Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a masterpiece. I was expecting this game to be linear like Remake, but Rebirth went all out and presented a beautiful world to freely explore along with many mind-blowing additions to the story that even players of the original would enjoy.

First of all, Rebirth's combat is great. I was already a fan of Remake's combat system, but Rebirth was able to elevate it to the next level and make the action even faster and cooler with their new synergy and perfect block mechanic which adds to the skill needed to tackle harder challenges. This was also supplemented by the new dynamic difficulty where enemy levels sync to your level and certain skills and magic are more balanced like -aga spells requiring 2 ATB instead of 1. My only gripe is that, unlike Remake, your characters don't automatically jump to flying enemies, thus having a difficult time targeting them without spells or Yuffie's shuriken.

Next, Rebirth's open world was a blast to explore. Usually, I dislike most open-world games as they're often empty, filled with the same side-quests without much or any importance to the plot, and are difficult to traverse. Rebirth, on the other hand, is one of the few open worlds I enjoyed exploring. As I explore new areas, I don't feel that I'm looking at the same thing and the world doesn't feel bland as it's populated with hidden sites to find and loot. The side-quests are very well done compared to Remake's and I felt that they were more interesting and gave closure to both some returning and new side characters. I admit a few of them felt like a chore like with the follow the animal quests, but a majority were not bad and contained some scenes that I liked. The traversal was also very convenient as the map was filled with lots of markers that allowed for fast travel and contained both chocobos and vehicles to make things faster. I also really loved seeing the different abilities of each chocobo like being able to use water to jet yourself into the air. Additionally, the new grappling hook and climbing wall mechanics were nice to see as they helped give more variety to the exploration and travelling. I understand that there's a sizeable portion of the community that hates the open world, but I think comparing it to Ubisoft's is a bit inaccurate, and the variety, level design, and incentive to explore helps Rebirth's world shine even more. I believe that this kind of open world was a logical progression for remaking the worlds from the original, and without them, I wouldn't have taken the time to look around and see how well crafted it was.

Moving on, Rebirth's requirements for completionists is a tough commitment. While I did say the open world is great, I admit it can be tedious sometimes. Completing all world intel is required for Johnny's trophies, and collecting all 88 trophies awards you with the 7-Star Hotel achievement. 7-Star Hotel also requires you to do nearly 100% of everything which includes getting the highest score in nearly all mini-games and completing all combat challenges and simulations. I agree with many that this is a terrible achievement and while I found the mini-games fun, having to replay them multiple times made them very repetitive and tedious. The good thing about the mini-games was that there was tons of variety and reminded me of 90s FF games. I also expected this game to have a lot considering that the original also had many, especially at the Gold Saucer. While the highest rank could be achieved on most of the mini-games on the first try or within a few, having to do them again on hard or in Shinra Middle Manager's quest was very annoying, and I ended up feeling that I never wanted to do them ever again. While most of them are optional, they also contain some bonus cutscenes, so I think dismissing those who complain about them isn't entirely right. I hope Square decides to add some sort of skip button for these as they already recognize JRPGs can be too time-consuming. They have already added an easy mode for some mini-games like Fort Condor and Mog's Emporium, and in their older FF PC ports, they have boosters which help speed up the game. Along with some mini-game improvements, I hope they also reduce the number of mini-games in the next game as Hamaguchi has already mentioned that there would not be the same number as Rebirth's. On the other hand, I am looking forward to seeing the snowboarding minigame in the next one. Apart from minigames, the combat simulations and challenges are also a chore. While I do enjoy some of the difficulty, having to go through several, and all at once is too repetitive, and should be reduced.

Performance-wise, I felt that Rebirth ran perfectly on my desktop PC, and I rarely encountered bugs or crashes. Compared to FFXVI, Rebirth was very smooth on my 3070ti and I was also able to max out most of the graphics settings. The Steam Deck on the other hand ran a bit poorly sometimes, and after seeing Square's Rebirth social media posts about it, I felt hopeful about how well it would run. Unfortunately, my expectations were too high, and they did not even include an FSR option which would have made things run better. Luckily, by using a mod, I was able to enable XeSS and FSR, which made things look so much better along with framerates that ranged from 30-40 fps, with some dips to ~24 FPS. The graphics in Rebirth are also a step up from Remake as they are more consistent and feature larger environments packed with lots of detail. Even the NPC faces looked immensely better than in Remake. My main complaint is that ultrawide support is absent because this game would have looked even more incredible with it. I plan to use an ultrawide mod for my hard playthrough but decided to play my dynamic run without it in case of bugs and performance drops.

