43M Posted July 13 Author Share Posted July 13 Every time I think I am done with this damn game, more stuff pops up. I thought after finishing everything in Nibel, it would be a larger focus on the main story the last few chapters, but NOPE....now I can travel the entire map, explore the waters and new sidequests are added, and I feel too compelled to do most of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncofan Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 (edited) On 7/13/2024 at 11:47 AM, 43M said: Every time I think I am done with this damn game, more stuff pops up. I thought after finishing everything in Nibel, it would be a larger focus on the main story the last few chapters, but NOPE....now I can travel the entire map, explore the waters and new sidequests are added, and I feel too compelled to do most of it. You can do them post-game if you like - but if you are only planning on 1 play through - the new side quests are very worthwhile. The new task awaiting you as you land on the pier in Costa Del Sol to start Ch-12 is def worth it. Nice story fun gameplay and you only get access to the best accessories by completing this quest (a couple more steps still required after to get them but both are either pretty straightforward or a ton of fun). Plus you get to explore a new area. New side quest wise Kalm is easy and probably adds the least - but takes such a short time. The other areas the extra quests definitely deepen the story / characters involved (Gongaga <Monster patrol>, Costa Del Sol <Billy> & Junon <Monster> def were top 10 side quests for me in the story addition dep’t). And without spoiling you want to complete every task in Nibelheim <Shinra Manor> for that side quest - there’s a reward that’s def worth it. Edited July 14 by Broncofan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 14 Author Share Posted July 14 This Odin fight is just stupid and cheap. Horribly balanced and needlessly frustrating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncofan Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 16 hours ago, 43M said: This Odin fight is just stupid and cheap. Horribly balanced and needlessly frustrating. It’s only playable in the post-game but it’s fair to say he’s the most ridiculous challenge in the Legendary boss battles. I actually fluked out and beat him first time in the OG playthrough Boss battle - total fluke because I parried / dodged perfectly. One thing that’s hard is the more aggressive you are with him the better - fewer chances for that Zanzezutken attack to come forth. If you end up being too passive that comes out - so cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 57 minutes ago, Broncofan said: It’s only playable in the post-game but it’s fair to say he’s the most ridiculous challenge in the Legendary boss battles. I actually fluked out and beat him first time in the OG playthrough Boss battle - total fluke because I parried / dodged perfectly. One thing that’s hard is the more aggressive you are with him the better - fewer chances for that Zanzezutken attack to come forth. If you end up being too passive that comes out - so cheap. I know. I followed a few guides and still couldn't do it. I get him down to quarter health and everything is going well, and sudden he busts out his final move. So annoying. Beyond this, the other two that are endlessly annoying are.. 1) the Combat Simulator battle where you have to beat Mindflayer first. My party members just kill the other two enemies right away, and I cant kill Mindflayer in time with one party member. 2) Joker in the dustbowl deathmatch. It took me 7 or 8 tries to beat him. I don't mind dying and trying other methods, but much like with Odin, certain elements of the battle made it more annoying than fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncofan Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 (edited) 3 hours ago, 43M said: I know. I followed a few guides and still couldn't do it. I get him down to quarter health and everything is going well, and sudden he busts out his final move. So annoying. Beyond this, the other two that are endlessly annoying are.. 1) the Combat Simulator battle where you have to beat Mindflayer first. My party members just kill the other two enemies right away, and I cant kill Mindflayer in time with one party member. 2) Joker in the dustbowl deathmatch. It took me 7 or 8 tries to beat him. I don't mind dying and trying other methods, but much like with Odin, certain elements of the battle made it more annoying than fun. The one backup move to counter Odin Zanzezutken is to summon Phoenix then use Reraise on 1-2 characters and have them raise the rest. But yeah it’s a total cheap move on the devs part. I didn’t realize it at the time but if you can cast Debrave / DeFaith early it kills his damage that gets to Zanzezutken. And Bio adds up too. The Mindflayer I beat by literally only having 1 party member active. The other 2 I had use the Enfeeblenent ring to be turned into frogs. That way they could be targets but not damage the other 2 lackey opponents. That was literally the only way I could keep from killing them b4 the Mindflayer. Joker was annoying as ****. No doubt about it. Edited July 15 by Broncofan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, Broncofan said: The one backup move to counter Odin Zanzezutken is to summon Phoenix then use Reraise on 1-2 characters and have them raise the rest. But yeah it’s a total cheap move on the devs part. I didn’t realize it at the time but if you can cast Debrave / DeFaith early it kills his damage that gets to Zanzezutken. And Bio adds up too. The Mindflayer I beat by literally only having 1 party member active. The other 2 I had use the Enfeeblenent ring to be turned into frogs. That way they could be targets but not damage the other 2 lackey opponents. That was literally the only way I could keep from killing them b4 the Mindflayer. Joker was annoying as ****. No doubt about it. Yeah, Ive used all the De-Spells on Odin. Only things he is weak to. However, I think after 3 times casting it, he becomes immune. Thats when I start to get in trouble. I have to figure out ways to deal damage on him faster. I just read you can put the other two enemies to sleep in the Mindflayer battle and your party wont attack them unless you command them to. Ill probably try that next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncofan Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 (edited) 11 minutes ago, 43M said: Yeah, Ive used all the De-Spells on Odin. Only things he is weak to. However, I think after 3 times casting it, he becomes immune. Thats when I start to get in trouble. I have to figure out ways to deal damage on him faster. I just read you can put the other two enemies to sleep in the Mindflayer battle and your party wont attack them unless you command them to. Ill probably try that next. Having Aerith in the party and having her cast Arcane Ward to get you double spell action (combined with her ability to automatically cast from wards when using commands by the menu and controlling someone else) helped me a ton. Then having Cloud enter prime mode and build ATB with holding square in Prime Mode 4x to get the extra Fury bonus damage and casting from the same Arcane ward (and also getting 2x damage) might help get that damage faster. If you complete the last Nibelheim side quest and complete ALL the tasks (and I mean all of them in that area) - you get a reward that makes Aerith a complete badass magic-wise. It definitely changes her value to tough boss battles. Edited July 15 by Broncofan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 21 Author Share Posted