"Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth" review (Version tested: PS5)

 

I think something's wrong with me. As I get older, I seem to have veered off the path of "action / driving games" into the realms of really enjoying RPGs. I played the living crap out of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (then followed it up with polishing off Twilight Princess) and now I've just done a similar thing, getting lost in the realms of Final Fantasy VII with both Rebirth (then followed up with Remake). 

Let's frame this with a bit of history. I was actually working in games retail while at college when Final Fantasy VII arrived on the Playstation (and later PC) to rapturous applause. All I remember about the PS1 version was picking up a traded-in copy that was destroyed for about 50p, polishing the disks up with toothpaste and patience, and finally getting it to work - but then realising that it wasn't the game for me. Some years later when I could afford my first gaming PC I picked up a cheapo big box copy of it, and attempted to play through it again. It just wouldn't stick, I do not know why - and that was me done with all things Final Fantasy until this year. 

A work colleague - who shall remain nameless - convinced me that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was going to be one heck of a game, and that I'd be a fool to miss it. Sure it looked pretty from the trailer, but I know well that Square Enix are masters of pre-rendered cut scenes and there'd be no way the actual game could match up to those trailer bits, right? 

Oh boy was I wrong. 

At this point I didn't really know a huge amount about the backstory behind Cloud Strife and his alliance with the mysterious terrorist organisation known as Avalanche. I literally would not know who Sephiroth was if I fell over his long grey tresses or gigantic Katana. And why did some guy have a gatlin gun for an arm? Yes folks I learned nothing from my initial dalliances way back in the PS1 era, so I went in and like a complete chump played Rebirth before Remake and got everything totally confused. 

So the game starts out with unbelievable visuals. I mean we're used to seeing developers like Naughty Dog pulling that neat trick where they smoothly segue between a cut-scene and you taking control of your character but in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (and remake, to be fair) this is unbelievably smooth and there's very little difference between the levels of detail on the character you control vs the character you see moping through the cutscenes. So that's a positive straight away. 

The graphical lushness doesn't stop there. I don't think I've ever seen a game's scenery and world look as completely amazing and gorgeous as FFVIIRBs. Even the caves look amazing, in fact I spent a lot of time just marvelling at the rocks and stalactites / stalagmites in the caves, they're that good. Let alone all the outside areas, jungle vistas and amazing urban or populated areas. Say what you like about Squenix, they sure know how to make pretties - and pretties that move smoothly without any screen tearing or other nastiness. If this is Unreal Engine 5, this is the most impressive game I've seen use it so far. 

Lighting plays a huge part in the game too as you transition from outside to inside a cave and your eyes adjust to the light just as they would in the real world. That's a stunning tech demo for what the PS5 can do when people really put the effort in. 

As a 'noob' to FF I opted for a relatively low-level assisted combat model which actually helped me learn some of the nuances of how combat works in the game. In any skirmish you can let Cloud do his thing (or any of the other characters you leap into the pants of). But can take more direct control flinging magic and special moves around to combat your foes. 

As I played through the game I started to notice something weird. I started to actually become invested in the story, and the character arcs. That was very unexpected compared to my early experiences with Cloud, Tifa and the nefarious Shinra Corporation. I actually started to want to see this game right through to the end. 

The other unexpected aspect was how much enjoyment I got out of every session. Even if it was something as mundane as wanting to learn how to play Queens Blood (a horribly addictive minigame / card game your character will indulge in at each location), I found that I actually genuinely wanted to devote time to the game rather than doing my usual 8 hour 'breeze through and done' type of thing. 

Then the thing that kicked me in the teeth. The game's end. This is an unforgivably tough series of battles with poor checkpointing, meaning that you have little choice but to win or die and be taken at least an hour and a half back in your efforts (yeah it really can take that long - or longer to polish off the final scene). Me no likey! BUT hilariously though I struggled the first time, in each subsequent playthrough (and there have now been 3) I beat the last boss like a boss. Go figure. 

Essentially if you are a Final Fantasy 7 fan, you've probably been used to weirdness over the years. Going back and then playing Remake (yeah I know, what don't I get about 'playing things in order?') I realised what was going on a bit more, and also realised just how much slicker an experience Rebirth was over remake (in fact it's eerily like the leap in gameplay, feel and graphical niceness that you experience playing Twilight Princess vs TOTK on the Switch). 

The best and worst thing about the pair of games is that they've pretty much shoved all other games in my currently playing pile to the side, and I can't actually stop playing Remake and Rebirth now. Savouring them until the third in the trilogy arc arrives? Yeah I reckon I can do that. And now I know my Nibelheims from my Corels, I feel like I should really have put in the effort all those years ago, because now I'm playing catchup and actually wish I could turn back the clock and experience FF VII for the first time once more (and I may well just do that, dig out the PS1, track down the FFVII disk and see if the durned thing still works!)

Rating: 5 out of 5