Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Critique

full spoilers Final Fantasy 7 rebirth delivers on remake's deadly promise just like its predecessor not only through a Multiverse of Second Chances does it take major liberties with the theme of life and death from the 1997 classic it claims to be remaking this is so messed up but it also rips the tension p and depth out of that game's most famous and emotional moments I approached rebirth fully armed to experience its multiversal Mayhem ready to live a whisper infus plot coupled with an insane finale because after playing remake I didn't wish to see the Beats of the original game anymore why bother following the Beats when youve set up a path to create your own story now and why bother following the Beats when you're simply going to trample all over them and while the sheer notion of a Multiverse in Final Fantasy 7 is a never-ending kick in the nuts I'm approaching this critique just as I approached actually playing rebirth through the lens of having accepted that rebirth is the continuation of a story story that set up a Multiverse of possibilities knowing this was just another wild sequel to the 1997 classic made the experience far more palatable and there is a lot to enjoy in this game nonetheless rebirth is a dizzying cocktail made from your childhood memories just one Sip and you'll spin down the rabbit hole transported in a catatonic State perhaps even submissive to the greatest lie because as you play sometimes you'll forget what they did to your favorite game four years ago you'll confront your memories maybe you'll even believe you're following a faithful remake the LIE may only last minutes or even seconds until you're roused back to reality as you play on you'll willfully expose yourself to that Whiplash again and again as if searching for something you know is not there and can never be there as if to repeat to yourself over and over it could have been good if only if only and I guess that's a testament to how rebirth often captures the spirit of the original game before letting it slip through its fingers rebirth is packed with so much charm mini games exploration and side quests maybe Final Fantasy hasn't been this fun in a long time many of the journalist reviews seem to reflect this as if to acknowledge Square enix's jaded years of stilted world design and exploration I have to give them credit the combat is as exciting as ever the music as beautiful as ever scra Enix have poured so much love and effort into this game they have tried so hard hard now there are a million things to do but the things that matter to me don't seem to be there anymore I can't help reminding myself that rebirth has the luxury of inheriting the strongest cast of characters in all of Final Fantasy and somehow pays them a disservice I can't help reminding myself that rebirth studiously follows the spine of Final Fantasy 7's fabled post midgar dis one perhaps that game's strongest section yet consistently fails to capitalize on its most striking moments as soon as the end credits rolled on remake a legion of fans would have had you believe they never wanted a fiful remake to begin with not even a nearly faithful remake yet of course as these same fans looked to the Future they wanted the calm flashback the Barrett Dy confrontation nanaki's return to Cosmo Canyon the Temple of the Ancients and aith in the Forgotten Capital awaiting some kind of Fate they praised the potential for the new but over the next four years were parently obsessed with seeing those old standout original game moments reborn in the latest Graphics as if to say Square Enix were free to reinvent Final Fantasy 7 but there were limits to how far they were willing to see them go so I guess they wanted old moments but new moments they wanted an experience where the same things happened but also didn't happen I often wondered would they care if dying blew Barrett's head off If seto's Tears Turn nanita to Stone if aith caught the masamune with her bare hands is that where they draw their line those of us who drew our line at bringing Dead characters back to life we were seen as purists and our preferences were not to be respected that was a fun four years Zach's definitely not coming back the game will be 100% identical to the original game going forward the whispers are gone we swear what a mess remake left its own fandom in and rebirth opens by affirming everything we knew to be true if you were paying attention at all Zach is alive both he and an alternate reality Cloud reach midgar the door to infinite worlds and infinite lives is a jar rebirth has a lot of remakes baggage to deal with namely the Multiverse and the handling of seph rro but irrespective of those elements handed down by remake there's so much that rebirth gets wrong about Final Fantasy 7 in the original game world and story were the things that mattered most to me it's those things I'd like to [Music] explore for many people one of the main selling points for this game was the world outside midgar how Would S Enix do justice to that epic sense of wonder we held in the original game there's something Timeless about that Journey from cm to junan and then heading out over the sea I turned on the game and dressed myself in Black robes a willing participant on the grand pilgrimage come hell high water I was making that trip and what a trip to see this cinematic rendering of a world I held so dear but while the abstract world of the original game told me so much rebirth paints every blade of grass from Shoreline to Shoreline and its World suddenly seems all the smaller Forest no estimations and guesstimation of distance and space in between the world is now everything you see on screen and nothing in between an open world a closed imagination yet still I can appreciate the love and detail across its varied locations sometimes I'll stop in my tracks completely Spellbound by the the view of junan and the sister Ray Cannon yeah this world would have been enough for me if everything else had worked with this project I would have taken this but even though the world is an improvement on the likes of Final Fantasy 16 for me magic and wonder exists in a place beyond communication towers and map icons perhaps just an open road to my next story objective would have been enough and everything left unmarked until I discover it any deviation from that Main Road would be for me to make whether that's finding an NPC in a cave who gives me an ancient weapon or a new community or situation I stumble upon without the game itself steering me towards anything else other than my Prime objective that way if I did deviate from my goal then it's just me indulging