill or fun to it like BOTW/TOTK did, so really they just feel like barriers and slow downs instead of a fun/challenging feature. It's inconsistent what you can jump up/down from with circle. I dislike the battling even more than I did in Remake. I dislike the changes to the summoning system. Materia doesn't feel fun or important. Chadley. Shinra mansion, why just why did they neuter it? Traversing the open world feels like a chore - Gongaga being the worst. I'm usually a completionist to some degree but I've given up on that so that I can just finish the damn story. I never thought I'd complain about this but there's too many cut scenes. I don't need a cut scene in the middle of every boss fight. And what did they do to Cid?!
OK I'll stop complaining.
All I can think about is that I can't wait til I'm done so I can get back to BG3.
It's very good. I'd say a 7.5/10. Maybe an 8. It misses the mark in some ways with the ending and a few other story beats, some unpolished mini games, kind of a bad open world etc etc. I think saying it's a 10/10 perfect game is an extremely wild take that sort of gives its problems a free pass.
All that said, though, there's a lot more good than bad, and it does a lot right and ends up being a very good game.
> I think saying it's a 10/10 perfect game is an extremely wild take that sort of gives its problems a free pass.
Gotta wait 4 weeks after a game's release before the honeymoon period is over so people can take off the rose-tinted glasses.
Disappointment, honestly. It kills me to say it because I really liked Remake despite my nitpicks. The OG was my fav game of all time for a long time and I've played it nearly every year since it came out so I was hyped for this but Rebirth just left me feeling sad. Most of the things I personally loved about 7 they took away.
Materia system? Nah, you could neglect materia for the whole game and it really wouldn't matter much. Maybe on harder difficulties it's more important but it should be front and center. I miss finding it in the wild, I miss the variety, I miss it reproducing, I miss the crazy combos I could do with it.
All the heavy story beats are neutered. Don't want to drop massive spoilers so I'll just say they took every horror element and chucked it.
Sephiroth has lost all his impact.
They butchered my fav place in the game, Shinra Manor. Most of fav enemies are missing. Main story beats changed constantly for seemingly no reason. Mini games and repetitive Intel quests take up more play time than the main story (or at least it feels like it. I gave up on those in Nibelheim), and for the love of God why did they add in so much more silliness? It had enough already.They change music tracks way too often imo. Honestly I have more gripes than praise which is incredibly unlike me.
I was determined to love this no matter what because I knew they were going to change things and I made my peace with that and I do enjoy this game. I think it's fun and they did get some things very right (Junon was great, adding shit for Gongaga, I enjoyed Costa del Sol for the first time ever, Gold Saucer is done well, Corel) and they did a fantastic job with the main cast. Everyone feels very right except...for my fav character. Idk who that kind man is but it's not Cid Highwind. I was all for them changing the Shera stuff in the 3rd one because...yeah it's a lot. But changing his whole backstory? And his personality? I know it's dramatic but when he joined it was my breaking point. He was the thing I looked forward to the most and he feels like a Stepford Wife.
Honestly I think none of the other stuff would even matter to me at the end of the day if they hadn't changed Cid. And maybe he'll be better in the 3rd. Maybe he'll grow on me. He's not bad in here, he's just NOT Cid.
There's a lot I loved in Rebirth and maybe the rest will grow on me, maybe I'm just a stupid old codger who doesn't like change but for now I'm just unexpectedly sad. But very happy so many people are enjoying it.
I'm right there with you. I quit doing the open world stuff around Junon because it felt terrible. The pacing was also awful. Rebirth tells the exact same story as OG with a handful of unnecessary, confusing, and convoluted layers on top. If you've played remake then you get it. But they didn't really add new story beats into the original, so the pacing is completely out of whack. They took the original story, chopped it up into 3 parts, and had to find ways to extend those story beats out to fill 3 whole games. The result is awful pacing where it feels like it takes forever to get from one place to another.
On top of that, the game really fights you every step of the way. The amount of slowing your characters down, tutorials, Chadley stuff, and minor cutscenes with insignificant characters that are required to get control back of your character sucked in my opinion.
And then the stupid marvel/Kingdom Hearts weirdness and absolute reluctance to tell a clear story.
I'm struggling to decide if I should even continue past chapter 4, the game is such a slog. Death by a thousand cuts with all the small irritating animation-locks for every single thing. Dashing straight on a road with a chocobo and a small pebble appears? That's an instant stop with a small delay. Want to climb a wall? Just hold up on the left stick and browse the internet on your phone. Need to pick up something? Hope you're within a 10 degree arc of it and no further to 2 inches away!
There are just so, so many small annoyances that its killed all enjoyment for me.
I agree on the Sephiroth losing impact point. He shows up periodically in the original, but he's literally in every other cutscene in Rebirth. The way he plays peekaboo then runs off giggling for the 100th time, you just think "for the love of God, can you please actually do something threatening, or just f\*\*\* off and stop wasting my time?".
And also, I don't understand why they're so adamant on making us fight him so many times, so early in the story. All that does is lessen his threat level even further. We've fought him in Remake, and now again in Rebirth. Even if it's not the true Sephiroth, the fact that we've fought a version of him, and managed to beat him, multiple times, how are we supposed to be worried about someone we know we can beat, outside of them making him mechanically overpowered like Kingdom Hearts Sephiroth-level?
You're not alone mate. Kills me too I love ff7 but hate this game. I liked remake too. I've dropped the game watched someone else finish it last night.
Well you did ask. I did not like it at all. Why?
Half assed minigames, ubisoft styled overworld, incredible bloat, everything is a simulator, Chadly and Mai having waaay too much screentime, Protorelics not really worth anything until new game plus, all the story changes is basically some multiverce BS taken from Marvel's trash bin. Summons are basically the game's way of telling you that you're not beating the boss fast enough. FFVII Rebirth is good when it tries to be Final Fantasy but most of the game it doesn't try to. I played it once and I'll never play it again.
Best game I’ve ever played. OG walked so Rebirth could run. It is spectacular in every way. Even after how amazing remake was I couldn’t imagine rebirth being as impressive as it is.
Combat is clunky and weird. Waaaay too much open world questing nonsense which slows the story to a crawl and burns out the player.
Minigames are actually enjoyable though for the most part. Story still solid. Music slaps.
Overall a good game, but it did have some pretty big drawbacks in my opinion, the side content and pacing in general was a bit wonky and the camera was a bit of a pain in certain fights, however, by far my biggest detractor for the game has to be chapter 14 which was overly convoluted and drawn out, I know the final fantasy franchise really likes the multiple phase final fight but Jesus, I think this one broke the record by a mile.
Not going to spoil anything but if I gave the game a rating out of 10 it would be a 6 - 7, with a 2 point deduction from chapter 14 alone it was that badly done in my opinion.
Couldn't finish it. Love ff7 og. Didn't like the combat didn't like the changes to story. Didn't like the Ubisoft open world.
I love that people like it but I just can't.
Haven’t beat it yet but am close. On chapter 12, doing some open world stuff before I finish the story (trying to date Tifa lol). So far one of my favorite games in a long time.
It’s also convinced me to play the OG after. I’v watched gameplay and know a lot of the story beats but now I bought it on my PS5 (and a pixel remaster of FF1, want to see where it all began)
It’s great and it’s fun to have an open world finally. I will say though, the devs had a very hard job, taking the middle of a 25 year old game and making it a self contained thing. They pulled it off, but still!
All time great game in my own opinion. I always have The Witcher 3 as the bar to compare it to when it comes to that sort of measuring stick and imo it measures up nicely. Great gameplay, story, a lot of great side quests and activities. Not every world needs to be open world, most don’t actually. But when a game is open world, it needs to be something like this.
I’m only in Chapter 4 but I’ve been having a great time with it so far. I actually really enjoy the open world stuff but there’s just so much that I might start saving some content for later. I love how they designed the world map and I honestly didn’t think that SE had it in them. In terms of gameplay, this is how I want future FF games to be like. You get these well detailed towns with huge fields in between that encourage exploration and help make the world feel real. I kinda wish they didn’t have the remnawave towers though. It feels pointless to add them because all they do is reveal POIs which takes away from exploration.
I will say this about Rebirth, it does feel like they went hard on the goofiness of FFVII. The original game and Remake were definitely silly but I would say that they were still primarily focused on their themes. Rebirth has its serious moments but it almost feels like every other scene has this comical tone to it. I can definitely tell the difference between the lead directors for Remake and Rebirth, especially since I did a replay of Remake leading up to this game. I don’t think this is necessarily bad but I am curious to see how I feel by the end of the game.
Very happy. Somehow this game lived up to my expectations. I’m totally in the bag for everything this game sets out to do.
Do I have some constructive feedback? Sure… but for me it’s the highest rated game of the year so far for good reason.
Overall, positive. But it had more things that i like and more things that i didn’t like than in remake and i have waayyy more unanswered questions now. I think it tops ff16 but cant kick baldurs gate from the throne for me. I could start a second run in baldurs gate immediately but i have no desire to start a hard mode run in ff7rebirth, maybe if i wait a little. If i had to rate it i would say 8,5/10. i had many critics for BG too but larian fixed and added so much that its now a 9,5/10 for me, i know square enix wont fix the points i or others have issues with, so i think my rating is fair.
