Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review: Gameplay Impressions and Videos

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second installment in Square Enix's ambitious plan to remake one of the best games of all time.

When the Final Fantasy VII remake project was announced as an episodic, full-game offering stretching the 1997 PlayStation classic, a general vibe of nervous anticipation was the consensus.

But 2020's Final Fantasy VII Remake set the bar high, taking the first five to 10 hours of the original game and giving it a full-blown remake and next-generation treatment in one swoop, even tweaking a story that has transcended into cultural osmosis for non-gamers.

Now, Rebirth (a title with interesting storyline implications, even) attempts the same feat, but with the game's world greatly expanding. And if it takes what Remake did well, expands on that, it might justify the entire trilogy and help the industry rethink how it handles remakes, too.

Graphics and Gameplay

From a presentation standpoint, Remake's arrival was a stunner for players who experienced the original version of the game.

Yes, the graphics and sound design were fantastic and every inch of the world packed with detail. But the transition from the fixed backgrounds of old technology to a fully immersive suite of varied environments was, in a word, wild.

Even then, it was hard not to think about the possibilities with Rebirth. Because narratively, the next organic story beat is the characters leaving the cramped, life-sucking city's metallic walls and corridors for a sprawling outside world.

And does it ever live up to expectations.

Rebirth is massive, with a true open-world feel. Each of the regions feel unique visually, with gorgeous fauna, wildlife and those same emotive characters out in the world. It doesn't feel empty like some other sprawling games and each area players can enter is dense with environmental storytelling.

Remake's same strengths in eye-popping visuals during combat and superb across-the-board sound design return to cap off the exclamation point that is immersion.

Arguably more impressive, though, is the way Rebirth smartly tweaks gameplay details to better fit the much, much bigger playable area.

Players can now vault over and scale obstacles, adding a new speed and modern feel to exploration. They have access to a grappling hook, too, which adds further fluidity to exploration—and possibilities.

Beyond that, world exploration can happen in a number of ways, be it on foot, riding chocobos (sidequests around these companions unlock differing traversal abilities) or using vehicles. There's fast travel, too. Which is to say the game avoids what could've been a major hiccup with slogging, redundant world traversal.

Remake set a fantastic baseline for combat, too, which Rebirth largely carries over to great effect. It's fluid real-time action against aggressive enemies with deep RPG mechanics.

Players again lean on an ATB gauge that fills via attacks and blocks, allowing the usage of expanded abilities and items. There's a pressure and stagger system, with the former leading to the latter, putting enemies in a vulnerable state that leaves them open to massive damage. This give-and-take alone would make for a compelling combat system as a party of three characters take on enemies, but it wouldn't be Final Fantasy if it stopped there.

Spells are again handled through Materia, with the expected elemental weaknesses in play for offensive magic, as well as medical and other support options.

Those support options feel more important than in the past. Being able to slow enemies and limit the number of attacks could be crucial in key fights and filling an ATB gauge for a teammate can come in clutch.

The same, of course, applies to the suite of items in the game obtainable as world drops or at shops, vending machines, etc.

Buildcrafting, on an individual and team-wide level, is again deep and important. Even the choice of weapon for a character unlocks or limits specific abilities. Ditto for armor, where the item with the most defense stat might not necessarily be the better choice if another piece has more Materia slots. Characters can also take different stances to add more depth.

Summons also return as unlockable massive abilities and, as always, calling upon a massive, mythical beast to help against a boss is a blast.

Combat Synergies is another highlight. These are team-based abilities that, while effective in combat, also happen to impact relationships.

They're not limited to inflicting damage, either. Some can provide boosts, such as temporarily filling and keeping a resource bar unlimited. The risk-reward, though, is that each usage then costs more Synergy charge.

Where Remake's menus mid-combat were still a little too much at times, Rebirth massages this issue with a smart, customizable one-click shortcut menu to make things a little more manageable.

One other quality-of-life note to highlight—players can form preset parties for specific scenarios. So it's easy to have a boss-busting setup ready quickly, or swap it out for something more support based, etc.

It all flows very well together. And sure, players can probably brute force much of the combat without digging too deep into things like stances and experimenting with different party compositions, synergies and on and on. But it's there, deeper than most and rewarding to do so.

Story and More

Final Fantasy fans know what's coming here (and so do many who haven't played yet, again through that pop-culture osmosis two decades in the making).