July 21 (edited) Im sorry, but some of these fights are gonna cause me to drop the score of this game a bit. Difficulty is one thing, but there are just too many battles where enemies just suddenly have a series of cheap attacks and counter attacks, especially when youre about to win. Im on the final phase of Sepiroth and Im getting really fed up with it. Aerith is pretty weak in a two person party against an extremely tough enemy. I probably wouldn't mind as much, but my main two issues are... 1) it wont let you skip the cinematics and dialogue when retrying, so I have to watch the same minute over and over.. And 2) I would adjust Cloud and Aeriths materia and try different things, except, oh, Id have to do at least another half hour of going through the other Phases of this battle....and Im too annoyed to do that. They shouldve given you one opportunity to change your materia before the final phase. That way you could try different things. I got him down to a small sliver of health with a good bit of my health left, and then he just delivered an attack the wiped both characters out pretty fast, and they were unavoidable. Love the game, but this is needlessly infuriating. Edited July 21 by 43M 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 21 Author Share Posted July 21 Okay, I finally beat it. I will post the review sometime this week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 21 Author Share Posted July 21 (edited) Review (Spoilers Ahead) Before I dive into the meat and potatoes of this review, I wanted to share something that really ended up being very relevant to this game. I was listening to a former Hollywood writer (forget his name) talking about modern entertainment and how we so often end up with low quality entertainment. He said that entertainment, whether its TV shows, movies, music, videogames, etc….is supposed to be a form of ART, and art is supposed to be created by artists who have a particular passion and love for whatever it is they are creating. However, entertainment is more often than not used primarily as a source of commerce rather than an outlet of artistic expression, and people creating “entertainment” often do not actually care one bit about what they are creating, and it almost always shows. Now, I know this isn’t exactly revolutionary stuff and that most people understand that the primary goal of the various entertainment industries is to make money, but its extremely easy to point out the entertainment created by those just looking for a paycheck, and the entertainment that’s actually a true piece of art, created by people who have a passion and love for what they are doing. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is an example of a passionate piece of art. There is a lot of controversy about this game and some people have mixed feelings, but from a purely technical standpoint, its an absolute masterpiece of videogame design. The game was created by people who love what they are doing and it oozes out of every single element this game has to offer. Does that mean its perfect? No…far from it, actually, but regardless of how you feel about this game, there is absolutely no denying the care and love that went into it, and how much this game has to offer. This was the first game in a long time I paid full price for, and I have to say, I do not regret it one bit. The graphical design of this game is absolutely breathtaking and magnificent in scope. I was curious about how they would do some of the towns and areas from the original, and every single one of them blew me away, particularly Costa Del Sol and Cosmo Canyon. Each area has its own unique design, atmosphere and tone, from the coziness and lush greenery of Kalm and the Grasslands to the bleakness and sorrow of Junon, to the tropical paradise of Costa Del Sol and the absolute sense of exploration and mystery in Cosmo Canyon, every single area was beautiful to look at and a joy to explore. I wanted to see as much as I could in every area, and almost every part is very much worth seeing, just for the majestic views and insane level of detail that’s included in literally everything. Graphics do not necessarily mean a lot to me, but it can add a lot to a great game, and while there are a lot of games with good graphics, sometimes they feel empty and like youre looking at the same things over and over. This is certainly not the case in Rebirth. The musical score, like most Final Fantasy games, is a masterpiece. The music varies greatly in every single region and helps add to the atmosphere. Its an absolutely massive catalogue of different scores they comprised, that both perfectly fit every area you went to and every moment you experience, and at the same time, remained very true to Final Fantasy music. Sure, a lot of it was heard in previous FF games, but that’s to be expected and is welcome for both the nostalgia and just how well done they are. I could go on for hours about how each song and score adds to this game, but words will never do it justice. Its something you have to experience. The main song and ballot they created for this game is another gem, right up there with other classics like “Eyes on Me” and “Melodies of Life”, and perfectly fit the games theme. Again, I could ramble on and on, but its really something you have to experience for yourself. No one does game music quite like Square Enix and Final Fantasy. The gameplay I will not linger on too long, because its just a smoother and expanded version of the Remake battle system. I am not complaining because there is a lot to love about the system, and not a lot needed to be drastically changed. Its action packed and heart pounding, but offers enough strategy and nuance to keep you engaged without just constantly button mashing. My favorite addition is the new synergy attacks, which makes you feel more connected to your team and like youre actually working together to win battles as opposed to just individual characters attacking separately. Every single character had one or two DIFFERENT attacks with EACH member of the team, and many of the attacks were so well done and could turn the tides of battle. Most of the other elements remained the same, for better or worse. There is a mindboggling amount of stuff to do in this game. I was hoping this game would be open world with more minigames after the very linear part one of the remake, and….wow. Its almost one of those “be careful what you wish for” kind of things. There is SOOOO much to do in this game, almost too much. Still, I would say that most of the mini games and sidequests are pretty damn fun and enjoyable, even if a bit exhausting at times with the amount you have to do. The minigames were hugely diverse to the point where it almost felt like you had many games inside the games. I will touch on this a bit more later, but at the end of the day, its obvious Square Enix listened to fans and went above and beyond giving gamers more stuff to do beyond the main story. Speaking of the main story….well, where do I start? I will say that about 75% of the storytelling in this game is absolutely phenomenal, and most of that is driven by the characters. I always said the driving force behind the best Final Fantasy games was the lovable and well developed characters. Rebirth takes this to a whole new level, and develops its characters like never before. I really liked the FF7 characters in the original game, but now, as cheesy as it sounds, its like I became friends with them. I learned so much about each character and where they came from and what drives them, that by the end, I felt such a connection to all of them in a way that few games have ever been able to do. I was