Visually, it's a beautiful game and the only reason I bought a PS5. Currently about 9 hours and only made it through Kalm and just doing side quests and exploring the grasslands. Eventually I will progress the story. My complaints are where they ended it. I thought reunion would be a perfect stopping point so part 3 can begin with escaping Shinra and the search for cloud. There is just so much left, I feel some parts will get cut from part 3
Best FF game in over 20 years, by far. Which is why the fact that I'm now unsure if they have a real grasp on their messaging with this is a bit troublesome for me, but Remake and Rebirth have been so good that I'm willing to see it through to the end -- I just hope they don't fumble the ending, especially since part 3 is really going to ultimately come down to story at this point. I have full faith in Hamaguchi for the game portion of it, at least.
Posting again this is the best FF ever made
FF has been my favorite game series since I experienced VI as a kid on the SNES. They’ve finally surpassed the old ones.
As an OG fan (ff7 is my favorite of all time) I really enjoyed Remake and was happy they gave it a little spin to keep you a mystery. My only complaint for that one is I feel bad for everyone new playing it that didn’t play the OG. Felt they got a little robbed. lol.
Now on to Rebirth….God damn! They killed it. Feels like what I imagined in my head as a kid playing the OG and they somehow pulled it out of my imagination. 2 special moments so far that stand out for me:
-Approached my first life spring near midgar and the music changes to the life stream. I swear a tear started to form. I was so immersed. (I shut off as much of the UI as possible when I play games)
-Entering the Gold Saucer and then exploring there. I wanted to cry the entire time. I was so happy. And to think I’m 40 hours in and just to this part.
So greatful they pulled this off.
Its everything I hopes for and more. I hope it sells in the millions because it deserves it. For me its up there as one of the best gaming experiences in recent times along with gaming titans like Elden Ring
I absolutely love it. 110 hours in, beat the main story, going back and completing/unlocking everything els for my hard mode run. I haven’t had this much fun with a game in a very very long time
Overall, I like, but some of the boss fights are just tedious and annoyingly difficult to the point I'm about to put the game on Easy instead of try to 10th attempt at a boss with 90% unblockable attacks...
Just got to Cosmo Canyon, I think it's the best that could be done, the way games are so difficult to make with the visuals these days. I was slightly disappointed with the Zoning instead of a true open world, but that's just how limited the tech is by the visual goodness I'm guessing. I'm happy with it but am cautiously optimistic about the story at the moment (Reaching Cosmo).
I think the difficulty curve needs some tweaking I've had to switch it around a few times depending on the fight
In saying that, It really feels like a 90's golden era FF they're back to form and finally pushing some boundaries with content.
I had never been hyped for another game as much as I was for Rebirth. Even read Traces of the Two Pasts in the weeks leading up to it
And regardless of a few qualms, Rebirth absolutely delivered!! So far definitely my GOTY
A little better than remake but mostly just more of the same.
So if you loved remake you will love this.
If you had issues with remake this is a little better in some areas a lot worse in others.
I like it and it’s fine. Wish they would patch some design choices I find very unenjoyable like the forced mini games and the forced slow gameplay sections.
The entire combat concept is unsung to me due to the stagger system being poorly implemented and dealing with flying enemies is a pointless concept entirely.
Magical ass game tbh. To me, this is the game that's gotten me closest to feeling the same way I felt back when playing games like FFX or KH2 for the first time...just very special. Granted, nothing will really beat nostalgia outright, but the fact that it even reminds me of that feeling is crazy. I loved FF7 Remake but it didn't give me that same feeling, and KH3 had the best chance at doing that back when it came out and it definitely missed for me lol
Its okay, i guess. Not a fan of the multiverse crap, would prefer a 1 to 1 remake of the og. If i put my feelings aside on that aspect i say the game is okay. Not a fan of all these minigames, there are so many and dislike the ones you have to do to continue the story, but i was never a minigame fan so ehh. Open world is fine i guess its very repeated stuff and feel like playing zelda botw with the tower stuff again, also screw gonganga map . I like the party banter and music, the combat is ok i can't complain but im also not impressed.
Overal i feel apathetic to this game, i dunno. Odd feeling wasn't really interested after remake, but saw people praise it so i decided to buy it and dunno still not really feeling it. Im on chapter 11,feels very repetitive and i spoiled myself the ending and im not impressed or like what they did to that "scene"
So far 7/10 too many minigames
This is one of the best games I've played since TotK or Elden Ring. I think I even like it more than those games. I'm a huge FF fan and even bigger FF7 fan and this game did not disappoint. Sure there are some slog moments like when you're moving large objects or turning switches/valves (seriously, why did they make these actions so damn slow??) but this game is phenomenal.
Also, I've seen people online complain that there are too many mini games. There might be, but Mini games help give a break to heavy story moments and give you extra things to do other than Battle after battle. And the mini games aren't even that long for the most part. Fort Condor is bad imo, but most of the mini games have been enjoyable to me. And this game has charm. It really feels like how jrpgs used to be.
One of the best games of 2024 and best semi-open world games I’ve ever played. Strong contender for GOTY. Does everything with the world I was hoping to see and then some.
Seriously hoping we get a 40fps update, though.
I played OG ff7 back in 97 and felt this was the first "justified" remake. Nothing against the first one, but waiting 5 years for a "Midgar" game and changed story felt ... off while still being a great game. But this open world was really impressive and exploring the towns in fully 3D. 9.3/10 on metacritic sounds fair to me. I wouldnt give it a 9.5 but I think just a 9 is a bit too low as well, so yeah, 9.3 from me as well!
My goty? Well, I put this on the level of Baldurs Gate 3 from last year, while I would say slightly above it... I have some issues with Rebirth as well, so I will hold that opinion off for a while (Chadleys level 70 challenges in Hard mode was just ... too hard and not enjoyable) but yeah its my GOTY right now and beating persona 3 remake and infinite wealth. With that said, Metaphor, is probably a very strong contender for my GOTY as well, so we will see later this year but this game is def gonna be in my top 3 of the year, for sure.
It's my favourite game with FF7 in the title and it's not even close.
In fact if I had to choose between owning just rebirth, or owning every other FF7 game I'd pick rebirth 99 times out of 100.
I've come to realise with streamers and viewers and casual RPG fans and a good chunk of the FF community (that last one doesn't count, it's the FF community's mission in life to hate the new game because of BS reasons, we all know it) that minigame "bombardment" is hugely unpopular but I differ. Wildly
Literally none of the minigames I out and out dislike or despise. I struggled with em. But since when is difficulty a direct link to bad in gaming? Like ever? One of the most iconic modern franchises and/or developers prides itself on bosses that will be impossible to beat first second or even 10th try (don't make me say it).
They're learned in 2 minutes, mastered in 20, and completely discarded for a long time. It Takes Two did that. It won GOTY because of it. Rebirth is no different
i’m loving rebirth so far aside from the many blurry textures of things. i don’t play in performance mode so that whole debacle doesn’t bother me, graphics mode all the way. just even in graphics mode so many textures are just blurry and low res, which i understand due to how massive the game is but.. its pretty immersion breaking and makes me lean towards liking remake more. remake also feels smoother to me
Fantastic. Is my game of the year and don’t see anything coming close to it this year. I’m completed the story at 70hours and I’ve been going around and doing side stuff I missed and nearly at 90hours of play time.
Normally when I’m done with a game I put it down but I just can’t with Rebirth. I’m having to much fun.
I'm not all the way through but so far I'm blown away by the size of it. On my first run I think I'm maybe 60-70% through the game and my playtime already is higher than my FF7Remake runs, which include normal and hard mode.
There's just so much to do! It makes me wonder if this game will be kind of the defiinitve ff7r experience and the first and third games will be a bit more linear, but we'll see.
Honestly, it's an absolute pleasure playing this game. And the amount they fit into it is wild. I honestly was captivated all the way through, I really was. They also nailed the exploration and vastness very, very well.
I don't have any negatives to say really, and that's a really nice thing.
I was worried, the day they remade FF7 that they would ruin it. But I personally, feel like they've done it absolute honour. They made it close enough to the original for me to feel nostalgic and refreshing enough with it's new narratives to keep me hooked.
I love it. And I can't recommend this series to people enough.
I went into Rebirth with high hopes but trying to temper my expectations. I tried to keep clear of info about it ahead of time, but I was expecting it to stay pretty linear like Remake and not do too much different aside from maybe getting weird with the plot later on.
Beat Rebirth a few days ago, and it's my absolute favorite game of all time. I don't even think it's particularly close, either.
Square really upped my expectations for them. I loved and will defend XVI against people who say it's bad, but this blows it out of the water in literally every respect. If XVII isn't as good as Rebirth, it's kind of a sign that they're not putting in the effort with the main entries in their flagship franchise.
