Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth Review

“When I grow up, I will be a SOLDIER too. And the best of the best! Just like Sephiroth..."

Welcome to our Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth review . What happens if you remake a game that can normally be completed in 25-30 hours as a trilogy? Believe me, we will see the outcome together, but Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, the second part of the trilogy, definitely met my expectations.

Final Fantasy VII and Remake

Years ago, a PlayStation game was released that took the console by storm. I wasn't born yet, but I knew about the series because the reputation of the series and Final Fantasy VII, which is considered one of the best games of this series, is considerable. Since FPS and online games were popular when I was a kid, I was introduced to JRPGs very late. But as it happens, the game that introduced me to the genre was the best of the best. As you may have understood from the long introduction, that game was no other game than Final Fantasy VII.

Of course, since I played the game too late, I could never join the " Come on, let's get a Remake for this game " trend. Final Fantasy VII for me; It was a special game that told a beautiful story in itself, with beautiful characters and an extraordinary plot.

Of course, when the fans couldn't stop, they smelled the money coming from Square Enix and started this Remake project. The head of the project was Tetsuyo Nomura, the director of Kingdom Hearts, another of my favorite series. But then he released the project and became interested in Kingdom Hearts 3. After dozens of bad situations during the development of the remake, while we thought it would be canceled, the game turned out to be wrong.

The reason why this solution is so simple is; That's because the remake only included a tiny portion of the original game that lasted 5 hours. The main part where the real gripping story would begin to be told was not in the Remake. As you can see, the part remaining in the 2nd part was going to be incredibly good.

A beautiful open world made for its time, tons of mini games and a gripping story... Yes, the game with these parts has arrived. Rebirth is a huge game that includes every good thing I mentioned above. It is very obvious that it was not rushed like the remake.

The story we love and the characters we love, now renewed!

I can't tell the story in detail because this is a sequel. I have to keep it short so as not to give you spoilers from the Remake or even the third part that will be released in the future.

Our team, Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aerith and Red XIII, managed to escape from Midgar after some events; They take shelter in the nearest city, Kalm. Their goal now is to defeat Sephiroth, the archenemy of Cloud and even the entire world. However, due to the attacks the team carries out under the umbrella of Avalanche, it is inevitable that Shinra, the company that is slowly exploiting the world with nuclear reactors, will find them where they are hiding. Our party, who hastily escaped from the city, embarks on a long journey in which they will search for Sephiroth, encounter many encounters with Shinra and his elite unit, the Turks, and affect the fate of the entire world.

Of course, in a twist of fate, an old friend of ours is still alive elsewhere and he will play a key role in this journey into the unknown.

Final Fantasy VII's story was undoubtedly one of the features that carried it forward the most. Cloud's complex past, the motivation of Sephiroth, who was once the protector of the world but now vowed to destroy it, the conspiracies that occur in between, and so on, we see a huge and much thought-about universe. But here's the thing, this game acts as if you already know the story. Of course, we will understand this better in the 3rd part, but this trilogy, which includes remakes, is actually like a sequel to the original game. Confused, right? Don't worry, mine got mixed up a lot while playing too.

Honestly, I call this situation the “Tetsuyo Nomura Effect”. Because our dear brother, who connected things to fate at one point in Kingdom Hearts, did this in Final Fantasy VII. I won't go into too much detail, but some events go differently than the original game and I didn't know whether I liked it or not. If you are someone who will play the series for the first time, the trilogy will probably be enough for you. Of course not like this. This situation is terrible because there is no third game and I think we will only see it in 5-6 years. And all the important question marks remain in the third game.

If you say you can wait, that's one thing, but if you really want to leave Remake and Rebirth with everything fully settled in your mind and want to get excited about the "fan service" scenes, you should first play OG Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core and then watch the Advent Children movie.

Of course, Brother Tetsuyo also likes to leave things to little games. So we're talking about some crazy guy who put the actual ending of Kingdom Hearts 3 into a rhythm game that no one will care about. At one point in the game, a character I didn't know appeared and I thought I'd see who it was. I wish I hadn't looked, because the result made me even more angry. The man appeared in a game called Ever Crisis, which was released on IOS and Android platforms. Even though he is such a useless character, he is a key name for the Wutai War. Are you crazy bro?

If you like to discover layers of deep stories, piece by piece, I suggest you also check out the other contents in this universe. But you can also enjoy it with just remakes, no problem there. Unfortunately, you will have to wait a long time just to see the finale.

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth Review: First step into the open world!