in Exploration and I've maintained the illusion that the story is still the main purpose because even though the content that fills this world as largely optional it becomes clear that there are two games playing out at the same time the game of chasing seph rro and then the game of exploring the sandbox each Zone inviting you to complete a set of similar tasks to the last Zone and across all this who even decided I needed a helper guide and voice in my ear in the original game I was the master of my own destiny while once upon a time I could drive past content without even realizing it now the reminders and prompts from Chadley and the incessant phone calls that ring out whenever I make the mistake of interacting with something in the world seemed purely a conduit for Square Enix to say please come explore all this side content we've set up for you don't worry about seph rro there's a huge amount of time to play sandbox sucking the Jeopardy out of the story I know that sounds a little harsh rebirth is not the first game to juggle an open world with a dramatic cinematic story maybe it simply matters so much because rebirths based on a game that had a greater sense of urgency and a greater sense of mystery across its world it's seph's triail that opens up the world but our heroes don't often seem that Keen on following it for example the story forces you into a prolonged side quest filled vacation at cadel Soul when really you probably should have better things to do tasks which should have been relegated to purely side content status suddenly become mandatory requirements if things are purely optional there is a distinct difference in that if you indulge in them then you are the one breaking the flow of The Story You're The One hitting Paws to do some non-canonical activities but when a story about hunting a villain forces you down tributaries I feel it's only inevitable that there's a certain measure of urgency lost in the process and I say this fully aware that the original game Plants you into a gold saucer date all while the threat of seph rro is looming over the plot but it works because the party are there to acquire the key to the Temple of the Ancients and the date is a spontaneous event arriving from the fact that the RO hopeway back to Carell is closed for maintenance whereas in rebirth cadel Soul completing tasks so the heroes can get onto the beach and follow the robe them in feels like obvious filler there's no depth here other than extending the clock and giving you more things to do as a player maybe if aith had fallen into a depressed state and needed some carnival games to lift her spirits I'd feel less inclined to question why the characters are wasting so much time here but enough about the World At Large how do rebirths towns and iconic locations shape up my feet touch ground and calm which trades its peaceful homely feel for a noisy festival-like atmosphere with its crowded always on attitude it feels more like a shopping center people go for a day trip from [Music] midgar to CS fight not even hearing the famous calm music can return me home I can't help thinking it would have been more impactful to hear in this early part of the game both the world map theme and the calm music for the first time but both tracks have already been used liberally in remake unlike the original game there are no actual homes to enter only shops cafes and hotels which doesn't help dispel the feeling that this isn't a place people actually live in that becomes a common sight throughout the game cadel soul is booming with activity but every building is a business of some kind where do all these NPCs actually live even in places like under junan there's no more walking into someone's house and stealing their potions only in gongaga and Nibelheim are there actual homes to enter towns in general are now noisy Affairs MPC chatter floods the UI a 100 conversations are happening at once the kind of Nod towards realism I could do without outside calm I walk back towards midgar the music transitions to hollow a clever touch as if I'm wandering back into the remnants of remake I like that I can walk the road I thought would only be reserved for an FMV later I look on midgar from afar there's no smog just a clear blue sky the water surrounding the great city is crystal clear no sewage no pollution this world's doing okay maybe it doesn't need me after all I start to realize this isn't the world I knew there's no Endless Night in junan no pensioners wandering aimlessly in darkness at 2 in the afternoon now it's a sun-kissed fishing Community filled with the trendy ambitious latte sipping NPCs that populate every town across this world as a consequence midgar feels even less compelling and unique if that was even possible because it's the same cheery [ __ ] transfused from one town to the next there's no great disparity between outside and inside midgar other than one location has a roof over it even Cosmo Canyon has fallen to the tourism industry overpopulated overdesigned it used to be a place you'd go to contemplate your place in the universe now there's something deeply insincere about buen haggen's operation a telescope sitting on top of a tourist trap and I don't care if it's more realistic that it's now swarmed with visitors I'm not chasing realism here I'm chasing a Vibe a mood Cosmo Canyon was somewhere you could escape from the world a remote source of knowledge and inspiration hidden among the Steep valleys and crevices of that region now it has its own airport even the desolate atmosphere of Corell prison has evaporated into the desert from when it came replaced by a forgettable dust ball no longer built upon the ruins of Barett and dy's Hometown no longer a festering pit of hate and despair no chuo carriages roaming the endless arid landscape no sense of hopelessness just a band performing people traveling in from outside and a host of NPCs looking for fun and games high above helicopters arrive at the Gold saucer it's the prize at the end of the rainbow the one we've all been waiting for but inside the Gilded Park I'm saddened to see wond Square missing its basketball game the roller coaster now replaced by a generic space fighting Simulator the Halls are gigantic but it all feels so empty and how about chucko racing in the original game I rode through an LSD dream where my senses surrendered to 100 signals not totally sure if I was riding in some corded off indoor Studio or through the entire theme park itself sometimes the races seem to cut across the night sky now that wild charm and personality has been plucked like feathers but the racing itself is more fun to play while I can see its value somehow I never