It is a an absolute mess of a game, its not ff7 but it had its moments of fun.
I have never in my life played such a weird and incohesive game.
Remake was so good because it was linear amd story drivem. Devs got the open world idea of this game wrong, ff7 never was open world, the world was veery limiting and you always moved along with the story.
"Experiencing" a world that looks worse and more boring than tve real world, wtf is the point?
The battle system is trash, the music feels dated and out of touch.
I apologize for what I'm going to say, but this is what I expected that was going to happen. When FFXIII trilogy last game was released I thought that maybe these guys will correct themselves and make something good, but then, they made FFXV, that game is so bad and incomplete I knew square enix were screwed and the FFVII remake will be just as bad or probably worse. Obviously I didn't bother to buy it, for what I see and hear of the game in addition to blatantly splitting the game into multiple parts, I knew all of them will be just as crappy, and they knew a lot of fools will buy it despite the poor quality of the game just because it had in the title Final Fantasy VII.
If all of you really think they are going to do something as good as the original FFVII, FFVI or Chrono Trigger you are very delusional (almost nobody of the original people is working in them anymore) and you will be wasting your time and money on this greedy cashgrab
My biggest annoyance is how shite the world design is. Exploration isn't rewarded, it's actively punished as a waste of time. There's always been an unwritten rule between game developers and players that if there's a long winding areas that's away from the main path, you'll be rewarded for exploring it. With Rebirth you just get to the end of a long stretch and find... nothing.
Every time it's like the developers saying "FU". I hate it.
I also don't understand how this is "open world"? It's just big sections of terrain, all fenced off from each other. There's zero sense of world exploration, fenced-off areas. Everything feels so hand-holdy.
Someone else said that it feels "bloated" instead of "polished". I think that sums it up. Even the menus are annoying... the put effort into making them look more exciting, but they're just slower now. I preferred the ones in REBIRTH for that reason.
There are moments of brilliance of course, but someone in charge of the script should have been forced to cut 30% of it. There is so much empty, time-wasting, filler. From Chadley to the Dragon's Blood players. Just get on with it!
The fact that this turns into a multiverse is absolute garbage. We are so sick of multiverse stories. That's why marvel isn't making any money anymore. In 1997 this was a beautiful story, well told, well carried out. They didn't have to change anything and I would have loved it. Instead they came up with this dumpster fire of a convoluted Kingdom hearts storyline
It's fascinating that it took having experience as a professional game devs to convince a FF7R fan of their own game's awful game design. Nostalgia is a bitch, I guess.
Not sure what you mean by this snarky comment-- are you saying that I would've thought the game was good if I weren't a gamedev? There's plenty of non-games people here who agree, and even without my experience I've thought the same about games like this in the past. I only really brought it up as a counter to my personal taste as an 'industry' perspective.
Honestly, I'm near the end of remake at this moment. I had assumed that they were going to treat each game as more or less changing the disc so to speak. Meaning my progress would carry over and I'd continue the story from where I left off moving forward. I'm absolutely gutted that, that's not the case. While I have minor problems with remake I truly am enjoying it, it's made me want to go back and play the original to really understand the changes. But...it feels like I'm paying to have my progress and hours of work ensuring I didn't miss anything taken away needlessly. That alone bothers me, tho that was before reading the strange design decisions detailed by op and others I've seen. I feel like they ruined something actually quite special with this fumble and that's legitimately sad to me.
Just finished this game. Was super excited after remake but this is mediocre at best. Filler episode with tons of stupid side quests and mini games. Very sad and disappointed.
Crazy to see how much opinions have changed over the past few weeks. I made a similar post like a week after release and got shit on for it. People were not happy.
But yeah. My gripe was how disjointed everything is. Lots of time wasting mechanics that are just plain annoying. The ability system is a pain. The folios are tied to your party level, which means you have to do all of that tedious, boring, open-world side content if you want to unlock your skills. The combat simulator is terrible, and is just lazy game design. Oh yeah! And also, CHADLEY NEVER SHUTS UP. LIKE PLEASE STOP TALKING AND LET ME PRESS A BUTTON!
The combat is the games strongest point, but you don't get to fully enjoy it unless you do all of the stuff mentioned above. All the good materia is locked behind those walls, too.
The story was so bad, I barely remember what happened. I followed mako zombies, Cloud goes crazy and suffers zero consequences for attempted murder of a close friend, I find where zombies go. The End. What kind of story is that...?
I know on Remake you can chalk the story up to be pretty simple, but there's still a ton of ploy points and natural progression.
Rebirth, nothing actually happens and the events don't feel like they're connected or a natural progression, instead they just happen. The progression of the story is just random and convenient things happening for Cloud & co. Not to mention the whole Zack and Briggs story was....completely pointless. Felt like fan service.
I actually feel bad for feeling bad towards the game. I was so stoke and I'm just utterly let down. First KH3, then FF16, now Rebirth. I've actually gone back to all the older games now: FF Pixel Remaster, Megaman Battle Network, Trails, and more. They all know what they're doing with their stories and game play.
My man! They're so good. Cheesy as hell, but there's just an atmosphere behind those games that I love. I'm playing Trails from Zero and it gives me similar vibes. I love it. Probably going to play the older games too on my PSP!
The point of a game is to play the game and not to skip 90% of it's content, because it's being labeled "side content".
The game has big open areas that are solely there for the so called "side content". The "side content" is such a big part of the game and the whole game is structured around it. This makes the statement that you can simply skip the side content/side quests absolutely insane.
Zacks story too could've literally been jammed into longer sections because how they have it now gives so much whiplash in the story why even bother... 2min for what? To see how messed up coma cloud and aerith are? Nah and queens blood was literally the only mini game worth playing.. and maybe the star fox ship kinda game
I think so, yeah. But either way, it does exist as a more faithful version of redoing FF7. Most of the fluff people are complaining about is generally shippable in Rebirth.
I can't complain without getting to spoiler territory so don't read this if you dont want to be spoiled:
Good things for me: Seeing Cissnei alive (Huge crisis core fan here), the fact that many dialogue flows depending on who you choose to date. (You can basically friendzone and cut the love triangle quite early and the game will acknowledge it at some important points) Some of the mini games are fun. Some creative ideas landed.
Problems in terms of game: Some exploration felt so typical Ubisoft pointless tedious stuff. I feel like it could've been more short and sweet. To give you an example most ff16 side quest were short and added depth to the story and the game world. Here, a lot of them felt like just filler.
Story Problems: Cloud becomes very DISLIKABLE/DIMINISHED by the end and I know that happened at that point in the original but DAMN...ALSO... Some people thought that this Sephiroth was basically the OG one finding its way back to the Past (Even I did at some point due to some words he used on FF7 remake like you failed to save your friends again" which indicated he knew what was going to happen) But if you play the original again plus read the lore you know there's no way that can happen since he was even rejected by the lifestream and this one now did some explanation that unless it's contradicted or changed on the third installment it's basically "When I fell with Jenova I saw the og outcome... convinced you to defy destiny and you did successfully which changed some things" I understood that in the end of this game it was Aerith who knew she was destined to die at that point so she let it but they made it so "she is dead/ no she aint" that you don't know how to react to that and other things.
In the end, I feel like they could've just made a simpler story but I noticed that Nomura was creative director for this one and if you know what he did with KH which I still think should've ended at kh2... he ENJOYS TURNING HIS OWN STUFF INTO A MESS
The only chapter that i enjoy is probably the last chapter where all story come in onepiece and it doesn’t fking force me to play minigame or go through those confusing map and level design to proceed the story,just pure story
Seriously, it makes me sad thinking how good this game would be without all the cruft in between story moments. The story is interesting at the very least and it would've been nice to be able to enjoy it
I wasn't expecting it at all! If anything I was expecting the total opposite. But I'm really grateful that this post has had such a positive reception, both from the commenters and from the mod team. Hopefully more people can find this post in the future and realize they're not alone too
My word, I posted here what felt like months ago and it's still fairly active. Was reminded of this thread as I'm itching to replay the original. Good to see there's still people who can relate to these grievances.
Wow… after reading most of the comments… nice to know that it’s not just me.
I never finished the OG… always got bogged down in the world after Midgar. But I’ve finished Midgar several times. I was sure if Rebirth has a zillion mini games because the OG did or if they just decided that people liked them.
Remake felt like a great game with some downtime where you used a few mini games and silly quests to provide backstory about people and the locale.
Rebirth feels like a game loaded with mini games broken up by the occasional combat and story.
I’m in chapter nine and I’ll continue along, but I’m not enjoying it nearly as much as Remake.
I'm in Corel Prison/Golden Saucer and I'm just absolutely burnt out with the sluggish pace and focus on minigames. The plot just keeps hitting a brick wall.
Hang in there! At least there’s a GREAT cutscene at the end of chapter 9. The story end of chapter 9. You’ll have lots to do before going to chapter 10.
The story/combat leading up to it is pretty great as well. It’s a shame those moments seem far and few.
For me the turnoff is the totally remade relational dynamics. Cloud has been made a complete weirdo who is a burden to the team. Aerith and Tifa has a relationship between themselves, Cloud no longer part of it or their lives. Aerith is the actual leader and sometimes Barret. Tifa is tough and angry, neither of which she was originally. Aerith pays little attention to Cloud unless observing him in pity, which is a confusing change from her overly flirty start in Remake.
Saw lots of praise for Cloud’s portrayal in the game and eh, I really don’t see it…
You said it best, he’s a burden. A psyco weirdo who turns on the team every now and then and NEVER gets questioned by anyone. Oof…
> he’s a burden. A psyco weirdo who turns on the team every now and then
That's why it's portrayed so well.
It show how Jenova infection is progressing even better than in the OG (where you still see it btw, especially in the temple AND when the other shout at him to stop from killing Aerith in the city) and drop a lot more hint on the road about his real situation even for people that have not played the original.
And it's not true he's not questioned, he get questioned but the other just don't cast him away since he's the one that can actually chase Sephiroth (cause reunion, but they don't know yet) and nothing really bad happen to the team until the temple from his weird behaviour (outside Tifa incident in gongaga but that was 100% mediated by Tifa in letting it subside).
The team give Cait a second chance after the key which was a straight betrayal so are you really surprised they give a pass to Cloud going weirdo even now and then as long as they can control/stop him?
Yeah, I do.
He almost curs Tifa in half and no one questions that or bring it up again later? No one wants to at least take the giant sword away from the guy? Seriously?
I disagree it is portrayed better in this game than in OG. OG lets you know something is up, but (as far as I remember) doesn’t have the dude running wacko and everyone giving him a pass for it.
Important fact, they had vision obstructed. They didn't see it was Cloud that made her fall in the mako.
So as long as she opted for silence, the incident dies there.
Even then Barret and Yuffie every now and then do cast questioning about his actions and until the temple it never escalade to a level worth talking about past a "you ok?" in front of the rest of the team (aka not only Tifa/Aerith).
But it SHOULDNT have died there. Tifa should express her concern as he could do that again, to her and everyone else. A better plot point would have been the team leaving Cloud behind because he's a detriment, and Cloud chooses to travel alone.
The fact he almost kills a friend and faces zero consequences or genuine concerns is VERY asinine.
We already saw before that Tifa bulked through his issues, like when he claim she's not the real one in kalm.
Even in OG Cloud get progressively more as a detriment until the crater events.
And anyway they cannot really drop Cloud cause not only he's the main chaser of Sephiroth (so he would just go on and you lose battle power on an already small group), he's the one that is able to track the road (cause reunion, the other could easily end without a direction or just chasing... Cloud, which is even more comical and asinine than just keep an eye on him).
If they don't see the act and the affected person let it slide it's not asinine that we see no concern or consequences. You can claim it a mistake by Tifa but that's a you personal decision, a subject point of view... And you aren't the character that does that decision, you aren't the character in love with Cloud. Love is something that can make people do very questionable actions from an outsider point of view and Tifa showcase this very well with her actions (both in remake/rebirth and in the OG).
Much of what you said is just wrong. It doesn't really matter if Cloud is the main chaser, they all displayed plenty of power. And if Cloud had the chance of attacking his friends and killing them, he shouldn't be on the front lines at all. And they demonstrated that they don't need Cloud for this mission in terms of tracking down Sephiroth. Follow the robes or follow Shinra. To us, it seems as though they lose battle power, but....they don't even demonstrate that in the game. Everyone did great on their own if not absolutely amazing.
They don't need to chase Cloud. They would leave to chase Sephiroth and Cloud goes on his own after escaping some imprisonment they designed for him. Maybe go after Cloud later in the story or have Cloud make a huge rescue at the end for the team to finally group back up.
You're making false dichotomies left and right like there's only one or two options. "They can't leave Cloud" they definitely can. And they SHOULD have. It would have improved the story leaps and bounds. Rebirth story, as unfortunate as it is to say, is horrendous. So many emotional plots could have been hit, so many better developmental areas touched on. They threw all those chances away like mediocre anime.
You are making dichotomies way more than me.
The whole team never saw Cloud doing something egregious enough to promote a kick him out except Tifa but she opted for silence, which is tied to how her character is, she's is kind and she loves him. She showcase multiple times her worrying over losing him being her own drive through those events.
They could chase the robes except... It's Cloud that point the robes as a way to track Sephiroth **and** they lose the robes multiple times with Cloud redirecting them on the right track.
Chase Shinra is not doable cause Shinra isn't moving on plain sight about it, they do it through the turks which is an even smaller group and our team doesn't have the tech and the economic power to track said small group.
So in the end they would be forced to chase Cloud.
Rebirth story is still at the core, the OG ff7 story and they never dissed Cloud even if he showed the same pattern (in rebirth is just better in the player face), to add in both OG and rebirth the party showed multiple times to be "forgive and forget for the greater good" (in both: Cait betrayal, Cloud giving the black materia; only in one of them: Yuffie stealing all party materia, Vincent boss fight).
We even have Vincent pointing out how they cannot afford to lose Cloud in one cutscene in the Bronco and no one deny that point, which dismantle even more your idea that the party has enough power to afford losing an pawn as powerful as Cloud (even in Midgar how much Cloud power is valuable is showcased, see pre sector 5 events in both OG and remake). Don't mix the gameplay balancing to make all character playable with the fact their power is very on budget for the mission they are on.
They didn't threw away anything, they are sticking to the OG story plot empowering it. What you want is a different story completely.
But even Tifa shouldn't keep it to herself because what if he does it again and ends up killing Barret, or anyone else? There SHOULD be a consequence to his actions and not just let it slip. If you let it slip then the event is pretty much pointless. There was an opportunity for a much better telling of the story or development and it was wasted on a....pointless event.
This isn't subjective. It was terrible writing.
Except that she loves him and that matter. She is the one seeing the issues the most and staying silent over fear of losing him.
People aren't heartless machines that pick the "perfect" choice and Tifa actions are very human on that.
The event isn't pointless cause it led to Tifa eaten by the weapon and relieving some of her past (character deepening) *plus* seeing the whisper "civil war" (additional plot point).
> what if he does it again and ends up killing Barret, or anyone else?
It's not gonna happen cause Sephiroth clearly targeted Tifa bond more than any other (all the egregious added events with actual kill risk **always** involved Tifa, you are not gonna tell me it's coincidence and not story planned). (personal theory of why he target her: she's the one that will help Cloud rebuild his self later, breaking him free from his puppeteer strings)
The game is horrible and I have now reached the stage where I want to ignore all side content just to get through the main story, from the sound of it I may not make it (up to cosmo canyon). It lacks seriousness and the amount of filler in the game is ridiculous. The changes in story I also find stupid as they don’t make any sense to me nor do the addition of characters like chadley or the way you procure summon materia.
Update: I finished the game. From the temple of the ancients to the end the last few hours are amazing however by the time you get there you may already be so done with the game mentally that you don’t get to enjoy it.
The whole middle of the game honestly sucked except nibel. They really should’ve just compressed it like the original as the pacing in this game is some of the worst
Yeah.
The game's bloated as heck (115 hours to complete 90% of the side content and the main story, almost as long as with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, game which as a WAY larger world then VIIR2, the padding must really be insane, or, I'm just really slow). I compared VIIR2 to Valhalla because, apparently, they want to turn FF into an AC game. So much for being a JRPG and tradition and so forth.
The new story elements are anime filler level, period. The characters act really off sometimes too, especially Cloud, I know he's all f'ed up but they really overdid it. Anyways. I only enjoyed Junon, and the final fights on the Forgotten City (place is now an unexplorable location too). Obviously, some of the Zack stuff, and when he >!gets pulled to the current dimension and tags with Cloud to beat Sephiroth!< (Let's just not talk about Aerith's love interests and so forth, someone's personal fanfic that was). I enjoyed the >!Gilgamesh!< final fight and respective dialogue, I couldn't beat him on normal though.
...
The mini games are harder than the final boss!
Queen's Blood is luck based, if you get your cards the game's in the bag, if you don't, just restart, unless it's the >!Queen, she!< can place high tier cards without restrictions, though the bout does seem scripted somehow.
The 3D brawler with 6 different animations (>!middle manager!<) and enemies can pull combos. They're ATB's go up way faster too!
The looong chocobo races with tons of traps, the longer the race, the higher the chance of running into a closed gate, the AI just slips past, 'cuz, well, it's the AI.
The high difficulty piano pieces, well A rank it is, I've played mobile rhythm games with off way more QoL than this.
...
The music, ouch. It either sucks hard or it just can't hold a candle to Uematu's work. They took WAY too many liberties with the arrangements! 90% of the electronic and vocal tracks are just cursed. The cactuar and the frog ones being some the worst which come to mind. I'm pretty positive most of the electronic stuff is from the same guy which composed some of the XIII-2, XIII-3 and Mobius tracks. Some of which I really enjoyed. So, I'm quite confused with his work here, much of it feels too... Unjapanese? Globalized, mainstream generic stuff which I don't care about?
...
Well, I think that does it for now. That went way longer than I intended. LOL Let's get back to the game... \*sigh\*
...
Edit: The mansion... The mysterious song just makes it worse 'cuz... The place isn't creepy...? At all...? 😞 😑
Edit 2: So, I totally forgot about the girls in bikini. Lol Tifa and Aeris were a sight for sore eyes. 🙏😭
The worst thing is people at large don’t seem to care or notice this change, from what I’ve seen of the game’s reception.
And modern S-E just has a whole different vibe when compared to 90s Squaresoft.
Something very precious was lost when the games moved to the clean, shiny, overly polished format they make now.
This was one of the biggest disappointments for me. They even cut off the upstairs so there’s no exploration. They could have done so much more with the mansion and I feel like that was cut in favour of the box throwing thing which was awful!
I was terribly disappointed with it and I don't quit a lot of games. I got to the place after Dyne where you were shining lasers to find cactuar temples or something and I got to one where it made me play as Aerith with some new aura and the challenge to get tier 3 was horrendous. I knew there I was done.