The Final Fantasy series has been making a serious effort to be open world in recent games. In XV, they created an empty and lifeless world, we even had a car, but we could only drive by pressing the forward button, it determined its own route. They made one of the most useless open worlds I've ever seen in XVI, it was a straight corridor. But now I can say that they have finally found the right formula in Rebirth. At this point, they were clearly inspired by the West. Of course, they didn't spare their unique eastern sauces either.

When we take our first step into the open world, the first thing that strikes you is how big the world is. This is valid for all regions, by the way. Because I had the same feeling every time I entered a new region. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, like the original game, is about our search for Sephiroth around the world. At this point, since we will mainly be hanging out in Wutai in the 3rd part due to the story, they added every remaining place in the world. Grasslands, Junon, Corel, Cosmo Canyon,
Gongaga, Nibelheim; They all have huge open worlds. And good news, they are not corridors at the end!

So how do these big maps feel? I'm afraid that since there is no jumping in the game, traveling around is not very fun at times. You run straight and Cloud automatically climbs the obstacle in front of him. You can understand from the photos I posted that these maps, 80% of which are composed of terrain, will not feel alive. There is nothing very interesting around, except for the few places where we can chase crates and the creatures wandering around empty. Of course, you don't walk everywhere. You can open Chocobo stops and travel to those parts quickly. Once you unlock the Chocobo specific to each region, you now do all the traveling with them. Of course, sometimes you can travel with different vehicles depending on the environment.

Of course, there are big cities where people live in every region, and strangely enough, they manage to make you feel alive with their atmosphere.

What the hell is this workload?!

We collect information from each region for the investigations of Chadley, whom we know from the previous game. With this information, Chadley; It helps us level up for the main missions by finding enemy simulations, summon materials and world bosses of each region. Since there was a random encounter in the original game, all you had to do was walk around while leveling up. They wanted us to explore it here too, which is an incredibly good design choice.

Chadley first asks you to activate the towers, which are approximately 4-5 in each region. The towers reveal other intel missions around. Of course, the game has also added environmental factors for some. For example, if you follow a bird, it will take you to research places, or if there are ancient pieces around, if you follow the beam of light that comes out when you break them; You can reach the Summon temple.

These are sweet details, and I wish the towers didn't clearly reveal their location, but instead showed an area that would be triggered when you entered. In these two Intel tasks, you are actually only doing Quick Time Events. In one, we just press the triangle key at the right time. When you collect enough information, an excavation site opens and you dig up the buried pieces in the area, thanks to Chocobo's olfactory feature.

Summon Temples are a bit more interesting. You need to memorize the key combinations on the screen and press them at the right time. As a result, you make the boss fight easier with the Summon belonging to that temple. When you win, the summon materia becomes yours. We will talk about this situation below, in the war section.

Another type of Intel is protorelics. Chadley detects powerful fragments in each of the worlds, and each one triggers a different mini-game. While you are trying to go undercover in one world and chasing pieces from thieves, in the other world you are playing Fort Condor, also known as Clash Royale. I'm not kidding, there is Clash Royal in the game. It's not limited to these, of course, each world has a different protorelic quest series. Do you think it's over? No it's not over. Even though the rest
seems like filler content to me, they somehow get it done. First of all, the game makes you fight with every type of enemy you can see. Of course, you are trying to complete certain challenges in these fights.

Besides these, there are Chocobo missions. There is a different Chocobo species in each region and they all have different physical characteristics. Like running on walls, flying by spraying water, etc. Sometimes these Chocobos are not given to you directly. You must catch Chocobo yourself. These are sweet sequences where you have to sneak up on him and I like them because they add variety to the pace of the game.

Apart from Intel's, of course, there are also various side missions in the open world. There are some that feel very unnecessary, and some that feel very good. But the rewards they give motivate you to do them. Because just like Intel tasks, these prepare you for the main tasks. Thus, you fight the enemies that appear in the main scenario with the right equipment and at the right level. Of course, the game is not that difficult, in fact it is quite easy. It gives you plenty of revival and healing potions, but the general purpose is to prevent wars from prolonging.

Of course, I tried to explain them all so that you can get an idea, but as you can see, the game bombards you with content. I haven't even mentioned the treasure hunt missions yet. I'm even exaggerating, but there may still be things I haven't discovered. Since I love improving on JRPGs, I finished the game in 70 hours, which I normally thought would take much less time! I almost went to the Platinum cup, I had a hard time stopping myself. Because, to be honest, I'm a little tired. My advice to you is that you should definitely spread the game over 1-1.5 months. Because we have a game that is worth the 2000TL you spend.

Welcome to Mini-Game Heaven!

