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I agree with you in that the characters and the fleshed out relationships between them really make this game shine. I felt it in Remake too, but Rebirth largely took it to the next level, and I love the moments that show the growing camaraderie and friendship not just relating to Cloud, but between all the characters. Like Yuffie and Barret driving each other mad, but her ultimately being the first to defend him from the townspeople in Corel. Or Aerith and Tifa consistently looking out for and taking care of each other (I'm SOOO glad they didn't fall into the trap of having them compete for Cloud's attention). Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The regions are unique and interesting, the side quests are largely far improved on those in Remake, and of course I love the continued expansion of Remake's combat system, which is one of my favorites in the whole series. Two things you didn't touch on that are personal gripes of mine, though. First, I don't know about everyone else, but I find the traversal mechanics to be kind of clunky and uncomfortable. This includes climbing, jumping from ledges, and even traveling on the Chocobo. I'd say these are things I sort of got used to over time, but imo they don't feel nearly as smooth as I think they should. Second, I'm little annoyed by what I feel is the undercutting of some of the biggest emotional scenes --- especially Dyne's death and Red/Nanaki's scene with his father. In Rebirth, Dyne's death scene is immediately interrupted by the arrival of enemies, and the Red scene is immediately interrupted by the arrival of the Gi. Like immediately. No break, no opportunity for the player to process anything. I find it jarring. And this sort of thing works fine for Aerith's death because the grief and the rage are still present in the moment during the coming fights. But with the others, it just feels like we're being forced to move on and focus on something else after these emotional things have happened. I'm a BIT more forgiving of the Barret scene than I am of the Red scene. I still had tears in my eyes the when Red was howling for his Dad, and suddenly this other guy showed up demanding my attention. Like what gives?
Except they do compete for Cloud's attention. Aerith literally mean-girls Tifa constantly, flirting with him in front of her, talking about going on dates Cloud did not consent or understand in front of her, and rubbing her affections for Cloud in Tifa's face when she KNOWS Tifa has affections for him as well. Aerith is a nasty terrible person in the RE games that acts nice to your face then passive aggressively kicks you down with a smile on her face. She does it to Tifa and she does it to Cloud when he doesn't act the way she wants him to act. How she treats both of them is abhorred. Their friendship in OG was much better written, believable, and a hell of a lot more meaningful as Aerith actually respected Tifa and vice versa.
@@kellevichy Well, I disagree with this take on the character, but I can tell you don't like Remake Aerith, so I'm not going to debate and try to get you to change your mind. I respect your opinion though.
I'm currently collaborating with youtubers Birds of Play on a series of Rebirth discussions, we discuss the jankiness of traversal in one of those (I think episode 1 or 2). I also agree with you on Dyne and I spoke about his scene in a recent episode on my channel about 'fumbled rebirth characters'. I also discuss him at length with Bird of Play, but that episode is yet to release.
I got annoyed when the game forced me to do side content in order to proceed through the main campaign. I like to save games and some side quests for A new game plus. Please don't force your side games.down my throat. But I loved the game and can't wait for 3.
Can relate. I disliked that I would need to play another game within the game. I didn't even win a single queen's blood match in my first playthrough. I did go back to play a lot of them after finishing the game though and I actually liked a lot of them. I'll try to be more open about trying minigames in part 3 when that comes out
Theyre designed for streamer groups today, theyre not designed to be these introverted single player narratives like we had. Too many extra mini games and tasks and pointless wandering around.
Damn, I just got to cosmo canyon. Been busy with Elden Ring dlc, but I’ll save it to “watch later” because I’m really interested in what you have to say :p
I can sorta see it with the size and asymmetry of its design. But I really liked how Organics was just a bizarre bright colour with that weird capital 'A' shaped blade
@@AlleywayJack I understand, even if it is a redesign, Organics was quite unique. People’s minds seem to go straight to Monster Hunter when they see Ignious, which I guess means we have lost some more unique qualities.