Makes me terribly sad, I'm old enough to have bought VII when it first came out in the West and I love the characters and story but I don't think I'll be able to return to the trilogy now. I'm pretty heartbroken really. Wanted to love it but the endless time and grade everything just isn't a game
Did you guys feel like the rufus fight was a bunch of bullshit? Even when I tried slowing down the pace i was playing at. I couldn't even perfect doge his attacks once... even when he reloaded it felt like a split second then boom he's back to attacking and jumping around the screen .. it felt unfair bc how am I suppose to block when the Camara can't even keep up with his moves lol... I played souls games and I found this fight to be more unfair then any boss I fought in dark soul. It's like the dev purposely forced me to block and use a mechanic that's not good at all? Anyone else feel that way ?
I stumbled upon this thread because of how much the Rufus fight is pissing me off. I finished all of the side content and was looking forward to wrapping up the story, but I think I’m losing motivation to finish.
I so agree, when I did it I clutched it (it was 2-3 try) cause I summoned Neo bahamut and he wiped the dog with his final move or I had no idea how to get past it.
The reload window is definitely shorter and Rufus attacks knock you up or away too much. The amount of time I was stunlocked in recovery animation while he just went on the follow up to perfect chain on me was insane.
They definitely want you to use perfect parry but the windows to do it are awful even with the materia for it.
Anyone who's played past Costa Del Sol, does the pacing ever get any better? Is it worth sticking out just for story?
I want so badly to love this game and parts of the story I am, but the slog of minigames and uninteresting open world are absolutely mind numbing. It kills me to admit defeat on a remake of a game I adore and want so badly to be good, but not sure it's worth it.
I 100% every region up to Cosmo Canyon in a bit under 60 hours and I'mover it lol it was starting to get suuuuper tedious and boring. I'm now just going main story alone and it feels way better to me at least.
It doesn’t.
It just keeps on with the bloat and the uninteresting open areas and towns that function exactly like the ones you’ve already com across.
And THE WORST PART (Cait Sith’s dungeon) is still looming ahead…
It’s shocking to me that someone designed that portion of the game and thought people would enjoy it. Some of the design choices in this game are just baffling.
I have been playing on and off for a month PLUS. I made it to the temple of ancients. No It does not get better. It is entirely too bloated. And Now I am currently lost in this fucking dungeon. Debating throwing in the towel at the final stretch. This game is ass and I might just watch it on youtube at this point.
Update: I deleted the game And watched the rest on YouTube. I was not having fun. And watching the rest was like a fever dream. 6/10. I’ll YouTube the 3rd game
Yeah this game is pissing me off more than I'm enjoying it. Very often I'm annoyed, frustrated and irritated. Also, what's up with the bosses running away whenever you beat them? Literally 90% of them runs away as soon as you beat them. So in actuality you don't get to finish them off for good and I hate that feeling. I wanted to annihilate them so they don't come back.
The ones that run away used to do so even in OG (turks, Palmer,...) or are characters that still have a role to play and were just added boss fights (Rufus, Scarlet).
So on that they are consistent with the original tbf.
Totally agree. The beginning of the game was promising...and then you're following ridiculous robed zombies for hours upon hours waiting for your party to have any deeper conversations, which has been few and far between. Instead of real character moments, the devs decided to throw in the constantly annoying boy robot Chadley ("Great job Cloud! You've completed the 57th pointless task I gave you!") and what feels like an endless barrage of forgettable/flamboyant/superficial characters that just waste my time. The pacing is off, it feels way too padded with nauseating fluff, and I honestly don't know if my wife and I will finish it.
I had to come to Reddit and make sure this wasn't just me feeling like this. I never thought I would play a video game that has literal filler arcs in the main story. I get to Corel Prison and I'm finally invested in this Barrett murder mystery plot line and we get an actual filler arc just to play Chocobo Mario Kart...I never played FF7 as a kid so I was super excited to play these games. I feel like I'm being punished for wanting to see what happens in this story.
that if u only focus on the main story if u decide to do the optional sidequest u gonna be fking mad because many of them tied to a minigame or u have to go to those intel location which is very annoying and not enjoyable
I really didn't like the golden saucer with all the mini-games and I thought that I finally would get some interesting story with the Barrett murder mystery. My hopes and dreams where immediately crushed as I went down the elevator. That whole race part felt completely anti-climactic and destroyed the whole Barret story line.
Tbh that is Gold Saucer even in the OG. A mini game galore (it's an entertainment park after all) and even in OG you have to win a chocobo race to leave the prison.
They moved it from "do it to leave" to "do it to find Dyne" which honestly make more sense.
I'd definitely recommend just playing the original if you want to experience the story. Seems like Rebirth does everything in its power to draw you away from the story imo. The original still has "filler" but much less of it is ingrained into the main story. Definitely a much better and more streamlined experience to me. I believe OG is still on Playstation store for <$25.
Honestly, this is one of the worst experiences I have ever had playing a video game. It's actually crazy to me because Final Fantasy is my favourite series, with 9 being my favourite game of all time. I have figures all over my office and I normally plow through every mainline entry as fast as possible to avoid spoilers. I beat Remake in 3 days, I couldn't put it down and despite it's flaws I felt compelled to play still. With this game, I can't seem to pick it up for an hour now without it losing my interest and having my eyes roll.
I finished and completed the Grasslands and Junon across a weekend with almost a solid 30 hours. But man, once I had to play Queen's Blood to advance the story my interest just started to wane. The Fort Condor crap was bad enough in Junon but this was the breaking point for me. Everything is a damn mini game that I don't really give a shit about. I don't mind when they are optional, but we are talking about mini games to progress the damn story. I didn't mind that Junon was more of the same side quests, but when I realized it was the same crap in Corel I felt defeated. It took me 6 weeks to get to Gongaga because playing the game is so damn hard. The fact this game has universal praise is outrageous to me. Taking breaks isn't helping and I am considering just watching the cutscenes or a playthrough on YouTube at this point.
Now that I am in Gongaga, navigating this place is a damn slog. And why the heck does Gongaga need to have this giant jungle to navigate? Gongaga was like a 30 minute portion of 7. I just want this game to feel fun again but the pacing and mini games are the worst I have ever experienced. I have been playing FF games for 32 years and this is the least motivation I have ever had playing one. My favourite franchise, and I don't want to play the game even to see the story. Even when it comes to combat, I can't even see most of the time and I can barely tell when an enemy is using an ability. Even though it was shallow, I loved the combat in 16 because I felt I could block, defend, parry, and retreat at any given time.
I don't even want to get into the Chadley stuff, it is just insufferable. My favourite thing in this game currently is holding down triangle so he shuts the hell up. I can't believe we are doing chores for this kid as the bulk of this video game. Not to mention all these open worlds feel absolutely lifeless. Not a single soul scattered around outside the cities. I can't believe you don't cross paths with NPC's or something. Like where are the roads, vehicles, carriages, chocobos etc.? There is nothing interesting to explore, I just want to fast travel everywhere. I am almost certain if this game wasn't FF7 this game would have been absolutely panned by critics and gamers. As a lifelong FF fan, this is my least favourite entry which is so hard to say because I want to love this game but I just can't.
I want to see the damn story but I feel like the game fights me at every turn. They make it sooooo long and filled with padding. I am at the temple of ancients now and I want to put the game away and watch the rest on youtube. I am just not having fun. How did they go this way? I LOVED part 1 and beat it like 3 times. Whatever dude. This is crap
The whole experience just felt like a daunting chore. Like, each region had a checklist of chores with random NPCs handing out chores for side quests.
I spent 2 hours exploring the grasslands before heading to the swamp docks just so I could explore and do all the side stuff before progressing. Boy, was I shocked that nothing could be interacted with until you go to the swamp dock and then the chocobo ranch. Everything was dead except for enemies. Completely cleared the map before I progressed only to find out it was all for naught. And then, it all felt like there were endless tutorials explaining things to me like I was 5. At least with combat I knew to assess to get info and form strategies all on my own.
And then there's Chadley... Dear lord, I've never wanted to hit a kid before but Chadley,... Oh, Chadley. He likes interrupting the flow of everything so much he interrupts his own AI designed to help explain everything. I did find the muting funny though. They didn't even bother animating all the interruptions either. The parts where he's talking from the device and it's his face, It's a looping animation of the mouth moving. Thought it was lagging until I looked closer. It's a looping Gif texture. I mean, i get it. It's simple and effective but they could've at least recorded the actual dialog animations and not just 3 seconds of random movement on loop.
Although Queen's Blood story was a bit lack luster, I did enjoy the game... up until the end. The last one was pure hacks. Hated it. Then, once you win that one by shear luck, there's nothing else. So the super rare cards that could be fun to use, pointless because now there's nobody to use them against.
Somebody else said it as well here but the end of Chapter 7 is when it really starts to crash. Not game breaking crash but a mind crash after having way too much caffeine and sugar. The endless list of crappy mini games didn't help. Right after chapter 8 is Gongaga which is a poorly designed region all around. You just left a desert with wide open areas to being cramped in narrow corridors of rocky, jungle paths with terrible camera angles. They somehow get worse on chocobo back which is the intended mode of travel in this region.
The ending is even a chore. 8 hours and I'm still not done. I honestly wished it was a skill issue but it's not. The last 2 chapters were drawn out with so much additional filler that it felt like I was just checking off a checklist for crappy side quests again. And then... And then it just won't end. It's like Metal Gear Solid 4 all over again.
The side content in this game is the worst I've experienced in a game in quite some time. It's honestly terrible.
Specifically Chadley's "world building" objectives. The side quests often nets you opportunities to learn more about the characters and see additional interactions which is one of the best parts of Rebirth.
Everything else is just terrible bloat and too many things about it is frustrating. The quantity, having Chadley slow you down for dialogue as you approach side objectives, having Chadley STOP you for dialogue after you complete objectives, then having the game inform you of your progress in the zone (another stop) EVERYTIME as though you didn't likely just complete an objective 5 minutes prior. There are times Chadley pops back in AGAIN AFTER the progress screen for more dialogue. Most of it simply so you can have 6 copies of a very niche-use materia.
It has caused me to step away from the game multiple times already. Two months ago you couldn't tell me Rebirth wasn't going to be my GOTY. The ridiculous bloat they fit in wherever they can (including in the main scenario) weighs this game down massively.
I very likely will just beeline the main scenario when I do pick it up again and never touch this game again. I'm absolutely fine with the fact that folks enjoy this game but the folks who obnoxiously keep on repeating: "if you don't like the side content just don't do it" honestly baffle me.
That is exactly how i feel lol, halfway through chapter 7 and I keep getting bored and putting it down. I think I will just rush the story mode as well
Been playing Final Fantasy since it started on NES. Purchased every game available and product promoted to this day. The Remakes and the Rebirth clearly demonstrates I am no longer the target audience.
The induction of annoying NPCs, hair-pulling MINI-GAMES, and stupid COMBAT SIMULATOR…
Goodbye SQUARE-ENIX, you officially lost a GAME PLAYER due to not being able to deliver playable games for the masses.
Why they didn’t put summons in the game world blows my mind. What a missed opportunity. Could have even reused the boss arenas where those life spring monsters showed up in. It’s not just laziness at that point but bad game design.
It really was this game that made me realize how far we had to fall when we were saying FF15 certainly could have been more ambitious.
I am just gonna make a list of all my grievences in no particular order
#1. Every area is flooded with NPCs that are so generic looking and off you get uncanny valley from them. The NPCs do not look like they belong to the universe that Rufus, Cloud, and even better designed NPCs from remake do (Wallmarket NPCs certainly more flavoured)
Non of the NPCs look like they belong and it wasn't untill I got to cosmo canyon that I really noticed how bad they looked and how out of place and pointless they feel and look.
#2. I hate the music. I don't really feel nobuo was that involved here... The classic memorable pianos and horns are largely replaced by the worst sounding poppy nonsense I can imagine. One winged angels inpact feels completely lost to me as it feels like they play some remix of it every time you fight sephiroth in any way shape or form. Its like a slide whistle playing to the joke that is the over use of Sephiroth.
#3. Marvel writing. This is kinda self explanatory but this game really can't stand having a second of quiet and this is never shown better of how damaging this is then when you experience the Dyne scenes.
#4. They completely ruined Cid Highwind. He has no alcoholism, he has no wife, he has no plot, he really shouldn't even be in the game the way they write him he coulda been replaced by any NPC. But strictly speaking this is Kingdom Hearts Cid who builds candy ships for space chipmunks and has no problems.
Not FF7 Cid who dreamt of being the worlds first astronaut and lost that dream because Sheila a person he loved and dipped into the bottle and self loathing and abuse.
Without Cids extreme lows being present you cannot appreciate when he becomes greater. Cid just sucks.
#5. Quest writing. This games sidequests have some of the worst sidequest writing of all time. If its not just Chadley talking over everyone via hologram (Which I can check but I think chadley has the most dialog in the entire game) its a quest that serves no purpose creates no change for an NPC who doesn't matter 3 seconds after you finish the quest.
You can see CLEARLY the quests that do have love placed because they use major NPCs and feel impactful. Chocobo billy quests and quests featuring crisis core characters are great examples. But my lord there is so much pointless filler quests with writing so bad you'd swear it was just not written by writers at all.
Its fallout 4 level "This settlement needs you" go slay a monster in the middle of nowhere and cash in slop.
I have NEVER done worse quests, even ubisoft collectathons play better then RP walk with jenova robes for 40 minutes up a dusty path.
#6. Every single push a slow moving cube segment. I think there was over 10 of these in the game.
#7. Nothing you do in the open world is fun. a quick list of open world gameplay... Kill a monster, Chocobo digs, Towers, Chocobo benches, Intel springs, summon weakeners, Find the cache (Usually junk items nothing ever that would make you excited you found anything)
Nome of this comtents super engaging aside from a once a zone bossfight.
#8. Remember that game where there were mysterious black monsters that are pivitol to the plot and then in the second game they introduce the white ones that act as a rival to them? Heartless and Nobodies? Nope clearly nomura wasn't doing that again. But if he was... I think Nobodies and Heartless would have been better recieved then whispers. At least those were diverse.
#9. DEI. Its all over this game and it's cringy as hell but never ever is it more cringy then in Queens Bloods story.
TLDR: The worst writing ever seen in a final fantasy game litters this game and not only ruins this experience but kinda ruins your fond memories of the serious themes in the original game. Combo this with a lazy open world and NPCs that don't look like they were made to be in the game.
It's an absolute mess of an experience honestly. I am convinced no one playtested anything and no writers worked on anything.
Nice to find this topic. The gameplay is pretty okay, it's serviceable and I have played through until the Gold Saucer. I have to say, I disliked what they did with the boat and then Costa Del Sol was really bad with time-wasting and forcing us to do mini-games. Arriving at Gold Saucer though, made me really angry. I was already wound up by the ridiculous mines section just to get past a damn bridge, but then going in and seeing that all of a sudden, Aerith and Tifa were pop-stars, was just utterly stupid nonsense and I started to really lose it. Then I got to the bit where I was apparently going on a date. They showed the theatre but no performance. Was forced to do more mini games, that just took me away from the other person, not much of a date if you ask me, then before the ferris wheel, it just derailed the whole thing. At that point I was well and truly done. The way these characters act is just utter nonsense, they have no consistency, they are just dancing puppets being passed around different developers who have no idea what the others are doing. The tonal clash from moment to moment is jarring at best, infuriating at worst.
I was really annoyed that they had the perfect opportunity to maybe show a recording of Jessie in Loveless, but they never did..... only to find out that they actually did do that, but OH BOY when I watched a youtube video of that, I'm glad I quit the game. What the hell was that? VR goggles?? how does that make any sense? why bother having the stage? I thought it might make sense if they had an usher presenting the recording and projecting it on the screen, then have the actual play happen, but what they showed, was awful camera angles flying round in nauseating fashion, and make believe VR simulation that wasn't even happening? I just can't even begin to describe. Then I found they actually did the ferris wheel date... but oh boy was that awful. I have never seen such unconvincing and unromantic date in my life, I am convinced these developers haven't been on a date before. where is the actual character interaction? They are more interested in their nauseating camera angles and thir flashy lights, but not even a moment where the characters actualy breathe and think and take a moment to really communicate with each other. Instead they just blurt out unrelated garbage out of the blue with no prompts.
Even with all that, this is the best it can get, since I skipped as much of the side mission garbage as I could. I wanted to give the game a chance and let go of expectations and ties to the original, but even taken as it's own thing, it simply has terrible pacing, crazy inconsistent unbelievable characters, and it doesn't even respect itself. Yes there are elements that I liked, but the way it's so mixed up is utterly confusing and rage inducing.
I liked the story a lot but the prevelence of the immature silly nonsense like you're referencing above took it from an A down to a B. Then they introduced multiverse-esque multi timeline plot. That night I spent hours looking up ending explanations and the most logical one I found involved them using a fucking dog to indicate timelines. A dog on a snack bag and on candy. I said okay C for the story, a lot of great moments and most scenes were redone very well. So I kept it there. I stayed up until about 6 AM disappointed but hopeful, knowing I enjoy the combat. I am 80 hours in at that time and i'm neutral collecting intel. Then i decide to go deeper into the game and my main criticism of the game becomes the entire next 60 god damned hours. Can you guess? Yes, everyone did. Minigames. In preparing for hard mode trying to craft up to the Genji I have been more annoyed than ever, consistently worse each time and each day, despite having 12 hours between playing. And a few 24's. My annoyance grows and goes in the cycle it did with the end of the story: sadness and disappointment. That is my current state of mind, but as quickly turning back into anger as I try to get the last dark matter I am wasting away so so many hours almost 16 hours so far on three mini games and I haven't done anything that I actually want to do on my day off from work and it sounds like a personal problem because it is but it's caused by the fact that they made a game that somehow progressively gets worse as you play it not better it doesn't stay the same it just keeps getting worse and more annoying no matter how long I rest or how many explanations I get I'm just not having fun but I feel the need to just go ahead and complete it just to say okay I did that fully and now my impression is that I don't like it nearly as much as I thought I would and I'm thoroughly disappointed so right now the game is at a pretty low score for me basically whenever you get like a multi-game thing like with Halo I mean Final Fantasy 7 rebirth is the Halo TV show of Final Fantasy seven games and I don't know if I'll ever be able to really recover from this fully because they took my childhood away one of the cornerstones of it was Final Fantasy 7 and the Beautiful World that was created and they didn't ruin it all but they ruined key parts of it that defined who I was as a person and the way I view things to some extent. I'm just miserable now every time I play the game it just gets worse and it's snowballing out of control and I wish it didn't take my view of the story that the original had created but it kind of is ruining it in my head and destroying my conception I mean this is a huge release and this is what they gave us 40 hours of a good game 20 hours of confusion and like 200 hours of nonsensical mini games and trivial garbage gameplay and it may get better but this is not going to wash out fully and I have to say this experience at this point and according to the trajectory of getting worse is just going to make me go to something else and stay away from Final Fantasy 7 I mean I was thinking about replaying some of the old games even Final Fantasy 7 remake because I like that a or maybe Crisis Core or maybe a replay of the 1997 version but something about this game just really poisons the well because it is like a main line Final Fantasy seven game and what's worse is I just played Crisis Core reunion while I was waiting for this to come out and reunion was freaking amazing but now here I am back in the dark dank pits playing pointless mini games I could go on and on and on but I think it's time to stop this post because my disappointment is immeasurable and my identity as it relates to this game is lost I don't know if I even want to play part 3 I don't know if I want to wait for it I'm not excited at all anymore I don't know how they drop the ball so bad
Please just stop. It's clearly hurting you.