going to touch on each one, but it would take too long. All I will say is that Barret’s and Red XIII’s stories are so well done, and I even grew to really like Yuffie. In the original, I couldn’t stand her, but now she feels like a little sister you end up caring about. There were even characters you didn’t see much that you end up caring about. Barret’s friend/Marlene’s father was a tragic story that not only helped develop Barret’s backstory, but in and of itself, was a very well done character, even though we only get to see him for a brief part of the story. Again, words won’t do it justice. You have to play this game to understand how amazing the character development and much of the storytelling is. As much as I love many elements of this game, this is the part where I have to start talking about some of the negative elements of the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and there are a decent bit. None of them are anything game breaking and most are just mild annoyances, but some of them really needed to be addressed. Okay, so lets start off with a couple very small issues. While the graphics were amazing, sometimes the lighting, particularly in very sunny areas, the characters could look a bit washed, especially the faces. Not a huge deal, but it could be distracting. Another was the texture loading, especially in dense green areas like the forests and grasslands, the textures would take time to render and pop in. Again, not a huge deal and didn’t happen everywhere, but just a small issue. The sound was well done, but the sound mixing for voice acting was pretty poorly done. There were times, especially before I adjusted some settings, where I could barely hear the characters speaking over the music. That very much shouldn’t have been an issue and wasn’t in the original. I did NOT like the Folio system….at all. I hate when games set you on a track and force you to purchase abilities or upgrades you do not want as part of your build. This became extremely frustrating later on when there were certain abilities I wish I had, but SP wasn’t extremely easy to come by and there were a lot of abilities that, if I didn’t HAVE to purchase them early on, I could’ve afforded abilities I ACTUALLY wanted later on. You should’ve been able to build the characters the way you wanted, from the beginning. The system in the previous game wasn’t anything special, but I much preferred it to Folios. While I enjoyed the gameplay most of the time, there are a lot of little issues I had with it. For one, I wish you were able to actually attack or at least Assess enemies before engaging them . This one isn’t necessarily that big of deal, but its kinda silly that the enemies have to at least be slightly aware of your presence before attacking. ON THE FLIP SIDE OF THIS, I don’t like that for most enemies outside of bosses and mini bosses, you were just attacking random fiends, many who were just minding their own business. That’s meant to be slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I wish your party got ambushed and surprised more often and maybe even attacked from out of nowhere. Again, its kind of silly that you have to go up to these fiends and stand basically right next to them for a few seconds before they would even attack you….and I don’t blame them. I’m invading their territory. Another minor complaint is that I miss how status affects used to work in Final Fantasy games. Outside of a few battles, I never really needed things like Antidotes to cure poison, Echo Mists, Smelling Salts, etc….to cure detrimental status affects to my characters. Many times, you could just wait them out. I used a lot of antidotes later in the game, but I barely used any of my other supplies to cure things like Silence and Petrify. The status affects should’ve lasted until either you cured it or you were incapacitated. Like I said, not necessarily a major issue, but it takes away a lot of the strategy for certain enemies. My biggest issue gameplay-wise, as Ive mentioned before, was a lot of the cheap attacks, mainly in boss and GF battles. I have no problem with dying over and over again like I did vs Odin and Sephiroth, but it should be something that you are able to learn from and apply that lesson in the next fight. It shouldn’t feel like a cheap, nearly indefensible attack that just obliterates your party because you are making progress. I spent three hours trying to beat Sephiroth, and I was the closest to throwing my controller through the screen than I have been in over a decade. I typically don’t get that annoyed anymore with games, but this really got my blood boiling. That last battle was absurdly long and I managed to get through most of it even though my party wasn’t as optimized as they could have been, but for that last battle, they should have at least given you a chance to swap some materia around. That would have made so much of a difference with that one small addition. I thought I was going to have to start over and/or set my difficulty to easy, which I absolutely HATE doing. Finally beating him was extremely gratifying, but again, a lot of the frustration I had didn’t feel earned by the game. It just felt annoyingly cheap. The minigames were fun for the most part, but most didnt really blow me away. They were fun little time wasters, but nothing I necessarily wanted to play over and over. I was really disappointed by Fort Condor. I enjoyed that part very much in the OG game, but they changed this version for the worse. Queens Blood was fun, but didnt captivate me like Triple Triad in FF8. Beyond the minigames, the sidequests were mostly just okay. There were no sidequests that had me on the edge of my seat like in Witcher 3. Again, they were usually just fun little time wasters used to build your affinity with your team members, which felt mostly inconsequential aside from one clear example near the end. Finally, I am going to cover one of my biggest issues. As I said, 75% of the story is very VERY well done. The character backstories, the Shinra stuff and most of the other straightforward stuff was interesting. Where the story got unbelievably messy was pretty much anything that involved Sephiroth or Zach. I am not even going to lie….I thought I was a ******* idiot because I honestly had no idea what was going on whenever Zach was on screen. I always thought he died BEFORE the game, and then he was there with Marlene, Cloud and Aerith. For awhile, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how this all fit together. I had to watch a video AFTER I beat the game last night to find out that there are actually 3 separate timelines unfolding during the game. There have been numerous hints about alternate timelines/universes, but the game didn’t necessarily do a great job of letting you know what was going on. I get they want to keep people guessing, but the story shouldn’t be so convoluted and confusing that someone cant figure out whats going on. This reminds me a lot of the first season of Witcher on Netflix where they told things out of order and you had no real idea what was happening until you go back and piece it together….except this is much messier. That’s the biggest issue with multiverses/alternate timelines. If you are going to do it, you have to be able to really mold the story around it and have them converge to a point where everything makes sense in the end. I felt like this game did a rather poor job of that. I am a little clearer on some things now, but there is still a lot that leaves me scratching my head, and not in a good way. Another decent comparison is the show Lost which turned out to be aimless and in the end went absolutely nowhere. I hope that