The original Final Fantasy VII immersed you in unprecedented intensity in terms of minigames. In Rebirth, we meet our first mini game, the card game Queen's Blood, in the second hour of the game. This is an extremely fun card game that is a candidate to become the next generation Gwent. In each city, there are people you need to defeat and lots of cards to buy decks of. At one point you can even participate in a tournament. That's why this is, of course, our most critical mini game. I spent at least 5 hours on this game, it really fascinated me.

There are also mini games with side quest sauce. While these sometimes offer you a tower defense mini game similar to Clash Royal, they can sometimes turn into a flight practice. Also, the privacy parts we do at Intel are actually just mini games. I'm not kidding, they are gushing out from everywhere.

But the place where the game really drowns you in the mini-game is undoubtedly the Gold Saucer part. This is a huge amusement park and as per the story, we hang out here for a long time. And what's in store here... A fighting game that looks like it came out of the NES, the motorcycle game from the first game, Chocobo races... What I really wanted from this game was that it retained these features. I left quite happy at this point. Moreover, the retouches made to the theater and Ferris wheel parts, which were very plain in the original play, were also spot on. Now we jump to another critical part from here, character relationships.

Your relationships affect the game!

We can talk to people in our party in certain parts of the game. We share our troubles with some people, chat with others, etc. Even though Cloud gives the most correct answer out of 3 when talking to them, his relationship with that character deepens even more. This part is important because characters with whom you have a high relationship accompany you in some important story parts. For example, in Saucer, you go on a date with the person you have the highest relationship with. I couldn't achieve this balance well because I wanted to date Tifa. It was replaced by Red XIII. Yes… I went on a date with a dog and you can't imagine how I went through the scenes!

The fights are perfect but the mistakes are still the same...

The combat system is one of the most basic building blocks of this game, but it disappointed me. First of all, most of it is the same as the first game, but there is no problem with that. Because, in my opinion, this system perfectly synthesizes the turn-based combat system of JRPGs with the real-time of the West. Our general goal is to raise the opponent's posture bar as much as possible and stagger the opponent. Thus, we quickly reduce the health of our staggered opponent and finish him off. While doing these, we can actively use each character in the party. With the digits of our ATB bar, which increases in direct proportion to the damage we inflict during the fight
, we can slow down the game, drink potions, cast spells and perform special attacks with a single click. These are the tour-based parts of the battles. The basic logic consists of this and I find this system quite entertaining.

However, there were some critical errors in the old game as well. For example, the lack of jumping and the fact that in battles with flying enemies, you will be annoyed by the battles that will throw the controller against the wall if there is no one in the party with a ranged attack! Yes… Unfortunately, they didn't fix any of them. One could at least fix the malaise and inadequacy of flying enemy wars. Everything is literally the same. Okay, I understand that the system would be perfect and you wouldn't add any innovations, but your system was full of deficiencies.

Now the jumping problem is a problem experienced throughout the game. Because even if we lock on flying enemies in battles, sometimes our beloved melee characters do not automatically attack upwards. If there is no one attacking from afar at that time, woe to you. Sometimes there are such ridiculous enemy designs that I can't explain it to you. You need to get that controller and have a nervous breakdown too. One war is beautiful, another war is a disgrace. Some enemies are too big and sometimes they don't react when you hit them, some are too fast and you can't hit them at all. Thanks to them, what
can we do? If the same problems occur in the 3rd part, we will be given the right to speak more harshly.

So what are the new additions? Since our characters' limit attacks, which we can call their ultimate, fill up faster than before, we can use them more than once in battles. In addition, the skill tree, or Folio as it is called in the game, is full. It has incredible abilities that allow you to perform joint synergy moves with the characters in your party. And yes, you can break abilities and replace them again. Thus, we can arrange these from book stores in cities or from rest points that are abundant during the mission.

Also, our weapons are leveling up. Although the general hits are the same for all unlockable weapons, it all comes down to special abilities. Each weapon has different special attacks that you can do with the triangle button. At the same time, as weapons level up, materia slots also increase. Whatever you call the material; Materia consist of special stones that give the team various powers in the Final Fantasy VII universe. Just like in the first game, we provide spells and statistic increases with these stones. Of course, they also kept the part of measuring the enemies and finding their weaknesses with the Asses Materia.

By the way, fighting feels extremely satisfying, both in terms of animation and the feeling of hitting. Sometimes there are such beautiful spontaneous scenes... Sometimes Cloud throws Tifa into the air with his sword, sometimes Caith straddles Red, etc. We have to say as a positive plus that fighting has become more refined and faster in this regard.