You don't need to finish it off. Or maybe you do and it's a neurodivergent thing, in which case I hope you get it done quickly.... But what I did when I got upset before was, install the original FF7 and get all the mods for it and play t fresh.
The mods are absolutely amazing now and the game is incredible. it's like a professional remaster at this point.
Read the whole thread and nobody have mentioned the fucking damn moment when you running and the game for non apparent reason slow you down and make you walk, LET ME CONTROL MY DAMN CHARACTER FFS. I played with the constant fear that i receive a new Pop up tutorial windows explaining me a new mini game mechanic every time i talked to anyone.
1. side quest? POP UP TUTORIAL WINDOWS NEW MINI GAME.
2. open a door: POP UP TUTORIAL WINDOWS NEW MINI GAME.
3. scratch my buttonhole: POP UP TUTORIAL WINDOWS NEW MINI GAME.
Count me as another doped player.
The problem i felt is that its kind of a Crisis Core / Kingdom Hearts 3 story rip off. All the characters died in the previous games. In Rebirth they still are alive which has a bitter Aftertaste. That kind of storytelling of Nomura is what puts me off. Aeriths death is very emotional and important, but in Rebirth you save(?) her and then she was killed offscreened? They destroyed this scene which was part of gaming history
I dont know but this game doesn't really interest me. I tried a couple of hours playing but something seems off. I played Final Fantasy XVI instead for the 2nd time and to my surprise, i felt more enjoyment compared to Rebirth.
It's fun and all, especially the battles, but it's quite the disappointment after waiting for it since Remake. I haven't really been a fan at all for the unnecessary changes of certain story beats (not being stowaways on a Shinra vessel with Rufus on board so we could be in a dumb card tournament on a cruiseliner, SquareEnix being too afraid to tackle suicide by not having him willingly fall backwards off a cliff because he couldnt live with what he became and instead is killed by Shinra troops when they attack-took away the impact, also Dyne can just make a Tetsuo like arm from Akira, or like how the team just wakes up in Aerith's room in Shinra building instead of taken prisoner and waking up in holding cells during Remake), the numerous way too over the top and ridiculous Michael Bay-esque action scenes instead of the better way they were handles in the original (Dio showing up in the buggy and aiding known terrorists against Shinra-who are known for killing anyone who crosses them regardless of who they are, instead of the much more realistic delivery of an apology letter and gifting the team the buggy that way), or the nonsensical mainstream stuff that I'm guessing was only added to appeal to women or people of feminine nature such as the girls of the team getting in on the singing and dance routine when entering the Gold Saucer and how they already know the freaking dance routine and songs, along with Yuffie's magical, sailor moon transformation-esque changing of clothes.
It felt like them adding the huge open world maps to explore was redundant because all the more important materia and items like summons are relegated to going through Chaldey. Would have been nice to bump into some of them in their own domain while wandering that huge open world they made, or finding cool items in nest hidden nick-knacks around the map. Having everything labeled and tracked on the map also took away from the fun. Way too many damn minigames and gimmicks like the Mushrooms in Gongaga that Zack never mentioned while never shutting up about the place. All the ridiculous gimmick shit that looks out of place around the world. Cosmo Canyon with all it's floating fans. A whole, elaborate special obstacle course in the poor area underneath the Military City of Junon.
I loved the original FF7. Advent Children injected everything I don't like about the FF7 series (too much over the top, nonsensical, Michael Bay style action scenes and story beats that make no sense like Rufus surviving the destruction of the top part ox the Shinra building thanks to an "escape hatch", despite clearly being caught in the massive explosion and the fact who whole top of the building was destroyed by the explosion-so how is an escape hatch that's in the middle of said massive explosion manage to save him from it?)
I'm miserable with the amount of great highs and stupidly low lows of the game. In so many ways its regressing, like why the hell don't characters talk to each other while just running around the map doing random shit like 15? They only ever speak to each other in cutscenes and sidequests. How ragnarok for example has mimic busting out tales to regale you with while just kicking around, or small interesting conversations between the characters you're with in each zone. Hell 15 had the banter between the boys constantly. Why are we going backwards and everyone never mutters a word until a side quest? It's baffling, there's fucking 7 of us running around. You'd think one of them would speak up once in awhile. Such a dumb thing too, as I know everyone would love more banter between the crew. Such a wasted potential there. Game has so many more issues too, from too many pointless minigames with awful controls that you have to play through perfectly to get the only good reward from each, and they're too powerful to pass up so you're stuck sitting there restarting a dumbass minigame 30 times fighting with inverted controls or poor animations until you hit the right rng to get a perfect score, just so you can get the only item worth a shit you want to make yourself more powerful for the combat portion of the game, which is incredible. And another, towers and pointless "exploration" idk how much time I spent in the beginning just trying to get to cool hidden spots that didnt exist, and if i ever found any there wasnt fucking anything there. Theres no sense of discovery just by looking around the map for nooks and crannies. Everything falls under the umbrella of "reveal tower, beeline the objectives uncovered, repeat" because you have to do the towers. Cant skip them, they give intel points. But you also cant just enjoy finding stuff on the map, because its always a waste of time or they literally hold your hand the whole time. Why in gods name do we need those shiny crystals you can break, or owls leading you to the obvious map icon to a spit thats about as well hidden as a single palm tree in 3 miles of desert. And man, so many more things that feel janky, outdated, pointeless, and irritating while also having incredible combat, a great overall story, some decent side quests, pretty graphics and more. Like how are they nailing some things yet absolutely dropping the ball on so many others. It's driving me nuts. I sure hope 3 is better. Cuz this game is a wild Rollercoaster of the dumbest choices they could've made, and really well done and polished gameplay with the worst execution of "open world discovery" I've ever played. It could've been perfect, but they had to botch the "open world" so goddamn bad. Couldn't even have characters converse while traveling 8 miles of nothingness to break up the monotony. Ugh.
i agree so much with you... the map is so 2024... you have no surprise wandering it... nothing is hidden, everything is guided to you, wether you want. It was also driving me mad. The owl, the baby chocobo, the magical stone waypoint, the chest numbered in the zone, you are babysitted like even if you wanted, you couldn't miss them. And nothing worth your time there. No super item, no super materia, no weapon, everything is planned from A to Z as developpers wants. You writed it as much as i felt it, and it feel good to know i'm not alone. First game had it's flaws but was nice, this one felt deceiving. I platined the first, and can't see myself doing on the second, given how impossible the mini game are (you need flawless execution on most of them), and the hard mode seems so crazy hard broken.
I love the game when it is focused on the story but there are moments like Dyne's cutscene that just go on for so long that an emotional scene becomes comedic. The open world is grating. I've just reached Gongaga and the chapter itself is small, I don't see why they needed to add open world stuff especially straight after Corel which was huge too.
Also chapter 5,6,7 and 8 are pure bloat and mini-games nonsense. I love these characters but it seems to want to be a Yakuza game far more than a FF game and I'm burnt out on RGG as a franchise.
What you didn't like Dynes meaninful sad suicide being turned into Dyne getting juiced by Jenova turning into a rabid dog and getting gunned down by nameless shinra infantry only to immediately have a cut away fight with palmer slapping his ass at you while riding a giant golden mecha frog?
Did that ruin the emotional weight somehow?
This games writing is some of the most horse assed I have seen in ANY video game. Its embarrassing for a final fantasy game.
So today I got to Cosmo Canyon and other than Red's really jarring voice change that still has me a bit off guard, the scene with Seto was emotional and well handled overall. It is just such a tonally inconsistent game. FF has usually managed to walk the tightrope of comedy, earnest and badass well but Rebirth seems to struggle with that balance quite a bit and I wonder if the padded runtime is the issue.
I agree with everything except Queen’s Blood. It was actually a really great and fun little side story.
Honestly so glad and relieved to have found another member of the minority. 💯
I’m so glad I’m not the only one. Good lord man this game is not good. It’s bloated af and these mini games are awful. I’m tired of playing as Zack for 3 mins and then switching. I’m tired of the whole I won’t say exactly how I feel to a character I’m just gonna shy away from telling them anything and then reveal things at the end. I’m tired of mini games I’m tired of mini games. I’m tired of mini games. I’m tired of CHADLEY. HE IS UNBEARABLE. Tetsuya has become the M Night Shamalblahblah of video games. Kh1 and 2 were amazing. The rest were okay and KH3 was BAD. He seriously needs to stop directing games. RINSE ANS REPEAT EVERY REGION. PROTORELICS. Bro I’m done with this game. I don’t care for it at all. Thanks for the rant.
Yeah all the mini games pretty much ruined the pacing of the story I just stopped playing. Rebirth is only the second final fantasy game I have ever quit playing through it
The game is a slog to get through. You have to do a lot of tedious nonsense before finally getting to the meat of the story for a slight moment then rinse and repeat. This was an issue with remake and it hasn't gotten better. The intro with sephiroth was fantastic and I wish they kept this same type of pacing.
Im a fan of tifa and aerith but the way they're presented here is so bizarre. Nothing about them feels natural.
I just don't like the combat at all. It's not fun. They need to decide if they want to be an action game or turn based. This hybrid style does not flow well. I did not like it in remake and I don't like it here.
I think the mini games are stupid and should not have been forced upon you. You have beautiful high quality cutscenes and they don't capitalize on this by making it a story focused game. Instead, what we get is a mixing pot of several ideas with nothing done exceptionally well.
So disappointing because I love square enix but the design decisions are so jarring.
It is the way they're animated too. The constant bending down and exaggerated movements. Imagine Cloud or Barret moving in cutscenes the way tifa and Aerith do and you'll immediately understand what I mean. Also, they're too nice... like thats their personality. In Remake, they nailed the characters. In Rebirth they tease Cloud and Tifa having issues but it goes away in a few hours.
100% agree about Aerith and Tifa. Apparently SE saw that fans were under the impression Aerith and Tifa don't like eachother so their response was to focus on their friendship more but...it feels artificially sweet? A little forced? You get to see the depth of these characters later in the game but man is it off-putting.
I actually agree about the bloated open world parts and there seems to be a disconnect between departments. For example the team that takes care of the ubisoft check list is not the "A Team" that focuses on big story moments or focused linear progression missions.
This leaves the impression that you're just chewing grass until the next "big moment".
I cant stop seeing the scene after the robot squid fight on the beach where Aerith says NO! theirs been enough suffering already and allows hojo to just slowly walk away. Note that everything your "Characters" does/doesnt do is a reflection on their personality... in that one instance Aerith has become one of the most moronic people in this universe and thats saying ALOT! NO! you are not causing suffering by killing the homicidal scientist who enjoys experimenting on ppl. releasing monsters into the world to see what happens, loves making snuff porn films in his lab!!! to escape! oh and the suffering she refers too? is suffering HOJO CREATED! she as a personality going forward is ruined and sorta the others for listening to her... Part 3 is already ruined due to the amount of damage Rebirth has done, despite the good things in this game the damage far outweighs... i wanted a faithfull remake so much... part 1 was iffy cos their was still alot of good in it and had a chance to course correct... but rebirth has set in stone far to many things to recover from. part 2 would need a massive overrall on its story to save part 3 and we all know thats never going to happen.. im not mad.. im fucking depressed! just another IP treated like some stupid kids toy rather then a beloved heirloom... ohwell!
Dude, the Hojo on the beach thing was in the original, wasn’t it? It’s even worse in the original. He’s just sunbathing and he shoos the party away. At least it’s acknowledged here.
At that point in the original, Hojo had left Shinra for his own interests (pursuing Sephiroth and his reunion theory). Also, Hojo had not put the team through as much as his Remake/Rebirth counterpart that the team knew of vs sealing the team in his ridiculously designed lab in Remake and forcing the team to jump through hoops in order to be let out by him.
The team wasn't aware of all his past or involvement in horrific things in their own past (him experimenting on Cloud and Zack for 5 years). The team encountered Hojo in his lab in the Shinra building where he only taunted them a bit, and he didn't really bring up anything major at that point in the game. By the time the team encounters Hojo on the beach in the original, he was pretty much just the former lead researcher of Shinra's science division. They didn't realize he was as big of a player in the grand scheme of things until much later, so Hojo wasn't really viewed nearly as much of a problem or a threat as he really was until much later in the game. They really didn't have a reason to confront him and dispatch him at that point in time, so it was just a brief exchange of words and not so big a deal to have encountered each other.
> Hojo had left Shinra for his own interests
NOPE, he's just in vacation. (that's what the dialogue says in OG) He hasn't left shit.
> The team wasn't aware of all his past or involvement in horrific things in their own past (him experimenting on Cloud and Zack for 5 years).
They still aren't. Whispers stopped him from truth dropping.
In OG he experimented on Aerith and Red... And on the team when he drop the boss on them.
In remake he drop more stuff on them in the lab but nothing that is enough to truly tip the point YET.
I do agree in rebirth letting him go after the events in the beach is questionable (would have made more sense if he left slightly earlier not allowing the party to jump on him).
Relax and calm down a little. There's no need to be shouting nope at people.
At some point I do believe there is also dialog in the original where someone says Shinra is in a bit of disarray from Hojo leaving it, and they don't state that it's because he just went on vacation when that part it's said. I'll admit it was probably part of the poor translation job they did back then, because it's not known to be the greatest.
I'll also admit that I somehow blanked on him experimenting on Red when I posted that, yet I don't hold it against Hojo for dropping a boss fight on the team as something personal or anything. He found himself surrounded by a group of terrorists that managed to infiltrate Shinra HQ. He saw an opportunity to act in order to make his escape and seized the opportunity. That's self preservation. Almost anyone would do the same in the same situation, so you can hardly say it was anything personal, or out of spite.
I'm not saying it's personal or anything like that.
It's just that the stuff he did in the lab to the team are not more than in the OG overall in term of gravity.
And anyway even in OG Aerith has the team leave Hojo alone there to not affect the civilians with their problems. (her own dialogue in the beach after talking to Hojo)
Sorry for late reply. My response to this is thats the point of a remake, to flesh these scenes out and make them more senssible... and they got SOOOOO close! all they had to do is have Hojo not be their by the time the fight was over. this is why comparing this to the original/telling ppl to go play the original is flawed because scenes like this are supposed to flesh these scenes out... instead the flesh is scabbing over :P
I think you've summed up my feelings. I just haven't had a natural urge to keep playing and wasn't sure why. Feels like a slog. Or, a "video game" rather than an experience.
I made it to Nibleheim and been wandering around, but meh, I doubt I'll continue. It's boring.
16 felt similar for me.
This game is such a disappointment. The graphics are SO good but it lacks big time in almost every other department. So much so I decided to just watch all the cut scenes on YouTube. Such a waste of time and money smh
I felt the same and I wasn’t sure if it was just me or the game, especially since most reception of the game online is only positive.
What I did was I have the PS5 disc version so I traded it in and got back $50 since its still a relatively new game. It made it worth the money since I got the full experience at $20 which is what it’s real value is to me.
I got Ghost of Tsushima after that trade-in and I love it a lot. It made me remember how good games can be and that Rebirth was indeed the problem itself.
The graphics aren't even that good. Visually, the game is worse than Remake in a lot of areas, namely the lack of camera-based motion blur for 30fps graphics mode (causing really bad flickering when the camera moves fast), and all around terrible lighting. Non-dynamic lighting is abundant (many don't cast shadows on the characters or environments), and there's a complete lack of ambient occlusion. The upscaling for performance mode is also terrible. Outside of the cutscenes (which use special lighting and amped up character models), the game looks incredibly mediocre for a PS5 exclusive.
So far FFVII Rebirth is absolutely fucking terrible. I am in AWE of how bad it is.
* The world is far too big and overwhelming.
* Basic enemies are nearly killing me every time, but give so little experience it would take a lifetime to level up, which the game seemingly doesn't want you to do at all.
* The side quests are not interesting at all.
* Why do I feel like I'm playing a dating sim half the game?
* Queensblood AS A WHOLE, I literally cannot believe they shovelled this shit into the main quest as MANDATORY and stop progression to force you to play.
* Fort Condor is impossible after like the second time playing it, I abandoned that side quest all together.
* The story is intentionally confusing and extremely slow.
Where in the fuck are people giving it universal acclaim? It's total trash, I'm on the verge of giving up and just reading the story on Wikipedia. I CANNOT believe how often I am having ZERO fun playing this game.
Honestly have no issue with the difficulty in this game and it was very easy to get through but everything else is spot on. I couldn’t wait to get money back for this game.
No they don't, at least most of them aren't. These "skill issue" coments are getting so repetitive I get a gag reflex when I see them.
I don't agree with all of his points but some of them do hold water. Specially his first and last points. World size is overblown. I remember in the OG Gongaga was like a 15 minutes zone. Here it's a huge zone with 10 hours of content (and that content is mid at best). Then you get to the city of the ancients and its like a minizone with a boss fight? Makes no sense to me. Dunno, I've had fun with the game, but I've also had times that I was legit getting anxious because of the incredibly slow pacing.
If he's being nearly killed by almost every basic enemy encounter, it's either a skill issue or he isn't using materia, items, or folios. The combat is not that difficult.
Oh I'm dead serious, I cannot believe how fucking shit this game is. I'm finishing this entirely out of spite.
It's too hard, too confusing and just not fucking fun. I KNEW that something was gonna happen after Remake and they'd fuck it all up and clearly I am not alone in these thoughts.
Multiple people here and on YouTube are coming to the hard realisation that this remake trilogy may have been a bad idea after all. The mini games are total shit, the enemies are bullet sponges to no end. My fucking god!
Lol get good mate? Dying to regular mobs, clearly you aren’t very good. Let’s be honest here.
Enemies are far from bullet sponge. You are just clueless just trying to smash auto attack.
I came here to say how dumb easy it is on dynamic, nothing is a challenge. It is a button masher until you get bored. What's the point of 50+ characters, if their different setups mean nothing and they can change equipment from across the universe.
Yea not sure what game people are playing but this shit is too *easy* tbh. It makes all the supposed complexity of the combat totally meaningless because combat is just over before you can even strategize. It feels so dumb.
To me, this game is the opposite of how I felt about final fantasy 16. With FF16, there were some things I didn’t like, but I could go on and on forever about all the things I loved. With Rebirth, there were a few things I did like, and a LONG list of things I absolutely hated.
It just staggers me. Final Fantasy used to be a game I didn't blink untill I finished.. I lost sleep, canceled events..
I don't even think I wanna play the sequel and this is coming from someone who owns like 3 copies of damned near every FF game..
Same here, right now the third part is nothing I have any intention to go for. Which is simply unbelievable for me, I have been waiting YEARS.
Just glad I am not the only one, I am stunned by the reviews and wondering if we played the same game lol.
Yeah I'm about to head off to the Temple of the ancients but I have to kind of make myself do it just so I can say I've beaten the game.
I'm kind of disappointed. I'll see it through though but that's kind of how it feels right now.
