FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH

Quite liked the game overall, probably loved it, but really just because I love the characters so much. I can endlessly run around with Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aerith, and I think if you feel the same way then you will really enjoy the game too. In a more critical light though, the open-world is really just fine. It isn't the kind of open-world akin to that of Elden Ring or The Witcher 3 or some such, it's more like an Ubisoft open-world; you activate towers that tell you where other things are on the map, then you go to those icons and do the thing, for every map. You do a QTE, or fight an enemy, or get some stuff, it doesn't change a whole lot and isn't really that interesting. Not that I don't enjoy the combat, I do really enjoy the combat but I do think that the open world activities can really be summed up as you just "doing stuff", it's busywork unfortunately, offset only by my love of the characters. That's not the worst thing in the world, there is a place in videogames for that kind of open-world but I do wish that I could say that the FF7 Rebirth world was stellar whereas in actuality it's just... fine. The "world" from a gameplay standpoint, the world as in narrative and world-building and such is brilliant, fantastic, and I adore it. As is the art direction. Wonderful. The combat is good too, as I said, I really like the new synergy attacks and how they influence your relationship to a degree (although, it could probably be more). I love that there is a deflect/parry, it really adds to the flow of combat. The narrative itself is good, but it does leave a lot on the table. Ultimately, I have more questions now than I did at the end of the first, and that is OK given there is going to be another game, but the narrative here definitely does feel like a stepping stone. That's probably fine, there are good moments of course, I enjoyed the narrative, but it is hard to comment much without the third game. It feels like you could beat this game very fast if you ran through it, some areas are done fairly quickly. I wish there were more dungeons in the game, or more smaller areas in between the larger ones, more places like the mine. Overall, I think you should play this game. However, I will admit that if you were bored by the first, I am not sure that this game will be any more enjoyable for you. Oh one last thing, I am surprised at how buggy the game is, a few years on too. I am playing this fairly late and the game is buggier than expected. Not exceptionally buggy, not really "buggy" even, not buggy enough that I would describe it as such, but still I encountered more bugs than I expected I would.