Cloud and crew pursue Sephiroth outside Midgard, jumping out into the world for some of the game's biggest narrative beats. In doing so, the game presents beloved new arrivals that include Yuffie and Red XIII, among others.

The narrative that has stood the test of time is smartly expanded upon here, even if it does feel a little more, standard, might be the best word. It's an RPG with a semi-open world now, whereas the feel of the first was a little more distinctive because Midgard itself has such a dominating, unique presence.

Even if it doesn't feel as unique this time out, the more expansive world lets the narrative breathe a little bit. For all its strengths, the first remake effort in this trilogy seemed like it was dragging its feet a bit to keep players confined in Midgard. That's certainly not the case here, with Rebirth's open-ended nature feeling more robust, if not justifying this being broken into a trilogy in the first place.

Along the way, players can sometimes select the tone of Cloud's response in conversation. These are little things, but they do also impact character relationships and give players just that little extra bit of agency to keep things engaging.

As if the stunning world-density upgrade wasn't enough, long-time fans will discover that their trek through the story doesn't happen in the same order as the original. And if that isn't enough, there are brand new towns and locales that didn't even exist in the original.

It certainly feels like players won't stumble upon certain areas and towns without tackling a side quest, so they greatly incentivize going off the main path in a rewarding manner. Once again, those side quests aren't the most amazing gameplay offerings ever, but they do impact Cloud's relationships, too.

Overall, the game incentivizes exploration well and rewards those who check the fine details. Noticeboards, for example, might fill up with more side quests and notable material upon completion of a chapter, adding to the lived-in feel of the world.

Of note along these lines is the discovery and activation of Remnawave Towers in each region. Doing so rewards World Intel, which in turn provides more regional-focused gameplay experiences and—of particular note—rewards such as new summons.

While we can ding the game for having another open-world towers to unlock across a map design, the presence of the chocobos and modern traversal abilities makes things smooth enough.

Where Midgard felt designed to slow things down a bit, the massive expansion of the world here permits the big highlight of exploration—the minigames.

Calling them "minigames" is underselling it, though. The Queen's Blood card game alone might be able to thrive as its own standalone gaming release.

It will never escape comparison to Gwent from The Witcher 3, but this is perhaps the first time we've been able to say anything stands on the same tier as it.

The chess-like importance of positioning across three playable lanes is great fun, as is collecting the wealth of cards out and about in the world and encountering the different opponents (and difficulties).

Some of the other minigames, understandably, just don't offer the same depth. G-Bike racing, inspired by the first remake's expressway treks, is fun, though. There's also what is essentially boxing, herding and of course, chocobo racing.

The minigames with depth are deep, though. Like playing the piano—players can find sheet music throughout the world and just mess around, sure. But with the range of notes seemingly available, there's bound to be some stunning videos of players performing real music posted on social media pretty quickly.

As far as general management and progression goes, Rebirth follows Remake in the proper ways. There's a lot of time spent in menus when customizing builds, parties, etc., and early on, helpful hints and tips guide players along.

Two big notes for progression. On the economic side, Item Transmutation permits the turning of materials discovered into equipment and items for combat. These are meaningful and synergistic with the concept of exploration being important.

And the overall leveling experience gets enhanced by the Folios system, which tells the game which abilities to prioritize as players climb the ladders, allowing players to specialize and take finer control over individual characters and parties.

As players advance, it might behoove them to check out the dynamic difficulty setting. There are normal settings too, but the dynamic provides enemy scaling that feels pretty fair and, if nothing else, is a nice option to have for a semi-open world like this.

Performance is positive, with the game seemingly holding stable framerates in most places, though players can adjust between performance and fidelity modes to fit their desired preferences, as expected.

Conclusion

On its lonesome, all Final Fantasy context removed, Rebirth would be a very, very strong release, an RPG with superb depth, interesting characters and an engrossing world littered with minigames that inflate the hour counter.

But the context is, of course, critical. And unlike the first entry in this saga, Rebirth doesn't feel artificially extended to make a trilogy possible.

There's so much depth to the systems and world here, so much fun to be had in even the minigames, that Rebirth is certainly more well-equipped to keep players happy if there's an extended wait for the next entry.

Though Final Fantasy might be the only series capable of pulling off a worthwhile episodic remake like this, Rebirth is proof of concept that certainly makes the mind wander about the possibilities for other remakes of classics.

More importantly, it squashes any doubt that the trilogy wasn't a good idea. There's a possibility Rebirth ends up the high mark, which speaks to just how strong it really is, independent of the other entries.