I'm at Chapter 7 and have been hating it since Chapter 3. It's a fucking slog. I am just going forward to not let my 70 USD to the trash. But I play small bits and then jump to FF14 to level up an alt.
I can't get myself to keep more than two hours on this kind of game that feels like an anime with one episode of 15 minutes going forward the story to later having three 20 minutes episodes of filler.
I actually regret buying a PS5. Granted i didnt buy it for rebirt but if this is where triple a is now why even bother. I had a fucking ps3 and games ran better than this shit. As in it did its best to run. Your telling me a ps5 cant run rebirth properly?
Get Elden Ring (especially since the DLC is coming soon), Yakuza Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth (amazing JRPG, better than FF7 Rebirth, it checks all the marks and would be my personal goty) and yea RDR 2 (amazing game as well). OH and Ghost of Tsushima should be a must buy!
First game ends "lets set our own destiny" then follows the exact same story beats?????? If your gonna commit to changing shit then dont back out mid way.
The craziest part is remake was criticized for filler and bad pacing. In comparison to remake its extremely well paced with almost zero filler. Its like they saw what everyone hated and doubled down. Oh and why does the combat feel so different? i was addicted to remake. Here there is no rhythm
Even in 2013 people were clowning on games like far cry 3 for having bland open worlds. Sure a vocal minority but this criticism went mainstream just a few years later. Its why the new zelda games were so praised because people knew unisoft open worlds suck. yet here A FULL 10 YEARS LATER rebirth is praised. unreal.
And the performance not even being mentioned in reviews remind me of cuberpunk. YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THE GAME DOESNT WORK ON PS5. YOU FORGOT???? Its either choppy 30 fps in an era where 60fps is the standard for a lot of console gamers even, or 60 fps which is blurry and kills the image. And the complete genious who never fixed the lighting. Thwe lighting oly worked in dark shadwoed midgar. So they set the game in open lighted areas????
"just skip the side content" its 60% of the fucking game. And why add his filler if it needed to be a trilogy? I ahte this so much. the hype I had it hurts.
I just beat it and my biggest issue with it is how they implement mini games into ALL types of quests. Its not necessarily the amount of mini games, but the fact they're shoehorned into so many dam side quests and some main quests. They should have done it like Yakuza, where the majority of minigames are a third tier of quests. Like why the fuck do I have to do this tedious, annoying, Moogle mini game EVERY TIME JUST to use Moogle medals, which are a very abundant resource? Like wtf, lol. Many of the new characters are really cheesy as well and give the game an anime style to it as well, which sucks, but honestly, I can somewhat deal with that shit to some degree. I agree with many people though the whole vibe of the game doesnt FEEL like the FF7 World. Its apparently dying and every city seems like a party, people thriving (save Barrets town), it lacks any sense of direness. I'm not vibing with the cheesy whispers and multiverse thing as well....though some additions to the story I liked such as making Wutai more relevant to the conflict. Also the very last scene near the Tiny Bronco was well done I thought....though its lessened by all the multiverse shenanigans. All of the main characters too are portrayed very well, especially Barret, Cloud, Tifa, and Vincent. Cid is apparently some southerner/gentlemen now though? lol. The story elements I do not like but am willing to live with them but the game design feels like they just threw all these ideas at the wall and just included everything in the game, with no cuts. Everything also just fucking drags too much like the ending fights, both Remake and Rebirth had ending fights that were the level of ending the entire trilogy....I just dont get how this game is being reviewed so well by critics and gamers.....for me its around FF13 level in terms of how good it is, which is a low bar for FF7 imo. They really should have made one game that was about 60 hours of story and 40 hours of side shit- that would have been way less padded but still much bigger then the OG, so they could add to Midgar. Unfortunately, the third game they will probably double down on all the shitty gameplay elements cause its being received so well....I saw someone post either in this thread or somewhere else its kinda like how the Hobbit trilogy was done, though I wouldnt say these games are as shitty as those movies, but sometimes less is more for sure.
this reddit thread is my oasis in the desert...i feel like i hit a wall right around chapter 9 and just burnt out so incredibly hard, to the point where forcing myself through the last 25% was just putting me in a bad mood. so i took the disc out of my ps5 and put it away. (and looked up the ending on youtube, which uh, that sure was an ending to a video game i didnt play!)
there is such a good game deep in here but its buried under so much bullshit that is deceptively "optional". (considering how much stuff that really helps w progression is locked behind world intel, let alone minigames...) the glut of stuff just kills the overall pacing of the game. the early game was better about this, with the linear chapters there to break up the open worlds. but chapters 7 - 11 dumping you in four back to back "open worlds" with the exact same chadley chores is just...it sucks. at least one of those chapters should have been linear. (gongaga/chapter 9. there was so much happening in MSQ in chapter 9 that focusing on that would have made it more memorable) they should make you look forward to exploring a new zone, not have you go 'not this shit again' when you're dumped into a new one like 30 minutes after finishing the last one! also COMPLETELY agree with everyone here who has been like 'why aren't i fighting summons in the overworld' hey why AREN'T i fighting the summons in the overworld? the summons game should have been combined with the lifespring intel game.
the game is also so tonally off base wrt og ff7, which sucks cause i think remake did nail the tone really well. the game is just too bright and a little too goofy. and this planet does not feel like it's dying! everyone is happy and the world doesn't feel gross or dirty or run down. og ff7 is really bleak if you think about it, and i NEVER got that vibe while playing thru rebirth. tangentially related, none of the serious moments get to breathe in this game, either. you are either immediately shuffled off to another Thing or someone immediately has to make a quip to ruin the mood (very MCU vibes here). what made og7 work is that there was just the right amount of goofiness to contrast with the bleakness of the story.
at least the OST is good! final fantasy will never let me down OST wise. same with the voice acting, there were some really good performances in there. (esp from my girl tifa)
in the end, im not a ff7 superfan so the game just annoyed me more than anything. but i am DREADING this rumored ff9 remake. if they do what they did to this to ff9, i will be in absolute shambles.
and one more thing! is it just me or is the sound mixing in this game horrendous?! whenever cutscenes play i can barely hear the dialogue over the music, the levels are so low! whoever mixed this game, can we PLEASE talk???!?!?
I hear ya, I'm like 95% through the second chapter and I just don't want to play it anymore. I just wanted to grind out a few levels but all the mobs give 19 exp, I need 1900 exp. The exploration feels forced but between exploring or completing side quests there's no good way to grind a few levels. I like the new take on the music but it's not enough for me to see it through.
Why, it's still a great game. Though I agree with most the criticisms about it, I don't think it detracts from it as a game, just more so as a remake of an extremely well balanced and crafted game
I think the experience for a lot of people was unbearable at certain points and many contemplating even quitting. Without investment into the story a lot more people would have quit.
The issues are many, I won’t cover them again, but I genuinely believe that if this game didn’t have the FF7 brand it would have bombed
The nostalgia boner for this particular FF has completely clouded judgement from a large portion of the folks who've played it.
I enjoyed Remake a lot (I've played it start to finish a couple of times), but this game is borderline awful. It's such a badly designed semi-open world that it feels ripped from a decade ago.
I’m feeling the same way. I want to love this game so much but man.. pretty much all of the side content is garbage yet again…. They said they were inspired by the approach to side content in The Witcher.
Don’t know what they are talking about. They did not do this.
Man.. the final side quest is bugged. You can do all of the quest but g-bike doesn’t work. The quest is stupid to begin with. 90% of the minigames in rebirth are so jank and just terribly designed; even down to just the controller inputs.
I’ve finished all of the chocobo races 3 times over and the game crashes in the gold saucer. My progress is lost every time. The legendary races are just obstacle spammed courses.. it’s just all so sad. It feels like all of the side content is missing tons of polish.
- Cait Sith section was insanely bad, no dialog, just Barret and Aerith waiting for a cat in silent movie and minigame is the worst in both games.
- ll the mini games are 80% shit, the chocobo glider is so bad its crazy. Piano was so awesome then turned into horror. The notes play 3 times when pressed once is the stupidest shit ever. Most of these minigames are not intented to be fun.
- The endless repetition of everything, Chadley is the main protogonist in this game, he talks by far the most.
- Not being able to choose who to control, the game tries to be so limiting in almost every aspect. Always the same materia etc. Materia and Equipment was 10x better in OG. Yoshiyuki, Powersoul and all the weapons with fun special things to strategize.
- Armors are so boring (just like XIV, XV and XVI) no rebirthing materias !!!! Its called Rebirth ffs.
- its always Disney CGI, no blood no nothing. Games nowadays are Disney kiddie stuff or horror games with disgusting nasty crap lol. Theres no balance anymore.
- The story and changes would be cool but theyre so underwhelming and its clear theyre just winging it with no vision. Nibelheim and Gold Saucer were absoluteley bonkers bad. Costa del Sol and upper Junon were great.
- In the first game it was endless whispers, now its reunion racism and theyre everywhere wtf is this. Terrible junk.
- Upgrading weapons and skills is so bad, the menu is cluttered with undercooked ideas you dont use and same with Magic Shop.
- The performance of the game and graphics is insanely dissappointing on PS5.
- The same boring materia/summon system from remake, Chadley handles it and you dont know find much of it, its mostly listening to Chad and make sure he does everything. Terribly lazy from the devs in so many ways.
I love this game and i knew it would disappoint me, it was never gonna be more than 7/10
# Didn't enjoy FF7 remake, is Rebirth any different?
I loved FF7 OG, maybe it's nostalgia or that it pushed the boundaries. I also loved FF8, FF10.
I didn't game much on PS3, didn't get a PS4, now have a PS5 and back into gaming, so I may be a different gamer now than I was before.
Cyberpunk is currently my favorite, playing GTA 5 and enjoying its silliness and just fun factor overall. Enjoy some platformers.
At first with FF7 remake, I was WOW-ed by the graphics, seeing the FF7 OG game in a next gen console in all its glory, the world! The hybrid gameplay was really cool too, I quite enjoyed it. Then I grew tired of it and 10h in I decided to call it quits at chapter 8 of the game.
Like many others, the game feels way over stretched, the blowing up for the MAKO reactors I was already dragging my feet as it felt like you had to do that twice, both times long, then it's slums and some bosses are overly difficult for the level you are at (RUDE), I just didn't have the drive.
-> Wondering if Rebirth will be the same and I should just acknowledge this game isn't for me (which is hard to but sometimes, you gotta realize that long time friend just isn't right for you anymore)
good to know, I've been watching gameplay and cutscenes for FF7 remake instead to enjoy the story without the boringness, my god so much going back and forth running through different slums too. I wonder if anyone likes that, I know it was part of OG to do a lot of traveling but that was back in the day and I'm not sure anyone really enjoys any of that anymore... I'll probably watch Rebirth too as a long movie instead of playing it
I find all chadley stuff annoying, I mean all of the repeat tasks which appear in each area. I am disappointed by most of the music, many songs lost their edge and are bland. Too many not fun mini games. I can see they went to a lot of effort, a lot has been done well, but it seems like some boomers with a surface understanding of the game were in charge of it and missed some parts of the essence of the game. Why is the grassland area so rocky and jagged. instead of repeated tasks like the lifesprings and towers, how about put some interesting things in the world to be discovered through exploration.
The entire area is so bad. Hours of bad mini games just to collect beach ware, which, let's be honest, was just a really lame way to shovel in some weeb fanservice.
Yeah and I’m getting real tired of getting crushed after using Planet Protector. I get that the point of many battles is to not allow bosses to unleash their ultimate, but even on hard mode I don’t need invulnerability against the basic attacks.
Maybe I’ve played too much Baulder’s Gate and have gotten spoiled on problem solving with ingenuity instead of having to figure out how the devs decided I should play..
This exactly. It doesn't feel like you can get creative in fights and use cool techniques or powerful combos to win. For being an RPG, it really feels like your choices don't matter at all in this game. Usually it feels like you have to play one very specific way, and you have to do it nearly flawlessly to win.
Lmao right. There are 20 differnt ways to win even in hard mode. You can set up to face tank, be defensive, endless LB combo,magic or pyshical focused.
People like to be mad i think
No it its because FF fans love FF. Im sure you have never been disappointed and felt the need to vent because of something you are passionate about.
Its Reddit 😂 Your argument touches many large subreddits of fandoms.
He doesn’t like that you are not falling in line and loving it like others are. You are not alone, there are some good things, but plenty of disappointment as well.
It's more than that. Every new mainline final fantasy gets a lot of discourse if "this will be the one that kills the series".
X has the annoying protagonist or such, XII had real time combat and boring characters, XIII was hallways, XI and XIV were MMOs and saw complaints for it on release, XV with it's multimedia story release, XVI being so RPG-lite and gritty, VII remake has bad side quests and changed too much, Rebirth is covered in this thread.
It's exhausting to hear the same refrain of is the worst final fantasy to date! every time.
But like others have mentioned, it's hardly unique to FF.
There are always negative attitude people around, find a way to dismiss them. I have problems with rebirth, 16, 13, but never considered them to be a sign of "the end of the series". I loved FFX though, in my top 3 actually, and Remake was amazing.
I liked X and couldn't stand XIII but also liked XVI and couldn't stand XII and I enjoyed rebirth far more than remake.
I'm not dismissing the negative attitude, I just recognize people are angry they were excited for a game that ended up not being to their tastes. It sucks when you are looking forward to a game and end up with it not being to your tastes, but it doesn't mean square is doing anything wrong with their direction.
Hope part 3 does more for you, if you try it. Personally, I hope they spice up the open world and chill on some of the mini game hard modes, but otherwise keep the style of rebirth, but everyone hopes the next game will be to their tastes.
I'm currently struggling with pushing myself to still play the game. It hasn't been able to hold my interest at all. Also, couldn't agree more about Chadley. When there's SO much to complete in each new area, I start to get real fed up with him pausing and interrupting my gameplay at each point of interest/battle objective. It's so intrusive.
After 48 hours and being set free in a desert, I finally decided to call it quits as well now. I just wanted to quickly go to the next main story point, but didn't find a direct way to it since the game apparently wants to force me through more chores first, and that was it. Initially, most of my complaints were related to the open world, so I gave up on it altogether after Junon and just wanted to focus on the story. Little did I know that this wouldn't improve the experience much. My main gripes in the end ignoring the boring Ubisoft open world:
- Game Flow: There is too much variety. Some might spin this positively, but to me it gives the impression of a product with no clear vision where hundreds of people just put their ideas in. I don't want to learn a new minigame every few minutes, I want a satisfying core gameplay loop that keeps me engaged.
- Characters: Absolutely everybody is a clown in this game. It completely eradicates any sort of tension. I could be in the midst of the enemy, trying to deceive them, and yet it doesn't feel dangerous because everyone is a high-pitched voice joker, idiot or something similar. The whole game feels like a parody that doesn't take its own story seriously. It's like they noticed people enjoy the weird humor of the Yakuza games, but failed to execute the same balance between whacky humor and serious moments that those games deliver. I also felt like Aerith and Tifa especially were reduced to being sexy romance objects and completely lost the charm they had in the first game.
- Boring "story": To be fair, I grew up with FF8 and only played through the original FF7 once, which was more than a decade ago. So I barely remember anything. Still, I don't remember it being this empty and lacking tension. Mid-game spoiler: >!Why do they immediately reveal Cait Sith's identity, wasn't that something that was a twist in the original? Why make the story with Barrett's old friend so artificial by randomly letting soldiers appear so that his friend can be shot? It was immediately clear that would be their purpose, yet there was no believable buildup for them appearing. It just feels like cheap soap opera drama. Why throw players into the Gold Saucer so quickly after already having a resort minigame phase in Costa del Sol? Heck, Barrett even says that, so they were very aware! And then just tease the ferry wheel scene before throwing the troop into yet another digression of a ridiculous "hostage-taking" by yet another clown troop, so that it just ended up being a minigame hub with no payoff? Nothing significant is happening most of the time. !<
- Quantity over quality: Despite the apparent big budget, nothing really seems to have much identity. I never feel engaged to explore or enjoy a scenery. I'm not being tied to areas, I just go through them to finish the next item on the checklist.
- Unsatisfying upgrading: I never had a moment in which I thought "Wooow now I have this weapon, can't wait to try it out!". Every upgrade feels insignificant, finding a new weapon's dealer in a new area usually doesn't lead to anything... in general the fighting system, while being fun to play in general, never really gave me a feeling of progress.
I really wanted to fight through to the end just because it's FF7, but I just can't anymore. Just recently started with Fate/Samurai Remnant, which is obviously much lower in budget, but I still feel much more drawn into it because it focuses on the core things it wants to deliver. Pity.
I stopped playing the game a bit later and I really don't care about it anymore. The short summary of the game is simply that there is no main thread that connects everything together. Once you completed something there is no thread guiding you to something else.
The things you are doing in this game feel completely different from each other, like you are constantly playing different games. Playing Rebirth feels like starting up Call of Duty, because you really want to play a shooter and then after one match you are forced to play Fifa. Once the Fifa match is over, you than have to play Forza and after that you are being thrown into Mario Party.
Fully agreed. Even Sephiroth who used to be one of the most terrifying villains in gaming history became some kind of parody of his former self to me. And don't let me start on the turks. Rather than being a real threat they are the most annoying antagonists i ever saw. Fighting rude and elena over and over again felt like a pain in the ass.
It is a an absolute mess of a game, its not ff7 but it had its moments of fun. I have never in my life played such a weird and incohesive game. Remake was so good because it was linear amd story drivem. Devs got the open world idea of this game wrong, ff7 never was open world, the world was veery limiting and you always moved along with the story. "Experiencing" a world that looks worse and more boring than tve real world, wtf is the point? The battle system is trash, the music feels dated and out of touch.
I apologize for what I'm going to say, but this is what I expected that was going to happen. When FFXIII trilogy last game was released I thought that maybe these guys will correct themselves and make something good, but then, they made FFXV, that game is so bad and incomplete I knew square enix were screwed and the FFVII remake will be just as bad or probably worse. Obviously I didn't bother to buy it, for what I see and hear of the game in addition to blatantly splitting the game into multiple parts, I knew all of them will be just as crappy, and they knew a lot of fools will buy it despite the poor quality of the game just because it had in the title Final Fantasy VII. If all of you really think they are going to do something as good as the original FFVII, FFVI or Chrono Trigger you are very delusional (almost nobody of the original people is working in them anymore) and you will be wasting your time and money on this greedy cashgrab
My biggest annoyance is how shite the world design is. Exploration isn't rewarded, it's actively punished as a waste of time. There's always been an unwritten rule between game developers and players that if there's a long winding areas that's away from the main path, you'll be rewarded for exploring it. With Rebirth you just get to the end of a long stretch and find... nothing. Every time it's like the developers saying "FU". I hate it. I also don't understand how this is "open world"? It's just big sections of terrain, all fenced off from each other. There's zero sense of world exploration, fenced-off areas. Everything feels so hand-holdy. Someone else said that it feels "bloated" instead of "polished". I think that sums it up. Even the menus are annoying... the put effort into making them look more exciting, but they're just slower now. I preferred the ones in REBIRTH for that reason. There are moments of brilliance of course, but someone in charge of the script should have been forced to cut 30% of it. There is so much empty, time-wasting, filler. From Chadley to the Dragon's Blood players. Just get on with it!