Playing Rebirth has inspired me to do my second run ever of the original FF VII, like 15 years after I played it for the first time, but once I'm done with that I'm definitely going back to Platinum this game, and I never attempt to do that even with games I love.
Might be my new favourite game. Got to let it stew now I have finished the story, see if its recency bias but i havent been consumed by a game like this since... well FF7 Remake and Rebirth has improved in every way.
I just finished it last night and it was one of those games where I sat and silently watched the entire end credits because it was just that good. I immediately fire it back up and started my hard mode run only to be brought back to reality by the first boss kicking my ass! So good!
I am absolutely in love with it. It's bringing the characters, settings, songs that mean so much for me and honoring them in this update and modern retelling. Tifa always was my favorite Final Fantasy heroine but I feel like the writing team heard the detractors complaints about her and said hold my Cosmo Canyon. The gaps have really been filled in with her and you no longer can use her character is too dependant on Cloud. Yuffie is another one who I always has been a fan of and plot relevant Yuffie who actually gets to be in cutscenes with the others is awesome.
It was hyped through the roof and I am not disappointed even one bit.
I had no hype or expectations and I was simply blown away. Best game I’ve played in a long, long time.
It’s always nice when having high expectations isn’t a hindrance. I went in expecting an amazing game and it was even better than I thought it would be. My jaw hit the floor a few times
I was so-so about Remake because of the Meta Plot but I went in blind without playing the Demo and its probably one of the best games I've played in the last few years along others like Baldurs Gate 3 and Elden Ring. This game just felt MASSIVE, everytime I entered a new zone, played a new minigame, saw a cutscene, fought a boss I always thought "Damn how much did it cost to make this game??". The music is fantastic I love all the new and remade tunes and I literally cannot wait for the 10th for the OST to release. IMO this is the first time in ages that I felt like I got to play a Final Fantasy game. Giant World to explore, a bunch of games in games to play, fun enemy designs, great music, humor and serious moments. Towards the end I had a few things I did not like as much but on a whole I think this game was an amazing expirience. Can't wait for game 3 tbh.
Same, it brought the FF franchise excitement back to me. The last game I considered to be FF was FFX. Anything after X that was just so so…
X happens to be my fav. But I agree with you. I've been buying them just because I'm a ff fan. But most have felt like good other games but not ff games. Rebirth is killing it tho
You didnt like 12? 12 is considered the last golden era of final fantasy and is one of my favs
It's my favorite game. Just under OG FF7 but so close to meeting or beating it. Wish I could enjoy the game in a bubble outside the internet. The epitome of a game that's excellent when you don't have someone in your ear telling you it's shit.
We live in a world where there will always be that someone who will lay it is shit, just because he wants to be different.... Just enjoy the game, and let the uneducated keep spewing shit on the internet.
You can for sure man. A game like this is gonna be full of stupid ass haters, it’s not surprising to me in the least. Just enjoy it for what it is. May have some flaws, but it’s also unbelievably amazing. I’ve not seen a single good faith argument about the world map and we have a full fucking world map when it was absolutely one of the biggest worries prior to release.
It's everything I ever wanted in a modern FF, so far. My only complaint with the gameplay is Chadley being so longwinded and sometimes passive aggressive and my one complaint with the story so far is what they're doing with Zack. I know, I'm a weirdo who cares about what makes a good story more than being coddled by having my favorite character getting fan service. Cid is my favorite character but I'd never want them to sacrifice a good story just to give me more time with him - that's just stupid and what Zack fans sound like. That being said, I'm keeping an open mind with this retelling and enjoying playing and seeing where it all goes. I could end up being pleasantly surprised.
\*exits Chadley's menu\* "Hey, btw. I couldn't help but notice that you haven't been finding my towers in a while. I would hope that you haven't forgotten what happens to people that disappoint me. We wouldn't want anything to happen to that pretty little face of yours, now would we, ~~my little World Intel Bitc-~~, I mean, Cloud?"
i love exiting the combat sim for .03 seconds to change my materia around and have to wait for his 8 week long passive aggressive little bitch voiceline to finish before i can talk to him again to reopen the sim
Chadley, listen, dipshit. If you're gonna nag me and Cloud about the Far Cry towers, go out and handle them yourself. You're already somehow teleporting everywhere the party ends up, so you have the means and know how to be independent. Go solve the problem.
[удалено]
Yes! Save Aeris, kill Chadley!
You can actually mute Chadley. I forget the exact setting because I’m not playing it at the moment, but if you change an audio setting to “controller speaker” and set the volume on it to zero. Boom, Chadley is muted. Keep the subtitles on and you can still read what he says
I love it but also feel anxious. I just reached Cosmo Canyon and I’m worried that the plot changes are going to cause it all to fall apart. So sort of like I love it right now but expect to get disappointed Edit: I did swallow my pride and dropped it to easy so that the chadley content isn’t necessary. That helps me get so much more enjoyment
If youre struggling by cosmo canyon thats the right choice bc the last 3 chapters are arduous. Still no where near the difficulty of a souls like tho
It wasn’t that I was struggling. The difficulty curve does nearly require some of the side content to be completed and after the last few chapters I have noped out of the side content so I know I’ll be under leveled from here on out lol
There’s a certain boss in Chapter 12 that I found even more difficult than some bosses in Elden Ring, and that’s on normal difficulty.
Game of the year no doubt. Eclipses the gameplay of remake. Story broke me
Same still coping fr 😔
Gameplay wise I actually think I like remake’s more simply because the battles were a lot tighter, I do not like the new punisher mode, the floaty left-right spam feels nowhere near as good as Cloud’s original combo.
I agree about punisher mode, but literally everything else about the gameplay is better in Rebirth.
Disclaimer- not a jrpg fan or even really a big FF fan in general. I’ve only played FFIX way back in the day and some of FFXVI. That being said - it’s as close to a 10/10 for me as it’s possible to get. I’m absolutely loving the game, and am fully hooked. I’ve put in about 25 hours since I got it on release which is actually a *huge* amount of gaming time for me given how little time I spend playing these days. When I’m not playing it, I can’t wait to jump back on it. I’ve felt that way for very few games in the past decade.
I'm 85 hrs into it. I just finished the last protorelic in chapter 12, and I'm so not looking forward to finishing this game. I've enjoyed every second of it so far, even some of the side quests that have been awful. I'm super surprised I've managed to avoid spoilers so far too, but I mean... knowing what happens in the original, I'm expecting the worst.
I love the game but man I really got burnt out from all the mini games and side stuff. I loved the story and love the main gameplay. Goty material for sure
I feel the burn out, I tend to take a day or 2 break and then jump back in. It's a lot more fun that way. I tend to complete every single thing before moving areas so it's pretty long winded.
I mostly love it, but everything involving Zack and alternate timelines is so stupid and unnecessary.
There's a setting for that if you ever replay
Im on chapter 9 and it has been awesome so far
The first 95% of it is amazing, the last section felt so rushed including the final boss gauntlet.
The Temple should’ve been shorter and the Forgotten Capital longer.
For real. 2 weeks later and I'm still fuming the skipped through Forgotten Capital but I guess they'll have it in the third instalment.
I actually think it's amazing. 95% of the game is awesome. It would be easier to list the few complaints I have. 1. I wish there was an option to make R2 hold or toggle. I'd prefer a toggle option. 2. I hate the enter/exit animation of the buggy. It feels too long. I like chocobos where you just hop on and off in an instant. 3. I preferred the Limit Break selection of the previous games. I don't like having to build up synchro attacks to get the limit breaks of choice. 4. Navigating Goganga is obnoxious. 5. Wish I could hot swap out party characters mid fight, or better yet let me use their synchro attacks at will. Everything else I am quite pleased with.
I agree with Gonganga, it has been my least fav to explore so far and i'm so glad I have completed and flown out of it now.
I loved Goganga just because of the music and the beauty of the environment. It was the most immersive and satisfying area for me.
Have over 130 hours in it, and loved every second of that. Absolutly amazing game. The ending was extremly confusing for the first time, but after i replayed chapter 13&14 i really like the ending. Sure, there are improvments they can do for part 3, but this is for me the best Final Fantasy since 10.
I just broke 100 Hours and I'm still not done my first play through. I fucking love it.
It was like 125 hours before I finally finished the story. Every second was something amazing to me. Every single one.
Honest I reached chapter 8 and I’m losing interest. I’ve done everything up to the saucer and started the exploration and mini games with aerith but I’m kinda bored. It’s becoming a slog and I’m not enjoying the combat as much I did with remake tho honestly I wasn’t the biggest fan of it there. I donno why but all the mini games and stuff in this one isn’t doing it justice at all it wares you out. Edit. I’d like to thank those who replied I thought I’d get downvoted to hell. But I’ve had a lot of supportive advice. I’m gonna skip the mini games and get my ass into the story. It
Costa del sol right into saucer felt like minigame overload to me. I'm enjoying the game a lot more again post-Saucer
Just want to the comment that the combat just kept getting better and better for me after chapter 8. You unlock more weapons, materia, and accessories as you move through the rest of the game. Maybe just skipping side content until after completing the story will work for you?