return for a second race maybe because the park itself is a chore to navigate perhaps that's a feature not a bug applied to trap visitors because over 20 years ago I practically lived in the gold saucer but now I can't imagine returning here perhaps gold saucer loses its place when most of the mini gamess can now be found outside the theme park the mini games exist in this weird realm a place people can venture to and say look how loaded with content the game is go saucer is no longer there gold saucer is everywhere over the mountains the Shinra Mansion staircase has fallen victim to some erroneous Rubble blocking our path you would think it'll be even harder to find all the clues to the Mansion safe now until you find them lazily plastered across a wall I guess Square Enix think their modern fans don't have the patience for puzzles for God's sake just give me the damn number there's nothing cryptic about this game other than why it makes the decisions it does as I arrive in the temple of the Ancients my mind pulls back nearly 25 years with its boss fights and challenging layout I remember how much I struggled here now I suffer for all the wrong reasons my momentum halted by pushing crates reconnecting the live stream and a whole lot of praying this is not something I can do faster next time this is not a world I'm excited to return to on a second playthrough speaking of second playthroughs four years ago despite remake storytelling shortcomings I did jump straight back in for another go and while rebirth again has an excellent combat system boosted by exciting Synergy abilities a Strong soundtrack and a decent open world a second run is not at the top of my list and if I could point to one reason it's simply the story Leaving aside its wild finale remake's plot seems well structured in comparison from having piggy backed off the strong opening midgar beats of the original game now freed from midgar if rebirth is about one thing it's chasing seph rro and as that chase progresses the game is in a difficult position of juggling not just multiple character stories but even multiple realities because rebirth must carry the baggage left over from remake and it must make use of it somehow as the game's opening scene unfolds I can only Wonder am I supposed to care while watching an alternate reality gang of Heroes meet their fate am I supposed to care that there is an alternate reality AR that needs saving because if there are two timelines then there can be three and if there can be three well you know where this is going multiple timelines multiple versions of your favorite characters endless opportunities to save them in such a realm does death mean anything when you know there's a long line of replacement alternate reality characters queuing up to get into the story unless handled by expert hands a Multiverse means an impossible battle to inject meaningful stakes in your story maybe I can see something like this working if aith B was a completely different person to aith a easily identifiable with her own distinct traits and if perhaps you were attached to both of them to the point where you'd mourn their absence in Spider-Man no way home you have three actors who fans have grown hugely attached to over the last 20 years of Spider-Man's cinematic Journey no one wants to lose Toby Maguire Spider-Man no one wants to lose Andrew Garfield Spider-Man because they are identifiably different Peter Parker's in our eyes now that's a product of having three different actors and being in a unique position to create some sort of payoff to their respective universes make that movie with three Tom Hollands that are the exact same character and You' got a different movie if aith dies you know there's a long line of her exact doubles waiting in the wings as soon as you get even a hint of that there is a seismic disconnect even subconsciously that's a major problem to have in your story for a game whose advertised climax is the iconic forgotten Capital erit scene it is mind-blowing that in the very first scene you were taught that death has no real bearing on the story sure you might lose the aith you spent 40 hours leveling up but the next aith will soon make you get over the first I'm someone who feels that once you open the door to alternate timelines there is no closing it even if the heroes find a way to pull the plug on the Multiverse if it existed once it can exist again after all it didn't [ __ ] exist from 1997 to 2020 and here it suddenly was in this new age Final Fantasy 7 anything can be concocted at any moment later in the game we see just how far Square Unix are riding with this thing new timelines are opening before our very eyes it seems every decision Burts a new reality it's like gnip palro sliding doors except somehow less interesting how much would your life change if you were 10 minutes early hello [Music] us instead of 10 minutes late if I had just caught that train i' have been home ages ago don't want to go wondering about things like that now Helen's life is about to go down two different tracks gwith paltro and Gwyneth paltro in the story of a woman about to choose and the kicker to all this of course is they added this to Final Fantasy 7 a game whose theme was Life a game Who hammered at home with an iconic death scene and then the gaping void left in that character's wake anyway I picked up rebirth knowing it was taking this direction I was kind of curious how it would handle the decisions remake made I didn't wish to beat part two over the head for choices part one made but rather to appraise how part two would carry that torch forward so I'm not really in the wo where did this come from phase I'm in the phase of yep it happened I'm giving it a chance and it's still a terrible idea but for a story with such a wild concept it's it's funny how rebirth ends up clinging so tightly to the Beats of the original game throughout the main of the story we'll periodically switch to Zach's alternate midgar drama a taste of the other worlds that are out there even if you were a fan of remake Reviving Zach and bigs maybe you'll even feel a little short changed here like there's a game trying to break out of its cage content practically begging for DLC status but I guess that's part of the baggage rebirth must shoulder and after the events of remake there's another Whopper this game has to contend with too seot we roll into the base timeline and we shoot back 5 years the rain falls as we enter Nibelheim in the original game this flashback comes right after we've been introduced to seph rro as the dark figure who's just permanently ended our biggest headache in the universe president Shinra we don't know much else about