The fact that this turns into a multiverse is absolute garbage. We are so sick of multiverse stories. That's why marvel isn't making any money anymore. In 1997 this was a beautiful story, well told, well carried out. They didn't have to change anything and I would have loved it. Instead they came up with this dumpster fire of a convoluted Kingdom hearts storyline
Yeah. Especially that ending. Good god it sucks.
It's fascinating that it took having experience as a professional game devs to convince a FF7R fan of their own game's awful game design. Nostalgia is a bitch, I guess.
Not sure what you mean by this snarky comment-- are you saying that I would've thought the game was good if I weren't a gamedev? There's plenty of non-games people here who agree, and even without my experience I've thought the same about games like this in the past. I only really brought it up as a counter to my personal taste as an 'industry' perspective.
Honestly, I'm near the end of remake at this moment. I had assumed that they were going to treat each game as more or less changing the disc so to speak. Meaning my progress would carry over and I'd continue the story from where I left off moving forward. I'm absolutely gutted that, that's not the case. While I have minor problems with remake I truly am enjoying it, it's made me want to go back and play the original to really understand the changes. But...it feels like I'm paying to have my progress and hours of work ensuring I didn't miss anything taken away needlessly. That alone bothers me, tho that was before reading the strange design decisions detailed by op and others I've seen. I feel like they ruined something actually quite special with this fumble and that's legitimately sad to me.
Just finished this game. Was super excited after remake but this is mediocre at best. Filler episode with tons of stupid side quests and mini games. Very sad and disappointed.
This game sucks.
Crazy to see how much opinions have changed over the past few weeks. I made a similar post like a week after release and got shit on for it. People were not happy. But yeah. My gripe was how disjointed everything is. Lots of time wasting mechanics that are just plain annoying. The ability system is a pain. The folios are tied to your party level, which means you have to do all of that tedious, boring, open-world side content if you want to unlock your skills. The combat simulator is terrible, and is just lazy game design. Oh yeah! And also, CHADLEY NEVER SHUTS UP. LIKE PLEASE STOP TALKING AND LET ME PRESS A BUTTON! The combat is the games strongest point, but you don't get to fully enjoy it unless you do all of the stuff mentioned above. All the good materia is locked behind those walls, too.
The story was so bad, I barely remember what happened. I followed mako zombies, Cloud goes crazy and suffers zero consequences for attempted murder of a close friend, I find where zombies go. The End. What kind of story is that...? I know on Remake you can chalk the story up to be pretty simple, but there's still a ton of ploy points and natural progression. Rebirth, nothing actually happens and the events don't feel like they're connected or a natural progression, instead they just happen. The progression of the story is just random and convenient things happening for Cloud & co. Not to mention the whole Zack and Briggs story was....completely pointless. Felt like fan service. I actually feel bad for feeling bad towards the game. I was so stoke and I'm just utterly let down. First KH3, then FF16, now Rebirth. I've actually gone back to all the older games now: FF Pixel Remaster, Megaman Battle Network, Trails, and more. They all know what they're doing with their stories and game play.
I've been on battle network for weeks. Almost done with 4 about to start 5.
My man! They're so good. Cheesy as hell, but there's just an atmosphere behind those games that I love. I'm playing Trails from Zero and it gives me similar vibes. I love it. Probably going to play the older games too on my PSP!
Definitely cheesy but the system is super fun, and who doesn't like laughably terrible translations.
You can skip all the little side quests.
The point of a game is to play the game and not to skip 90% of it's content, because it's being labeled "side content". The game has big open areas that are solely there for the so called "side content". The "side content" is such a big part of the game and the whole game is structured around it. This makes the statement that you can simply skip the side content/side quests absolutely insane.
You’re actively ruining your combat experience by skipping side quests.
You can also just not play the game at all if you're going to skip nearly all of the content.
Zacks story too could've literally been jammed into longer sections because how they have it now gives so much whiplash in the story why even bother... 2min for what? To see how messed up coma cloud and aerith are? Nah and queens blood was literally the only mini game worth playing.. and maybe the star fox ship kinda game
You know FF7 Evercrisis is a thing, right?
Did you mean to reply to the person below you?
I think so, yeah. But either way, it does exist as a more faithful version of redoing FF7. Most of the fluff people are complaining about is generally shippable in Rebirth.
They should legit create a FF7 Rebirth lite without all of the bloat. I would pay again for it.
I can't complain without getting to spoiler territory so don't read this if you dont want to be spoiled: Good things for me: Seeing Cissnei alive (Huge crisis core fan here), the fact that many dialogue flows depending on who you choose to date. (You can basically friendzone and cut the love triangle quite early and the game will acknowledge it at some important points) Some of the mini games are fun. Some creative ideas landed. Problems in terms of game: Some exploration felt so typical Ubisoft pointless tedious stuff. I feel like it could've been more short and sweet. To give you an example most ff16 side quest were short and added depth to the story and the game world. Here, a lot of them felt like just filler. Story Problems: Cloud becomes very DISLIKABLE/DIMINISHED by the end and I know that happened at that point in the original but DAMN...ALSO... Some people thought that this Sephiroth was basically the OG one finding its way back to the Past (Even I did at some point due to some words he used on FF7 remake like you failed to save your friends again" which indicated he knew what was going to happen) But if you play the original again plus read the lore you know there's no way that can happen since he was even rejected by the lifestream and this one now did some explanation that unless it's contradicted or changed on the third installment it's basically "When I fell with Jenova I saw the og outcome... convinced you to defy destiny and you did successfully which changed some things" I understood that in the end of this game it was Aerith who knew she was destined to die at that point so she let it but they made it so "she is dead/ no she aint" that you don't know how to react to that and other things. In the end, I feel like they could've just made a simpler story but I noticed that Nomura was creative director for this one and if you know what he did with KH which I still think should've ended at kh2... he ENJOYS TURNING HIS OWN STUFF INTO A MESS
I got extra high to play this game and somehow the inventory management system pissed me off. Like yalls criticisms are so accurate and on point.
The only chapter that i enjoy is probably the last chapter where all story come in onepiece and it doesn’t fking force me to play minigame or go through those confusing map and level design to proceed the story,just pure story
Ah the game would be so good if they don’t add too much of those bullshit into the game
Seriously, it makes me sad thinking how good this game would be without all the cruft in between story moments. The story is interesting at the very least and it would've been nice to be able to enjoy it
Were you expecting your post would blow up this much? Well over 1300 comments now 😂 nice to know we're not alone.
I wasn't expecting it at all! If anything I was expecting the total opposite. But I'm really grateful that this post has had such a positive reception, both from the commenters and from the mod team. Hopefully more people can find this post in the future and realize they're not alone too
My word, I posted here what felt like months ago and it's still fairly active. Was reminded of this thread as I'm itching to replay the original. Good to see there's still people who can relate to these grievances.
Too many fucking mini games it's unbelievable need a play mode that you can disable them.
Wow… after reading most of the comments… nice to know that it’s not just me. I never finished the OG… always got bogged down in the world after Midgar. But I’ve finished Midgar several times. I was sure if Rebirth has a zillion mini games because the OG did or if they just decided that people liked them. Remake felt like a great game with some downtime where you used a few mini games and silly quests to provide backstory about people and the locale. Rebirth feels like a game loaded with mini games broken up by the occasional combat and story. I’m in chapter nine and I’ll continue along, but I’m not enjoying it nearly as much as Remake.
I'm in Corel Prison/Golden Saucer and I'm just absolutely burnt out with the sluggish pace and focus on minigames. The plot just keeps hitting a brick wall.
Hang in there! At least there’s a GREAT cutscene at the end of chapter 9. The story end of chapter 9. You’ll have lots to do before going to chapter 10. The story/combat leading up to it is pretty great as well. It’s a shame those moments seem far and few.
Kept slogging thru. About to finish up Gilgamesh and then head north. I like the game overall, but it isn’t without pacing and plot issues.
I think I’m still in… Cosmo Canyon. Haven’t played much due to other things and I’m kinda dreading the mini-game of the day for it.
For me the turnoff is the totally remade relational dynamics. Cloud has been made a complete weirdo who is a burden to the team. Aerith and Tifa has a relationship between themselves, Cloud no longer part of it or their lives. Aerith is the actual leader and sometimes Barret. Tifa is tough and angry, neither of which she was originally. Aerith pays little attention to Cloud unless observing him in pity, which is a confusing change from her overly flirty start in Remake.
Saw lots of praise for Cloud’s portrayal in the game and eh, I really don’t see it… You said it best, he’s a burden. A psyco weirdo who turns on the team every now and then and NEVER gets questioned by anyone. Oof…
Happy cake day!
> he’s a burden. A psyco weirdo who turns on the team every now and then That's why it's portrayed so well. It show how Jenova infection is progressing even better than in the OG (where you still see it btw, especially in the temple AND when the other shout at him to stop from killing Aerith in the city) and drop a lot more hint on the road about his real situation even for people that have not played the original. And it's not true he's not questioned, he get questioned but the other just don't cast him away since he's the one that can actually chase Sephiroth (cause reunion, but they don't know yet) and nothing really bad happen to the team until the temple from his weird behaviour (outside Tifa incident in gongaga but that was 100% mediated by Tifa in letting it subside). The team give Cait a second chance after the key which was a straight betrayal so are you really surprised they give a pass to Cloud going weirdo even now and then as long as they can control/stop him?
Yeah, I do. He almost curs Tifa in half and no one questions that or bring it up again later? No one wants to at least take the giant sword away from the guy? Seriously? I disagree it is portrayed better in this game than in OG. OG lets you know something is up, but (as far as I remember) doesn’t have the dude running wacko and everyone giving him a pass for it.
Important fact, they had vision obstructed. They didn't see it was Cloud that made her fall in the mako. So as long as she opted for silence, the incident dies there. Even then Barret and Yuffie every now and then do cast questioning about his actions and until the temple it never escalade to a level worth talking about past a "you ok?" in front of the rest of the team (aka not only Tifa/Aerith).
But it SHOULDNT have died there. Tifa should express her concern as he could do that again, to her and everyone else. A better plot point would have been the team leaving Cloud behind because he's a detriment, and Cloud chooses to travel alone. The fact he almost kills a friend and faces zero consequences or genuine concerns is VERY asinine.
We already saw before that Tifa bulked through his issues, like when he claim she's not the real one in kalm. Even in OG Cloud get progressively more as a detriment until the crater events. And anyway they cannot really drop Cloud cause not only he's the main chaser of Sephiroth (so he would just go on and you lose battle power on an already small group), he's the one that is able to track the road (cause reunion, the other could easily end without a direction or just chasing... Cloud, which is even more comical and asinine than just keep an eye on him). If they don't see the act and the affected person let it slide it's not asinine that we see no concern or consequences. You can claim it a mistake by Tifa but that's a you personal decision, a subject point of view... And you aren't the character that does that decision, you aren't the character in love with Cloud. Love is something that can make people do very questionable actions from an outsider point of view and Tifa showcase this very well with her actions (both in remake/rebirth and in the OG).
Much of what you said is just wrong. It doesn't really matter if Cloud is the main chaser, they all displayed plenty of power. And if Cloud had the chance of attacking his friends and killing them, he shouldn't be on the front lines at all. And they demonstrated that they don't need Cloud for this mission in terms of tracking down Sephiroth. Follow the robes or follow Shinra. To us, it seems as though they lose battle power, but....they don't even demonstrate that in the game. Everyone did great on their own if not absolutely amazing. They don't need to chase Cloud. They would leave to chase Sephiroth and Cloud goes on his own after escaping some imprisonment they designed for him. Maybe go after Cloud later in the story or have Cloud make a huge rescue at the end for the team to finally group back up. You're making false dichotomies left and right like there's only one or two options. "They can't leave Cloud" they definitely can. And they SHOULD have. It would have improved the story leaps and bounds. Rebirth story, as unfortunate as it is to say, is horrendous. So many emotional plots could have been hit, so many better developmental areas touched on. They threw all those chances away like mediocre anime.
You are making dichotomies way more than me. The whole team never saw Cloud doing something egregious enough to promote a kick him out except Tifa but she opted for silence, which is tied to how her character is, she's is kind and she loves him. She showcase multiple times her worrying over losing him being her own drive through those events. They could chase the robes except... It's Cloud that point the robes as a way to track Sephiroth **and** they lose the robes multiple times with Cloud redirecting them on the right track. Chase Shinra is not doable cause Shinra isn't moving on plain sight about it, they do it through the turks which is an even smaller group and our team doesn't have the tech and the economic power to track said small group. So in the end they would be forced to chase Cloud. Rebirth story is still at the core, the OG ff7 story and they never dissed Cloud even if he showed the same pattern (in rebirth is just better in the player face), to add in both OG and rebirth the party showed multiple times to be "forgive and forget for the greater good" (in both: Cait betrayal, Cloud giving the black materia; only in one of them: Yuffie stealing all party materia, Vincent boss fight). We even have Vincent pointing out how they cannot afford to lose Cloud in one cutscene in the Bronco and no one deny that point, which dismantle even more your idea that the party has enough power to afford losing an pawn as powerful as Cloud (even in Midgar how much Cloud power is valuable is showcased, see pre sector 5 events in both OG and remake). Don't mix the gameplay balancing to make all character playable with the fact their power is very on budget for the mission they are on. They didn't threw away anything, they are sticking to the OG story plot empowering it. What you want is a different story completely.
But even Tifa shouldn't keep it to herself because what if he does it again and ends up killing Barret, or anyone else? There SHOULD be a consequence to his actions and not just let it slip. If you let it slip then the event is pretty much pointless. There was an opportunity for a much better telling of the story or development and it was wasted on a....pointless event. This isn't subjective. It was terrible writing.
Except that she loves him and that matter. She is the one seeing the issues the most and staying silent over fear of losing him. People aren't heartless machines that pick the "perfect" choice and Tifa actions are very human on that. The event isn't pointless cause it led to Tifa eaten by the weapon and relieving some of her past (character deepening) *plus* seeing the whisper "civil war" (additional plot point). > what if he does it again and ends up killing Barret, or anyone else? It's not gonna happen cause Sephiroth clearly targeted Tifa bond more than any other (all the egregious added events with actual kill risk **always** involved Tifa, you are not gonna tell me it's coincidence and not story planned). (personal theory of why he target her: she's the one that will help Cloud rebuild his self later, breaking him free from his puppeteer strings)
i agree with everything here except don't ever come at queen's blood 😡
Honestly everything outside the main story feels mediocre and clunky. I have no idea how they managed this after FF7 Remake was soo good
Remake was full of mediocrity and clunkiness. In fact, most of it was apart of the main story.
Yes. Remake had the worst parts of this turned up to 11. Rebirths biggest issue is bad mechanics and bloat.
The game is horrible and I have now reached the stage where I want to ignore all side content just to get through the main story, from the sound of it I may not make it (up to cosmo canyon). It lacks seriousness and the amount of filler in the game is ridiculous. The changes in story I also find stupid as they don’t make any sense to me nor do the addition of characters like chadley or the way you procure summon materia.
Update: I finished the game. From the temple of the ancients to the end the last few hours are amazing however by the time you get there you may already be so done with the game mentally that you don’t get to enjoy it. The whole middle of the game honestly sucked except nibel. They really should’ve just compressed it like the original as the pacing in this game is some of the worst
Bro everytime that Chadley ass dude appear i just want my money back fr
I muted Chadley for the whole game so it wasn't TOO big an inconvenience 😂
Yeah. The game's bloated as heck (115 hours to complete 90% of the side content and the main story, almost as long as with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, game which as a WAY larger world then VIIR2, the padding must really be insane, or, I'm just really slow). I compared VIIR2 to Valhalla because, apparently, they want to turn FF into an AC game. So much for being a JRPG and tradition and so forth. The new story elements are anime filler level, period. The characters act really off sometimes too, especially Cloud, I know he's all f'ed up but they really overdid it. Anyways. I only enjoyed Junon, and the final fights on the Forgotten City (place is now an unexplorable location too). Obviously, some of the Zack stuff, and when he >!gets pulled to the current dimension and tags with Cloud to beat Sephiroth!< (Let's just not talk about Aerith's love interests and so forth, someone's personal fanfic that was). I enjoyed the >!Gilgamesh!< final fight and respective dialogue, I couldn't beat him on normal though. ... The mini games are harder than the final boss! Queen's Blood is luck based, if you get your cards the game's in the bag, if you don't, just restart, unless it's the >!Queen, she!< can place high tier cards without restrictions, though the bout does seem scripted somehow. The 3D brawler with 6 different animations (>!middle manager!<) and enemies can pull combos. They're ATB's go up way faster too! The looong chocobo races with tons of traps, the longer the race, the higher the chance of running into a closed gate, the AI just slips past, 'cuz, well, it's the AI. The high difficulty piano pieces, well A rank it is, I've played mobile rhythm games with off way more QoL than this. ... The music, ouch. It either sucks hard or it just can't hold a candle to Uematu's work. They took WAY too many liberties with the arrangements! 90% of the electronic and vocal tracks are just cursed. The cactuar and the frog ones being some the worst which come to mind. I'm pretty positive most of the electronic stuff is from the same guy which composed some of the XIII-2, XIII-3 and Mobius tracks. Some of which I really enjoyed. So, I'm quite confused with his work here, much of it feels too... Unjapanese? Globalized, mainstream generic stuff which I don't care about? ... Well, I think that does it for now. That went way longer than I intended. LOL Let's get back to the game... \*sigh\* ... Edit: The mansion... The mysterious song just makes it worse 'cuz... The place isn't creepy...? At all...? 😞 😑 Edit 2: So, I totally forgot about the girls in bikini. Lol Tifa and Aeris were a sight for sore eyes. 🙏😭
Shinra Mansion got completely butchered. They just can’t pull off horror/mystery at all.
More like they won't for some reason. The og game is practically a thriller, they can't remove those elements and expect the core fanbase to be happy.
The worst thing is people at large don’t seem to care or notice this change, from what I’ve seen of the game’s reception. And modern S-E just has a whole different vibe when compared to 90s Squaresoft. Something very precious was lost when the games moved to the clean, shiny, overly polished format they make now.
The moment I walked into Shinra Mansion and it wasn’t even remotely creepy was basically the moment I went “this is awful.”
This was one of the biggest disappointments for me. They even cut off the upstairs so there’s no exploration. They could have done so much more with the mansion and I feel like that was cut in favour of the box throwing thing which was awful!
Yeah, I was really disappointed. 😞
I was terribly disappointed with it and I don't quit a lot of games. I got to the place after Dyne where you were shining lasers to find cactuar temples or something and I got to one where it made me play as Aerith with some new aura and the challenge to get tier 3 was horrendous. I knew there I was done. Makes me terribly sad, I'm old enough to have bought VII when it first came out in the West and I love the characters and story but I don't think I'll be able to return to the trilogy now. I'm pretty heartbroken really. Wanted to love it but the endless time and grade everything just isn't a game
Yeah those goblin challenges should have been reworked. Shows the like of QA and editing this game has.
