The second instalment in Square Enix’s remake trilogy is even more impressive than the first, as it attempts to transcend the PS1 original.
When Final Fantasy 7 Remake arrived in 2020, it unwittingly kicked off a trend that gamers of different stripes either love or hate: the reimagining of old games using modern technology. Since then, a string of such remakes has straddled a quality spectrum with, at one end, lazy efforts that merely tack better graphics onto unchanged originals, and at the other, full-blown reinventions that take the best elements of the original and elevate them to new heights.
Remake, at the time, was a classic example of the latter – it took the first five hours of the 1997 PlayStation original and cleverly expanded it into a 40-hour epic, with new real-time combat that still owed something to the turn-based original. It copped a small amount of criticism for being thin on plot, linear, and not quite up to the finest modern level design standards, but was rightly held up as an example of how stone cold classic games with outdated gameplay can be remade for a modern audience.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the second of what will be three instalments of the overall project to reimagine its illustrious forebear, and yet it’s a considerably different, and better, experience than the first entry. It doesn’t so much address the mild criticisms made of its predecessor, as blow them out of the water.
Firstly, nobody in their right mind would accuse Rebirth of being light on plot – it’s the absolute opposite. The story starts where Remake left off, with Cloud and his gang (Tifa, Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII) making their escape from Midgar to a town called Kalm. But before you can explore Kalm there’s a flashback to an origin story involving Cloud, Tifa, and the former’s burgeoning nemesis Sephiroth.
Over the course of Rebirth, the gang expands even further in the form of travelsick, materia-obsessed ninja Yuffie and Cait Sith, the anthropomorphic cat with a fortune-telling mechanical moogle. It also takes in a welter of exotic and varied locations spanning the farthest flung corners of a huge game world, a cruise liner, and even the legendary Gold Saucer amusement park.
Pretty much every one of those locations has its own open world area packed with different (but consistent) activities. Each of those locations has a very distinct vibe – green coastal area, mountains, desert, jungle, rift valley, and so on – and its own mode of transport, including chocobos that can run up sheer cliffs, bounce off giant mushrooms, and ride air currents to effectively fly.
Classic Final Fantasy icons abound: moogles are very much in evidence and even the perennial character Cid makes an appearance. At one point, you’re transformed into a frog and, of course, you can fish and play piano. Whereas the scene-setting Remake was relentlessly serious in its tone, Rebirth piles on the whimsy. Even for a Japanese role-player, it contains an extraordinary cornucopia of mini-games, undoubtedly the best of which is the card game Queen’s Blood.
This is Rebirth’s answer to The Witcher 3’s Gwent, which is fiercely addictive and, as you accumulate ever more exotic new cards on your travels, evolves into something which is surprisingly complex and tactical. Just like Gwent, it is surely destined to become a cult standalone hit of its own.
Remake was praised for morphing the original game’s turn-based combat into something more action-based and Rebirth takes that a step further, with the introduction of synergy moves that allow two members of each three-person battle party to combine their skills.
The synergy system has two levels: in basic combat, if you hold down the guard button you can trigger low-level synergy attacks in which, for example, Cloud deflects Barret’s bullets at an enemy. Those are primarily useful for allowing close-in characters like Cloud to attack from a distance and build up their all-important ATB gauge, allowing them to use magic, abilities, and items.
The best synergy attacks, however, build up in a similar manner to limit breaks, over longer, more challenging battles, enabling huge, damaging attacks that are spectacular to behold (while the characters’ limit break attacks remain intact and separate).
The process of introducing synergy attacks also led Square Enix to rethink the game’s skill trees. Previously, skill points would let you upgrade your weapons with all manner of abilities and stat enhancements. Those weapons upgrades still exist in Rebirth, but in a hugely truncated form.
This time around, though, a system called folios, with synergy abilities as its centrepiece, becomes the main skill tree. It works pretty well; as your weapons upgrade new nodes appear and the system also allows your characters to gain elemental attacks which can be triggered without using magic.