seph Rod until he's revealed riding in the back of a truck alongside cloud in remake we already use seph rro as a a black and white Piñata the aura was shattered the Mystique destroyed now I watch seph rro burn Nibelheim and I'm thinking yeah you might be a badass to these villagers but I can take you I already have you just don't know it yet in the original game the flashback introduced me to an evil I'd need to find and somehow grow strong enough to face in rebirth basically I'm watching a documentary about a guy already [ __ ] up add to this the fact that rebirth makes every effort in this opening section to have sephr appear as the consumate gentleman almost as if Square Unix accepted everything we knew to be true over these past four years that there was no way to make sephr scary again after dragging his head up and down the midgar expressway so instead they used the opportunity to inject more Humanity into his characterization even the mechanics seem to undermine seph's threat remember in the original game you just stand by as sephr lays waste to a Dragon cloud completely eclipsed through stats alone in rebirth you can fully control seph rro you a mere mortal can take control of the legendary Soldier but the exponential power difference to Cloud isn't nearly as obvious in a fast-moving battle system with so many elements on screen I could barely tell how much extra damage sephr was doing in comparison and more crucially as seph rro I can take damage and I can face the brink of death I can see his HP hit the red zone and I can see him fall it may not be Cannon but it sure feels like it in that moment but rebirth will beg and plead with you to respect seph's threat watch him save Cloud over and over again look at the disparity between them it's funny how the original game told us everything we needed to know through a battle system maybe there's nothing inherently wrong with hammering home the difference in skill level between cloud and seph rro in a different way it's just the cuse of this is better than the original because the paragol is so much clearer or you can really feel the difference now because you can control seph that I find to be totally untrue evident by the fact that we've all collectively as a community for over 25 years gushed at how flashback seph rro is presented in the original game without ever voicing a way of improving it but these are the types of changes I would have expected and could have almost tolerated from a remake under Square Enix after all it would be near irresistible for their developers to not stretch out or Dare try amplify the things fans responded so positively towards but unfortunately the amplification of landmark moments becomes a common theme throughout rebirth turning the volume up so high that the message is often lost in the fry back in the present day predictably the midgar zum is now a mandatory boss fight and after seeing cloud and gang obliterate Destiny only hours before a giant snake suddenly doesn't seem the most intimidating force in the marshes when I booted up the game I half expected to see the mid garum hiring a chocoo to escape us in instead after easily dispatching the Beast the game lets it win via a cutscene dragging Cloud underwater just so the story can show seph rro striking the final blow just so it's absolutely clear who's still in charge here you know in case you keep forgetting you should be scared of seph rro the characters will remind you of that all along the way apparently seph's doing so much more behind the scenes a battle for the fate of the universe is playing out away from our sight they say seph's got a mass plan and that he's very dangerous but to me at all times he's giving off that Team Rocket energy an antagonist will easily dispatch again by the end of the game to return next episode for another trashing at the end of the original Star Wars if Luke Skywalker defeated Darth Vader in a lightsaber duel does Empire Strikes Back fill you with the same level of apprehension if Luke cut off Vader's hand at the end of Empire Strikes Back does Vader still seem like a threatening force in Return of the Jedi it's almost as if taking a short-term win in making seph rro the final boss in remake and letting you knock him for sixes proves to be a long-term fail this gets worse if you imagin the Remake project as one entire story if that story was condensed into a two-hour movie the heroes are facing and defeating the chief antagonist every 40 minutes and rebirth is now picking up the pieces of that decision so even if seph rro was at his most wicked in the Nibelheim flashback can you really claw back any of the that sense of suspense and fear but rebirth is really more of the same from remake seph rro appearing to say random things just to remind Cloud that he should be following him as the story progresses Glenn L Brock appears another spectral being speaking in riddles this time to Rufus at least another antagonist who makes you feel that sephr now is even more competition in this story helping to further diminish his stature by the end of the game we'll learn that it was seph rro all along sewing the seeds of war between Shinra and wutai this is all part of the bigger dangerous horrible things sephr is planning a reunion of Worlds if you're not scared you should be but maybe not for the reason scenix intended I'm scared because it's hard to believe that chasing sephr is my goal there's so much noise and stalling in each location I visit the characters don't sound like they're chasing a murderer for the fight of their lives instead it's almost meta again and that the developers are saying okay here's the custom Del Sol bit here's the Corell bit visit all these locations and we'll meet you at the Forgotten capital for the finale later in the game there's a scene where the gang put on VR headsets to experience a gold saucer play but that's how I feel the characters are often behaving in the main story like they're living a v your experience without meaningful Stakes like they know the outcome of this adventure is a done deal take as much time as you need enjoy the beach enjoy the gold saucer we know you've been looking forward to them seph rro will l literally wait for you while you have your fun but to be fair why would the heroes be overly concerned with seph rro they barely mention The Whispers after this life-altering battle they had at the end of remake it's yesterday's news no contemplating what it meant to change Destiny or what this means for reality in general we're back to focusing on micro problems like can we rent some birds can we that's not to say the character should be wandering around totally Shell Shocked from remake but