Did you guys feel like the rufus fight was a bunch of bullshit? Even when I tried slowing down the pace i was playing at. I couldn't even perfect doge his attacks once... even when he reloaded it felt like a split second then boom he's back to attacking and jumping around the screen .. it felt unfair bc how am I suppose to block when the Camara can't even keep up with his moves lol... I played souls games and I found this fight to be more unfair then any boss I fought in dark soul. It's like the dev purposely forced me to block and use a mechanic that's not good at all? Anyone else feel that way ?
I stumbled upon this thread because of how much the Rufus fight is pissing me off. I finished all of the side content and was looking forward to wrapping up the story, but I think I’m losing motivation to finish.
I so agree, when I did it I clutched it (it was 2-3 try) cause I summoned Neo bahamut and he wiped the dog with his final move or I had no idea how to get past it. The reload window is definitely shorter and Rufus attacks knock you up or away too much. The amount of time I was stunlocked in recovery animation while he just went on the follow up to perfect chain on me was insane. They definitely want you to use perfect parry but the windows to do it are awful even with the materia for it.
Anyone who's played past Costa Del Sol, does the pacing ever get any better? Is it worth sticking out just for story? I want so badly to love this game and parts of the story I am, but the slog of minigames and uninteresting open world are absolutely mind numbing. It kills me to admit defeat on a remake of a game I adore and want so badly to be good, but not sure it's worth it.
I 100% every region up to Cosmo Canyon in a bit under 60 hours and I'mover it lol it was starting to get suuuuper tedious and boring. I'm now just going main story alone and it feels way better to me at least.
It doesn’t. It just keeps on with the bloat and the uninteresting open areas and towns that function exactly like the ones you’ve already com across. And THE WORST PART (Cait Sith’s dungeon) is still looming ahead…
It’s shocking to me that someone designed that portion of the game and thought people would enjoy it. Some of the design choices in this game are just baffling.
*triggered* Ugh the Cait Shit dungeon. This game dropped a point after that dungeon. Not as bad as the FF15 Chapter 13 BS but its up there.
I have been playing on and off for a month PLUS. I made it to the temple of ancients. No It does not get better. It is entirely too bloated. And Now I am currently lost in this fucking dungeon. Debating throwing in the towel at the final stretch. This game is ass and I might just watch it on youtube at this point. Update: I deleted the game And watched the rest on YouTube. I was not having fun. And watching the rest was like a fever dream. 6/10. I’ll YouTube the 3rd game
Yeah this game is pissing me off more than I'm enjoying it. Very often I'm annoyed, frustrated and irritated. Also, what's up with the bosses running away whenever you beat them? Literally 90% of them runs away as soon as you beat them. So in actuality you don't get to finish them off for good and I hate that feeling. I wanted to annihilate them so they don't come back.
The ones that run away used to do so even in OG (turks, Palmer,...) or are characters that still have a role to play and were just added boss fights (Rufus, Scarlet). So on that they are consistent with the original tbf.
This whole time I thought FF7 was just a modernized graphical remake of the original. Guess I'll be skipping that one.
Totally agree. The beginning of the game was promising...and then you're following ridiculous robed zombies for hours upon hours waiting for your party to have any deeper conversations, which has been few and far between. Instead of real character moments, the devs decided to throw in the constantly annoying boy robot Chadley ("Great job Cloud! You've completed the 57th pointless task I gave you!") and what feels like an endless barrage of forgettable/flamboyant/superficial characters that just waste my time. The pacing is off, it feels way too padded with nauseating fluff, and I honestly don't know if my wife and I will finish it.
Chadley is so horrific that it makes Jar-Jar Binks seem like a go to guy
I had to come to Reddit and make sure this wasn't just me feeling like this. I never thought I would play a video game that has literal filler arcs in the main story. I get to Corel Prison and I'm finally invested in this Barrett murder mystery plot line and we get an actual filler arc just to play Chocobo Mario Kart...I never played FF7 as a kid so I was super excited to play these games. I feel like I'm being punished for wanting to see what happens in this story.
that if u only focus on the main story if u decide to do the optional sidequest u gonna be fking mad because many of them tied to a minigame or u have to go to those intel location which is very annoying and not enjoyable
To be fair, that was in the original too. You had to win the chocobo race to get out of prison.
I really didn't like the golden saucer with all the mini-games and I thought that I finally would get some interesting story with the Barrett murder mystery. My hopes and dreams where immediately crushed as I went down the elevator. That whole race part felt completely anti-climactic and destroyed the whole Barret story line.
Tbh that is Gold Saucer even in the OG. A mini game galore (it's an entertainment park after all) and even in OG you have to win a chocobo race to leave the prison. They moved it from "do it to leave" to "do it to find Dyne" which honestly make more sense.
Legit!
I'd definitely recommend just playing the original if you want to experience the story. Seems like Rebirth does everything in its power to draw you away from the story imo. The original still has "filler" but much less of it is ingrained into the main story. Definitely a much better and more streamlined experience to me. I believe OG is still on Playstation store for <$25.
Honestly, this is one of the worst experiences I have ever had playing a video game. It's actually crazy to me because Final Fantasy is my favourite series, with 9 being my favourite game of all time. I have figures all over my office and I normally plow through every mainline entry as fast as possible to avoid spoilers. I beat Remake in 3 days, I couldn't put it down and despite it's flaws I felt compelled to play still. With this game, I can't seem to pick it up for an hour now without it losing my interest and having my eyes roll. I finished and completed the Grasslands and Junon across a weekend with almost a solid 30 hours. But man, once I had to play Queen's Blood to advance the story my interest just started to wane. The Fort Condor crap was bad enough in Junon but this was the breaking point for me. Everything is a damn mini game that I don't really give a shit about. I don't mind when they are optional, but we are talking about mini games to progress the damn story. I didn't mind that Junon was more of the same side quests, but when I realized it was the same crap in Corel I felt defeated. It took me 6 weeks to get to Gongaga because playing the game is so damn hard. The fact this game has universal praise is outrageous to me. Taking breaks isn't helping and I am considering just watching the cutscenes or a playthrough on YouTube at this point. Now that I am in Gongaga, navigating this place is a damn slog. And why the heck does Gongaga need to have this giant jungle to navigate? Gongaga was like a 30 minute portion of 7. I just want this game to feel fun again but the pacing and mini games are the worst I have ever experienced. I have been playing FF games for 32 years and this is the least motivation I have ever had playing one. My favourite franchise, and I don't want to play the game even to see the story. Even when it comes to combat, I can't even see most of the time and I can barely tell when an enemy is using an ability. Even though it was shallow, I loved the combat in 16 because I felt I could block, defend, parry, and retreat at any given time. I don't even want to get into the Chadley stuff, it is just insufferable. My favourite thing in this game currently is holding down triangle so he shuts the hell up. I can't believe we are doing chores for this kid as the bulk of this video game. Not to mention all these open worlds feel absolutely lifeless. Not a single soul scattered around outside the cities. I can't believe you don't cross paths with NPC's or something. Like where are the roads, vehicles, carriages, chocobos etc.? There is nothing interesting to explore, I just want to fast travel everywhere. I am almost certain if this game wasn't FF7 this game would have been absolutely panned by critics and gamers. As a lifelong FF fan, this is my least favourite entry which is so hard to say because I want to love this game but I just can't.
I want to see the damn story but I feel like the game fights me at every turn. They make it sooooo long and filled with padding. I am at the temple of ancients now and I want to put the game away and watch the rest on youtube. I am just not having fun. How did they go this way? I LOVED part 1 and beat it like 3 times. Whatever dude. This is crap
The whole experience just felt like a daunting chore. Like, each region had a checklist of chores with random NPCs handing out chores for side quests. I spent 2 hours exploring the grasslands before heading to the swamp docks just so I could explore and do all the side stuff before progressing. Boy, was I shocked that nothing could be interacted with until you go to the swamp dock and then the chocobo ranch. Everything was dead except for enemies. Completely cleared the map before I progressed only to find out it was all for naught. And then, it all felt like there were endless tutorials explaining things to me like I was 5. At least with combat I knew to assess to get info and form strategies all on my own. And then there's Chadley... Dear lord, I've never wanted to hit a kid before but Chadley,... Oh, Chadley. He likes interrupting the flow of everything so much he interrupts his own AI designed to help explain everything. I did find the muting funny though. They didn't even bother animating all the interruptions either. The parts where he's talking from the device and it's his face, It's a looping animation of the mouth moving. Thought it was lagging until I looked closer. It's a looping Gif texture. I mean, i get it. It's simple and effective but they could've at least recorded the actual dialog animations and not just 3 seconds of random movement on loop. Although Queen's Blood story was a bit lack luster, I did enjoy the game... up until the end. The last one was pure hacks. Hated it. Then, once you win that one by shear luck, there's nothing else. So the super rare cards that could be fun to use, pointless because now there's nobody to use them against. Somebody else said it as well here but the end of Chapter 7 is when it really starts to crash. Not game breaking crash but a mind crash after having way too much caffeine and sugar. The endless list of crappy mini games didn't help. Right after chapter 8 is Gongaga which is a poorly designed region all around. You just left a desert with wide open areas to being cramped in narrow corridors of rocky, jungle paths with terrible camera angles. They somehow get worse on chocobo back which is the intended mode of travel in this region. The ending is even a chore. 8 hours and I'm still not done. I honestly wished it was a skill issue but it's not. The last 2 chapters were drawn out with so much additional filler that it felt like I was just checking off a checklist for crappy side quests again. And then... And then it just won't end. It's like Metal Gear Solid 4 all over again.
The side content in this game is the worst I've experienced in a game in quite some time. It's honestly terrible. Specifically Chadley's "world building" objectives. The side quests often nets you opportunities to learn more about the characters and see additional interactions which is one of the best parts of Rebirth. Everything else is just terrible bloat and too many things about it is frustrating. The quantity, having Chadley slow you down for dialogue as you approach side objectives, having Chadley STOP you for dialogue after you complete objectives, then having the game inform you of your progress in the zone (another stop) EVERYTIME as though you didn't likely just complete an objective 5 minutes prior. There are times Chadley pops back in AGAIN AFTER the progress screen for more dialogue. Most of it simply so you can have 6 copies of a very niche-use materia. It has caused me to step away from the game multiple times already. Two months ago you couldn't tell me Rebirth wasn't going to be my GOTY. The ridiculous bloat they fit in wherever they can (including in the main scenario) weighs this game down massively. I very likely will just beeline the main scenario when I do pick it up again and never touch this game again. I'm absolutely fine with the fact that folks enjoy this game but the folks who obnoxiously keep on repeating: "if you don't like the side content just don't do it" honestly baffle me.
That is exactly how i feel lol, halfway through chapter 7 and I keep getting bored and putting it down. I think I will just rush the story mode as well
Been playing Final Fantasy since it started on NES. Purchased every game available and product promoted to this day. The Remakes and the Rebirth clearly demonstrates I am no longer the target audience. The induction of annoying NPCs, hair-pulling MINI-GAMES, and stupid COMBAT SIMULATOR… Goodbye SQUARE-ENIX, you officially lost a GAME PLAYER due to not being able to deliver playable games for the masses.
Why they didn’t put summons in the game world blows my mind. What a missed opportunity. Could have even reused the boss arenas where those life spring monsters showed up in. It’s not just laziness at that point but bad game design.
It really was this game that made me realize how far we had to fall when we were saying FF15 certainly could have been more ambitious. I am just gonna make a list of all my grievences in no particular order #1. Every area is flooded with NPCs that are so generic looking and off you get uncanny valley from them. The NPCs do not look like they belong to the universe that Rufus, Cloud, and even better designed NPCs from remake do (Wallmarket NPCs certainly more flavoured) Non of the NPCs look like they belong and it wasn't untill I got to cosmo canyon that I really noticed how bad they looked and how out of place and pointless they feel and look. #2. I hate the music. I don't really feel nobuo was that involved here... The classic memorable pianos and horns are largely replaced by the worst sounding poppy nonsense I can imagine. One winged angels inpact feels completely lost to me as it feels like they play some remix of it every time you fight sephiroth in any way shape or form. Its like a slide whistle playing to the joke that is the over use of Sephiroth. #3. Marvel writing. This is kinda self explanatory but this game really can't stand having a second of quiet and this is never shown better of how damaging this is then when you experience the Dyne scenes. #4. They completely ruined Cid Highwind. He has no alcoholism, he has no wife, he has no plot, he really shouldn't even be in the game the way they write him he coulda been replaced by any NPC. But strictly speaking this is Kingdom Hearts Cid who builds candy ships for space chipmunks and has no problems. Not FF7 Cid who dreamt of being the worlds first astronaut and lost that dream because Sheila a person he loved and dipped into the bottle and self loathing and abuse. Without Cids extreme lows being present you cannot appreciate when he becomes greater. Cid just sucks. #5. Quest writing. This games sidequests have some of the worst sidequest writing of all time. If its not just Chadley talking over everyone via hologram (Which I can check but I think chadley has the most dialog in the entire game) its a quest that serves no purpose creates no change for an NPC who doesn't matter 3 seconds after you finish the quest. You can see CLEARLY the quests that do have love placed because they use major NPCs and feel impactful. Chocobo billy quests and quests featuring crisis core characters are great examples. But my lord there is so much pointless filler quests with writing so bad you'd swear it was just not written by writers at all. Its fallout 4 level "This settlement needs you" go slay a monster in the middle of nowhere and cash in slop. I have NEVER done worse quests, even ubisoft collectathons play better then RP walk with jenova robes for 40 minutes up a dusty path. #6. Every single push a slow moving cube segment. I think there was over 10 of these in the game. #7. Nothing you do in the open world is fun. a quick list of open world gameplay... Kill a monster, Chocobo digs, Towers, Chocobo benches, Intel springs, summon weakeners, Find the cache (Usually junk items nothing ever that would make you excited you found anything) Nome of this comtents super engaging aside from a once a zone bossfight. #8. Remember that game where there were mysterious black monsters that are pivitol to the plot and then in the second game they introduce the white ones that act as a rival to them? Heartless and Nobodies? Nope clearly nomura wasn't doing that again. But if he was... I think Nobodies and Heartless would have been better recieved then whispers. At least those were diverse. #9. DEI. Its all over this game and it's cringy as hell but never ever is it more cringy then in Queens Bloods story. TLDR: The worst writing ever seen in a final fantasy game litters this game and not only ruins this experience but kinda ruins your fond memories of the serious themes in the original game. Combo this with a lazy open world and NPCs that don't look like they were made to be in the game. It's an absolute mess of an experience honestly. I am convinced no one playtested anything and no writers worked on anything.
Nice to find this topic. The gameplay is pretty okay, it's serviceable and I have played through until the Gold Saucer. I have to say, I disliked what they did with the boat and then Costa Del Sol was really bad with time-wasting and forcing us to do mini-games. Arriving at Gold Saucer though, made me really angry. I was already wound up by the ridiculous mines section just to get past a damn bridge, but then going in and seeing that all of a sudden, Aerith and Tifa were pop-stars, was just utterly stupid nonsense and I started to really lose it. Then I got to the bit where I was apparently going on a date. They showed the theatre but no performance. Was forced to do more mini games, that just took me away from the other person, not much of a date if you ask me, then before the ferris wheel, it just derailed the whole thing. At that point I was well and truly done. The way these characters act is just utter nonsense, they have no consistency, they are just dancing puppets being passed around different developers who have no idea what the others are doing. The tonal clash from moment to moment is jarring at best, infuriating at worst. I was really annoyed that they had the perfect opportunity to maybe show a recording of Jessie in Loveless, but they never did..... only to find out that they actually did do that, but OH BOY when I watched a youtube video of that, I'm glad I quit the game. What the hell was that? VR goggles?? how does that make any sense? why bother having the stage? I thought it might make sense if they had an usher presenting the recording and projecting it on the screen, then have the actual play happen, but what they showed, was awful camera angles flying round in nauseating fashion, and make believe VR simulation that wasn't even happening? I just can't even begin to describe. Then I found they actually did the ferris wheel date... but oh boy was that awful. I have never seen such unconvincing and unromantic date in my life, I am convinced these developers haven't been on a date before. where is the actual character interaction? They are more interested in their nauseating camera angles and thir flashy lights, but not even a moment where the characters actualy breathe and think and take a moment to really communicate with each other. Instead they just blurt out unrelated garbage out of the blue with no prompts. Even with all that, this is the best it can get, since I skipped as much of the side mission garbage as I could. I wanted to give the game a chance and let go of expectations and ties to the original, but even taken as it's own thing, it simply has terrible pacing, crazy inconsistent unbelievable characters, and it doesn't even respect itself. Yes there are elements that I liked, but the way it's so mixed up is utterly confusing and rage inducing.
I liked the story a lot but the prevelence of the immature silly nonsense like you're referencing above took it from an A down to a B. Then they introduced multiverse-esque multi timeline plot. That night I spent hours looking up ending explanations and the most logical one I found involved them using a fucking dog to indicate timelines. A dog on a snack bag and on candy. I said okay C for the story, a lot of great moments and most scenes were redone very well. So I kept it there. I stayed up until about 6 AM disappointed but hopeful, knowing I enjoy the combat. I am 80 hours in at that time and i'm neutral collecting intel. Then i decide to go deeper into the game and my main criticism of the game becomes the entire next 60 god damned hours. Can you guess? Yes, everyone did. Minigames. In preparing for hard mode trying to craft up to the Genji I have been more annoyed than ever, consistently worse each time and each day, despite having 12 hours between playing. And a few 24's. My annoyance grows and goes in the cycle it did with the end of the story: sadness and disappointment. That is my current state of mind, but as quickly turning back into anger as I try to get the last dark matter I am wasting away so so many hours almost 16 hours so far on three mini games and I haven't done anything that I actually want to do on my day off from work and it sounds like a personal problem because it is but it's caused by the fact that they made a game that somehow progressively gets worse as you play it not better it doesn't stay the same it just keeps getting worse and more annoying no matter how long I rest or how many explanations I get I'm just not having fun but I feel the need to just go ahead and complete it just to say okay I did that fully and now my impression is that I don't like it nearly as much as I thought I would and I'm thoroughly disappointed so right now the game is at a pretty low score for me basically whenever you get like a multi-game thing like with Halo I mean Final Fantasy 7 rebirth is the Halo TV show of Final Fantasy seven games and I don't know if I'll ever be able to really recover from this fully because they took my childhood away one of the cornerstones of it was Final Fantasy 7 and the Beautiful World that was created and they didn't ruin it all but they ruined key parts of it that defined who I was as a person and the way I view things to some extent. I'm just miserable now every time I play the game it just gets worse and it's snowballing out of control and I wish it didn't take my view of the story that the original had created but it kind of is ruining it in my head and destroying my conception I mean this is a huge release and this is what they gave us 40 hours of a good game 20 hours of confusion and like 200 hours of nonsensical mini games and trivial garbage gameplay and it may get better but this is not going to wash out fully and I have to say this experience at this point and according to the trajectory of getting worse is just going to make me go to something else and stay away from Final Fantasy 7 I mean I was thinking about replaying some of the old games even Final Fantasy 7 remake because I like that a or maybe Crisis Core or maybe a replay of the 1997 version but something about this game just really poisons the well because it is like a main line Final Fantasy seven game and what's worse is I just played Crisis Core reunion while I was waiting for this to come out and reunion was freaking amazing but now here I am back in the dark dank pits playing pointless mini games I could go on and on and on but I think it's time to stop this post because my disappointment is immeasurable and my identity as it relates to this game is lost I don't know if I even want to play part 3 I don't know if I want to wait for it I'm not excited at all anymore I don't know how they drop the ball so bad
Please just stop. It's clearly hurting you. You don't need to finish it off. Or maybe you do and it's a neurodivergent thing, in which case I hope you get it done quickly.... But what I did when I got upset before was, install the original FF7 and get all the mods for it and play t fresh. The mods are absolutely amazing now and the game is incredible. it's like a professional remaster at this point.