doesn’t end up being the case for this game, because the ending of this game was kind of annoying. I am not a Final Fantasy 7 purist who needed to have the same exact story beat for beat with the original. In fact, I am glad they deviated a little. However, all that build up and relationship building with Aerith and they really dropped the ball with that. It seemed like they tried to make an ending that would please everyone, but in the end, it very much watered down what was one of the most iconic and somber moments in videogame history. I couldn’t even get too upset at what happened to Aerith because I wasn’t sure what happened. Hell, Im still not. I know that’s by design now so we figure out some things going into the next, but it could have been handled so much better. Even if the takeaway is that Aerith is still alive in a different timeline and Cloud is the only one that can see her….it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I don’t mind cliffhangers, but most of this isn’t a cliffhanger. Its just poor and overly convoluted writing in an attempt to be clever, but I don’t see anything clever about it. The 3rd game can still clean things up, but I hope they have a plan for where they are going with this and this isn’t a Disney Star Wars scenario where they are just making it up as they go along, because it won’t end well. Oh, and two final quick notes. 1) The parts where you played as Cait Sith have to rank pretty high up there as far as "worst parts of great games". 2) This is me every time Chadley contacts me.... And by the end of the game, I wished I could... Bottom line: Despite my many gripes, I did love this game. It was a throwback to the old Final Fantasies from my childhood that I missed so much. Regardless of my issues, I can appreciate how much effort when into making this, and realize that overall, it’s a pretty special achievement, especially in this modern gaming landscape. When I first started, I thought this was easily going to be a 9.5 or higher, but unfortunately, the 130 hours of playing it really gave me time to see some chinks in the armor. Even so, this game is special in many ways. I absolutely love the characters and its going to be hard waiting several years to see the conclusions to their stories. I cannot wait for part 3…but as I said, I just hope they have a plan and that the plan makes sense in the end. Gameplay: 8 Story: 8 Graphics: 10 Value/Replayability: 10 Personal Enjoyment: 9 Final Score: 9 Edited July 23 by 43M 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broncofan Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 (edited) On 7/21/2024 at 10:39 AM, 43M said: Review Before I dive into the meat and potatoes of this review, I wanted to share something that really ended up being very relevant to this game. I was listening to a former Hollywood writer (forget his name) talking about modern entertainment and how we so often end up with low quality entertainment. He said that entertainment, whether its TV shows, movies, music, videogames, etc….is supposed to be a form of ART, and art is supposed to be created by artists who have a particular passion and love for whatever it is they are creating. However, entertainment is more often than not used primarily as a source of commerce rather than an outlet of artistic expression, and people creating “entertainment” often do not actually care one bit about what they are creating, and it almost always shows. Now, I know this isn’t exactly revolutionary stuff and that most people understand that the primary goal of the various entertainment industries is to make money, but its extremely easy to point out the entertainment created by those just looking for a paycheck, and the entertainment that’s actually a true piece of art, created by people who have a passion and love for what they are doing. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is an example of a passionate piece of art. There is a lot of controversy about this game and some people have mixed feelings, but from a purely technical standpoint, its an absolute masterpiece of videogame design. The game was created by people who love what they are doing and it oozes out of every single element this game has to offer. Does that mean its perfect? No…far from it, actually, but regardless of how you feel about this game, there is absolutely no denying the care and love that went into it, and how much this game has to offer. This was the first game in a long time I paid full price for, and I have to say, I do not regret it one bit. The graphical design of this game is absolutely breathtaking and magnificent in scope. I was curious about how they would do some of the towns and areas from the original, and every single one of them blew me away, particularly Costa Del Sol and Cosmo Canyon. Each area has its own unique design, atmosphere and tone, from the coziness and lush greenery of Kalm and the Grasslands to the bleakness and sorrow of Junon, to the tropical paradise of Costa Del Sol and the absolute sense of exploration and mystery in Cosmo Canyon, every single area was beautiful to look at and a joy to explore. I wanted to see as much as I could in every area, and almost every part is very much worth seeing, just for the majestic views and insane level of detail that’s included in literally everything. Graphics do not necessarily mean a lot to me, but it can add a lot to a great game, and while there are a lot of games with good graphics, sometimes they feel empty and like youre looking at the same things over and over. This is certainly not the case in Rebirth. The musical score, like most Final Fantasy games, is a masterpiece. The music varies greatly in every single region and helps add to the atmosphere. Its an absolutely massive catalogue of different scores they comprised, that both perfectly fit every area you went to and every moment you experience, and at the same time, remained very true to Final Fantasy music. Sure, a lot of it was heard in previous FF games, but that’s to be expected and is welcome for both the nostalgia and just how well done they are. I could go on for hours about how each song and score adds to this game, but words will never do it justice. Its something you have to experience. The main song and ballot they created for this game is another gem, right up there with other classics like “Eyes on Me” and “Melodies of Life”, and perfectly fit the games theme. Again, I could ramble on and on, but its really something you have to experience for yourself. No one does game music quite like Square Enix and Final Fantasy. The gameplay I will not linger on too long, because its just a smoother and expanded version of the Remake battle system. I am not complaining because there is a lot to love about the system, and not a lot needed to be drastically changed. Its action packed and heart pounding, but offers enough strategy and nuance to keep you engaged without just constantly button mashing. My favorite addition is the new synergy attacks, which makes you feel more connected to your team and like youre actually working together to win battles as opposed to just individual characters attacking separately. Every single character had one or two DIFFERENT attacks with EACH member of the team, and many of the attacks were so well done and could turn the tides of battle. Most of the other elements remained the same, for better or worse. There is a mindboggling amount of stuff to do in this game. I was hoping this game would be open world with more minigames after the very linear part one of the remake, and….wow. Its almost one of those “be careful what you wish for” kind of things. There is SOOOO much to do in this