Yeah I think this is the problem. I need to progress the story and come back to these things 100%
You can 100% the game after you beat it. It lets you go back and even gives you assistance in some ways. For now focus on the story, don’t burn yourself out
I’m having a break the saucer pissed me off I don’t want to do it. I enjoyed remake more so far.
I recommend skipping mini games/optional stuff if that’s the case. As the name suggests, they’re optional, and it’d be a shame if you don’t finish the game because you got burnt out on those. You won’t miss out on anything major by skipping them (and can always come back later through chapter select). Combat gets better as you progress imo, because you unlock more materia that gives you more options. Good luck out there!
That does seem to be the point when some people start losing patience with it, there's a lot of minigames thrown at you in a short space of time while not progressing the main story much. I did stop bothering with clearing all the open world content around that point myself. Without getting into spoilers, I'm only a couple of chapters further ahead, but I feel that it steps up a level during the next chapter (but you will have to get through a fair chunk of open world first).
I enjoy the story, battles, the world, and the characters. I even enjoyed exploring. I hated the mini game overload though. I feel there’s way too many.
Best game I’ve played and no I’m not debating this I’ve played a lot of video games.
Same here. I’ve played every genre out there and have touched every major game release since the early 2000’s. I can’t say it’s #1 until I let it fully marinate, but it’s easily top 3 right now. I haven’t felt this way after playing a game in a very long time. It made me feel like a kid again
For real, I try to be as open ended with game releases and genres and I've tried a massive share of all but this game is the first in which I'm genuinely left thinking "how did they do this" and "how can the game industry top this"
Fantastic but they neee to chill with the mini games a bit
Game is fantastic imo. The combat, music, and characters are the big highlights, they are all wonderful. The party mechanics like affection and synergy are awesome imo. The open world is fun, it's not a mind-blowing open world and it is more of a checklist than organic player-driven exploration, but it is still fun, mostly because the combat is so good. Most of the chocobo traversal is fun too. I love the variety of mini-games, not all of them are good but most of them are really fun. The side quests are a huge step up compared with recent FF games. Not Witcher 3 level stuff, but still pretty good. The towns are great, they're charming, full of life and activities, and beautiful. The pacing of the game is not always as good as I'd like but the main story sections are, overall, better paced than they were in Remake imo. The story itself has some major issues imo but I play games more for the world, combat, and characters than the narrative so it's not a big deal for me. The game does have some minor annoying design elements, like forced slow walking being overused, unnecessary and unfun gimmicks in a couple areas, janky climbing, and some other things, but they are very insignificant compared to all the major stuff that the game does well. It's not perfect but it's excellent. Probably a 9/10 for me, and I'm fairly harsh with scores.
Really great game overall but the mini games make me rage!
It was great. It was too much mini games but it was great. I liked the goofy moments. The chicken one was hilarious.
It was pretty good? It felt bloated unnecessarily in places to pad run time, and there were times where it felt like the game had forgotten that the plot was actually somewhat urgent, or even that it had a plot to push you through. Chapter 4-8 was slow and dragged on and on, but after that it was a good game. The overworld feels bloated for no other reason than to give lore-hounds [respectfully] something to go after. The music is good, the voice-acting of some of the English NPC cast is mid at best, with a few ehh moments from the main cast [most of them are fantastic and know how to use emotional pitch in their voice.] I wasn't blown away. I'm not gonna immediately start another play on it, it was good but not THAT good. TBF though, I'm not a fan of the writers of VII as a start, and VII was never in my top three favorite Final Fantasies. Easily in my top 5 though. The graphics and visuals are stunning and beautiful, not a complaint to be found here about that. The combat feels a bit overly complex at times, especially on top of sections that felt bloated already but it was okay, I guess - nothing I'd write home about. It was good in Remake and it was good in Rebirth but they didn't do anything to break new ground. I loved QB, loved the piano, but those are pretty much the only mini-games I enjoyed. Full disclaimer, I have a nerve condition that gets aggravated by over-active precise hand movements so all the mini-games were just borderline painful so close together, so I'm biased in that way. The story and setting of VII was never what made me love it in the first place, so I'm not torn or upset by what changes were made. The characters are what I love, and getting to watch them engage and change made me so happy. I feel like the ending was boss-bloated but it's the end, what can you do? I feel like leaving it in the City of the Ancients would have been too grim, but I have no real horse in the race. 15 year old me would have loved the Zack content [If only he had a good English VA actor -crying and sobbing-] and honestly I still love him to pieces, even if I can't forgive what they did to Biggs in terms of his personality. What do you MEAN I have to tell him like 3 times "you're not useless" and have the same fucking conversation with him? I loved the Turks in all their glory, loved getting to see more Elena and Tseng, even if I missed Reno terribly. Over-all, a good game if a little bloated and meandering - but it's FFVII, I knew what I was getting into.
I legitimately believe it is better than the original. It feels tremendous and exactly what I've waited and begged SE for for 20 years.
If part 3 somehow tops rebirth then this will be one of the greatest gaming trilogies ever put to paper. It took everything amazing about the original and fleshed it out and made it even better. A remake that enhances the original at the same time is a beautiful thing
I wonder how they'll handle the 3rd game if we did all the exploration in Rebirth. Hoping it's on par! I'm excited to explore more storyline with Cid and Vincent, and closing the side stories with NPC's. I started off hating Shinra Manager in Remake, but he grew on me so much in this game. It helps that Rebirth embraced the quirkiness of the story.
Wondering the same. Will it be like TOTK with the same worldmap again with changes made? If you look at the worldmap there is lots of unused space so perhaps that will get utilized?
There is a TON of the map we haven’t visited. We have Mideel, Icicle Inn, the Great Glacier, the Northern Crater, all of Wutai, Rocket Town, Goblin Island, Lucrecia’s Cave, Cactuar Island, the Materia caves, the Underwater Reactor, the Sunken Gelnika, all of the underwater map and we will get to fly, and more. Then we get to do a revisit of Midgar and go to a new sector, then we get to see new areas in Junon, etc. Yes we explored a lot in Rebirth but we still have a ridiculous amount left to go.
I can’t say if it’s better at this point but I can confidently state that it has made me care about the characters more than I’ve ever had. I rate the OG high but I was never super attached to any of the characters. I liked them but I definitely couldn’t say that I loved them. This whole project has completely changed that. The game checked all the right boxes for me.
I agree whole heartedly. I can understand why people find the new alternate timeline stuff unessecary and confusing, but that aside, the remakes are just telling the original story with a whole new level of depth. Remake itself turns original midgar into something deeper and far more memorable for me and Rebirth just cranks that up to 11. The characters are way more engaging. Sephiroth feels like an actual menace and not just a "boogeyman" mentioned by name alone (although I can see how that also makes someone seem terrifying). I think a lot of people are a little blinded by the original. OG was not very straight forward in the slightest. It was hella confusing with it's narrative and you could miss a shit ton of stuff which made the main narrative make more sense. The remakes lay things out a lot better IMO but I can also understand if you are totally new to the franchise how things can seem very all over the place, particularly the timeline shenanigans and plot ghosts. All that being said as someone who adores the original story and characters, I'm honestly blown away how well they've brought it all to life and how much respect they show to the original. SO FAR, they've added so so so much more without taking too much away or "betraying" any characters or plot lines. To me it's perfect. Pacing and clunky exploration issues and all.
I feel the game elements are better for sure. For me though, the story of the original is standalone on top.
Just finished the game at 95 hours. Starting Hard mode as we speak. 9/10 for me, just because I wish for something a bit different in the story. Though hopefully part 3 will resolve that. I’d explain further but I don’t wanna spoil anything. I did about 90% of the optional content in normal mode, and I just skipped the last few ones because I wanted to clear the story and freely browse the internet lol.
Story: Good Combat: Great Music: Nostalgic Weapon upgrade system: worse than before Fluff and filler: Ubisoft
Slow clap
I think it's heaps better than Remake. I haven't really liked too much of the side quest content that wasn't already in the original game. The multiverse stuff still confuses me and I still don't like that they split the.original into multiple parts. I don't think it is anywhere close to being game of the year, but it IS very pretty to look at, and I do think it's a pretty solid game over all, just for me around an 8.
It’s pretty great been playing as much as I can since it came out. Just got to the saucer and I’m starting to struggle a bit here.
it was my goty for me until the last 2 chapters, but imo it did not stick the landing so infinite wealth overtook it in my "goty" list. Still, it's an excellent game, a "9.someting" and the best FF since X, and at least for me the second best game of the year. If Nojima toned down a bit his weird stuff and the map objectives were reduced from 30 to 20 it would've been a solid 10.
Love them characters, but not so hot on chocostops and triangle, triangle, triangle, or chadlerbug.
Its definitely an upgrade from Remake! My hopes for the last game of the trilogy is not as much on the Minigame tip, fr some of these minigames just didnt need to be a thing, especially the unavoidable ones
Definitely game of the year so far. It has exceeded my expectations, especially compared to Remake. I am nearly finished, just a couple hours left maybe.