Next, the music, as expected, was incredible in Rebirth. Initially, I expected most of the tracks to be similar to Remake and to feature the same battle theme for most of the time. The main theme and overworld tracks being used as battle themes were genius and continued to keep me excited for combat. All the variations are perfect to my ears and the new main theme, "No Promises to Keep", evoked deep emotions from me and brought a tear to my eye in the end. I'm very happy that I was able to order the limited edition CDs, and now that I've completed Rebirth, I can finally enjoy them.

Finally, Rebirth features a fantastic story that many both new and old players would love. The addition of a new timeline following the events of Remake allowed for new changes to occur in the story. While it was a bit annoying for the story to shift to Zack's segment for a very short time, it still kept me interested and looking forward to what would happen to the new timeline as I progressed through the game. Despite most of the game following the events of the original, the additions helped expand many characters' personalities and growth, in addition to a deeper emotional aspect. The things that stood out to me the most were the heavy focus on Aerith and the long-awaited Loveless play that turned out to be so much better than what I expected. As an Aerith fan, I really loved these moments and romance which made the ending more touching for me. Playing all the FFVII games, excluding the mobile ones, also contributed to my enjoyment as there are plenty of scenes that those who have played Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus would like. My few gripes of the story would be the absence of Rocket Town where Cid learned his lesson of treating people awfully, unplayable Cid and Vincent, and the changes to the Weapons, but overall I felt satisfied with the story.