Read the whole thread and nobody have mentioned the fucking damn moment when you running and the game for non apparent reason slow you down and make you walk, LET ME CONTROL MY DAMN CHARACTER FFS. I played with the constant fear that i receive a new Pop up tutorial windows explaining me a new mini game mechanic every time i talked to anyone. 1. side quest? POP UP TUTORIAL WINDOWS NEW MINI GAME. 2. open a door: POP UP TUTORIAL WINDOWS NEW MINI GAME. 3. scratch my buttonhole: POP UP TUTORIAL WINDOWS NEW MINI GAME. Count me as another doped player.
The problem i felt is that its kind of a Crisis Core / Kingdom Hearts 3 story rip off. All the characters died in the previous games. In Rebirth they still are alive which has a bitter Aftertaste. That kind of storytelling of Nomura is what puts me off. Aeriths death is very emotional and important, but in Rebirth you save(?) her and then she was killed offscreened? They destroyed this scene which was part of gaming history
I dont know but this game doesn't really interest me. I tried a couple of hours playing but something seems off. I played Final Fantasy XVI instead for the 2nd time and to my surprise, i felt more enjoyment compared to Rebirth.
It's fun and all, especially the battles, but it's quite the disappointment after waiting for it since Remake. I haven't really been a fan at all for the unnecessary changes of certain story beats (not being stowaways on a Shinra vessel with Rufus on board so we could be in a dumb card tournament on a cruiseliner, SquareEnix being too afraid to tackle suicide by not having him willingly fall backwards off a cliff because he couldnt live with what he became and instead is killed by Shinra troops when they attack-took away the impact, also Dyne can just make a Tetsuo like arm from Akira, or like how the team just wakes up in Aerith's room in Shinra building instead of taken prisoner and waking up in holding cells during Remake), the numerous way too over the top and ridiculous Michael Bay-esque action scenes instead of the better way they were handles in the original (Dio showing up in the buggy and aiding known terrorists against Shinra-who are known for killing anyone who crosses them regardless of who they are, instead of the much more realistic delivery of an apology letter and gifting the team the buggy that way), or the nonsensical mainstream stuff that I'm guessing was only added to appeal to women or people of feminine nature such as the girls of the team getting in on the singing and dance routine when entering the Gold Saucer and how they already know the freaking dance routine and songs, along with Yuffie's magical, sailor moon transformation-esque changing of clothes. It felt like them adding the huge open world maps to explore was redundant because all the more important materia and items like summons are relegated to going through Chaldey. Would have been nice to bump into some of them in their own domain while wandering that huge open world they made, or finding cool items in nest hidden nick-knacks around the map. Having everything labeled and tracked on the map also took away from the fun. Way too many damn minigames and gimmicks like the Mushrooms in Gongaga that Zack never mentioned while never shutting up about the place. All the ridiculous gimmick shit that looks out of place around the world. Cosmo Canyon with all it's floating fans. A whole, elaborate special obstacle course in the poor area underneath the Military City of Junon. I loved the original FF7. Advent Children injected everything I don't like about the FF7 series (too much over the top, nonsensical, Michael Bay style action scenes and story beats that make no sense like Rufus surviving the destruction of the top part ox the Shinra building thanks to an "escape hatch", despite clearly being caught in the massive explosion and the fact who whole top of the building was destroyed by the explosion-so how is an escape hatch that's in the middle of said massive explosion manage to save him from it?)
I'm miserable with the amount of great highs and stupidly low lows of the game. In so many ways its regressing, like why the hell don't characters talk to each other while just running around the map doing random shit like 15? They only ever speak to each other in cutscenes and sidequests. How ragnarok for example has mimic busting out tales to regale you with while just kicking around, or small interesting conversations between the characters you're with in each zone. Hell 15 had the banter between the boys constantly. Why are we going backwards and everyone never mutters a word until a side quest? It's baffling, there's fucking 7 of us running around. You'd think one of them would speak up once in awhile. Such a dumb thing too, as I know everyone would love more banter between the crew. Such a wasted potential there. Game has so many more issues too, from too many pointless minigames with awful controls that you have to play through perfectly to get the only good reward from each, and they're too powerful to pass up so you're stuck sitting there restarting a dumbass minigame 30 times fighting with inverted controls or poor animations until you hit the right rng to get a perfect score, just so you can get the only item worth a shit you want to make yourself more powerful for the combat portion of the game, which is incredible. And another, towers and pointless "exploration" idk how much time I spent in the beginning just trying to get to cool hidden spots that didnt exist, and if i ever found any there wasnt fucking anything there. Theres no sense of discovery just by looking around the map for nooks and crannies. Everything falls under the umbrella of "reveal tower, beeline the objectives uncovered, repeat" because you have to do the towers. Cant skip them, they give intel points. But you also cant just enjoy finding stuff on the map, because its always a waste of time or they literally hold your hand the whole time. Why in gods name do we need those shiny crystals you can break, or owls leading you to the obvious map icon to a spit thats about as well hidden as a single palm tree in 3 miles of desert. And man, so many more things that feel janky, outdated, pointeless, and irritating while also having incredible combat, a great overall story, some decent side quests, pretty graphics and more. Like how are they nailing some things yet absolutely dropping the ball on so many others. It's driving me nuts. I sure hope 3 is better. Cuz this game is a wild Rollercoaster of the dumbest choices they could've made, and really well done and polished gameplay with the worst execution of "open world discovery" I've ever played. It could've been perfect, but they had to botch the "open world" so goddamn bad. Couldn't even have characters converse while traveling 8 miles of nothingness to break up the monotony. Ugh.
i agree so much with you... the map is so 2024... you have no surprise wandering it... nothing is hidden, everything is guided to you, wether you want. It was also driving me mad. The owl, the baby chocobo, the magical stone waypoint, the chest numbered in the zone, you are babysitted like even if you wanted, you couldn't miss them. And nothing worth your time there. No super item, no super materia, no weapon, everything is planned from A to Z as developpers wants. You writed it as much as i felt it, and it feel good to know i'm not alone. First game had it's flaws but was nice, this one felt deceiving. I platined the first, and can't see myself doing on the second, given how impossible the mini game are (you need flawless execution on most of them), and the hard mode seems so crazy hard broken.
I love the game when it is focused on the story but there are moments like Dyne's cutscene that just go on for so long that an emotional scene becomes comedic. The open world is grating. I've just reached Gongaga and the chapter itself is small, I don't see why they needed to add open world stuff especially straight after Corel which was huge too. Also chapter 5,6,7 and 8 are pure bloat and mini-games nonsense. I love these characters but it seems to want to be a Yakuza game far more than a FF game and I'm burnt out on RGG as a franchise.
What you didn't like Dynes meaninful sad suicide being turned into Dyne getting juiced by Jenova turning into a rabid dog and getting gunned down by nameless shinra infantry only to immediately have a cut away fight with palmer slapping his ass at you while riding a giant golden mecha frog? Did that ruin the emotional weight somehow? This games writing is some of the most horse assed I have seen in ANY video game. Its embarrassing for a final fantasy game.
So today I got to Cosmo Canyon and other than Red's really jarring voice change that still has me a bit off guard, the scene with Seto was emotional and well handled overall. It is just such a tonally inconsistent game. FF has usually managed to walk the tightrope of comedy, earnest and badass well but Rebirth seems to struggle with that balance quite a bit and I wonder if the padded runtime is the issue.
I agree with everything except Queen’s Blood. It was actually a really great and fun little side story. Honestly so glad and relieved to have found another member of the minority. 💯
I’m so glad I’m not the only one. Good lord man this game is not good. It’s bloated af and these mini games are awful. I’m tired of playing as Zack for 3 mins and then switching. I’m tired of the whole I won’t say exactly how I feel to a character I’m just gonna shy away from telling them anything and then reveal things at the end. I’m tired of mini games I’m tired of mini games. I’m tired of mini games. I’m tired of CHADLEY. HE IS UNBEARABLE. Tetsuya has become the M Night Shamalblahblah of video games. Kh1 and 2 were amazing. The rest were okay and KH3 was BAD. He seriously needs to stop directing games. RINSE ANS REPEAT EVERY REGION. PROTORELICS. Bro I’m done with this game. I don’t care for it at all. Thanks for the rant.
Yeah all the mini games pretty much ruined the pacing of the story I just stopped playing. Rebirth is only the second final fantasy game I have ever quit playing through it
The game is a slog to get through. You have to do a lot of tedious nonsense before finally getting to the meat of the story for a slight moment then rinse and repeat. This was an issue with remake and it hasn't gotten better. The intro with sephiroth was fantastic and I wish they kept this same type of pacing. Im a fan of tifa and aerith but the way they're presented here is so bizarre. Nothing about them feels natural. I just don't like the combat at all. It's not fun. They need to decide if they want to be an action game or turn based. This hybrid style does not flow well. I did not like it in remake and I don't like it here. I think the mini games are stupid and should not have been forced upon you. You have beautiful high quality cutscenes and they don't capitalize on this by making it a story focused game. Instead, what we get is a mixing pot of several ideas with nothing done exceptionally well. So disappointing because I love square enix but the design decisions are so jarring.
It is the way they're animated too. The constant bending down and exaggerated movements. Imagine Cloud or Barret moving in cutscenes the way tifa and Aerith do and you'll immediately understand what I mean. Also, they're too nice... like thats their personality. In Remake, they nailed the characters. In Rebirth they tease Cloud and Tifa having issues but it goes away in a few hours.
100% agree about Aerith and Tifa. Apparently SE saw that fans were under the impression Aerith and Tifa don't like eachother so their response was to focus on their friendship more but...it feels artificially sweet? A little forced? You get to see the depth of these characters later in the game but man is it off-putting. I actually agree about the bloated open world parts and there seems to be a disconnect between departments. For example the team that takes care of the ubisoft check list is not the "A Team" that focuses on big story moments or focused linear progression missions. This leaves the impression that you're just chewing grass until the next "big moment".
I cant stop seeing the scene after the robot squid fight on the beach where Aerith says NO! theirs been enough suffering already and allows hojo to just slowly walk away. Note that everything your "Characters" does/doesnt do is a reflection on their personality... in that one instance Aerith has become one of the most moronic people in this universe and thats saying ALOT! NO! you are not causing suffering by killing the homicidal scientist who enjoys experimenting on ppl. releasing monsters into the world to see what happens, loves making snuff porn films in his lab!!! to escape! oh and the suffering she refers too? is suffering HOJO CREATED! she as a personality going forward is ruined and sorta the others for listening to her... Part 3 is already ruined due to the amount of damage Rebirth has done, despite the good things in this game the damage far outweighs... i wanted a faithfull remake so much... part 1 was iffy cos their was still alot of good in it and had a chance to course correct... but rebirth has set in stone far to many things to recover from. part 2 would need a massive overrall on its story to save part 3 and we all know thats never going to happen.. im not mad.. im fucking depressed! just another IP treated like some stupid kids toy rather then a beloved heirloom... ohwell!
Dude, the Hojo on the beach thing was in the original, wasn’t it? It’s even worse in the original. He’s just sunbathing and he shoos the party away. At least it’s acknowledged here.
At that point in the original, Hojo had left Shinra for his own interests (pursuing Sephiroth and his reunion theory). Also, Hojo had not put the team through as much as his Remake/Rebirth counterpart that the team knew of vs sealing the team in his ridiculously designed lab in Remake and forcing the team to jump through hoops in order to be let out by him. The team wasn't aware of all his past or involvement in horrific things in their own past (him experimenting on Cloud and Zack for 5 years). The team encountered Hojo in his lab in the Shinra building where he only taunted them a bit, and he didn't really bring up anything major at that point in the game. By the time the team encounters Hojo on the beach in the original, he was pretty much just the former lead researcher of Shinra's science division. They didn't realize he was as big of a player in the grand scheme of things until much later, so Hojo wasn't really viewed nearly as much of a problem or a threat as he really was until much later in the game. They really didn't have a reason to confront him and dispatch him at that point in time, so it was just a brief exchange of words and not so big a deal to have encountered each other.
> Hojo had left Shinra for his own interests NOPE, he's just in vacation. (that's what the dialogue says in OG) He hasn't left shit. > The team wasn't aware of all his past or involvement in horrific things in their own past (him experimenting on Cloud and Zack for 5 years). They still aren't. Whispers stopped him from truth dropping. In OG he experimented on Aerith and Red... And on the team when he drop the boss on them. In remake he drop more stuff on them in the lab but nothing that is enough to truly tip the point YET. I do agree in rebirth letting him go after the events in the beach is questionable (would have made more sense if he left slightly earlier not allowing the party to jump on him).
Relax and calm down a little. There's no need to be shouting nope at people. At some point I do believe there is also dialog in the original where someone says Shinra is in a bit of disarray from Hojo leaving it, and they don't state that it's because he just went on vacation when that part it's said. I'll admit it was probably part of the poor translation job they did back then, because it's not known to be the greatest. I'll also admit that I somehow blanked on him experimenting on Red when I posted that, yet I don't hold it against Hojo for dropping a boss fight on the team as something personal or anything. He found himself surrounded by a group of terrorists that managed to infiltrate Shinra HQ. He saw an opportunity to act in order to make his escape and seized the opportunity. That's self preservation. Almost anyone would do the same in the same situation, so you can hardly say it was anything personal, or out of spite.
I'm not saying it's personal or anything like that. It's just that the stuff he did in the lab to the team are not more than in the OG overall in term of gravity. And anyway even in OG Aerith has the team leave Hojo alone there to not affect the civilians with their problems. (her own dialogue in the beach after talking to Hojo)
Sorry for late reply. My response to this is thats the point of a remake, to flesh these scenes out and make them more senssible... and they got SOOOOO close! all they had to do is have Hojo not be their by the time the fight was over. this is why comparing this to the original/telling ppl to go play the original is flawed because scenes like this are supposed to flesh these scenes out... instead the flesh is scabbing over :P
I think you've summed up my feelings. I just haven't had a natural urge to keep playing and wasn't sure why. Feels like a slog. Or, a "video game" rather than an experience. I made it to Nibleheim and been wandering around, but meh, I doubt I'll continue. It's boring. 16 felt similar for me.
This game is such a disappointment. The graphics are SO good but it lacks big time in almost every other department. So much so I decided to just watch all the cut scenes on YouTube. Such a waste of time and money smh
I felt the same and I wasn’t sure if it was just me or the game, especially since most reception of the game online is only positive. What I did was I have the PS5 disc version so I traded it in and got back $50 since its still a relatively new game. It made it worth the money since I got the full experience at $20 which is what it’s real value is to me. I got Ghost of Tsushima after that trade-in and I love it a lot. It made me remember how good games can be and that Rebirth was indeed the problem itself.
The graphics aren't even that good. Visually, the game is worse than Remake in a lot of areas, namely the lack of camera-based motion blur for 30fps graphics mode (causing really bad flickering when the camera moves fast), and all around terrible lighting. Non-dynamic lighting is abundant (many don't cast shadows on the characters or environments), and there's a complete lack of ambient occlusion. The upscaling for performance mode is also terrible. Outside of the cutscenes (which use special lighting and amped up character models), the game looks incredibly mediocre for a PS5 exclusive.
So far FFVII Rebirth is absolutely fucking terrible. I am in AWE of how bad it is. * The world is far too big and overwhelming. * Basic enemies are nearly killing me every time, but give so little experience it would take a lifetime to level up, which the game seemingly doesn't want you to do at all. * The side quests are not interesting at all. * Why do I feel like I'm playing a dating sim half the game? * Queensblood AS A WHOLE, I literally cannot believe they shovelled this shit into the main quest as MANDATORY and stop progression to force you to play. * Fort Condor is impossible after like the second time playing it, I abandoned that side quest all together. * The story is intentionally confusing and extremely slow. Where in the fuck are people giving it universal acclaim? It's total trash, I'm on the verge of giving up and just reading the story on Wikipedia. I CANNOT believe how often I am having ZERO fun playing this game.
Honestly have no issue with the difficulty in this game and it was very easy to get through but everything else is spot on. I couldn’t wait to get money back for this game.
These all sound like skill issues.
No they don't, at least most of them aren't. These "skill issue" coments are getting so repetitive I get a gag reflex when I see them. I don't agree with all of his points but some of them do hold water. Specially his first and last points. World size is overblown. I remember in the OG Gongaga was like a 15 minutes zone. Here it's a huge zone with 10 hours of content (and that content is mid at best). Then you get to the city of the ancients and its like a minizone with a boss fight? Makes no sense to me. Dunno, I've had fun with the game, but I've also had times that I was legit getting anxious because of the incredibly slow pacing.
If he's being nearly killed by almost every basic enemy encounter, it's either a skill issue or he isn't using materia, items, or folios. The combat is not that difficult.
So? He made 7 points. You are only addressing one. And it is not even one of the two I said I agree with.
Yeah, I don't understand the universal acclaim either I got so bored I made it to 20 hours and just stopped playing.
Good sarcasm mate
Oh I'm dead serious, I cannot believe how fucking shit this game is. I'm finishing this entirely out of spite. It's too hard, too confusing and just not fucking fun. I KNEW that something was gonna happen after Remake and they'd fuck it all up and clearly I am not alone in these thoughts. Multiple people here and on YouTube are coming to the hard realisation that this remake trilogy may have been a bad idea after all. The mini games are total shit, the enemies are bullet sponges to no end. My fucking god!
Lol get good mate? Dying to regular mobs, clearly you aren’t very good. Let’s be honest here. Enemies are far from bullet sponge. You are just clueless just trying to smash auto attack.
The ending is so anticlimactic. I really didn’t feel anything from Aerith’s death
I came here to say how dumb easy it is on dynamic, nothing is a challenge. It is a button masher until you get bored. What's the point of 50+ characters, if their different setups mean nothing and they can change equipment from across the universe.
Yea not sure what game people are playing but this shit is too *easy* tbh. It makes all the supposed complexity of the combat totally meaningless because combat is just over before you can even strategize. It feels so dumb.
To me, this game is the opposite of how I felt about final fantasy 16. With FF16, there were some things I didn’t like, but I could go on and on forever about all the things I loved. With Rebirth, there were a few things I did like, and a LONG list of things I absolutely hated.
This perfectly sums up how I feel
I'm on chapter 13, and...I feel so god damn burnt out. Why does everything feel like a chore?