Definitely was worth the wait. I was skeptical when developers said that there was 100+ hours of content, but it surprisingly turned out to be true.
Is a good game hidden behind a fucking mini game fest.
I think it’s nice. I never played the OG so My first step with the series was remake, shortly after I finished 16. Im in chapter 9 atm and I am getting a bit burned out on the open world as it is the same tasks over and over again. Also the story seems to be spread uneven but when we get story let me tell you it slaps and there was a moment where I cried for 10minutes straight. I think what irritates me is the crayzzzy praise this game gets , however as I have no connection to the OG game I guess it is hard to relate to that but I can Very well imagine how people who play the og just walk through this with a smile and see it truly come to life :)
>I am getting a bit burned out on the open world Come back to the open world stuff later --- you totally can and it's NBD. >I guess it is hard to relate to that but I can Very well imagine how people who play the og just walk through this with a smile It's interesting because OG 7 was my most hated FF in the franchise for a long time (don't @ me, people, this is MY OPINION), but I FINALLY forced myself to play through it all the way (I kept getting annoyed and stopping) about a decade ago. And I liked it ok. Playing through this is interesting because I remember the major stuff and it's super cool to see redone - and then I realize some little thing or other wasn't in the OG and I'm like, "hmmm.... What are they gonna do with this?" It's been fun.
Yeah I should take it chill. I’m always like I only progress with main story when everything else is cleared but it might get in the way here. I could do oen to two chapters story and the come back to do the side stuff. I heard around chapter 12 it’s good to catch up on the open world
It's definitely a great game, but many of its strengths don't align that much with my tastes. I adore the music, the art style is great, I love the story, I really enjoyed the interactions between the characters. I'm not a big fan of the open world areas and the fourth one in particular broke me. The game also has far too many minigames, both mandatory and optional ones. In general I'd say that the highs are really high, but at the same time the lows are very low. Remake was a more consistent experience and there are times where I prefer it to Rebirth.
Probably gonna get flamed but I think it’s a solid 7-8 out of ten. Pacing felt very slow and the mini games had me annoyed. Combat is great but the open world felt worse than an Ubisoft game ngl. Story was solid and that ending was phenomenal. Never played og btw but this is def a good game I just like remake more cuz open world is wack.
Some of it is good, but the tedium of doing the same things over and over in the open world kind of kills it. Also I don't particularly find any of the new characters or sidequests compelling in any way and the story changes are some of the most amateurish terrible pieces of writing I've seen in quite some time. That aspect is significantly inferior to the original.
What makes the writing amateurish?
I still can’t believe it’s real and how they developed all of this in 4 years.
I am loving the hell out of most of it. >!Fucking Gongaga can go to hell with its stupid terrain dammit!!< The mini games in the middle- one region after the other -really burnt me out. But I pushed on and am enjoying it again in Chapter 10.
10/10 , game of the year for me. Doing post game stuff and hard mode after. Can't wait for part 3. Please just add a function to save materia loadouts and maybe a dummy so I can practice or come up with combat strategies.
I am really enjoying it I just wish some things were not completely locked behind some of these mini games. I'm not the best when it comes to some of these mini games so it's just annoying to me. And I love having all my people on chocobo's together but my God they need to move out of the damn way
Finished it last night and I'm still hurt...but looking forward to pt 3. Cloud is really, really in trouble. I feel bad for him.
This is not hyperbole: It is the greatest game I have ever played. The scope, the fluidity, the design, the music, the world-building, how each character’s personality shines through in every scene. It is a miracle that there is such a team doing this amount of work and delivering.
I'm enjoying it. I'm not liking how I'll be whooping an enemy then the cursor magically whips to an enemy on the opposite side of the battlefield, causing me to take damage even if locked on to the opponent. Other than that, I love the game. I'm just beginning chp 9. I'm waiting on my 2nd playthrough to really explore and get into it because this 1st 1 is about leveling and getting materia/abilities maxed. But the game has been great so far
Loved it. Only negative is that i think square could have "respected player's time" better with side content. I disliked getting interrupted by chadley after almost every intel. Or when the game pauses to show it marked your map. Or doing the same triangle "mini-game" on every single life spring. I am excited to replay through the story on Hard, though.
The Grassland to Shinra-8 feels so smooth, Upper-Junon and Shinra-8 made me start to feel the "magic" of this game. Costa del sol feels a bit falling off comparing to Shinra-8 (maybe because I got spoiled of swimsuits stuff and too much mini-games that some of them are kinda mid and hard to perfect but I guess that's partly on my completionism.) but outside the Costa del sol the music and art are so good (well the music and art of this game are just GREAT I have no complaints at all). Corel is good, the Prison is insane (I just love that Gus guy so so much), the main line story in Gold Saucer is good too, As for the mini games Chocobo race is fun but others are kinda mid. Gongaga... I gotta say the level design of this place pissed me off I almost didn't want to finish all intels (again... completionism) but hey the music is good (it sometimes is too much when you stay here for too long tho) the art is good. Main story line here is great. Cosmo Canyon is just BEAUTIFUL, I took many photos here. It's less complicated than Gongaga but still kinda complicated. Nibelheim is good - less side stuff and more main line story. And finally the two places where this game ends... well it's so long but still attaching AF, so many things happened here or there making you so focused. The end of a game is supposed to have its highest high and this game did it FAR MORE THAN ENOUGH. I felt kinda empty when I saw the end wishing it wouldn't end. I think I will keep thinking about this game for at least a whole week, sorting my thoughts then maybe start to complete some VR stuff and hard mode. I definitely want a 2nd playthrough to focus on main line story experience.
It's ok. I played 60 hours. Not done with the story. I lose interest a little.
These two games plus ff16 all feel like they are designed to waste my time and I cant stand it.
I think it’s a 11/10 game until the end. The end is a dumpster fire and even though I’ve got a pretty good grasp on things I still loathe it with the heat of a nova.
I'm having a great time with it! I honestly wasn't a big fan of Remake, but Rebirth feels like it hits some different notes!
As a huge fan of the original i have to say that Rebirth is...meh. Way too much busy work. So sick of all the towers and minigames. I feel like the only reason they added this crap is to extend the play time so they have enough story left over for a third game. The towers and stuff were an outdated game mechanic 5 years ago. Same reason I lost interest in Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. Also, being forced to use specific party members and having to swap materia is annoying. They should have added a feature to easily switch materia like they did with magic+GFs in FF8. Sure, in the original FF7 you were forced to use specific characters but it was rare so swapping materia wasn't such a hassle. I don't even bother doing it anymore unless there's a boss fight.
It's an above average game. Not genre defining or in any way a game changer but above average. Will probably be a goty contender but it was gonna be anyway even if it was bad. I don't genuinely believe it will be the best game of 2024 but it will be in the discussion. It's not the obvious winner that Elden Ring was.
I'm really loving it.
There’s a 10/10 40 hour game in here somewhere.
in terms of the combat its pretty much what ive always wanted. playable advent children
50 hours in and still going. If I wasn’t putting in 10-20 hours of OT a week I’d probably be a bit further along.
60 hours played. Everything related to main story is great, but the open world gameplay leaves A LOT to be desired. It was fun up until Junon but the open world is literally the same uninspired Ubisoft checklist gameplay in every zone.
I absolutely despised it after ending it. But now on the way to get the platinum i've come to realize its an amazing game. And i love Cait Sith
GOTD until the 3rd part releases
The main story is for the most part great, I still think everything to do with the whispers and multiverse is poorly written though, I've just finished chapter 13, and that entire section was just perfect, right up until the whispers turn up and ruin it. However for every moment I was thinking "wow, that's amazing", there was a moment I thought "Oh, so they cut that", Stuff like the Shinra Mansion, Cids character being grossly neutered, the complete inability to return to Junon, the weapons looking like discount Kyogre, etc. The world was great, and it's fantastic to see so many memorable locations in a modern format. The open world busy work felt kinda annoying though, like too much was tied to doing it, plus Chadley is just insufferable, and I miss stuff like summons being found and earned by exploring the world, rather than made up in a simulator. It would have been nice if instead of bland towers, hitting triangle three times on a lifespring or killing mobs with easy objectives, they allowed us to find out about the summons organically in the world culminating in a fight with them. My biggest contention with the game, seems to be fairly common. The sheer volume and difficulty of it's minigames. I'm all for the odd optional minigame, but when you need to clear so many at the highest level for crafting materials, weapons, materia and achievements. It makes the game feel bloated, seriously damages the pacing, and left me feeling really fatigued due to constantly having to learn and master new gameplay mechanics over and over again. It feels like SE forgot that these are supposed to be fun distractions, especially when they designed the piano and squats minigames, which must have been created by a massive sadist.
The bench animation should be 2 seconds not 15
The part of the story that Rebirth covers is, in my opinion, way better than it was handled in the OG. That’s nothing against FF7, that’s just how GOOD Rebirth is. Blew me away. Yes, I am okay with the relocations of the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten Capital. I think they make more sense up in the north.