I never played the original. I'm 40 so yes I was old enough when it came out but I've always been an asthetics guy and I couldn't get into the unrealistic interpretation of the sprites and never will.
Hhmmmpp. It's a different game than og. If it wasn't a remake, didn't have that ff7 paint, I wouldn't want to play it. It's hard to copy or surpass perfection. But they didn't really do anything great except making a mediocre game that is carried hd og parts.
The more time passes, the more baffling the open world design in Rebirth is for me. Mechanically, it's one of the best open worlds I've played in a game. You don't have to use map markers to find most things, the side quests lead you to most of the objectives in a really organic way, and the enemy placement along those objectives are really good at acclimatizing players to their tactics. But outside of RPG-typical stats and resources, the open world is very inessential to the game. Dynamic difficulty allows you to bypass the resource grind altogether, and thus the entire open world, and still have a consistent difficulty throughout the main story content. Almost none of the story takes place in the open world. Every new area immediately presents the player with a fork in the road, go one way to continue the main story or go the other way to explore. Exploration is never on the way to the rest of the game. On the one hand, Rebirth can be played as a 100% linear game, more focused than Remake even, just by taking the main story path every time you get to a new area. But on the other hand, it makes the open world feel irrelevant and the overall world feel kind of small. in the end, I loved exploring the open world but I wish that exploration was actually part of the journey as depicted in the narrative.
I had such a fun time with that game until I hit the 90 hour mark and still had a lot of way to go. It became such a drag after a while, that I just wanted to finally end it. There is so much fun stuff in it but it just overloads at some point. There is one thing I don't understand though, and nobody seems to talk about it: these scenes where you have to slowly walk and occasionaly hit the trigger buttons. I literally layed around on the ground when the good old sephi-village scene happened. And they just stood there. Nothing happened, zero consequence, except wasting time on cinematics that could have been in a cutscene. They only start moving if you crawl towards them. So yeah. It's a fun game, but there are some weird design decisions in the story that I just don't care anymore. I'm sure I won't buy the next entry. That ending was just....hmmmmmm. mhm. Hmmmmmm....
Unfortunately, a lot of those slower parts I think are just to add play hours onto it by design, but at the same time I do think it's a very good game. Different intentions behind it and the original one though.
i gave up on this shit during the costa del sol bikini minigame (ff7 is my favorite game of all time) and I started playing bloodborne and elden ring right after, I think fromsoft are like modern version of 90s squaresoft, except their longevity has been more impressive as they've yet to crater.
I agree with you in many respects. Especially your last statement. This is an amazing game in spit of what ever flaws you consider it to have. You can say the exact same thing about the OG FF7. It's an amazing game worth its plays in history, despite its flaws.
Great review but for me the negatives really put a strain on the game for me to the point where I hated it. The pacing was abysmal, I like to call it "Final Fantasy Colombo" because every bit of story seemed to have a "just one more thing" moment. Just defeated a boss, "just one more thing", another battle, ok now surely the end of the chapter, "just one more thing". Ridiculously bad pacing!
The content rich vs content dense perception is great way to compare opinions on this game. Btw love that you will often balance your opinion with someone else's even if it's just a youtube comment you received, good take Jack.
I believe they "overloaded" Rebirth because i think pt 3 will be more linear akin to Remake in order to focus on the conclusion of the overall because there is ALOT left to cover from the OG story, which they'll also add more content too. Then there will also be the added stuff about Zack. Like is the multiverse "real" or is it just an aspect of the afterlife he is experiencing? Or is it Aeriths doing? Etc... So that's why i think the game may be 50-60 hours long, but without 50 hours of side quest. Rebirth is roughly 40 hours from start to finish of the main quest with about 50 hours of side quests while Remake was about 30 for the maim quest.
