You stayed when I needed you the most. If that's not a hero... then I don't know what is.
Beaten: 2024
Version played: Playstation 5
I have never hated a game as much as I hated Rebirth.
I'm saying this up front because I know this is not the popular opinion. Rebirth got a very warm reception from critics and fans alike. I, unfortunately, am not one of those fans.
Which really sucks, because I am exactly the person who should love this game. It's an open-world remake of one of my very favorite video game settings! I love the characters! This should be for me!
And yet it fundamentally was not. This is mostly due to the story: whenever possible, it takes the original, balls it up, and turns it into something completely different. On the one hand, this is a fascinating way to approach a remake of a beloved game. On the other hand, this is not what I wanted at all.
I realize I'm in the minority here. And I wish I wasn't, because I truly had such hopes for this game. Like I said, it should be right up my alley. And yet I got so frustrated with it at points that I just had to set it down and leave it for the next day.
Part of this was the gameplay, admittedly. I fucking hated the forced minigames. Every time I sneezed there was another stupid minigame to do. No, I don't actually want to play soccer as Nanaki. I do not care about your new card game. And don't even get me started on the box-throwing section.
At every turn, when this game offered something new as if to delight me, I found myself heartily disliking what it had to offer. Let me be clear: I beat the game. I got to the end credits. And I have no desire to ever play it again.
I'm writing this about a month after I finished it, so maybe my opinion will change in time. But right now, it really feels like it won't. And since I expect the third game in this trilogy to build on the blocks of this game, I have no idea if I'm even going to play it.
It sucks. It really does! It's not fun to dislike a game that should be exactly for you. I wish I felt otherwise about it, but I just don't.
I guess we'll see how my feelings develop over time.
Favorite character
It's still Tifa, for all the same reasons as before. But since Rebirth changes things quite dramatically (the incident in Gongaga, for instance), I find myself underwhelmed.
At least Barret is still compelling, athough they fumbled the landing on the Dyne stuff. I do not need a minigame right after a heavy emotional section, thanks.
Favorite music
This is the one area in which I have zero complaints. I can't name any tracks because I haven't listened to the full OST yet, but this might be the soundtrack of the year. It's a phenomenal expansion of FFVII's soundtrack. I might not have liked the story, but at least the music was incredible.
Favorite location
Given this is an open-world game about exploration, I should have ample things to say about its locations... and yet, because I was so frustrated with the game, I completely ignored exploration after chapter 4. As such, I only saw a fraction of the zones on the western continent before I moved on with the plot.
Even so, my vote's for Cosmo Canyon. It was always one of my favorite locations in the original game, and I loved seeing how the city was expanded for the remake.
Gameplay thoughts
This is a direct sequel to Remake, so it uses the same battle system with only minor tweaks. The addition of synergy abilities between party members is nice, though not totally necessary. I still played Tifa at every opportunity, and made minimal use of Yuffie. Sorry, Yuffie. (This bit me in the ass when I was forced to use Yuffie in the final boss fight.)
I did two full zones of the open-world content before burning out, and I found it... passable. I've played a decent number of open-world games, and while I expect collectibles and other such nonsense, what I'm really after is lore. So the thing I enjoyed the most was the protorelic quests and the flowers that gave you more lore about the area you were in. More summon lore was also very nice. My one regret about skipping the later overworld content is that I missed out on lore drops, and if I ever go back to the game it'll just be for that.
I found the crafting system wholly unnecessary and a bit of an annoyance. I still don't like the weapon upgrade system. Materia was fine; it's a FFVII game so I know what I'm in for in that regard.
My biggest complaint is just the minigames. Yeah, the original game had minigames, but good heavens, not this many. Every time I turned the corner there was another minigame to do. I expected a Fort Condor minigame and stuff in the Gold Saucer, but all the stuff in Costa del Sol was unnecessary. The biggest issue I had was that the game was constantly stopping me to do minigames or shooting boxes or whatever and all I really wanted to do was the actual fun combat.
I did all the sidequests in the first two zones and one in a later zone, and that was it. Only one of them stood out: the one with Barret and the dog, where Barret talks about his fears with parenting. That's the kind of thing I like from a sidequest: get me some depth into the characters. If there were more sidequests like it later in the game, I didn't do them. Sorry.
I still wish Cid and Vincent were playable.