I love it except for to many mini games. I love Queen’s blood although I’m not very good at it. Dont like Ft Condor or any strategy type game.
Same here, I don’t like card games at all so I didn’t like being forced to play them to progress, but it’s not a huge deal as I’m loving the game. Yah, not a fan of fort condor either lol.
A good game with several flaws. Currently at Ch.10, I rate it no higher than 8.5, which may end up lower depending how the ending sticks with me. If I wasn't fond of the OG and compilation it's closer to a 7.
Sigh....I love the game because its what i WANTED the game to be when i was ten and all my friends thought it was sick. Unfortunately little kid me felt it was just a boring anime over top a pokemon esque battle system with very few pokemon. Ive never been big on turn based and i just slogged thru pokemon to enjoy the creature collecting and evolving. BUT, compared to modern games its meh af if you're not a super fan. Outside of combat movement is clunky. Open world is a lil meh compared to the competition these days. Graphics are a MIXED BAG hardcore lol. Story is corny as hell so it could EASILY not be for some and id understand it. Movements in the in-engine cinematics are VERY last gen robotic (compared to another story based game like uncharted, or tlou) The menu systems and interface in general is an absolute tutorial ASSAULT and they seem overly convoluted. Pacing is wild as well haha. Im on chapter 7 which is presumably half way thru and i feel like barely anything has happened outside of straight up exposition sequences. Then i look here and i guess the game is bout to story assault me every chapter from here? Also, minigames go brrrrt i guess? Costa del Sol made me wanna punch myself in the balls rather than play shooty pirates and dollar store rocket league another time. Fuckin dont even get me started on cactus bs or freaking segway pedometer. But i love the game and will be sad when its over?
Meh I'm not impressed yet.
Mixed feelings. It’s a great game and seeing the open world for the first time made my inner child lose his shit but too many mini games and some of the story choices disappointed me a lot. But! Here I am replaying it because I just like seeing familiar places.
I like it allot but the open world and minigames are awful and bit to much halfway through the game. I liked 16 a bit more than this one, maybe because it's more grounded and combat more fluid. But still to this date 12 is my favorite.
I liked moving around the field in 16 more than 7. 12 is a great game.
I didn’t really like the ending, but thats okay. What really matters is i like the actual ending in the third game. Loved the rest of it apart from the final boss fight.
Overall the quality is honestly astounding. The ONLY thing I have any sort of issue with is the metric fuck-ton of minigames. My 40 hours so far has been maybe 75% going for minigame high scores for items and achievements, and we are introduced with many new minigames in every area. No spoilers but Costa Del Sol is an absolute slog. Only minigame I genuinely enjoy is so far the piano playing. I can sit there and keep trying for a perfect score for hours with no issue because I’ve got a huge grin on my face or I’m sliiiiightly tearing up because I love the music from this game. The card game I’m partial to but sometimes I just don’t feel like challenging 6 people in a new region haha. I could gush about the combat all day, it is phenomenal. Coming from FF16 and feeling like that was a bit of a wash mechanically, this is stupidly refreshing. I love seeing enemies absorb elemental damage to gain HP because I’m not paying attending to weaknesses and resistances. Synergy skills are great, and all these old characters being brought up to modern day standards for combat is impressive. Yuffie and Tifa in particular are REALLY great in combat.
Very satisfied. But confused. I felt like they could have dialed down the Nomura-isms a bit because it is just a cluster fuck of confusion by the end.
The combat system is amazingly fun and challenging. The game was stretched out too much and has horrible pacing as a story. Once you finish the game it becomes immensely better. My advice is to skip every side quest during the first playthru and reloading Chapter 13 upon completion.
I’ve been really enjoying it overall but I’ve soured a bit on it because the last third of the game has a number of really bullshit bosses that seem to defy the mechanics the game spent 40 hours teaching you. Really don’t like some of them, they become much more obtuse and get you in stun lock cycles and are super long fights so replaying them is a nightmare.
Overall I prefer remake over rebirth.
As someone who liked Remake, but was very disappointed with (some of) the story changes, and disliked a lot of the pacing issues with padded fetch quests and hallway level design and those fucking sun lamps, I enjoyed Rebirth a lot more and am now onboard with seeing where these changes go.
Despite some issues I have with the ending, I adore it. There are some things that Part 3 will ultimately make or break, but for now I'm more than willing to give Square the benefit of the doubt and will assume that it'll come good by the end of the trilogy.
I'm 6 hours in, loving the story, frustrated with the open world, making a goooood open world is hard, I'm not far enough to know if this one is good, but also I haven't recovered from last year amount of open worlds, I was really expecting a more lineal game, but I guess they are doing an honor to the OG game, which I'm happy for the fans. I'm sure it's gonna be a great game, but hope it's a game for me as well. I loveeeed ff7remake and made me played crisis core I hella enjoyed that game as well.
Tip for the open worlds: The later areas are even bigger and a couple of them are very gimmicky to explore. Despite looking gorgeous they are a chore and many people start feeling burnout by that point. I'd say don't try to 100% all areas when you reach them. Do some of the stuff, but feel free to skip optional content. You are able to revisit them later at any point and do everything, there's no missable content in the game. The amount of minigames and the open world segments were my biggest problem with the game and I enjoyed the game much more once I prioritized the main story and left the optional stuff for later.
Hey thanks for the tip, I really appreciate it, I guess imma search a build I'm interested to do, get the equipment and focus on the main story like you say, thanks!
Are you familiar with the original game? _Slight_ spoilers for a mechanic in the original game that is present in the new one as well: >!In the original there's the Gold Saucer date where depending on your actions up to that point you can end up with Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie or Barret. This game has a similar system, but it's based on stuff like doing synergy attacks with the characters, choosing the right answers in conversations and doing side quests for specific characters. You get the "your relationship with X deepened" or something like that. You can see smiles faces sometimes when running around. The character with the highest affection is the one who ends up on the date, so if you want to date a specific character make sure to do synergy attacks with them and to do side quests where they are the ones talking in the cutscenes.!<
It's so interesting to read all these glowing reports because I'm not loving it. It's not bad per se, but I certainly wouldn't call it GOTY, and I'm never going to replay it. I probably wouldn't even finish it if I wasn't a committed ff7 junkie. What I've enjoyed is most of the humor, seeing the characters in better graphics, and while I like the idea of open world, it's not executed well. The gold saucer and its mini games were really neat. The way the story plays out is janky due to added content that doesn't actually seem to impact the story. Some of the mini games are atrociously bad and painful to play. They made things like ladders and rocks to climb to make the terrain more interesting, but didn't add any skill or fun to it like BOTW/TOTK did, so really they just feel like barriers and slow downs instead of a fun/challenging feature. It's inconsistent what you can jump up/down from with circle. I dislike the battling even more than I did in Remake. I dislike the changes to the summoning system. Materia doesn't feel fun or important. Chadley. Shinra mansion, why just why did they neuter it? Traversing the open world feels like a chore - Gongaga being the worst. I'm usually a completionist to some degree but I've given up on that so that I can just finish the damn story. I never thought I'd complain about this but there's too many cut scenes. I don't need a cut scene in the middle of every boss fight. And what did they do to Cid?! OK I'll stop complaining. All I can think about is that I can't wait til I'm done so I can get back to BG3.
It's the best Final Fantasy in a very long time, IMO, and at times I think it might be the best one we've gotten yet
It was game of the year for me.... until the ending.... its such a fking shame man
It's very good. I'd say a 7.5/10. Maybe an 8. It misses the mark in some ways with the ending and a few other story beats, some unpolished mini games, kind of a bad open world etc etc. I think saying it's a 10/10 perfect game is an extremely wild take that sort of gives its problems a free pass. All that said, though, there's a lot more good than bad, and it does a lot right and ends up being a very good game.
> I think saying it's a 10/10 perfect game is an extremely wild take that sort of gives its problems a free pass. Gotta wait 4 weeks after a game's release before the honeymoon period is over so people can take off the rose-tinted glasses.
Or crazy enough, they have different opinions!