They had the butterfly edge and *kinda* had Force Edge according to some people (Umbral Blade i think it was called). They just renamed them. I forgot which one was the butterfly edge, but I believe it was either the second or third sword you get in the game. (I’d have preferred they kept the name Butterfly edge, but yeah)
The content density issue is highlighted when you start again with Chapter Select, if you have all side quests finished/all world intel checked off, the pacing actually becomes just like the original game. The Ubisoft checklist actually robbed the open zone areas of any mystery, because you knew the same five activities would be in each new region.
It's funny you mention the musical track that accompanies the climbing of Mt Corel as a soundtrack highlight because it honestly might be one of the OST's biggest failings. Remake's OST is frankly awful. Most of the motifs are played so often that they lose all meaning and most of the reorchestrations just come down to "add symphonic strings". Uematsu was an absolute masterpiece of musical storytelling. You can learn so much about characters and locations from the ideas that he baked into the music. INTERmission honestly fixed it pretty much straight away with it's rendition of Descendant of Shinobi. You can pick up her gender, age, nationality and personality just by listening to it. Incredible stuff. The original Under The Rotting Pizza said so much about the slums and what you might find there but the Remake one doesn't compliment the visuals in any meaningful way. And that's one of Remakes *better* tracks. Does Collapsed Expressway sound like the scene of a horrific accident, now abandoned by Shinra? No it sounds like a jaunt around a massage parlour. Mt Corel is cut from that sort of cloth. It's technically a fine piece of music but it doesn't *say* anything and any piece of music in an FF7 game that doesn't succeed with musical storytelling in a complete failure
Thanks, and great I'm glad you're enjoying the Birds of Play discussions. Petur's observations are gold, when his mic works, I shall pester him henceforth to speak.
Just as I finished Rebirth the other day this dropped. Loved almost every moment of it yes the game has some obvious faults but the other parts of it made up for it. I can see why this game has received such high critical acclaim It is truly a great game felt like I was back playing og FF7. I can’t wait for what is gonna come in part 3.
I think everyone doesnt understand the remakes clearly expected you to have played the original. Remake literally spoils OG like 50 times. I feel like if people looked at it from that lens theyd see how amazing it actually is. I dont go watch a play and complain it was different from the film
Uh. No. Absolutely not because we do see it from that lens. I played and adored OG since I was a teenager and I saw exactly the lens Remake was pulling and it's absolute garbage. We understand and that's exactly why people rightfully complain. This isn't a play and the Resident Evil remakes were a hit, being different enough to keep it fresh and faithful enough that you're not missing anything or REQUIRED to play the OG for actual context. Remake and Rebirth did not do that at all. FF7 really does have pokemon syndrome where no matter how bad a product is people will make excuses for it.
@@watchmehope6560 There's a reason the original FF7 is everyone's favorite and has been remade and used so many times, it's the masterpiece and a classic. I do not believe that's true for these new games which apparently can entertain the masses and keep their adhd boredom at bay.
@@Murasameabsolutely. We asked for a remake. That was not delivered and instead we got a bastardised KH version of FF7. Nomura strikes again. Get that man out of SE.
@@watchmehope6560 Riiight. Because people got bored with the RE1 remake, RE2 remake, Re4 remake....... oh wait, those are smash hits. You can make a faithful remake and make it good. Not this trash SEQUEAL ( not even a remake ) that literally no one asked for.
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I agree with you in that the characters and the fleshed out relationships between them really make this game shine. I felt it in Remake too, but Rebirth largely took it to the next level, and I love the moments that show the growing camaraderie and friendship not just relating to Cloud, but between all the characters. Like Yuffie and Barret driving each other mad, but her ultimately being the first to defend him from the townspeople in Corel. Or Aerith and Tifa consistently looking out for and taking care of each other (I'm SOOO glad they didn't fall into the trap of having them compete for Cloud's attention).
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The regions are unique and interesting, the side quests are largely far improved on those in Remake, and of course I love the continued expansion of Remake's combat system, which is one of my favorites in the whole series.