game, almost too much. Still, I would say that most of the mini games and sidequests are pretty damn fun and enjoyable, even if a bit exhausting at times with the amount you have to do. The minigames were hugely diverse to the point where it almost felt like you had many games inside the games. I will touch on this a bit more later, but at the end of the day, its obvious Square Enix listened to fans and went above and beyond giving gamers more stuff to do beyond the main story. Speaking of the main story….well, where do I start? I will say that about 75% of the storytelling in this game is absolutely phenomenal, and most of that is driven by the characters. I always said the driving force behind the best Final Fantasy games was the lovable and well developed characters. Rebirth takes this to a whole new level, and develops its characters like never before. I really liked the FF7 characters in the original game, but now, as cheesy as it sounds, its like I became friends with them. I learned so much about each character and where they came from and what drives them, that by the end, I felt such a connection to all of them in a way that few games have ever been able to do. I was going to touch on each one, but it would take too long. All I will say is that Barret’s and Red XIII’s stories are so well done, and I even grew to really like Yuffie. In the original, I couldn’t stand her, but now she feels like a little sister you end up caring about. There were even characters you didn’t see much that you end up caring about. Barret’s friend/Marlene’s father was a tragic story that not only helped develop Barret’s backstory, but in and of itself, was a very well done character, even though we only get to see him for a brief part of the story. Again, words won’t do it justice. You have to play this game to understand how amazing the character development and much of the storytelling is. As much as I love many elements of this game, this is the part where I have to start talking about some of the negative elements of the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and there are a decent bit. None of them are anything game breaking and most are just mild annoyances, but some of them really needed to be addressed. Okay, so lets start off with a couple very small issues. While the graphics were amazing, sometimes the lighting, particularly in very sunny areas, the characters could look a bit washed, especially the faces. Not a huge deal, but it could be distracting. Another was the texture loading, especially in dense green areas like the forests and grasslands, the textures would take time to render and pop in. Again, not a huge deal and didn’t happen everywhere, but just a small issue. The sound was well done, but the sound mixing for voice acting was pretty poorly done. There were times, especially before I adjusted some settings, where I could barely hear the characters speaking over the music. That very much shouldn’t have been an issue and wasn’t in the original. I did NOT like the Folio system….at all. I hate when games set you on a track and force you to purchase abilities or upgrades you do not want as part of your build. This became extremely frustrating later on when there were certain abilities I wish I had, but SP wasn’t extremely easy to come by and there were a lot of abilities that, if I didn’t HAVE to purchase them early on, I could’ve afforded abilities I ACTUALLY wanted later on. You should’ve been able to build the characters the way you wanted, from the beginning. The system in the previous game wasn’t anything special, but I much preferred it to Folios. While I enjoyed the gameplay most of the time, there are a lot of little issues I had with it. For one, I wish you were able to actually attack or at least Assess enemies before engaging them . This one isn’t necessarily that big of deal, but its kinda silly that the enemies have to at least be slightly aware of your presence before attacking. ON THE FLIP SIDE OF THIS, I don’t like that for most enemies outside of bosses and mini bosses, you were just attacking random fiends, many who were just minding their own business. That’s meant to be slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I wish your party got ambushed and surprised more often and maybe even attacked from out of nowhere. Again, its kind of silly that you have to go up to these fiends and stand basically right next to them for a few seconds before they would even attack you….and I don’t blame them. I’m invading their territory. Another minor complaint is that I miss how status affects used to work in Final Fantasy games. Outside of a few battles, I never really needed things like Antidotes to cure poison, Echo Mists, Smelling Salts, etc….to cure detrimental status affects to my characters. Many times, you could just wait them out. I used a lot of antidotes later in the game, but I barely used any of my other supplies to cure things like Silence and Petrify. The status affects should’ve lasted until either you cured it or you were incapacitated. Like I said, not necessarily a major issue, but it takes away a lot of the strategy for certain enemies. My biggest issue gameplay-wise, as Ive mentioned before, was a lot of the cheap attacks, mainly in boss and GF battles. I have no problem with dying over and over again like I did vs Odin and Sephiroth, but it should be something that you are able to learn from and apply that lesson in the next fight. It shouldn’t feel like a cheap, nearly indefensible attack that just obliterates your party because you are making progress. I spent three hours trying to beat Sephiroth, and I was the closest to throwing my controller through the screen than I have been in over a decade. I typically don’t get that annoyed anymore with games, but this really got my blood boiling. That last battle was absurdly long and I managed to get through most of it even though my party wasn’t as optimized as they could have been, but for that last battle, they should have at least given you a chance to swap some materia around. That would have made so much of a difference with that one small addition. I thought I was going to have to start over and/or set my difficulty to easy, which I absolutely HATE doing. Finally beating him was extremely gratifying, but again, a lot of the frustration I had didn’t feel earned by the game. It just felt annoyingly cheap. The minigames were fun for the most part, but most didnt really blow me away. They were fun little time wasters, but nothing I necessarily wanted to play over and over. I was really disappointed by Fort Condor. I enjoyed that part very much in the OG game, but they changed this version for the worse. Queens Blood was fun, but didnt captivate me like Triple Triad in FF8. Beyond the minigames, the sidequests were mostly just okay. There were no sidequests that had me on the edge of my seat like in Witcher 3. Again, they were usually just fun little time wasters used to build your affinity with your team members, which felt mostly inconsequential aside from one clear example near the end. Finally, I am going to cover one of my biggest issues. As I said, 75% of the story is very VERY well done. The character backstories, the Shinra stuff and most of the other straightforward stuff was interesting. Where the story got unbelievably messy was pretty much anything that involved Sephiroth or Zach. I am not even going to lie….I thought I was a ******* idiot because I honestly had no idea what was going on whenever Zach was on screen. I always thought he died BEFORE the game, and then he was there with Marlene, Cloud and Aerith. For awhile, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how this