Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - Before You Buy

- [Falcon] Welcome back to another episode of Before You Buy, the show where we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing. Hi folks, it's Falcon. And today, the journey into the unknown continues with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the highly anticipated continuation of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. The first game set a pretty high bar for how these are gonna go. But I'm gonna say it. Rebirth pretty much blows everything about the first game o

ut of the water. This is one hell of an ambitious game that marries open world game design with AAA spectacle and makes it look easy. Rebirth is massive. It's a game with a ton of content, but it somehow manages to retain the polish and presentation of the first game. If not, brings it up a notch. If all you care about is a quick recommendation, there it is. Rebirth is an excellent RPG that gives you a lot more RPG than the previous game did. It makes Remake honestly look kind of like a tech dem

o and that's not to say that Remake ain't good. I played the hell outta Remake at this point. Okay, without other way, let's get into it. Rebirth continues directly where the previous game left off, starting with the flashback segment and calm. This whole opening sequence is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth writ large. It's character driven, unhurried in its pace, and it has lots of little nooks and crannies to explore. The game runs buttery smooth on performance mode on PS5. Looks fantastic overall. D

o not let the demo visuals fool you. The actual game looks way better. Character models are more detailed. But the thing I really started to notice is just how great the environments look this time around. They're not just surprisingly accurate to the Final Fantasy VII layouts. They're impeccably designed and they're just full of personality. I might be fan birding out a little bit here, but it really is amazing seeing some of the most memorable scenes from the original game play out with some o

f the most lavish presentation possible. Even if in one of the game's only kind of awkward moments, villagers standard on SRO with guns for a long time without doing anything. It's very weird, but it all looks incredible. From a story perspective, Rebirth actually hits it out of the park despite the fact the game has a lot less story progression than the previous game. You're mostly just going from one place to another following these black-robed guys, but it's just so good with the characters.

There are some new elements introduced here that keeps things intriguing, but I don't even wanna get close to spoiling anything. So, I'm gonna mostly avoid talking about story elements. Remake did a really good job reintroducing characters like Barret, Tifa and Aerith, making them likable and interesting. But this game cranks it up with the constantly amusing dialogue between party members and funny little scenes that play out all the time. Like all the newcomers add to the humor. Red XIII's now

a full party member. And while he acts serious, he kind of steals the show with incredible animation and some totally absurd moments. Yuffie is no longer relegated to a secret character and gets a lot more to do as a result. Some people might find her enthusiasm kind of annoying, but the voice acting is actually really good in terms of making her likable, and that goes for everyone actually. In general, everyone has a lot more to do in Rebirth and the voice acting is uniformly excellent. The la

st major character to join your party is Cait Sith who is as bizarre as in the original. But man, the animation work is just out of this world. He is the kind of character you do not see in RPGs anymore along with Red XIII because animating them is such a pain in the ass, but I am super glad he's here. The last remaining party members from the original game, Cid and Vincent, they do show up but they're not playable. I guess, there's something they wanna hold off on for part three. I think what's

gonna catch people off guard about this game is how funny it is. This game reaches like a dragon levels of goofiness. And not some of the time, it's a lot of the time. The entire Junon sequence up through the boat ride and Costa del Sol is incredible. It takes the comedic aspects of the original game and cranks it up to 11. Okay, so some of the stuff, like it's text jokes, so it required a little finesse to make it into like, "Hey, this is funny as an acted moment." And they did it. As somebody

who remembers the entire Advent Children, no fun phase of post Final Fantasy VII content. It is such a huge relief to see Square Enix having fun with these characters again rather than just being like the miserable mope Dirge of Cerberus type stuff. The original Final Fantasy VII is goofy as hell and filled with lighthearted moments, and this game doesn't just retain it. They double down and I'm so here for it. I wish I could show you some of this stuff because holy crap, this game gets so weir

d sometimes in the best possible way. Once you get into chapter two, that's when the game really reveals itself as a full on open world experience. You can change your party freely with each available character. You can fully explore the town, complete side quests which, unlike Final Fantasy XVI, are actually usually pretty fun and creative. You hunt down various hotspots around the map, each earned you intel experience, calm, great level of detail with this game. It's a place you spend like fiv

e minutes in the original, but you get the full lavish remake treatment here and it's just an incredible looking place. Pretty much every town is like that, in fact. Rebirth manages to create one of the most beautiful fantasy worlds I've ever seen in a game. There's multiple areas where my jaw just dropped and I had to stop and take in the scenery. And at this point in my playing video games career, I don't do that in the way that I did with this game. So many spots are like that too. This game'

s version of the undercity of Junon is just awesome-looking and the variety of locations is incredible. It's not just a bunch of ruins like in Midgar. You go from deserts to tropical paradises to lavish shopping malls. There's so much more visual variety in this game compared to the last one. And honestly, again, I don't wanna say that the first one didn't have variety. It was just very specific in its setting. Rebirth doesn't have one giant continuous world, but each one of these zones is massi

ve. It's got a ton of stuff to do in them. It's honestly a little overwhelming at times if you wanna be a completionist. there's just much to do that it could be exhausting, I think. At least doing everything isn't a requirement or anything. You're free to pass some of this stuff up if you want. It's all connected to intel system where you collect data around the world. It unlocks new combat trials and a kind of currency you can spend to earn new material which like the original can be junction

onto weapons to unlock new spells. These unlockable material, they're extremely good and this game is not easy. So getting this stuff is essential. You're really incentivized to explore the world and get this intel. If there's one negative to the game, it's that some of the open world stuff can get super repetitive. There's towers to climb, special monsters to hunt, crystals to scan, that kind of thing. And when you've done one, you've done basically all of them. Another issue, at least to me, i

