FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH

Really wanted to love this, especially as someone who respects Final Fantasy taking bold risks. I even quite liked Remake, maybe because it didn't overstay. But this is a game where everything expensive to implement has been checked off, whilst falling flat on the fundamentals - writing, rpg progression, atmosphere. On the surface, this looks amazing and is fun. The battle system is actually bold and innovative (but not that different from Remake). Party dialogue and interactions esp at the start are nice to see so fleshed out. The bad: - Atmosphere is totally off. It doesn't need to be the same as the original PSX game, but comparing it highlights the difference. The PSX game was a near dystopian world with moments of levity; you could see what your party is trying to save. Even Remake, being set in Midgar, fits this theme more. Rebirth... feels more like FF7 themed Disneyland. The world honestly just kinda seems chill. Story too, the game cannot seem to allow a serious/quiet moment without utterly smashing it with campy side-characters or anime-brainrot dialogue. - RPG progression feels awful. People may dislike move to action; I'm more than open to it. But you start at lv15, and I'm *still* lv35 50hrs in, not that it feels those levels are doing much. The weapon upgrades you can choose have miniscule stat upgrades; lots of stat +5%s... which cost a lot of weapon points. The fun of swapping around materia is gone due to glacial growths, again, *50*hrs in, and most materia are at best in their second phase. How can you swap around to develop a range when nothing actually develops. The most useful weapon skills you learn earlier on, and discovering stuff in the world also barely rewards you. Ultimately, I barely feel much stronger than the start of the game - and at this point, combat feels pretty repetetive, esp as it hasn't changed much from Remake. - Open world is pretty much ubislop, everything's marked on the map, most of it isn't rewarding to discover, and is filled with annoying little things (QTEs for shrines and such) to make it feel like you're doing something. Chadley is more a symptom than the root problem imo. Yeah you can skip this but... the game is absolutely laid out to lead you to the mindless discovery. Calling it UbiSlop feels pretty fair. - Queen's Blood: Fun to collect cards at first, but mechanically broken. The optimal play in almost every match is just rushing aggressive board positioning, rendering 90% of the complex card mechanics and synergies completely pointless. The minigames are otherwise well made: but perhaps the biggest plus being that they don't overstay. But forcing me to play 5 QB games in a row in the main story is NOT cool. - Sephiroth: Majima everywhere should not feel like the inspiration here Overall all i can say is... I'm just a bit bummed out. They had one short and huge budget to remake this and it just sucks that it's not really fun, and feels more like a series of wacky skits inspired by the original. The surface level discussions online are valid, but there are deeper issues that make this feel more like a chore than a game, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to keep going.

There may be a nice 20 hour game hidden somewhere here, it's just buried under 80 hours of repetitive filler content. Boring sidequests, copypasted Ubislop open world activities, constant barrage of badly designed minigames and unnecessary additions/changes to the original game's story. It's certainly a beautiful looking game, but it's as deep as a puddle. This is the Hobbit movie trilogy, video game edition.

My short review synopsis: The actual game systems are better. The combat is better. The weapon upgrade system is far worse than Intergrade. The party feels more alive in the open world. I like that they help from the sidelines. The world is vastly more open. Exploration has the potential to be much more interesting. But the game seems almost afraid to let you simply enjoy those things. Every region has to be filled with activities. Every activity has to be tracked. Every system has to have a character explaining it. Every character needs another quest. Every quest needs another minigame. And eventually, the freedom starts feeling like work. The game gives me a huge world and tells me I can explore it however I want. But the more I explore, the more I feel like I'm doing the same handful of activities over and over.

Though I enjoyed the FF7 Remake this game's pacing is atrocious, It just drags on and on, boring repetitive side quests and pain in the a** mini games, empty open world. Feels like a chore to play, not enjoying it one bit, probably not gonna finish this one. I hope revelation will be better than whatever this is.