all fit together. I had to watch a video AFTER I beat the game last night to find out that there are actually 3 separate timelines unfolding during the game. There have been numerous hints about alternate timelines/universes, but the game didn’t necessarily do a great job of letting you know what was going on. I get they want to keep people guessing, but the story shouldn’t be so convoluted and confusing that someone cant figure out whats going on. This reminds me a lot of the first season of Witcher on Netflix where they told things out of order and you had no real idea what was happening until you go back and piece it together….except this is much messier. That’s the biggest issue with multiverses/alternate timelines. If you are going to do it, you have to be able to really mold the story around it and have them converge to a point where everything makes sense in the end. I felt like this game did a rather poor job of that. I am a little clearer on some things now, but there is still a lot that leaves me scratching my head, and not in a good way. Another decent comparison is the show Lost which turned out to be aimless and in the end went absolutely nowhere. I hope that doesn’t end up being the case for this game, because the ending of this game was kind of annoying. I am not a Final Fantasy 7 purist who needed to have the same exact story beat for beat with the original. In fact, I am glad they deviated a little. However, all that build up and relationship building with Aerith and they really dropped the ball with that. It seemed like they tried to make an ending that would please everyone, but in the end, it very much watered down what was one of the most iconic and somber moments in videogame history. I couldn’t even get too upset at what happened to Aerith because I wasn’t sure what happened. Hell, Im still not. I know that’s by design now so we figure out some things going into the next, but it could have been handled so much better. Even if the takeaway is that Aerith is still alive in a different timeline and Cloud is the only one that can see her….it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I don’t mind cliffhangers, but most of this isn’t a cliffhanger. Its just poor and overly convoluted writing in an attempt to be clever, but I don’t see anything clever about it. The 3rd game can still clean things up, but I hope they have a plan for where they are going with this and this isn’t a Disney Star Wars scenario where they are just making it up as they go along, because it won’t end well. Oh, and two final quick notes. 1) The parts where you played as Cait Sith have to rank pretty high up there as far as "worst parts of great games". 2) This is me every time Chadley contacts me.... And by the end of the game, I wished I could... Bottom line: Despite my many gripes, I did love this game. It was a throwback to the old Final Fantasies from my childhood that I missed so much. Regardless of my issues, I can appreciate how much effort when into making this, and realize that overall, it’s a pretty special achievement, especially in this modern gaming landscape. When I first started, I thought this was easily going to be a 9.5 or higher, but unfortunately, the 130 hours of playing it really gave me time to see some chinks in the armor. Even so, this game is special in many ways. I absolutely love the characters and its going to be hard waiting several years to see the conclusions to their stories. I cannot wait for part 3…but as I said, I just hope they have a plan and that the plan makes sense in the end. Gameplay: 8 Story: 8 Graphics: 10 Value/Replayability: 10 Personal Enjoyment: 9 Final Score: 9 Enjoyed reading your journey, I have specific comments about your concerns re: writing the alternate timeline, and their overall plan. Much like you, I was really uncertain as to what went down. I've had the benefit of replaying it in Hard Mode and watching my daughter's first playthrough - but honestly, that shouldn't be a requirement to make the storyline clearer. It does help me see what they are trying to do, but that isn't a good enough answer to justify the writing. Here's the thing, though - I think they are very clearly intentional in being confusing. I can respect if ppl don't like that decision right now - but I don't think it was poorly done by neglect, or poor judgment / unintentional decision-making. That's the most common criticism I see re: story, and I really don't get how ppl come up with the belief Square Enix & Nomura/writers weren't deliberate in this direction. A few reasons why I believe the goal was to deliberately keep players in the dark: 1. It's a pretty similar MO to how Remake's ending went down - going crazy with info dumps at the end, and pretty clearly meant to keep us guessing re: Zack and Aerith's fate. In the latter respect, while I didn't care for the multiple fakeouts at first - I will say it absolutely created the belief you could save her. And so it really crushed ppl when she still died. 2. As you mentioned, the writing for the other parts of the story were unbelievable. Pretty much every new element they added to the story - Junon's extra parts (7th infantry, the side town), the expanded Avalanche storyline (OMG at how much service they gave Jesse, Biggs & Wedge), the Tifa lifestream sequence, the GI / Black Materia, Loveless & the expanded dates, and the Trials - were just *chef's kiss*. 3. If you accept #2, and accept that both Cloud/Aerith arcs and Zack's fate are unresolved arcs - then given how they handled Remake's ending, I have to believe the confusion is deliberate. The big difference with Cloud/Aerith and Zack in Rebirth - their story is still unfinished - which is a difficult, if not impossible task to complete to player satisfaction. Again, the storytelling that was new was otherwise amazing - but those other new areas basically got to tell their entire story in Rebirth. Maybe they won't stick the landing, but the incredible storytelling they gave to all these areas - it's hard for me to believe they weren't aware of what they were doing with the confusion. As for Cloud / Aerith's ending, I don't think she's simply alive in 1 timeline, and only Cloud can see her right now... Spoiler I think he's actually an unreliable narrator, and created this version of Aerith we saw in his mind, basically in denial that she died anyway. There is definitely still an "Omni-Aerith" that planned on getting a full White Materia and to get it back to this timeline's Aerith (that goodbye scene in the church is so good when you realize what's about to go down now - skyrockets with hindsight in how it's written). And who's still around <just like there's a Sephiroth who is aware of the events of the full game>. And that's definitely who we saw in the Church & probably the Forest scene. But the Aerith we saw after Sephiroth appeared and in the Tiny Bronco goodbye - I'm not sure that isn't anything more than Cloud's construct of denial. To be clear, I do think Cloud did stop Sephiroth in some dimension, but in ours, whether it was the Whispers, or whatever, Aerith definitely died (given we saw the White Materia being full that fell from her body). I don't know if you noticed it, but Cloud was also the ONLY party member without a full limit break in the Jenova Lifeclinger fight to begin with - because he was still in the belief she wasn't dead. Obv I could be wrong, but the more I think on it, the more I see that as what was going down. It's also why we didn't see the Cloud mini-speech nor him putting her to rest - I think we'll see that as a flashback in EP3 - but the reason we didn't see it was because he's currently in denial of "our version" Aerith's