I beat this last night after 88 hours and 17 minutes - I did everything bar the level 70 protorelic challenge.
It's a wonderful game with a huge heart. Just as you could feel the dev's love for the source material in Remake, you can feel it here in Rebirth. It oozes passion and enthusiasm.
You can tell the people working on this game love FF7.
The scale of the game is out of this world and it feels like a true adventure, with highs, lows, detours, big twists and so on.
I loved it and I doubt anything will top it this year. It's a weird hodgepodge of 90s soul, early 00s open world checklist content and state of the art present day presentation.
My wife and I adored it. It's a 10 for me.
I'll post more in the future, but just to comment on a few things -
Tifa and Cloud are very much pushed as the canon couple in my opinion. I thought Remake did a good job of balancing the romantic triangle, and as someone captivated by Aerith in that game, I felt comfortable favouring her with little push back from the game. Funnily enough, I replayed the game just before Rebirth and found myself split down the middle, liking both equally. But fast forward to Rebirth and Tifa is absolutely pushed as 'the one'. Her and Cloud share a number of emotionally charged moments and whenever Cloud is going through hardship or needs a helping hand, Tifa is the one to comfort him. From their initial friction on the rooftop, to their awkward conversation at the inn, to Tifa's reactor rescue mission, to her rush to comfort at him in Shinra Manor, or how she goes to help him when he confronts the big bad… while Aerith goes to grab the materia. There's a subtle favouring of Tifa throughout.
Not to mention they nearly kiss after the reactor sequence too. It's also suggested in optional dialogue that Cloud used to stand guard to try and catch a glimpse of Tifa. While speaking Tifa mentions that Cloud always used to stare at her if you talk to her in the same area. And when you factor in the optional dates, with Tifa's being the most overtly romantic - we even see them kiss - it very much feels like they are the chosen ones. And I'm fine with that to be honest.
I favoured Tifa myself in Rebirth because she's empathetic, thoughtful and human, while also being a complete badass with lots of inner strength. She gets so many cool moments and I think, outside of the final chapter and a half, completely outshines Aerith throughout the entire game.
This favouring feels even more overt because you've got Aerith still hung up on Zack in the main timeline, and Zack pining after Aerith in the other one. I think Aerith is conflicted, she still has feelings for Zack, but likes Cloud… while also knowing that 'this' Cloud isn't the real one, so to speak. So it kind of feels like you've got the romantic relationship between Tifa and Cloud developing in one timeline, and hopes of Aerith and Zack enjoying a happy ending in the other.
One thing I have to mention is how Cloud was slowly corrupted throughout the game and became quite unlikable towards the conclusion. It was really well done and worked well. I didn't want to control him near the end and was hoping someone else would take over the player one spot for a time to really disconnect the player from Cloud. They do switch things around a little bit, but I think they could have gone further.
I mention this because it's tangential to one of my pet peeves with the game - Cloud's deteriorating mental health, uncharacteristic actions and odd behaviour goes unremarked upon throughout. Cloud is never seemingly aware he is being manipulated, which you can write off to mind control shenanigans, but everyone else either tip toes around everything or just gets on with it.
I turned to my wife and said, you know what this reminds me of? And she said Xenoblade. I said yep. But it reminds me why I enjoyed a somewhat similar idea in that game more than here in Rebirth (in some sense). Shulk immediately tells people he's experiencing visions of the future, the rest of the party acknowledge it and it's incorporated into the plot in a way that includes everyone. Meanwhile it feels like the elephant in the room here. It's perhaps something that should be spoken about, but no one wants to be the person to bring it up. We do see gestures towards this when Cloud talks to Tifa after the reactor incident, but I'm sat there for the final five hours thinking, is someone actually going to talk to him? Call him a dickhead? Anything?
It's not badly written and the idea that SOLDIERS degrade over time is a nice little narrative mechanism to help justify Cloud's ignorance to his mind control and the party's acceptance of some of the wacky stuff he does. But you do wonder at some points toward the end, is someone going to have a word with him or what? He grabbed the black materia and was cackling like a cartoon villain. Anyone?
I loved everything they did with Cloud in regards to the mind control, heel turn and so on. But it becomes so intense towards the end, to have no one comment on it feels a little contrived. That's the payoff for the next game, we've got a 10-phase boss fight to get over the line. Let's move on. Again the execution of it was excellent, but the writing around it left me wondering why no one was saying anything. Of course, I know the story of the original FF7. I know where the payoff is coming, but still.
And my final critique, which is going to sound like it could be a big one, but in the grand scheme of things it isn't for me personally - Septhiroth.
I'm not sure they've got him quite right. From the start of Remake to the end of Rebirth, he appears sporadically, spouting cryptic nonsense, before checking out for another dozen hours.
'I'm waiting Cloud'
'Let us defy destiny together'
'Seven seconds to the end…'
'It's a reunion… it's a homecoming…'
Blah, blah, blah. I don't dislike him, but as a charismatic villain, he misses the mark. Great look and a great theme. But you reach a tipping point, or at least I did in this game, where I just thought, shut up man, and just speak like a normal person. Stop with the riddles, metaphors and crazy lines, and give me some clarity.
And I'm talking about him in the broad strokes, not in a 'I'm not impressed with version of Septhiroth' way, more in a 'villain to carry a game' way. The structure of the game doesn't help him. There's not many meaningful story beats where he has an impact, and if you're consuming all the side content, he's just not in the game for hours and hours.
So, he's not terrible but when he never talks plainly, doesn't appear for hours on end and when he does appear, it's typically as some-kind of ghost… but you keep making him the final boss… I don't know. I appreciate and respect why they've handled him differently in this trilogy to the original game, and respect the intention, but I'm not totally convinced the execution is quite right so far.
Again, this game is a 10 for me. I could probably write three times as much about what I loved about the game. But it's always fun picking apart the bits we're not sure about.