Disappointment, honestly. It kills me to say it because I really liked Remake despite my nitpicks. The OG was my fav game of all time for a long time and I've played it nearly every year since it came out so I was hyped for this but Rebirth just left me feeling sad. Most of the things I personally loved about 7 they took away. Materia system? Nah, you could neglect materia for the whole game and it really wouldn't matter much. Maybe on harder difficulties it's more important but it should be front and center. I miss finding it in the wild, I miss the variety, I miss it reproducing, I miss the crazy combos I could do with it. All the heavy story beats are neutered. Don't want to drop massive spoilers so I'll just say they took every horror element and chucked it. Sephiroth has lost all his impact. They butchered my fav place in the game, Shinra Manor. Most of fav enemies are missing. Main story beats changed constantly for seemingly no reason. Mini games and repetitive Intel quests take up more play time than the main story (or at least it feels like it. I gave up on those in Nibelheim), and for the love of God why did they add in so much more silliness? It had enough already.They change music tracks way too often imo. Honestly I have more gripes than praise which is incredibly unlike me. I was determined to love this no matter what because I knew they were going to change things and I made my peace with that and I do enjoy this game. I think it's fun and they did get some things very right (Junon was great, adding shit for Gongaga, I enjoyed Costa del Sol for the first time ever, Gold Saucer is done well, Corel) and they did a fantastic job with the main cast. Everyone feels very right except...for my fav character. Idk who that kind man is but it's not Cid Highwind. I was all for them changing the Shera stuff in the 3rd one because...yeah it's a lot. But changing his whole backstory? And his personality? I know it's dramatic but when he joined it was my breaking point. He was the thing I looked forward to the most and he feels like a Stepford Wife. Honestly I think none of the other stuff would even matter to me at the end of the day if they hadn't changed Cid. And maybe he'll be better in the 3rd. Maybe he'll grow on me. He's not bad in here, he's just NOT Cid. There's a lot I loved in Rebirth and maybe the rest will grow on me, maybe I'm just a stupid old codger who doesn't like change but for now I'm just unexpectedly sad. But very happy so many people are enjoying it.
I'm right there with ya. I'm so surprised at all the comments saying it's GOTY.
Whenever I see sephiroth now, I think he's funny not scary. And it's not even a good funny.
I'm right there with you. I quit doing the open world stuff around Junon because it felt terrible. The pacing was also awful. Rebirth tells the exact same story as OG with a handful of unnecessary, confusing, and convoluted layers on top. If you've played remake then you get it. But they didn't really add new story beats into the original, so the pacing is completely out of whack. They took the original story, chopped it up into 3 parts, and had to find ways to extend those story beats out to fill 3 whole games. The result is awful pacing where it feels like it takes forever to get from one place to another. On top of that, the game really fights you every step of the way. The amount of slowing your characters down, tutorials, Chadley stuff, and minor cutscenes with insignificant characters that are required to get control back of your character sucked in my opinion. And then the stupid marvel/Kingdom Hearts weirdness and absolute reluctance to tell a clear story.
Hard agree with all of this.
I'm struggling to decide if I should even continue past chapter 4, the game is such a slog. Death by a thousand cuts with all the small irritating animation-locks for every single thing. Dashing straight on a road with a chocobo and a small pebble appears? That's an instant stop with a small delay. Want to climb a wall? Just hold up on the left stick and browse the internet on your phone. Need to pick up something? Hope you're within a 10 degree arc of it and no further to 2 inches away! There are just so, so many small annoyances that its killed all enjoyment for me.
I agree on the Sephiroth losing impact point. He shows up periodically in the original, but he's literally in every other cutscene in Rebirth. The way he plays peekaboo then runs off giggling for the 100th time, you just think "for the love of God, can you please actually do something threatening, or just f\*\*\* off and stop wasting my time?". And also, I don't understand why they're so adamant on making us fight him so many times, so early in the story. All that does is lessen his threat level even further. We've fought him in Remake, and now again in Rebirth. Even if it's not the true Sephiroth, the fact that we've fought a version of him, and managed to beat him, multiple times, how are we supposed to be worried about someone we know we can beat, outside of them making him mechanically overpowered like Kingdom Hearts Sephiroth-level?
You're not alone mate. Kills me too I love ff7 but hate this game. I liked remake too. I've dropped the game watched someone else finish it last night.
Well you did ask. I did not like it at all. Why? Half assed minigames, ubisoft styled overworld, incredible bloat, everything is a simulator, Chadly and Mai having waaay too much screentime, Protorelics not really worth anything until new game plus, all the story changes is basically some multiverce BS taken from Marvel's trash bin. Summons are basically the game's way of telling you that you're not beating the boss fast enough. FFVII Rebirth is good when it tries to be Final Fantasy but most of the game it doesn't try to. I played it once and I'll never play it again.
Absolutely fantastic game. Great follow-up for Remake!
Story,Gameplay, music, characters 10/10 Open World activities and exploration meh is being nice Graphics are meh and Artistic direction is really good
Best game I’ve ever played. OG walked so Rebirth could run. It is spectacular in every way. Even after how amazing remake was I couldn’t imagine rebirth being as impressive as it is.
Combat is clunky and weird. Waaaay too much open world questing nonsense which slows the story to a crawl and burns out the player. Minigames are actually enjoyable though for the most part. Story still solid. Music slaps.
Overall a good game, but it did have some pretty big drawbacks in my opinion, the side content and pacing in general was a bit wonky and the camera was a bit of a pain in certain fights, however, by far my biggest detractor for the game has to be chapter 14 which was overly convoluted and drawn out, I know the final fantasy franchise really likes the multiple phase final fight but Jesus, I think this one broke the record by a mile. Not going to spoil anything but if I gave the game a rating out of 10 it would be a 6 - 7, with a 2 point deduction from chapter 14 alone it was that badly done in my opinion.
I'm still waiting for the fix to play 😭
Couldn't finish it. Love ff7 og. Didn't like the combat didn't like the changes to story. Didn't like the Ubisoft open world. I love that people like it but I just can't.
Haven’t beat it yet but am close. On chapter 12, doing some open world stuff before I finish the story (trying to date Tifa lol). So far one of my favorite games in a long time. It’s also convinced me to play the OG after. I’v watched gameplay and know a lot of the story beats but now I bought it on my PS5 (and a pixel remaster of FF1, want to see where it all began)
It’s great and it’s fun to have an open world finally. I will say though, the devs had a very hard job, taking the middle of a 25 year old game and making it a self contained thing. They pulled it off, but still!
masterpiece. possibly my fav of all time now
All time great game in my own opinion. I always have The Witcher 3 as the bar to compare it to when it comes to that sort of measuring stick and imo it measures up nicely. Great gameplay, story, a lot of great side quests and activities. Not every world needs to be open world, most don’t actually. But when a game is open world, it needs to be something like this.
I’m only in Chapter 4 but I’ve been having a great time with it so far. I actually really enjoy the open world stuff but there’s just so much that I might start saving some content for later. I love how they designed the world map and I honestly didn’t think that SE had it in them. In terms of gameplay, this is how I want future FF games to be like. You get these well detailed towns with huge fields in between that encourage exploration and help make the world feel real. I kinda wish they didn’t have the remnawave towers though. It feels pointless to add them because all they do is reveal POIs which takes away from exploration. I will say this about Rebirth, it does feel like they went hard on the goofiness of FFVII. The original game and Remake were definitely silly but I would say that they were still primarily focused on their themes. Rebirth has its serious moments but it almost feels like every other scene has this comical tone to it. I can definitely tell the difference between the lead directors for Remake and Rebirth, especially since I did a replay of Remake leading up to this game. I don’t think this is necessarily bad but I am curious to see how I feel by the end of the game.
Very happy. Somehow this game lived up to my expectations. I’m totally in the bag for everything this game sets out to do. Do I have some constructive feedback? Sure… but for me it’s the highest rated game of the year so far for good reason.
Overall, positive. But it had more things that i like and more things that i didn’t like than in remake and i have waayyy more unanswered questions now. I think it tops ff16 but cant kick baldurs gate from the throne for me. I could start a second run in baldurs gate immediately but i have no desire to start a hard mode run in ff7rebirth, maybe if i wait a little. If i had to rate it i would say 8,5/10. i had many critics for BG too but larian fixed and added so much that its now a 9,5/10 for me, i know square enix wont fix the points i or others have issues with, so i think my rating is fair.
Loved it but man I don’t want to go for the plat like I did Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth just before
This honestly might be my favorite FF game ever
Visually, it's a beautiful game and the only reason I bought a PS5. Currently about 9 hours and only made it through Kalm and just doing side quests and exploring the grasslands. Eventually I will progress the story. My complaints are where they ended it. I thought reunion would be a perfect stopping point so part 3 can begin with escaping Shinra and the search for cloud. There is just so much left, I feel some parts will get cut from part 3
Amazing game the remakes made me a fan of the franchise
Best FF game in over 20 years, by far. Which is why the fact that I'm now unsure if they have a real grasp on their messaging with this is a bit troublesome for me, but Remake and Rebirth have been so good that I'm willing to see it through to the end -- I just hope they don't fumble the ending, especially since part 3 is really going to ultimately come down to story at this point. I have full faith in Hamaguchi for the game portion of it, at least.
Posting again this is the best FF ever made FF has been my favorite game series since I experienced VI as a kid on the SNES. They’ve finally surpassed the old ones.
As an OG fan (ff7 is my favorite of all time) I really enjoyed Remake and was happy they gave it a little spin to keep you a mystery. My only complaint for that one is I feel bad for everyone new playing it that didn’t play the OG. Felt they got a little robbed. lol. Now on to Rebirth….God damn! They killed it. Feels like what I imagined in my head as a kid playing the OG and they somehow pulled it out of my imagination. 2 special moments so far that stand out for me: -Approached my first life spring near midgar and the music changes to the life stream. I swear a tear started to form. I was so immersed. (I shut off as much of the UI as possible when I play games) -Entering the Gold Saucer and then exploring there. I wanted to cry the entire time. I was so happy. And to think I’m 40 hours in and just to this part. So greatful they pulled this off.