I expect an appropriate amount of acknowled Jud ment confusion or doubt expressed by the characters in the early portion of this game maybe even some infighting among the team as to whether or not they made the right decision after the ZEM we par through the meal mine some may call this story padding but in my eyes it's an organic place to put a dungeon it's purely getting from point A to B unlike remake where villains sidelined You by dropping you into Dungeons and those areas acted as barriers between you and the main path the meal mine is a geographic feature we've elected to overcome something we need to pass as part of this world's terrain on the other side of the mountains Fort Condor is a distant animation rather than a distant jpeg bonus points for Square Enix in under juning yui washes a Shore taking the place of Priscilla from the original game not the kind of change I would have lost any sleepover I actually think it's a neat way of bringing a now mandatory character into the game while paying homage to an original game moment yui's darkest ER seems long behind her she wants wants to get R in shinra's face and doesn't seem to have much fear of scarlet or Rufus Wheeling out Nero again maybe she did some serious leveling up between midgar and junan her personality is pretty full on in this game I know she often gets a bad rap but I at least can appreciate that she's an intentionally cringe character rather than an accidentally cringe one a bunch of anti- remake fans have gathered outside junan Shinra elevator just when I start to feel at home here roach skids onto the scene spoiling for fight he says he's here to capture AI but all he's waiting for is another Showdown with cloud and he's kindly willing to wait until we can find his Battleground after taking his beating he finally accepts he's not the main character later Twisted by hojo's signs roach Falls at our feet and I finally feel something for the poor bastard instead of dragging out a one note character across rebirth and into part three they actually added a little meat to his story not bad SC Enix in Upper junin it might not make a huge amount of sense hiring an unknown quantity 16-year-old ninja with a big mouth to assassinate the president but maybe mayor Ronda is a couple moves ahead of me I'm thankful at least that it does give rise to a dramatic beat yui shuriken spins through the June and air I watch its deadly edges catch the sunlight I wonder if Square Enix are about to try something wild here they don't at least the parade was fun I impressed at Shinra soldiers so much they decided to indiscriminately kill their comrades alongside me remake and rebirth love making characters do things worry about the why behind it later actually they prefer you don't worry about the why as we depart un and I realized there's been a mass Exodus from this continent the NPCs of midgar follow you out of the city like rats off a sinking ship like they know the spotlight has turned towards the new world and they're desperate to share the scream with you now it's no longer a novelty to see someone you know it's to be expected it's little things like that that make the world seem smaller the boat to cadel Saul is captained by tonal Whiplash personified one minute Captain tto is full of fun and games hosting a car tournament get ready to sh next he's putting bullets in people and then later he's back on the tanoy telling you to have a peaceful trip on behalf of the entire shimra a group We Wish You a peaceful night's sleep at cadile Soul the story grinds to a halt the characters just want to soak up some sun if I was chasing a man who killed my mother i' probably wouldn't spend a day earning tokens for some beach wear but that's just me maybe I'm the Freak no longer content with some simple RNR now even hojo's getting involved and wants me to stay in this little Paradise forever in hindsight I should have appreciated this son more because once I arrive in the gold saucer it's all downhill from here rebirth plays this game of trying to hit the memorable beats of the original story but completely demolishes them in the process now I know what cloud felt when he saw that famous photograph because Square Enix have opened up a box of old snaps and I'm stunned by what the camera shows remember the original game from Cloud's point of view finding the dead Shiner soldiers and gold saucer staff sprawled out over the floor slumped over desks then learning that they'd been shot by a man with a gun on his arm our minds instantly turned to Barrett had he snapped surely not but what if did being forced to relive the trauma in North Carell push him over The Edge maybe we didn't know him after all would we have to face him now and would he Force us to do the unthinkable only when we were flung into Corell prison did we learn the truth that Barrett's old friend Dyan had the same operation and the same outcome a gun on his arm it took Falling Into the Depths to discover the truth and it took all of Barrett's resolve to find and face his old friend alone in rebirth we get a total reimagining of this sequence before the shooting even takes place now from Barrett's point of view we watch a man with a gun on his arm move through the go saucer the game instantly exonerating Barrett before the crime has even taken place Square enix's making sure we don't think the unthinkable for even a second now as Cloud arrives to find the bodies we know who's to blame it's not our man it's the other man the dramatic irony hangs over the scene for a moment as only we the viewer know this absolute truth cloud and friend quickly catch up and decide it cannot be true this isn't Barrett's style now instead of Doo instantly casting us into the Eternal desert he gives us 24 hours to find a real killer instead of chasing an ally who maybe we didn't really know at all we're now fighting an uphill battle to clear his name and if you're thinking well there's not much difference between the two both sequences lead to a similar outcome there is a stark difference because the original plac you in a state of suspense in Lord of the Wings suspense is thinking the Nazgul are about to murder Our Heroes in their sleep if instead we had watched a scene where Frodo and Sam fluff up some pillows and stick them under blankets and then from AF far we watched together as the Nazgul were fooled by this convincing setup you've got a very different scene very different mood different kind of suspense I would think and if you're sitting there thinking well back in the original game you never believed Barett was guilty anyway well there were people who did just like the were people who considered for the briefest of moments that