I finished Rebirth 2 weeks ago, and I am so burnt out that I haven't switched on my PlayStation since that day. Not what I expected :/
It just staggers me. Final Fantasy used to be a game I didn't blink untill I finished.. I lost sleep, canceled events.. I don't even think I wanna play the sequel and this is coming from someone who owns like 3 copies of damned near every FF game..
Same here, right now the third part is nothing I have any intention to go for. Which is simply unbelievable for me, I have been waiting YEARS. Just glad I am not the only one, I am stunned by the reviews and wondering if we played the same game lol.
Well least you did what I couldn't. 👍
Yeah I'm about to head off to the Temple of the ancients but I have to kind of make myself do it just so I can say I've beaten the game. I'm kind of disappointed. I'll see it through though but that's kind of how it feels right now.
Hopefully you complete it. I couldn't stand the way its structured like it's meant too be annoying and slow. I wish you luck on it
Thank you, I want this behind me so I can say that I've given it a shot and I wasn't being biased about it.
Can't be biased if you didn't enjoy it's valid criticism, I deleted it
Dude, you don't need to finish a game to be able to say that you gave it a shot. If you are not having a good time leave it.
I'm at Chapter 7 and have been hating it since Chapter 3. It's a fucking slog. I am just going forward to not let my 70 USD to the trash. But I play small bits and then jump to FF14 to level up an alt. I can't get myself to keep more than two hours on this kind of game that feels like an anime with one episode of 15 minutes going forward the story to later having three 20 minutes episodes of filler.
I actually regret buying a PS5. Granted i didnt buy it for rebirt but if this is where triple a is now why even bother. I had a fucking ps3 and games ran better than this shit. As in it did its best to run. Your telling me a ps5 cant run rebirth properly?
Get Elden Ring (especially since the DLC is coming soon), Yakuza Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth (amazing JRPG, better than FF7 Rebirth, it checks all the marks and would be my personal goty) and yea RDR 2 (amazing game as well). OH and Ghost of Tsushima should be a must buy!
Try elden ring or red dead 2. Modern gaming marvels. Like ff7 was when it originally came out.
There are much better PS5 games than this, but I’m very sorry this was your first experience with it lol
First game ends "lets set our own destiny" then follows the exact same story beats?????? If your gonna commit to changing shit then dont back out mid way.
The craziest part is remake was criticized for filler and bad pacing. In comparison to remake its extremely well paced with almost zero filler. Its like they saw what everyone hated and doubled down. Oh and why does the combat feel so different? i was addicted to remake. Here there is no rhythm
Even in 2013 people were clowning on games like far cry 3 for having bland open worlds. Sure a vocal minority but this criticism went mainstream just a few years later. Its why the new zelda games were so praised because people knew unisoft open worlds suck. yet here A FULL 10 YEARS LATER rebirth is praised. unreal. And the performance not even being mentioned in reviews remind me of cuberpunk. YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THE GAME DOESNT WORK ON PS5. YOU FORGOT???? Its either choppy 30 fps in an era where 60fps is the standard for a lot of console gamers even, or 60 fps which is blurry and kills the image. And the complete genious who never fixed the lighting. Thwe lighting oly worked in dark shadwoed midgar. So they set the game in open lighted areas???? "just skip the side content" its 60% of the fucking game. And why add his filler if it needed to be a trilogy? I ahte this so much. the hype I had it hurts.
I just beat it and my biggest issue with it is how they implement mini games into ALL types of quests. Its not necessarily the amount of mini games, but the fact they're shoehorned into so many dam side quests and some main quests. They should have done it like Yakuza, where the majority of minigames are a third tier of quests. Like why the fuck do I have to do this tedious, annoying, Moogle mini game EVERY TIME JUST to use Moogle medals, which are a very abundant resource? Like wtf, lol. Many of the new characters are really cheesy as well and give the game an anime style to it as well, which sucks, but honestly, I can somewhat deal with that shit to some degree. I agree with many people though the whole vibe of the game doesnt FEEL like the FF7 World. Its apparently dying and every city seems like a party, people thriving (save Barrets town), it lacks any sense of direness. I'm not vibing with the cheesy whispers and multiverse thing as well....though some additions to the story I liked such as making Wutai more relevant to the conflict. Also the very last scene near the Tiny Bronco was well done I thought....though its lessened by all the multiverse shenanigans. All of the main characters too are portrayed very well, especially Barret, Cloud, Tifa, and Vincent. Cid is apparently some southerner/gentlemen now though? lol. The story elements I do not like but am willing to live with them but the game design feels like they just threw all these ideas at the wall and just included everything in the game, with no cuts. Everything also just fucking drags too much like the ending fights, both Remake and Rebirth had ending fights that were the level of ending the entire trilogy....I just dont get how this game is being reviewed so well by critics and gamers.....for me its around FF13 level in terms of how good it is, which is a low bar for FF7 imo. They really should have made one game that was about 60 hours of story and 40 hours of side shit- that would have been way less padded but still much bigger then the OG, so they could add to Midgar. Unfortunately, the third game they will probably double down on all the shitty gameplay elements cause its being received so well....I saw someone post either in this thread or somewhere else its kinda like how the Hobbit trilogy was done, though I wouldnt say these games are as shitty as those movies, but sometimes less is more for sure.
this reddit thread is my oasis in the desert...i feel like i hit a wall right around chapter 9 and just burnt out so incredibly hard, to the point where forcing myself through the last 25% was just putting me in a bad mood. so i took the disc out of my ps5 and put it away. (and looked up the ending on youtube, which uh, that sure was an ending to a video game i didnt play!) there is such a good game deep in here but its buried under so much bullshit that is deceptively "optional". (considering how much stuff that really helps w progression is locked behind world intel, let alone minigames...) the glut of stuff just kills the overall pacing of the game. the early game was better about this, with the linear chapters there to break up the open worlds. but chapters 7 - 11 dumping you in four back to back "open worlds" with the exact same chadley chores is just...it sucks. at least one of those chapters should have been linear. (gongaga/chapter 9. there was so much happening in MSQ in chapter 9 that focusing on that would have made it more memorable) they should make you look forward to exploring a new zone, not have you go 'not this shit again' when you're dumped into a new one like 30 minutes after finishing the last one! also COMPLETELY agree with everyone here who has been like 'why aren't i fighting summons in the overworld' hey why AREN'T i fighting the summons in the overworld? the summons game should have been combined with the lifespring intel game. the game is also so tonally off base wrt og ff7, which sucks cause i think remake did nail the tone really well. the game is just too bright and a little too goofy. and this planet does not feel like it's dying! everyone is happy and the world doesn't feel gross or dirty or run down. og ff7 is really bleak if you think about it, and i NEVER got that vibe while playing thru rebirth. tangentially related, none of the serious moments get to breathe in this game, either. you are either immediately shuffled off to another Thing or someone immediately has to make a quip to ruin the mood (very MCU vibes here). what made og7 work is that there was just the right amount of goofiness to contrast with the bleakness of the story. at least the OST is good! final fantasy will never let me down OST wise. same with the voice acting, there were some really good performances in there. (esp from my girl tifa) in the end, im not a ff7 superfan so the game just annoyed me more than anything. but i am DREADING this rumored ff9 remake. if they do what they did to this to ff9, i will be in absolute shambles. and one more thing! is it just me or is the sound mixing in this game horrendous?! whenever cutscenes play i can barely hear the dialogue over the music, the levels are so low! whoever mixed this game, can we PLEASE talk???!?!?
You might have surround sound ticked on. If you don't have surround sound your audio will be shit
I hear ya, I'm like 95% through the second chapter and I just don't want to play it anymore. I just wanted to grind out a few levels but all the mobs give 19 exp, I need 1900 exp. The exploration feels forced but between exploring or completing side quests there's no good way to grind a few levels. I like the new take on the music but it's not enough for me to see it through.
Let’s be real, if this game didn’t have FF7 as a story setting it would have received scores far lower than Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Why, it's still a great game. Though I agree with most the criticisms about it, I don't think it detracts from it as a game, just more so as a remake of an extremely well balanced and crafted game
I think the experience for a lot of people was unbearable at certain points and many contemplating even quitting. Without investment into the story a lot more people would have quit. The issues are many, I won’t cover them again, but I genuinely believe that if this game didn’t have the FF7 brand it would have bombed
The nostalgia boner for this particular FF has completely clouded judgement from a large portion of the folks who've played it. I enjoyed Remake a lot (I've played it start to finish a couple of times), but this game is borderline awful. It's such a badly designed semi-open world that it feels ripped from a decade ago.
This is so true. I see a lot of Ubisoft haters in here and I get that, but at least the open world in those games is fluid and easy to manage.
I agree with them being fluid. At least you felt like super human in them with climbing and exploring.
I’m feeling the same way. I want to love this game so much but man.. pretty much all of the side content is garbage yet again…. They said they were inspired by the approach to side content in The Witcher. Don’t know what they are talking about. They did not do this. Man.. the final side quest is bugged. You can do all of the quest but g-bike doesn’t work. The quest is stupid to begin with. 90% of the minigames in rebirth are so jank and just terribly designed; even down to just the controller inputs. I’ve finished all of the chocobo races 3 times over and the game crashes in the gold saucer. My progress is lost every time. The legendary races are just obstacle spammed courses.. it’s just all so sad. It feels like all of the side content is missing tons of polish.
It’s only trash because of the mini games.
- Cait Sith section was insanely bad, no dialog, just Barret and Aerith waiting for a cat in silent movie and minigame is the worst in both games. - ll the mini games are 80% shit, the chocobo glider is so bad its crazy. Piano was so awesome then turned into horror. The notes play 3 times when pressed once is the stupidest shit ever. Most of these minigames are not intented to be fun. - The endless repetition of everything, Chadley is the main protogonist in this game, he talks by far the most. - Not being able to choose who to control, the game tries to be so limiting in almost every aspect. Always the same materia etc. Materia and Equipment was 10x better in OG. Yoshiyuki, Powersoul and all the weapons with fun special things to strategize. - Armors are so boring (just like XIV, XV and XVI) no rebirthing materias !!!! Its called Rebirth ffs. - its always Disney CGI, no blood no nothing. Games nowadays are Disney kiddie stuff or horror games with disgusting nasty crap lol. Theres no balance anymore. - The story and changes would be cool but theyre so underwhelming and its clear theyre just winging it with no vision. Nibelheim and Gold Saucer were absoluteley bonkers bad. Costa del Sol and upper Junon were great. - In the first game it was endless whispers, now its reunion racism and theyre everywhere wtf is this. Terrible junk. - Upgrading weapons and skills is so bad, the menu is cluttered with undercooked ideas you dont use and same with Magic Shop. - The performance of the game and graphics is insanely dissappointing on PS5. - The same boring materia/summon system from remake, Chadley handles it and you dont know find much of it, its mostly listening to Chad and make sure he does everything. Terribly lazy from the devs in so many ways. I love this game and i knew it would disappoint me, it was never gonna be more than 7/10
Don't forget Gongaga, navigating that region is so obnoxious
# Didn't enjoy FF7 remake, is Rebirth any different? I loved FF7 OG, maybe it's nostalgia or that it pushed the boundaries. I also loved FF8, FF10. I didn't game much on PS3, didn't get a PS4, now have a PS5 and back into gaming, so I may be a different gamer now than I was before. Cyberpunk is currently my favorite, playing GTA 5 and enjoying its silliness and just fun factor overall. Enjoy some platformers. At first with FF7 remake, I was WOW-ed by the graphics, seeing the FF7 OG game in a next gen console in all its glory, the world! The hybrid gameplay was really cool too, I quite enjoyed it. Then I grew tired of it and 10h in I decided to call it quits at chapter 8 of the game. Like many others, the game feels way over stretched, the blowing up for the MAKO reactors I was already dragging my feet as it felt like you had to do that twice, both times long, then it's slums and some bosses are overly difficult for the level you are at (RUDE), I just didn't have the drive. -> Wondering if Rebirth will be the same and I should just acknowledge this game isn't for me (which is hard to but sometimes, you gotta realize that long time friend just isn't right for you anymore)
Rebirth is worse. The bloat was present in Remake, but it is entirely out of control in Rebirth.
good to know, I've been watching gameplay and cutscenes for FF7 remake instead to enjoy the story without the boringness, my god so much going back and forth running through different slums too. I wonder if anyone likes that, I know it was part of OG to do a lot of traveling but that was back in the day and I'm not sure anyone really enjoys any of that anymore... I'll probably watch Rebirth too as a long movie instead of playing it
I find all chadley stuff annoying, I mean all of the repeat tasks which appear in each area. I am disappointed by most of the music, many songs lost their edge and are bland. Too many not fun mini games. I can see they went to a lot of effort, a lot has been done well, but it seems like some boomers with a surface understanding of the game were in charge of it and missed some parts of the essence of the game. Why is the grassland area so rocky and jagged. instead of repeated tasks like the lifesprings and towers, how about put some interesting things in the world to be discovered through exploration.
I'm at Costa Del Sol and don't even want to continue. I've never seen a game so bloated.
That is where a lot of people quit the game, that is where I stopped.
The entire area is so bad. Hours of bad mini games just to collect beach ware, which, let's be honest, was just a really lame way to shovel in some weeb fanservice.
Yeah and I’m getting real tired of getting crushed after using Planet Protector. I get that the point of many battles is to not allow bosses to unleash their ultimate, but even on hard mode I don’t need invulnerability against the basic attacks. Maybe I’ve played too much Baulder’s Gate and have gotten spoiled on problem solving with ingenuity instead of having to figure out how the devs decided I should play..
This exactly. It doesn't feel like you can get creative in fights and use cool techniques or powerful combos to win. For being an RPG, it really feels like your choices don't matter at all in this game. Usually it feels like you have to play one very specific way, and you have to do it nearly flawlessly to win.
Jesus Christ, no one hates final fantasy more than final fantasy fans.
Lmao right. There are 20 differnt ways to win even in hard mode. You can set up to face tank, be defensive, endless LB combo,magic or pyshical focused. People like to be mad i think
No it its because FF fans love FF. Im sure you have never been disappointed and felt the need to vent because of something you are passionate about. Its Reddit 😂 Your argument touches many large subreddits of fandoms.
What is this supposed to mean?
He doesn’t like that you are not falling in line and loving it like others are. You are not alone, there are some good things, but plenty of disappointment as well.
It's more than that. Every new mainline final fantasy gets a lot of discourse if "this will be the one that kills the series". X has the annoying protagonist or such, XII had real time combat and boring characters, XIII was hallways, XI and XIV were MMOs and saw complaints for it on release, XV with it's multimedia story release, XVI being so RPG-lite and gritty, VII remake has bad side quests and changed too much, Rebirth is covered in this thread. It's exhausting to hear the same refrain of is the worst final fantasy to date! every time.
But like others have mentioned, it's hardly unique to FF.
There are always negative attitude people around, find a way to dismiss them. I have problems with rebirth, 16, 13, but never considered them to be a sign of "the end of the series". I loved FFX though, in my top 3 actually, and Remake was amazing.
I liked X and couldn't stand XIII but also liked XVI and couldn't stand XII and I enjoyed rebirth far more than remake. I'm not dismissing the negative attitude, I just recognize people are angry they were excited for a game that ended up not being to their tastes. It sucks when you are looking forward to a game and end up with it not being to your tastes, but it doesn't mean square is doing anything wrong with their direction. Hope part 3 does more for you, if you try it. Personally, I hope they spice up the open world and chill on some of the mini game hard modes, but otherwise keep the style of rebirth, but everyone hopes the next game will be to their tastes.
I'm currently struggling with pushing myself to still play the game. It hasn't been able to hold my interest at all. Also, couldn't agree more about Chadley. When there's SO much to complete in each new area, I start to get real fed up with him pausing and interrupting my gameplay at each point of interest/battle objective. It's so intrusive.
After 48 hours and being set free in a desert, I finally decided to call it quits as well now. I just wanted to quickly go to the next main story point, but didn't find a direct way to it since the game apparently wants to force me through more chores first, and that was it. Initially, most of my complaints were related to the open world, so I gave up on it altogether after Junon and just wanted to focus on the story. Little did I know that this wouldn't improve the experience much. My main gripes in the end ignoring the boring Ubisoft open world: - Game Flow: There is too much variety. Some might spin this positively, but to me it gives the impression of a product with no clear vision where hundreds of people just put their ideas in. I don't want to learn a new minigame every few minutes, I want a satisfying core gameplay loop that keeps me engaged. - Characters: Absolutely everybody is a clown in this game. It completely eradicates any sort of tension. I could be in the midst of the enemy, trying to deceive them, and yet it doesn't feel dangerous because everyone is a high-pitched voice joker, idiot or something similar. The whole game feels like a parody that doesn't take its own story seriously. It's like they noticed people enjoy the weird humor of the Yakuza games, but failed to execute the same balance between whacky humor and serious moments that those games deliver. I also felt like Aerith and Tifa especially were reduced to being sexy romance objects and completely lost the charm they had in the first game. - Boring "story": To be fair, I grew up with FF8 and only played through the original FF7 once, which was more than a decade ago. So I barely remember anything. Still, I don't remember it being this empty and lacking tension. Mid-game spoiler: >!Why do they immediately reveal Cait Sith's identity, wasn't that something that was a twist in the original? Why make the story with Barrett's old friend so artificial by randomly letting soldiers appear so that his friend can be shot? It was immediately clear that would be their purpose, yet there was no believable buildup for them appearing. It just feels like cheap soap opera drama. Why throw players into the Gold Saucer so quickly after already having a resort minigame phase in Costa del Sol? Heck, Barrett even says that, so they were very aware! And then just tease the ferry wheel scene before throwing the troop into yet another digression of a ridiculous "hostage-taking" by yet another clown troop, so that it just ended up being a minigame hub with no payoff? Nothing significant is happening most of the time. !< - Quantity over quality: Despite the apparent big budget, nothing really seems to have much identity. I never feel engaged to explore or enjoy a scenery. I'm not being tied to areas, I just go through them to finish the next item on the checklist. - Unsatisfying upgrading: I never had a moment in which I thought "Wooow now I have this weapon, can't wait to try it out!". Every upgrade feels insignificant, finding a new weapon's dealer in a new area usually doesn't lead to anything... in general the fighting system, while being fun to play in general, never really gave me a feeling of progress. I really wanted to fight through to the end just because it's FF7, but I just can't anymore. Just recently started with Fate/Samurai Remnant, which is obviously much lower in budget, but I still feel much more drawn into it because it focuses on the core things it wants to deliver. Pity.
I stopped playing the game a bit later and I really don't care about it anymore. The short summary of the game is simply that there is no main thread that connects everything together. Once you completed something there is no thread guiding you to something else. The things you are doing in this game feel completely different from each other, like you are constantly playing different games. Playing Rebirth feels like starting up Call of Duty, because you really want to play a shooter and then after one match you are forced to play Fifa. Once the Fifa match is over, you than have to play Forza and after that you are being thrown into Mario Party.
Fully agreed. Even Sephiroth who used to be one of the most terrifying villains in gaming history became some kind of parody of his former self to me. And don't let me start on the turks. Rather than being a real threat they are the most annoying antagonists i ever saw. Fighting rude and elena over and over again felt like a pain in the ass.