I did not like FF7 Remake. Gave up after about 8 hours as the combat just wasn't gelling for me, not to mention the initial Midgar part of the original game is, in my opinion, one of the weakest parts of the story. That said, I watched a primer and went in to the sequel with an open mind, knowing that there's a lot more ground to cover here than just one city and I'm glad I stuck with it. The odd part though, is while the highs are extremely high, the lows are bafflingly low which makes for kind of a "Yeah it's good but" sequel that really didn't need to be this ambitious.
I've played through FF7 countless numbers of times on my PS1 and I was glad to be out of Midgar at the beginning of Rebirth (I have a set save on my memory card at Kalm every time I start a new game). Just a recap, although I understand the reasoning, I really don't see the point of adding characters and giving them backstory that just are around to die at the end. They're ultimately cannon fodder and "Look how bad Shinra is" when the sector plate falls. I don't think we needed a whole 40 hour game just covering that part of the story, but again, if they didn't do it, we wouldn't get Rebirth.
And Rebirth is a massive expansion on the sections of the game leading to the Northern Crater. And I really liked some of the creative liberties they took story-wise, like giving Cait Sith something to do besides his one story beat, expanding the lore of the Cetra and Gi, and making the world feel lived-in. I also appreciated the reduction in backtracking, like having to return to the Midgar Zolom a second time just to see that Sephiroth had killed it. Where I think the story falters though is in their insistence of establishing the multiple timelines. It's never really explained, characters just seem to come out and leave into nowhere, and at no point does anyone just point out exactly what's happening with it. I feel it even undercuts the big emotional moment of FF7 when you're like "wait, what just happened".
The combat is much improved from what I played in Remake and the half real-time, half turn-based combat worked for me this time. I do think there are too many systems that I didn't engage with, including the Synergy skill shortcuts mapped to the right bumper, and the weapon mastery skills which I never figured how to do. I don't think they needed all of it and hope they cut back in part 3. The fights though, are amazing, especially when boss fights get interrupted mid-battle for something crazy to happen, and the last string of bosses brings a tear to my eye. This is what we should be doing with Final Fantasy going forward.
That said, while the fights and combat are great overall, the open world is more of a mixed bag. I think it's a triumph that they were able to go open-world and that world is so unique and luscious with detail, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Chadley. I'm glad they toned his down a bit for this one, but his World Intel is probably the worst part of the entire game. The first two zones, fine, go to a few locations, climb a tower, fight some monsters. But once the intel screen pops up for the SIXTH time, I was just done with it, and completing the intel felt more like a chore than anything, even though the rewards were pretty good.
I completed my playthrough in 76 hours. That's the main story and all of the world intel, minus the secret boss section at the end, but there is still so much to do, including all of the Combat Sim fights, the summons I gave up on, mastering each of the side quest chains, not to mention Queen's Blood and the rest of the Golden Saucer, AND the whole game in Hard mode. Is it for me? No. I'll probably just stop here and be happy.
I'm going to echo a sentiment many others have said: I think there's too much here, especially for a middle part of a trilogy, and it's going to be a really tough ask for new players once the third game comes out to go through it all especially if Revelation is just as long. There's definitely a good 40-hour version of this game that cuts the bloat of the open world and I can't understand why they packed in the extra junk except to justify the AAA price tag.
But I was hooked for all 76 of those hours. There's a level of polish that very few other JRPGs have, and you can tell Square is putting a lot of care and money into this. I think the gamble is paying off, let's hope it can stick the landing. There's a lot of potential with the last few acts of the story and I can't wait to see what they do. Maybe just a few fewer timelines though
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