Frodo baggin was about to get impaled in his sleep and rebirth could have easily recaptured that feeling even if you think it's somehow Elusive and that audiences would never have bought that this modern Barrett could sink to such lows a walk of shame through nor Carell could have been enough to break a man so doesn't the original Barrett Dy setup feel more powerful at least because we were the ones left in suspense but now we're left with a 24-hour timer to vindicate Barrett and restore his gold saucer membership pass do you remember in the original game climbing to your feet in Carell prison following Barett through the Wasteland through his ruined Town his ruined memories facing Dy at that Cliff's Edge in the place where dy's world all fell apart the place he buried his wife the place he believes his daughter lies too when Barrett reveals marilene still alive Dy threatens to kill her they fight and defeated dine limps away jumping from the Cliff's Edge the only way out of here other than suicide is back up the elevator so Cloud joins a chuo race to try earn the team's Freedom which is something of a movie plot in itself convict the champion jockey the race to freedom in rebirth we walk into Carrell prison and are instantly set upon the gang members knock us cold only so the story has an excuse to transition to Daylight cloud is suddenly at the mercy of a bunch of level 10 goons a quick triple slash and we be done here keys in hand but Cloud seems Keen to play along with this charade the flamboyant gang leader will free our teammates and let us track Barrett only if we earn the gang some cash by winning the chocoo race but to do that we'll need to earn some greens to feed our Chocobo and to do that we'll need to perform a series of side quests this story doesn't believe in momentum it's all about putting up walls and inflating the amount of time you can stay in anyone area instead of using iconic locations to to tell stories they use iconic locations to act as hubs for Content once Cloud wins the race it's back down the elevator and finally we can chase Barrett to a junkyard of no significance so insignificant in fact that it's cloud Who suggests checking it in the first place the apparent threat of a man with a gun on his arm has already been neutralized by that famous gang we talked about earlier D's just a Sitting Duck until Barrett arrives to free him all friends fight but this time instead of man against man dying reveals a startling mutation exemplifying srx's approach to even the most intimate of scenes as I said earlier amplification turn up the dial and blow out the speakers if a scene was popular in the original game add as much noise and distractions as possible subtlety is a band word in square enix's offices there's no more threats against Marlene there's no suicide there's no more looking at the dying soul and seeing Barrett's reflection there there's no two sides of a coin there's no more feeling sorry for dying there's just a shouting man and his gun and a whole lot of rage a swarm of Shinra troops invade this water down scene saving us from dying psychosis but stealing from Barrett and from us in the process barely a moment to rest before the game serves up a random Palmer boss battle simply because they couldn't think RS to position this fight maybe if Square Enix had given room for Dy scene to breathe and then let Cloud go in our freedom that Palmer boss battle may have made sense in the aftermath of the Chocobo Race at least there would have been a 20-minute break or so between The Showdown with Dy even leaving aside the mishandling of the Barrett and Dy scene structurally which game sequence of events is stronger in rebirth you land in the prison you leave the prison to win some cash in the choco race you come back to the prison you follow Barrett you face D you fight a wave of Shinra troops you face Palmer and you drive off into the de in the original game you land in the prison your head dizzy with suspense you follow Barrett you learn the truth you find dine and having closed out that story you then win your freedom the chuo race taking the spotlight as the only step and chance at escaping the desert your life is literally riding on this race I ask myself is the game being faithful because it goes to Gold saucer it goes to the prison it goes to the Chuck of a race it shows us dying or is it not being faithful because while it visits those areas and events it handles them in inferior ways that undermine the tension and gravitas of the original version it's not a case of being wedded to the original if you can do something better it will land Square Enix don't know how to let an intimate moment just be whether it's Dy and Barrett or nanaki and stto in Cosmo Canyon instead of after completing bugenhagen's trial witnessing a poignant moment which if I'm being honest often makes me more Misty eyed than Eric's death scene we have a scene that's hijacked by shifting Focus to buan haggen's character growth and then inexplicably drawing us into a 40-minute dungeon with the ghee tribe only to come out the other side for nanaki to finish his goodbye in square enix's eyes they've delivered just by showing a statue and familiar dialogue they're not quite sure what you liked about the original scene they're not quite confident they can get it right just by using the original game as a guide a solid Direction so better to add in noise and new twists that way if you didn't like the direction or riding if you thought they botched the recreation well you already knew this wasn't the one to one remake so it would be deeply unfair of you to try criticize that which was the author's intent subversion you can tell sare Enix were scrabbling around not quite sure how to neatly insert this new G tribe dungeon it's got its own major plot beat turns out the G tribe created the black Materia and the Ancients stole it from them they want it back so they can summon meteor and nope the hell out of this world I'm kind attempted to fetch it for them then we can all go play the original game together because I'm Blown Away by how much of the suspense and mystery Square Enix are draining out of Final Fantasy 7 the amount of times this game just tells me things up front reev is kith Tifa tells ER with that cloud was never in nibble Heim throwing into disrepute both Cloud's flashback and the photo taken earlier Hojo hotels Cloud he belongs with the robed men kit warns us that the Temple of the Ancients will trap us inside sephr keeps asking Cloud to give him the black Materia hinting that he actually will Marlene reminds us how a will die and to please keep that in the back of our minds for subversion time later the game