Yuffie and Cait Sith bring new play styles (Yuffie can operate close-in or at range, and is agile if a bit fragile) and Rebirth’s plot conjures many situations in which you are forced to battle with specific teams of characters. Which is good: in Remake, it was perhaps too easy to leave characters you didn’t like out of your teams.
The synergy moves help with that if, say, you have a preferred play style which might not mesh with certain match-ups. Rebirth has also upped its game materia-wise, too, with a large number of exotic new types that can be used to give your characters distinct natures that they previously didn’t possess. Plus, each character gains a large library of new and often useful abilities throughout the game.
Another new system that plays into Rebirth’s wider use of materia to shape your characters is crafting. Every area is studded with resources you can collect and then turn into useful objects via a gadget called a transmuter. The more you use it, the more exotic the items you can make with it become. It’s particularly useful for crafting armour with large numbers of materia slots, and by the time you near the end of the game, you can use it to make the most potent of potions.
You’re also given a meter which shows your party level: the more you fight together, and the more individual conversational interludes you engage in, the closer your party becomes. It’s not entirely clear what you actually gain from upping your party level, however, although it does reinforce the collaborative vibe emphasised by the synergy abilities.
One area in which Rebirth clearly sits head and shoulders above Remake is its game world. This time around, its level and environmental design is fantastic. In certain areas, you have to solve traversal puzzles to access elements, such as the Remnawave towers that provide information on the surrounding area and the mako springs that perform a similar function.
Chadley, the materia-developing geek, plays a major part in Rebirth, exhorting you to collect as much information from each area as possible, and rewarding you with new forms of materia. It’s also more important to delve into Chadley’s battle simulator in Rebirth than it was in Remake, since that brings not just more materia but also new entities that you can summon to help in the more taxing battles.
There’s a lot of verticality in Rebirth’s open world areas, but you’re given handy devices like grapple-guns to tackle that. And at various points you can climb using handholds, as seen in the demo, which garnered some criticism because those handholds were painted yellow. Oddly, there are a couple of areas in which they aren’t highlighted in yellow, but most of them are, so that controversy will run on.
When you enter each open world area, you can hurry through it to find the necessary destination to advance the story or – as you surely will if you’re an aficionado of action role-players – you can linger, trying to complete as much of it as possible (and thereby level up as much as possible) before moving on.
As a result, Rebirth is incredibly long – well over 70 hours if you’re a completist. If you were in speedrun mode it would still probably take at least 30 hours to complete and you might struggle with some of the bosses which, in true Final Fantasy fashion, are plentiful, strategic, and epic.
The overall effect of Square Enix’s Rebirth endeavours has been to create something which, if viewed in isolation, is arguably the best Final Fantasy game ever. It’s vast, epic, and endlessly beguiling – rammed full of lore and humour, with brilliant depictions of some of the series’ most iconic locations.
It’s fabulously playable: the new combat systems mesh seamlessly to give you a new level of control over how your party performs, as well as a much greater ability to dictate how it fights. Story-wise, and in terms of the varied action it provides, it ebbs and flows like few games ever manage to. It may be the second part of a triptych, but we’d be very impressed if a demonstrably better game is released this year.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review summary
In Short: An object lesson in how to turn an old classic into a modern masterpiece, that surpasses even Final Fantasy 7 Remake in terms of appealing to both veteran fans and complete newcomers.
Pros: Huge, epic, and story-rich. New synergy and crafting systems work beautifully. Combat is the series’ best. Enjoyable open world activities, with plenty of fun and whimsy. Queen’s Blood is a great game all in itself.
Cons: Some of the mini-games aren’t that great and the villains are still a bit cartoonish. Opaque party level system and some may find it intimidatingly long.
Score: 9/10
Formats: PlayStation 5
Price: £69.99
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix Creative Business Unit I
Release Date: 29th February 2024
Age Rating: 16
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