fate. Time will tell, but I figured I'd share my current view. Re: Zack, I do think the key part about alternate dimensions was Stamp the dog. I didn't notice that at first in Remake that there were multiple versions of him, but once you notice it, it's impossible not to pick up each time there's a new one. I think there were 6+ in all....I totally spaced out on that in Remake, though. Either way, though, I agree with you that the game wasn't perfect from a technical perspective. Cait Sith section / Chadley & some really unfair balancing are all spot-on complaints, along with the cThe only FF game that I think actually gets that award is FF6. But I'm a little more forgiving on the storytelling part given my faith that EP3 will finish the 2 most confusing arcs (but to be fair, it's by no means guaranteed, either). I do think the storytelling (outside of the 2 incomplete arcs), character development, gameplay and music that just elevate the game for me to the rare 10/10 rating - because you just don't see the excellence Rebirth has in those areas. The music part is so insane - literally 400+ new pieces were developed, for over 9 hours of tracks - NGL, there are probably 20-25 tracks that would be "best of the game" with other titles - Square Enix just outdid themselves with this OST. As you said - it was like I became friends with the party over this game. But also so many more NPC's that I cared about - and the music, atmosphere (dusk/night-time graphics are amazing, you're dead on about day-time lighting having issues, but that's Unreal 4's weakness IMO, and I get why they stuck with it - the coding required to go to 5 would have been ridiculously onerous). Truthfully, this is probably why my top 3 games of all-time before this were Last of Us, FFVI & Chrono Trigger (FFVII OG being #4). You just end up caring so much about the characters....but the bond created with this game's party, and 20-40 more characters....man, it's just so much. So even though it's not a perfect game, I think it's going to still remain as my GOAT for a while. I don't know if we're going to see another game match the ability to care for the characters, the story, and immerse players for 100+ hours with such diverse gameplay and atmosphere (that music...) for a long time, if ever. I'd happily eat crow if EP3 does it, but much like Tears of the Kingdom, even if it's a redux and expansion, even with its flaws, it's going to be hard to match the wonder this game has created for me. Edited July 22 by Broncofan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 23 Author Share Posted July 23 (edited) 9 hours ago, Broncofan said: Enjoyed reading your journey, I have specific comments about your concerns re: writing the alternate timeline, and their overall plan. Much like you, I was really uncertain as to what went down. I've had the benefit of replaying it in Hard Mode and watching my daughter's first playthrough - but honestly, that shouldn't be a requirement to make the storyline clearer. It does help me see what they are trying to do, but that isn't a good enough answer to justify the writing. Here's the thing, though - I think they are very clearly intentional in being confusing. I can respect if ppl don't like that decision right now - but I don't think it was poorly done by neglect, or poor judgment / unintentional decision-making. That's the most common criticism I see re: story, and I really don't get how ppl come up with the belief Square Enix & Nomura/writers weren't deliberate in this direction. A few reasons why I believe the goal was to deliberately keep players in the dark: 1. It's a pretty similar MO to how Remake's ending went down - going crazy with info dumps at the end, and pretty clearly meant to keep us guessing re: Zack and Aerith's fate. In the latter respect, while I didn't care for the multiple fakeouts at first - I will say it absolutely created the belief you could save her. And so it really crushed ppl when she still died. 2. As you mentioned, the writing for the other parts of the story were unbelievable. Pretty much every new element they added to the story - Junon's extra parts (7th infantry, the side town), the expanded Avalanche storyline (OMG at how much service they gave Jesse, Biggs & Wedge), the Tifa lifestream sequence, the GI / Black Materia, Loveless & the expanded dates, and the Trials - were just *chef's kiss*. 3. If you accept #2, and accept that both Cloud/Aerith arcs and Zack's fate are unresolved arcs - then given how they handled Remake's ending, I have to believe the confusion is deliberate. The big difference with Cloud/Aerith and Zack in Rebirth - their story is still unfinished - which is a difficult, if not impossible task to complete to player satisfaction. Again, the storytelling that was new was otherwise amazing - but those other new areas basically got to tell their entire story in Rebirth. Maybe they won't stick the landing, but the incredible storytelling they gave to all these areas - it's hard for me to believe they weren't aware of what they were doing with the confusion. I 100% agree the confusion, TO A POINT, is deliberate. The problem is, when you have an episodic videogame that is 4-5 years apart, its really hard to accept this level of confusion, because unlike say...the end of a chapter or something like that, now you are forced to dwell on said confusion for years. I dont mind some confusion, but I just felt like it was messy the way the did it, and I think that will turn some people away. Will it turn me away? No way, but it felt like they tried to make things more intricate than it really needed to be, which kind of watered down what should have been some very emotional moments. 9 hours ago, Broncofan said: As for Cloud / Aerith's ending, I don't think she's simply alive in 1 timeline, and only Cloud can see her right now... Reveal hidden contents I think he's actually an unreliable narrator, and created this version of Aerith we saw in his mind, basically in denial that she died anyway. There is definitely still an "Omni-Aerith" that planned on getting a full White Materia and to get it back to this timeline's Aerith (that goodbye scene in the church is so good when you realize what's about to go down now - skyrockets with hindsight in how it's written). And who's still around <just like there's a Sephiroth who is aware of the events of the full game>. And that's definitely who we saw in the Church & probably the Forest scene. But the Aerith we saw after Sephiroth appeared and in the Tiny Bronco goodbye - I'm not sure that isn't anything more than Cloud's construct of denial. To be clear, I do think Cloud did stop Sephiroth in some dimension, but in ours, whether it was the Whispers, or whatever, Aerith definitely died (given we saw the White Materia being full that fell from her body). I don't know if you noticed it, but Cloud was also the ONLY party member without a full limit break in the Jenova Lifeclinger fight to begin with - because he was still in the belief she wasn't dead. Obv I could be wrong, but the more I think on it, the more I see that as what was going down. It's also why we didn't see the Cloud mini-speech nor him putting her to rest - I think we'll see that as a flashback in EP3 - but the reason we didn't see it was because he's currently in denial of "our version" Aerith's fate. Time will tell, but I figured I'd share my current view. In response to your spoiler summary... Spoiler All we can really do is speculate on this, and I think thats part of the reason the confusion was intended. I honestly wonder if they even know exactly how they want to handle Aerith. OR if they are possibly setting up part 3 to have multiple possible