s ledges and climbing. It can get a little awkward in the open world trying to find places you can climb and places you can't. Sometimes you can't jump down to spots that seem like you should be able to jump down to. Sometimes you get kind of stuck in the environment in awkward ways. There's no jump button. So, navigation feels a little wonky at times, at least on foot. Certain open world activities do mix things up like catching a local chocobotor ride, which have different abilities depending

on the region you're in and the special classified hunts in each region where you fight a unique boss enemy. Probably the standard open world quest are these protorelic missions where you go around collecting these treasures that have this unique story attached to them. Sometimes they introduce a little mini dungeons or have you play through mini games and they're always a ton of fun to hunt down. Some of the open world content can get a little repetitive, the side content specifically. But over

all, the game is just anything but repetitive. It's constantly introducing new mini games, special events, dungeon mechanics that mix up the party formation, all kinds of stuff that just breaks everything. If you love a good mini game, you will love Rebirth. It's almost maxed out with them. There's so many that it's almost impossible to list them all and they're all incredibly fun. There are some more basic ones like the games in the Golden Saucer, but there's also stuff like the card game Queen

's Blood which is a fast and fun little card game that's not too complicated so it doesn't bog things down. I'm not sure I like it more than Gwent. But honestly, pretty close runner up. Queen's Blood isn't just some sectioned off side activity either. There's points in the main story you can actually play. Thankfully, it doesn't punish you for failing or skipping out of it entirely. So, you're never forced to succeed in the card game. But it shows up a lot more in the main story than I expected.

Chocobo Racing is here too and it's basically Mario Kart. Seriously, same boost mechanics. It's great and there's way more. The original Final Fantasy VII went crazy with mini games, so it's nice to see that they went even more crazy with mini games. When you compare the remake with this kind of content, it was pretty light. But also, in all honesty, this is the part of the game where you would expect this stuff to show up, the Golden Saucer section of the game. But there's more than just the G

olden Saucer. I don't know. In terms of combat, the game introduces a few new mechanics to mix things up. There's a new party experience gauge that separates you from your individual character level. It earns points you spend in this new menu called the folio. This allows you to upgrade your characters and unlock new synergy moves which are these powerful abilities that can only be charged using individual characters in battle. It's a clever way to encourage switching characters mid fight and yo

u'll need to use this stuff 'cause the game is no joke. It can be really tough, especially against certain major bosses. There's definitely an element of old school difficulty here which is funny because the PS1 Final Fantasy VII, it's easy as hell. This game's way harder. If there's any other, I guess, negatives I could give, it's that there were some difficulty spikes that felt like they came outta nowhere. I'd be cruising along and hit a certain encounter and it would just annihilate me. I'm

not talking about like a boss or a special fight, I'm talking about like some random group of enemies. It just felt kind of off. But that also may be me being bad at the game. Like the first remake, the original Final Fantasy VII Remake which is again a weird sentence, I've said it before, but combat is really challenging. It's tactical, at least at first. If you're losing, it can be hard to reverse things. The game really forces you to keep on top of your magic and abilities. Just going in in m

agic buttons doesn't get you anywhere. The assess spell is even more essential here than in the previous game. A lot of the tougher enemies and bosses have unique gimmicks to pressure them and make them more vulnerable to attacks that you'd never be able to guess on your own. And sometimes exploiting these weaknesses is an absolute necessity to win. The battle system is as good as the original, but new moves, material, and party members keep it from feeling stale. Yuffie is basically the same th

ing as the integrate DLC. But Red XIII and Cait Sith, totally new. Red XIII has some fun gimmicks and Cait Sith is super chaotic and random. I don't really know how to use him well 'cause he's one of those characters that's either really good or really bad. But overall, this game takes a long time to get through. There's a lot of battles and the combat never got old to me. So, huge major kudos on that. Neither did the music, might I add. It's got a few new tracks this time to go around, but ther

e's also all the remixing of the classic tunes. You'd think anything new would stand out 'cause the score is so iconic. But honestly, it all fits in really well. Generally, the music's just so extremely good. I'd say it's a step up from even the first remake and they did such a damn good job that time too. They get so creative with the soundscape. The music isn't just good. There's also a ton of it. All in all, this is just an amazing package. Rebirth is amazing. It makes Remake look small and u

nambitious. And seriously, in all seriousness, it's not. It was bigger than a lot of other games in terms of scope. This game just dwarfs it. It's massive. It's incredible-looking. The characters are better than ever. The alterations of the story are well intriguing without spoiling anything. Remake introduce some new elements of the story and Rebirth continues them. But I think this stuff is better done here. Some of the story turns are bound to be controversial, but I think there's a good bala

nce of classic story elements and new stuff here. Rebirth is a game that's almost too big for its own good, and I did have a few issues with it but it's easily a Game of the Year contender. I would be completely shocked if a large amount of games come out that are on this level this year. It's one hell of an achievement. Now it's just time to play the waiting game for whatever the hell they're calling Remake part three. And wow. Wow. But what do you think? Leave us a comment, let us know. If you

like this video, click like. If you're not subscribed, it's a great time to do so. We upload brand new videos every day of the week. Best way to see them first is of course a subscription, so click subscribe. Don't forget to enable notifications. And as always, we thank you very much for watching this video. I'm Falcon. You can follow me on Twitter at Falcon the Hero. We'll see you next time right here on Gameranx. (in-game character fighting)