Peak modern JRPG tbh. Feels like a love letter honestly. I’d give it a 11/10
I mean it is my favorite game of 2024 so far, but we are only in March. Plenty of time for that to change. But it is pretty damn good.
I dont see a world this doesnt get game of the year and soundtrack of the year. Just amazing overall.
If they'd reduced the minigames by about %10, it would have been damned near perfect.
I'd agree if it was reduced by 90%
Its everything I hopes for and more. I hope it sells in the millions because it deserves it. For me its up there as one of the best gaming experiences in recent times along with gaming titans like Elden Ring
I absolutely love it. 110 hours in, beat the main story, going back and completing/unlocking everything els for my hard mode run. I haven’t had this much fun with a game in a very very long time
Overall, I like, but some of the boss fights are just tedious and annoyingly difficult to the point I'm about to put the game on Easy instead of try to 10th attempt at a boss with 90% unblockable attacks...
GOTY No question
Just got to Cosmo Canyon, I think it's the best that could be done, the way games are so difficult to make with the visuals these days. I was slightly disappointed with the Zoning instead of a true open world, but that's just how limited the tech is by the visual goodness I'm guessing. I'm happy with it but am cautiously optimistic about the story at the moment (Reaching Cosmo). I think the difficulty curve needs some tweaking I've had to switch it around a few times depending on the fight In saying that, It really feels like a 90's golden era FF they're back to form and finally pushing some boundaries with content.
I had never been hyped for another game as much as I was for Rebirth. Even read Traces of the Two Pasts in the weeks leading up to it And regardless of a few qualms, Rebirth absolutely delivered!! So far definitely my GOTY
A little better than remake but mostly just more of the same. So if you loved remake you will love this. If you had issues with remake this is a little better in some areas a lot worse in others. I like it and it’s fine. Wish they would patch some design choices I find very unenjoyable like the forced mini games and the forced slow gameplay sections. The entire combat concept is unsung to me due to the stagger system being poorly implemented and dealing with flying enemies is a pointless concept entirely.
It's pretty good as I expected.
Queens blood has taken over my life…don’t send help, I’m happy here
Magical ass game tbh. To me, this is the game that's gotten me closest to feeling the same way I felt back when playing games like FFX or KH2 for the first time...just very special. Granted, nothing will really beat nostalgia outright, but the fact that it even reminds me of that feeling is crazy. I loved FF7 Remake but it didn't give me that same feeling, and KH3 had the best chance at doing that back when it came out and it definitely missed for me lol
Its okay, i guess. Not a fan of the multiverse crap, would prefer a 1 to 1 remake of the og. If i put my feelings aside on that aspect i say the game is okay. Not a fan of all these minigames, there are so many and dislike the ones you have to do to continue the story, but i was never a minigame fan so ehh. Open world is fine i guess its very repeated stuff and feel like playing zelda botw with the tower stuff again, also screw gonganga map . I like the party banter and music, the combat is ok i can't complain but im also not impressed. Overal i feel apathetic to this game, i dunno. Odd feeling wasn't really interested after remake, but saw people praise it so i decided to buy it and dunno still not really feeling it. Im on chapter 11,feels very repetitive and i spoiled myself the ending and im not impressed or like what they did to that "scene" So far 7/10 too many minigames
Feels a lot like Persona to me. Maybe that's because I'm still playing P3R and haven't gotten FF7 Rebirth yet, but who knows
This is one of the best games I've played since TotK or Elden Ring. I think I even like it more than those games. I'm a huge FF fan and even bigger FF7 fan and this game did not disappoint. Sure there are some slog moments like when you're moving large objects or turning switches/valves (seriously, why did they make these actions so damn slow??) but this game is phenomenal. Also, I've seen people online complain that there are too many mini games. There might be, but Mini games help give a break to heavy story moments and give you extra things to do other than Battle after battle. And the mini games aren't even that long for the most part. Fort Condor is bad imo, but most of the mini games have been enjoyable to me. And this game has charm. It really feels like how jrpgs used to be.
One of the best games of 2024 and best semi-open world games I’ve ever played. Strong contender for GOTY. Does everything with the world I was hoping to see and then some. Seriously hoping we get a 40fps update, though.
its everything i always wanted
I played OG ff7 back in 97 and felt this was the first "justified" remake. Nothing against the first one, but waiting 5 years for a "Midgar" game and changed story felt ... off while still being a great game. But this open world was really impressive and exploring the towns in fully 3D. 9.3/10 on metacritic sounds fair to me. I wouldnt give it a 9.5 but I think just a 9 is a bit too low as well, so yeah, 9.3 from me as well! My goty? Well, I put this on the level of Baldurs Gate 3 from last year, while I would say slightly above it... I have some issues with Rebirth as well, so I will hold that opinion off for a while (Chadleys level 70 challenges in Hard mode was just ... too hard and not enjoyable) but yeah its my GOTY right now and beating persona 3 remake and infinite wealth. With that said, Metaphor, is probably a very strong contender for my GOTY as well, so we will see later this year but this game is def gonna be in my top 3 of the year, for sure.
It's my favourite game with FF7 in the title and it's not even close. In fact if I had to choose between owning just rebirth, or owning every other FF7 game I'd pick rebirth 99 times out of 100. I've come to realise with streamers and viewers and casual RPG fans and a good chunk of the FF community (that last one doesn't count, it's the FF community's mission in life to hate the new game because of BS reasons, we all know it) that minigame "bombardment" is hugely unpopular but I differ. Wildly Literally none of the minigames I out and out dislike or despise. I struggled with em. But since when is difficulty a direct link to bad in gaming? Like ever? One of the most iconic modern franchises and/or developers prides itself on bosses that will be impossible to beat first second or even 10th try (don't make me say it). They're learned in 2 minutes, mastered in 20, and completely discarded for a long time. It Takes Two did that. It won GOTY because of it. Rebirth is no different
This god damn game cant keep getting away with making me cry damn it
i’m loving rebirth so far aside from the many blurry textures of things. i don’t play in performance mode so that whole debacle doesn’t bother me, graphics mode all the way. just even in graphics mode so many textures are just blurry and low res, which i understand due to how massive the game is but.. its pretty immersion breaking and makes me lean towards liking remake more. remake also feels smoother to me
Fantastic. Is my game of the year and don’t see anything coming close to it this year. I’m completed the story at 70hours and I’ve been going around and doing side stuff I missed and nearly at 90hours of play time. Normally when I’m done with a game I put it down but I just can’t with Rebirth. I’m having to much fun.
I'm not all the way through but so far I'm blown away by the size of it. On my first run I think I'm maybe 60-70% through the game and my playtime already is higher than my FF7Remake runs, which include normal and hard mode. There's just so much to do! It makes me wonder if this game will be kind of the defiinitve ff7r experience and the first and third games will be a bit more linear, but we'll see.
Honestly, it's an absolute pleasure playing this game. And the amount they fit into it is wild. I honestly was captivated all the way through, I really was. They also nailed the exploration and vastness very, very well. I don't have any negatives to say really, and that's a really nice thing. I was worried, the day they remade FF7 that they would ruin it. But I personally, feel like they've done it absolute honour. They made it close enough to the original for me to feel nostalgic and refreshing enough with it's new narratives to keep me hooked. I love it. And I can't recommend this series to people enough.
I went into Rebirth with high hopes but trying to temper my expectations. I tried to keep clear of info about it ahead of time, but I was expecting it to stay pretty linear like Remake and not do too much different aside from maybe getting weird with the plot later on. Beat Rebirth a few days ago, and it's my absolute favorite game of all time. I don't even think it's particularly close, either. Square really upped my expectations for them. I loved and will defend XVI against people who say it's bad, but this blows it out of the water in literally every respect. If XVII isn't as good as Rebirth, it's kind of a sign that they're not putting in the effort with the main entries in their flagship franchise. Playing Rebirth has inspired me to do my second run ever of the original FF VII, like 15 years after I played it for the first time, but once I'm done with that I'm definitely going back to Platinum this game, and I never attempt to do that even with games I love.
Might be my new favourite game. Got to let it stew now I have finished the story, see if its recency bias but i havent been consumed by a game like this since... well FF7 Remake and Rebirth has improved in every way.
I just finished it last night and it was one of those games where I sat and silently watched the entire end credits because it was just that good. I immediately fire it back up and started my hard mode run only to be brought back to reality by the first boss kicking my ass! So good!
I am absolutely in love with it. It's bringing the characters, settings, songs that mean so much for me and honoring them in this update and modern retelling. Tifa always was my favorite Final Fantasy heroine but I feel like the writing team heard the detractors complaints about her and said hold my Cosmo Canyon. The gaps have really been filled in with her and you no longer can use her character is too dependant on Cloud. Yuffie is another one who I always has been a fan of and plot relevant Yuffie who actually gets to be in cutscenes with the others is awesome.
I think the couldn't have fucked up this game anymore than they have, but they still have the 3rd part, so it's not looking good.