And finally, of course, there are summons, a Final Fantasy classic. Summons consist of huge ancient beings that you can summon to support us during war. Along with the summons we earned from the open world Intel missions I explained above, our characters already have their own summons. You can give whatever character you want, but you have the right to summon one in each battle.

Boss fights are also one of the important parts of this game. But unfortunately, if you ask me if there were any great battles that I remember apart from the last fight, my answer is "No, there aren't many." it would be.

As you can see, they further developed the already good system and brought it to an incredibly good level by adding a lot of add-ons. I wish they had ironed out the shortcomings so they could find that perfect system. Let's say the rest is left to the 3rd part...

This was my dream Final Fantasy VII!

People have wanted to see these characters again for years. Cloud, Sephiroth and others are still some of everyone's favorite characters in the gaming world. They have achieved this through spin-off projects such as films and games over the years. But it felt great to see the original game remade.

The quality of the cutscenes, the epicness of the action scenes and the renewed versions of iconic scenes are so beautifully done that you feel like you are watching a movie. Here is my dream VII. That's exactly what happened in the game. The storytelling is at its peak, with cool action sequences and the fitting of the narratively illogical parts of the original game into a more proper pattern.

Of course, sometimes they did not forget to add the main missions and of course the filler missions to extend the gameplay time. As someone who hates these “controlled” extensions, yes I hated them here too. Just when something important is about to happen, we start doing something completely different. Dear Japanese developers, I wish they wouldn't deliberately try to lengthen their games. Our world would definitely be a better place!

Have I seen worse? Believe me, I don't know!

Who at Square Enix played this game and said, "Okay, release this performance mode into the market." If so, the employee should be fired immediately. All kidding aside, it might be the worst PS5 graphics I've ever seen. I wouldn't even call it a graphic, it's just mud! You don't see what's ahead, you enjoy what you play. I am someone who is not obsessed with graphics, but this is seriously not at a level that can be endured. I switched to graphics mode and played at 30 FPS. That's when the real visual pleasure emerges.

Although it is definitely better to play this game at 60 FPS, the performance mode is not a problem. Supposedly they will fix it with an update, it's been a month but it's already gone. Rendering errors, anti-aliasing problems even in graphics mode; As if the criticism they received in the last game wasn't enough, they still go and use PNG photos in some places, what's going on? We are in 2024, are you kidding us? This situation is not nice at all and unfortunately I
have no hope that it will be resolved in the 3rd part.

But apart from these, the atmosphere and environmental designs are nice. Vast open worlds are fun to watch. Their face modeling might be the best I've seen lately. We have already praised the battle animations and cutscenes above. I'm sitting here waiting with curiosity for it to come to PC, what should we do... That situation is a separate case anyway. He just became famous in limited exclusive. However, I regret to say that I do not think this will happen in 6 months or so. There's still Final Fantasy XVI on the way. We'll probably see Rebirth next year or so - of course, let's hope I'm wrong.

Original soundtracks, they're even better now!

I still open OG's music library and listen. Almost all of them have a very special place for me and I think they are some of the strongest compositions ever made among game soundtracks. Of course, the renovated versions are just as wonderful. When I should have been excited, I jumped into the air, and when I should have been sad, I couldn't hold back my tears.

If you own the Deluxe Edition, you can access all parts and the game's Artbook from Square Enix Digital Content Viewer. The drawings are wonderful as always.

By the way, you can also play the piano in the game! It should have been mentioned in the mini-game section, but I chose to save it for the end because so much thought was put into it. Definitely not because I just came to the music part of the article and just remembered… By the way, it is harder than playing the real piano, so we have a new Last of Us guitar! However, aside from being able to play the game's music, I congratulate you for giving you the right to play freely.

Farewell until the big reunion party!

Reunion... This will be exactly the subject of the 3rd game, but I think we will see it years later in the PS6 era. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth managed to become the third game that I'm glad I have a PS5 for. The previous two were Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy XVI. I definitely don't see Rebirth as a new generation game, but it is a huge journey story that puts itself above the first game.

To be honest, I was a little offended that they didn't include Cid and Vincent and even almost ignored them in a certain part of the story, but they could make a nice DLC for both of them and win our hearts. Just like the Intergrade DLC they did for Yuffie. We are waiting in this context, sir.

Farewell, old friend! Let's say see you in the 3rd part. Was it a trip worth 2000TL? Well, I wouldn't say this is easy, but if you have a budget of 2000 TL to spend on the game, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is one of the games you should not miss for PS5. See you in another article!