Overall, this game is a 10/10 for me and it is up there with one of my favorite games. While some flaws should dock 1 or 2 points off, my enjoyment at the end is enough to give this a 10.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a masterpiece. I was expecting this game to be linear like Remake, but Rebirth went all out and presented a beautiful world to freely explore along with many mind-blowing additions to the story that even players of the original would enjoy. First of all, Rebirth's combat is great. I was already a fan of Remake's combat system, but Rebirth was able to elevate it to the next level and make the action even faster and cooler with their new synergy and perfect block mechanic which adds to the skill needed to tackle harder challenges. This was also supplemented by the new dynamic difficulty where enemy levels sync to your level and certain skills and magic are more balanced like -aga spells requiring 2 ATB instead of 1. My only gripe is that, unlike Remake, your characters don't automatically jump to flying enemies, thus having a difficult time targeting them without spells or Yuffie's shuriken. Next, Rebirth's open world was a blast to explore. Usually, I dislike most open-world games as they're often empty, filled with the same side-quests without much or any importance to the plot, and are difficult to traverse. Rebirth, on the other hand, is one of the few open worlds I enjoyed exploring. As I explore new areas, I don't feel that I'm looking at the same thing and the world doesn't feel bland as it's populated with hidden sites to find and loot. The side-quests are very well done compared to Remake's and I felt that they were more interesting and gave closure to both some returning and new side characters. I admit a few of them felt like a chore like with the follow the animal quests, but a majority were not bad and contained some scenes that I liked. The traversal was also very convenient as the map was filled with lots of markers that allowed for fast travel and contained both chocobos and vehicles to make things faster. I also really loved seeing the different abilities of each chocobo like being able to use water to jet yourself into the air. Additionally, the new grappling hook and climbing wall mechanics were nice to see as they helped give more variety to the exploration and travelling. I understand that there's a sizeable portion of the community that hates the open world, but I think comparing it to Ubisoft's is a bit inaccurate, and the variety, level design, and incentive to explore helps Rebirth's world shine even more. I believe that this kind of open world was a logical progression for remaking the worlds from the original, and without them, I wouldn't have taken the time to look around and see how well crafted it was. Moving on, Rebirth's requirements for completionists is a tough commitment. While I did say the open world is great, I admit it can be tedious sometimes. Completing all world intel is required for Johnny's trophies, and collecting all 88 trophies awards you with the 7-Star Hotel achievement. 7-Star Hotel also requires you to do nearly 100% of everything which includes getting the highest score in nearly all mini-games and completing all combat challenges and simulations. I agree with many that this is a terrible achievement and while I found the mini-games fun, having to replay them multiple times made them very repetitive and tedious. The good thing about the mini-games was that there was tons of variety and reminded me of 90s FF games. I also expected this game to have a lot considering that the original also had many, especially at the Gold Saucer. While the highest rank could be achieved on most of the mini-games on the first try or within a few, having to do them again on hard or in Shinra Middle Manager's quest was very annoying, and I ended up feeling that I never wanted to do them ever again. While most of them are optional, they also contain some bonus cutscenes, so I think dismissing those who complain about them isn't entirely right. I hope Square decides to add some sort of skip button for these as they already recognize JRPGs can be too time-consuming. They have already added an easy mode for some mini-games like Fort Condor and Mog's Emporium, and in their older FF PC ports, they have boosters which help speed up the game. Along with some mini-game improvements, I hope they also reduce the number of mini-games in the next game as Hamaguchi has already mentioned that there would not be the same number as Rebirth's. On the other hand, I am looking forward to seeing the snowboarding minigame in the next one. Apart from minigames, the combat simulations and challenges are also a chore. While I do enjoy some of the difficulty, having to go through several, and all at once is too repetitive, and should be reduced. Performance-wise, I felt that Rebirth ran perfectly on my desktop PC, and I rarely encountered bugs or crashes. Compared to FFXVI, Rebirth was very smooth on my 3070ti and I was also able to max out most of the graphics settings. The Steam Deck on the other hand ran a bit poorly sometimes, and after seeing Square's Rebirth social media posts about it, I felt hopeful about how well it would run. Unfortunately, my expectations were too high, and they did not even include an FSR option which would have made things run better. Luckily, by using a mod, I was able to enable XeSS and FSR, which made things look so much better along with framerates that ranged from 30-40 fps, with some dips to ~24 FPS. The graphics in Rebirth are also a step up from Remake as they are more consistent and feature larger environments packed with lots of detail. Even the NPC faces looked immensely better than in Remake. My main complaint is that ultrawide support is absent because this game would have looked even more incredible with it. I plan to use an ultrawide mod for my hard playthrough but decided to play my dynamic run without it in case of bugs and performance drops. Next, the music, as expected, was incredible in Rebirth. Initially, I expected most of the tracks to be similar to Remake and to feature the same battle theme for most of the time. The main theme and overworld tracks being used as battle themes were genius and continued to keep me excited for combat. All the variations are perfect to my ears and the new main theme, "No Promises to Keep", evoked deep emotions from me and brought a tear to my eye in the end. I'm very happy that I was able to order the limited edition CDs, and now that I've completed Rebirth, I can finally enjoy them. Finally, Rebirth features a fantastic story that many both new and old players would love. The addition of a new timeline following the events of Remake allowed for new changes to occur in the story. While it was a bit annoying for the story to shift to Zack's segment for a very short time, it still kept me interested and looking forward to what would happen to the new timeline as I progressed through the game. Despite most of the game following the events of the original, the additions helped expand many characters' personalities and growth, in addition to a deeper emotional aspect. The things that stood out to me the most were the heavy focus on Aerith and the long-awaited Loveless play that turned out to be so much better than what I expected. As an Aerith fan, I really loved these moments and romance which made the ending more touching for me. Playing all the FFVII games, excluding the mobile ones, also contributed to my enjoyment as there are plenty of scenes that those who have played Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus would like. My few gripes of the story would be the absence of Rocket Town where Cid learned his lesson of treating people awfully, unplayable Cid and Vincent, and the changes to the Weapons, but overall I felt satisfied with the story. Overall, this game is a 10/10 for me and it is up there with one of my favorite games. While some flaws should dock 1 or 2 points off, my enjoyment at the end is enough to give this a 10.