Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Final Fantasy VII Remake was undoubtedly a huge success, somehow pulling off a complete remake and partial rewrite of one of the most beloved games in history. There are a lot of dyed in the wool fans, not only of this franchise but of Final Fantasy VII in particular, and to say they are heavily invested would be an understatement. As good as Remake was, there was one key criticism that was always circled back to: linearity. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth goes a long way to address this core complaint. If anything, there’s been a sharp overcorrection.

First things first: this game is utterly spectacular. It looks and sounds incredible; while there were early complaints about the graphics with the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo, the day-one patch helps address some of the worst issues. Don’t worry about what you’ve read or played before today; the full game looks incredible.

The visuals are also accompanied by the phenomenal orchestration that we have come to love and expect. Again, there’s not much to complain about here — they even went a step further and added a mini-game where you get to play the piano. But that’s where the game starts to feel a little, well, bloated.

Remake was notoriously linear — set in the sprawling city of Midgar, it was never going to be full of big, open fields. Rebirth quickly gets you out into the Grasslands outside Kalm and tells you to put one foot in front of the other and see what you can find.

This first sprawling area is choc full of things to do, from fixing chocobo stops to climbing towers to treasure hunting to scanning crystals to hunting summons. That’s not even including the side-missions where you wrangle chocobos, fix windmills or other such things that are totally normal for a mercenary.

Most of this is done at the behest Chadley (your cyborg friend from Remake), and it’s so overbearing that if you do it all in one slog it starts to feel like the game isn’t so much about Cloud, but a different blond with a limited emotional range