even warns you in advance that the big gold saucer date is coming up so get your character relationships in order if you have a preference Square Enix desperately trying to avoid a scenario where a crazed character shipper ends up on the wrong date and sends their controller through their TV back in my day everything didn't have to go your way on the first try Square Enix cast aside any mystery born out of the original game but keep the mystery alive for their own contributions to this story probably one of the only times I wish they had told us something up front was that seph rro was Glenn all along tricking Rufus into war because letting this apparent new antagonist linger throughout the story with the possib ility that the character may have an edge on seph rro somehow damages the Mystique of the primary villain as you play now those memorable moments like sephr invading the Temple of the Ancients don't seem to hit as hard as they used to every time I see sephr now it's kind of like oh it's you I'm not sure that's what Square Enix were going for but it's where We've Ended up I guess when faced with such a Calamity it's hard not to feel like a purist call me oldfashioned but I miss when Cloud lost his mind wailing away at aith and he woke up in a sea of guilt in gungaga and he wasn't able to reach her in time and he wasn't able to say sorry at all times the game seems afraid to break your heart but I want that I want to feel something real but I guess in a remake where even the black Materia is fake it's hard to get to the truth of it all earlier in the temple of the Ancients the heroes faced their fears Barrett's fear is ironically the same as mine more flashback content revealing faces we didn't need to see I didn't need to see Barrett's wife die the grief and pain he already carries painted a picture more powerful than anything Square Enix could render I didn't need to see how Shinra captured nanaki and what his first day in hojo's lab was like you see I use this thing called my imagination it helps with filling in white spaces and stories and how exactly do you even fail this Temple trial you just stand in this room for 10 minutes without freaking out and then you've earned a step closer to the black material there's nothing new to be gleamed from Young arith wandering up and down the station looking for help or from Tifa grieving over her father I know all these events I already know how the characters feel about them but perhaps as the temple delves into the game's characters it's an opportune brief moment for me to say as far as characters go rebirth may not be perfect and I can understand why people will have mixed reactions When comparing its characters to the original game but there's enough of their personality there to feel like there's at least an approximate representation going on into the higher figures on the percentage scale for me at least yes even if Cloud continuously tries to murder Tifa and no one gives a [ __ ] and even if Sid highwind is not Sid highwind at all but a sort of low wind that sails through an office of censorship by the way I'm not bothered about losing rocket town or the future mission to space but Sid's Barb tongue surely would have added some welcome spice to the team Vincent Valentine is now a boss fight the kind of reimagining I can get on board with although him granting Cloud access to explore the lab but then freaking out because Cloud opened the wrong door felt like a deeply contrived way to start a fight so yeah I don't have a major bone to pick with the characters or at least it's not my first priority because there's enough there to get the ball over the net for me but it's the situations these characters find themselves in and the lack of weight that is given to their most recognizable moments that often pays them a grandest service but no moment is more poorly handled than er's death in the Forgotten Capital Whispers white and black converge infinite timelines are opening across the Multiverse and in the middle of it all aith praise for decades her death was the center of so many Final Fantasy 7 conversations now this iconic gaming moment takes on a meta level of its own becoming the pivotal event across timelines drawing out a sea of varying emotions a centerpiece to seph's grand plan there's a timeline where cloud stop seph's blade there's a timeline where he doesn't I'm in the timeline where I don't care when they want you to feel everything you feel nothing instead rebirth offers an ending that is yours to interpret as you wish for now if you wanted ER it to die you got it if you wanted air to live you can find that here too perhaps there's a thousand reflections of this event across a crystalline surface you choose the one that matters to you but what is clear and singular and undeniable is that rebirth completely fumbles one of the most memorable moments in video gaming somehow again blindsiding us with ob vcation and misdirection non-committal to driving the sword through its social media star to luring her into the water to saying goodbye aith talks to you reassures you fights alongside you aith is here and I'll remind you that after finishing remake I was no longer wedded to seeing er's death I wanted scare Enix to go full on and try something wild fulfilling their own destiny which they laid the groundwork for back with remake but this isn't ballsy this is something that is not much of anything committing to nothing clearly a finale so ambiguous that again we are left in position where an ending needs guides and breakdowns and for you to face re-education and reprogramming should you choose to denounce it aith clearly surviving would have been a better ending than this aith clearly dying would have been a better ending than this another cast member taking the blade instead would have been a better ending at least rebirth would have loudly and proudly said something instead it seems to be trying to say something but has lost a GU to do it maybe it was always going to be this way but to me it feels like four years ago Square Enix knocked over the Final Fantasy 7 Jenga Tower and after looking upon the strewn pieces and waiting for our reaction they panicked and started putting the tower back together so we get a cautious whimpering ending that backs into a corner and begs you to love it an ending who only Triumph as drawing a line through the original games pivotal scene and saying what if it happened and what if it didn't happen but Final Fantasy 7 is a game whose poignant OG moments are fed through a meat grinder in a universe where there's a timeline for every breed of dog one time we successfully made it a bulldog with a shih tzu really yeah we we