endings. Of course you could be right about Aerith being part of Cloud's guilty conscience. However, there are alot of things that make me believe otherwise. Much of this is from various videos I watched, but they do make sense to me.... First off, Sephiroth talking about how new realities are constantly being created when Cloud was in the "world between worlds". This factors in later... Secondly, the color scheme and the rainbows around Aerith. There were apparently 3 different timelines taking place. The OG game timeline, the Rebirth timeline, and the Doomed timeline. OG timeline, Aerith is obviously killed by Sephiroth. Rebirth timeline, Cloud creates when he stops Sephiroths blade from killing Aerith, and the Doomed timeline where Zack is alive. In the Doomed timeline, which Cloud ends up in with Aerith, Sephiroth says "This is where you have been hiding. In a world, which has accepted its fate". Aerith is clearly able to see other timelines as well, and knows what Sephiroth views her as the biggest threat to his end goal in any reality. She gives Cloud the white materia and pushes him back to the OG reality just before the Sephiroth of the Doomed reality has found her. Third, at the end of the game, Zach seemingly ends up either in the Rebirth timeline or the OG timeline and says about realities being separated, "Who says they cant be united again?" Foreshadowing, perhaps? Isnt that Sephiroth's main goal? To join all the timelines? Fourth, in the final battle, AFTER Aerith's supposed death, Aerith helps Cloud battle Sephiroth. She is also seen alive holding Clouds face in the "Rebirth" timeline, but in the "OG" timeline, there is a pool of blood next to her and Cloud is noticeably hold her hand to his face. First of all, she says, "Thanks for what you did back there", and while I have no proof, its seems like it could her thanking him for creating the alternate reality where she lives, and thats where they are fighting Sephiroth in the "Rebirth" timeline. Secondly, Sephiroth says something along the lines of "you've played your part in this. Begone", as if she isnt supposed to be there. Finally, I think something with the white materia is allowing him to see what is either her Rebirth form, or her deceased spirit in the lifestream. The main point I will make about your thought of her being nothing more than a figment of Cloud's guilty conscience is, at the end, when they are at the Tiny Bronco, when Aerith goes up to the grieving Red XIII, he can sense her presence and even calls her name. If it were nothing more than Cloud's imagination, that wouldnt make sense. Some form of her spirit has to be there....whether its her DECEASED spirit from the lifestream or her LIVING essence from a different timeline, I do not know. But I do not really think its just Clouds imagination and I really hope thats not what they go with. I think that explanation would annoy me given everything else. Oh, and one last thing. When Aerith tells Cloud in the "Doomed" timeline "Dont look up", and him and Aerith can both see the breaches in the sky, which I'm GUESSING signifies that the timelines/realities are on the verge of being "reunited" (I predict FF7's 3rd title will be "Reunion"). They are the only two from the party SEEMINGLY able to see other timelines, because at the end, Barret and the rest of the group see nothing in the sky. Obviously, all of that could be wrong, but thats where my mind is at, right now. Again, I wouldnt be shocked if they set it up for multiple endings like in Final Fantasy X-2, where you could get a perfect ending (where Tidus comes back to life), a good ending and a bad ending. Again, pure speculation, but at this point, anything is possible. 9 hours ago, Broncofan said: Either way, though, I agree with you that the game wasn't perfect from a technical perspective. Cait Sith section / Chadley & some really unfair balancing are all spot-on complaints, along with the cThe only FF game that I think actually gets that award is FF6. But I'm a little more forgiving on the storytelling part given my faith that EP3 will finish the 2 most confusing arcs (but to be fair, it's by no means guaranteed, either). I do think the storytelling (outside of the 2 incomplete arcs), character development, gameplay and music that just elevate the game for me to the rare 10/10 rating - because you just don't see the excellence Rebirth has in those areas. The music part is so insane - literally 400+ new pieces were developed, for over 9 hours of tracks - NGL, there are probably 20-25 tracks that would be "best of the game" with other titles - Square Enix just outdid themselves with this OST. As you said - it was like I became friends with the party over this game. But also so many more NPC's that I cared about - and the music, atmosphere (dusk/night-time graphics are amazing, you're dead on about day-time lighting having issues, but that's Unreal 4's weakness IMO, and I get why they stuck with it - the coding required to go to 5 would have been ridiculously onerous). Truthfully, this is probably why my top 3 games of all-time before this were Last of Us, FFVI & Chrono Trigger (FFVII OG being #4). You just end up caring so much about the characters....but the bond created with this game's party, and 20-40 more characters....man, it's just so much. So even though it's not a perfect game, I think it's going to still remain as my GOAT for a while. I don't know if we're going to see another game match the ability to care for the characters, the story, and immerse players for 100+ hours with such diverse gameplay and atmosphere (that music...) for a long time, if ever. I'd happily eat crow if EP3 does it, but much like Tears of the Kingdom, even if it's a redux and expansion, even with its flaws, it's going to be hard to match the wonder this game has created for me. Like I said, I loved the game, and with a few tweaks here and there, it could have been one of my favorite games ever. But some of the gameplay issues I mentioned held it back a bit and the needlessly convoluted multiverse stuff just annoyed me enough to where the score had to come down. 9 is the same score I gave to remake, and while I do believe that Rebirth was a better overall experience, I also felt like Remake had a more focused narrative and better character development system than Rebirth. Rebirth was a little too long winded at times, both within the main story AND the sidequests. There were numerous sidequests that were quite tedious and not overly interesting, but I felt guilty for not doing them because I wanted to raise characters affinities. I will undoubtedly revisit this game before part 3 comes out....but I need to try to forget about it for awhile or I will go crazy, since its going to be another 4 or so years before we get it. Edited July 23 by 43M 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 23 Author Share Posted July 23 I am taking a bit of a departure from what I usually play. I just wanted to have some mindless fun after a couple long, narrative driven story games. So, when I saw this for under $5, I said, what the hell.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted July 23 Author Share Posted July 23 @Broncofan Not sure if you knew this, but apparently, the story for part 3 is already done and they are set to start voice recording in the near future, with a hopeful 2027 release. That would be amazing, but Im thinking 2028 is more likely. Also, there is apparently a DLC thats already pretty much done. My guess is sometime next year it will release. Im guessing its a backstory for either Vincent or Cid. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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