called it a [ __ ] in a reality where cloud and Zach are reunited at a conflict centered around er's iconic scene at a forgotten capital and somewhere in all of this I am supposed to feel something remember that the story's opening teaches us that death is meaningless not even learning that seph rro plans to grab and Collide all timelines gives me a sense of fear because what if he doesn't get all the timelines and what if just by him doing this action creates another timeline in itself after all they are forged with every decision made so can you really get your hands around something that is growing at an exponential rate Square Enix certainly can't get their hands around this monster they created it's grown out of control branching into a tale about emotions across worlds with many many versions of Zack cloud and the rest maybe part 3's final boss will be an army of seph rro instead of kns it around it'll be seph rots of the round there's me looking ahead to the future again I'm often told I need to stop doing that I had a lot of criticism for remake so has rebirth made me feel any differently about anything namely my distaste at character swerving their own death scenes well a version of big still gets lit up in this game wedge still meets the concrete somewhere in some side content maybe all this will lead to a place where fate cannot be changed and when it's all said and done looking back over the entire project maybe I'll feel 10% better about the story I guess that's a possibility but how is it making me feel today how is showing Dead characters on screen making me feel about a story we're almost 70% of the way through how does it feel to know that there's a mechanism that can bring Dead characters back even if it's shut down something could switch it back on how does it feel having multiple realities in a remake of a story that was already fully loaded as the game draws to a close it seems to suggest cloud is burdened with sight of more than one world but he's finally experiencing what we've had to deal with since remake the tiny Bronco lifts into the sky leaving a fluttering flower bed behind behind and I guess I'm supposed to feel a lump in my throat for a character who is very much there on screen and interacting with Cloud instead as the plane departs I can't help thinking an empty field would have spoken a thousand words the triumphant end credits ReSound with beautiful versions of the live stream music and airit theme four years ago this would have only hammered home everything I could have had I would have been sad but today I am grateful in botching so many of the original games iconic moments Square Enix have reminded me of the cautious mindset I had many years before remake that a true remake was out of their grasp and beyond their ability remake had the excuse that a subversion of fate and destiny had tainted pivotal scenes from the original game but so much of rebirth story runs Unshackled from The Whisperers meddling Now by still daring to fly close to the Sun of the original game rebirth faces the full weight of comparison in not just failing to re create those standout original game moments but in failing to deliver something nearly as compelling so regardless of alternate timelines and Whispers it is deeply cathartic to know that they were never within touching distance of remaking one of the finest video games of all time there are plenty moments of joy to be found throughout this game and yes there's the baggage rebirth has had to take on from remake but in remaking a game that was famous for its world and story rebirth will ultimately be judged for how it managed to to mishandle both I can't recommend such a remake purely off a battle system fun soundtrack and the isolated moments of Sparkle found along the way just as they did with remake Square Enix have created a renewed and deeper appreciation for the original game many people don't know what they have until it's gone or until it's almost replaced so whether the final part tightly follows the yellow brick road of the original game or seizes this second opportunity to forge a complete story of new events it matters not I don't need it to be one or the other because either way this project is so far removed from what I knew and while for many this Trilogy is a headache they feel they may never shake the truth is that rather than squaring ex damaging the original game they have immortalized it I'll wager now that this remake project is far too convoluted to stand the test of time it's a modern event with no lasting significance not a classic in the making to me it's a traveling circus doomed to limp over the hill never to return to my town eventually all the hype and the agulation and the social media will follow with it and what we'll be left with is just a game the game the world I can return to whenever I want the story that lives on the experience that triumphs over pale imitations the memory we somehow thought needed a remake something that was always Beyond Square enix's capabilities and sensibilities so with the deepest of sincerity thank you remade project for all that you continue to teach us and perhaps for me therein lies your value young i' list to the radio waiting for my faor songs when they played I'd sing Al it made me smile those were such happy times and not so long ago how I wondered where they gone but they're back again just like the long lost friend all the songs I love so well [Music] every sh La every W still [Music] shine every shingle that Hasen to sing so F when they get to the part where he's breaking her heart it can really make me cry just like [Music] before it's Yesterday Once [Music] More looking back on how it was Years Gone by and the good time that I had makes to day seem rather said so much has Chang it songs of love that I would sing to and I'd memorize each word those Melo still sounds so good to me as th mou years away every sh la la la every wo wo still [Music] shine every shingle that has Sten to sing so far all my best memories come back to me even make me cry just like it's [Music] yesterday every sh la every wo wo still [Music] shine every shingle let St to sing so far every sh La every [Music] every

Channel: Orion85

Views: 33,157

Keywords: FF7 Rebirth, FFVII Rebirth, Rebirth critique, Rebirth review, Rebirth criticisms, Aerith death scene, Aerith lives, Aeris death, Dyne Rebirth, Rebirth DLC, Cid Highwind, Rebirth ruined, Zack Biggs, Zack and Aerith, Biggs death scene, Rebirth disappointed, Multiverse FF7, FF7 Timelines, Reunion of worlds, Sephiroth multiverse, multiverse of meh, rebirth bad

Id: gbU1_yas99E

Length: 56min 38sec (3398 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024