Two things you didn't touch on that are personal gripes of mine, though. First, I don't know about everyone else, but I find the traversal mechanics to be kind of clunky and uncomfortable. This includes climbing, jumping from ledges, and even traveling on the Chocobo. I'd say these are things I sort of got used to over time, but imo they don't feel nearly as smooth as I think they should.
Second, I'm little annoyed by what I feel is the undercutting of some of the biggest emotional scenes --- especially Dyne's death and Red/Nanaki's scene with his father. In Rebirth, Dyne's death scene is immediately interrupted by the arrival of enemies, and the Red scene is immediately interrupted by the arrival of the Gi. Like immediately. No break, no opportunity for the player to process anything. I find it jarring. And this sort of thing works fine for Aerith's death because the grief and the rage are still present in the moment during the coming fights. But with the others, it just feels like we're being forced to move on and focus on something else after these emotional things have happened. I'm a BIT more forgiving of the Barret scene than I am of the Red scene. I still had tears in my eyes the when Red was howling for his Dad, and suddenly this other guy showed up demanding my attention. Like what gives?
Except they do compete for Cloud's attention. Aerith literally mean-girls Tifa constantly, flirting with him in front of her, talking about going on dates Cloud did not consent or understand in front of her, and rubbing her affections for Cloud in Tifa's face when she KNOWS Tifa has affections for him as well. Aerith is a nasty terrible person in the RE games that acts nice to your face then passive aggressively kicks you down with a smile on her face. She does it to Tifa and she does it to Cloud when he doesn't act the way she wants him to act. How she treats both of them is abhorred. Their friendship in OG was much better written, believable, and a hell of a lot more meaningful as Aerith actually respected Tifa and vice versa.
@@kellevichy Well, I disagree with this take on the character, but I can tell you don't like Remake Aerith, so I'm not going to debate and try to get you to change your mind. I respect your opinion though.
I'm currently collaborating with youtubers Birds of Play on a series of Rebirth discussions, we discuss the jankiness of traversal in one of those (I think episode 1 or 2). I also agree with you on Dyne and I spoke about his scene in a recent episode on my channel about 'fumbled rebirth characters'. I also discuss him at length with Bird of Play, but that episode is yet to release.
Couldn’t agree more on the Nanaki scene, somehow made it less emotional than the polygon 97 version. I really liked the Dyne scene tho 😢
I got annoyed when the game forced me to do side content in order to proceed through the main campaign. I like to save games and some side quests for A new game plus. Please don't force your side games.down my throat. But I loved the game and can't wait for 3.
Can relate. I disliked that I would need to play another game within the game. I didn't even win a single queen's blood match in my first playthrough.
I did go back to play a lot of them after finishing the game though and I actually liked a lot of them. I'll try to be more open about trying minigames in part 3 when that comes out
Theyre designed for streamer groups today, theyre not designed to be these introverted single player narratives like we had. Too many extra mini games and tasks and pointless wandering around.
Damn, I just got to cosmo canyon. Been busy with Elden Ring dlc, but I’ll save it to “watch later” because I’m really interested in what you have to say :p
Yassssss you did another FF7 video ❤
Isn’t the Igneous blade a redesign of Organics?
It has some very similar design features & is even “organically” formed from magma.
I can sorta see it with the size and asymmetry of its design. But I really liked how Organics was just a bizarre bright colour with that weird capital 'A' shaped blade
@@AlleywayJack I understand, even if it is a redesign, Organics was quite unique.
People’s minds seem to go straight to Monster Hunter when they see Ignious, which I guess means we have lost some more unique qualities.
I never played the original. I'm 40 so yes I was old enough when it came out but I've always been an asthetics guy and I couldn't get into the unrealistic interpretation of the sprites and never will.
Hhmmmpp. It's a different game than og. If it wasn't a remake, didn't have that ff7 paint, I wouldn't want to play it. It's hard to copy or surpass perfection. But they didn't really do anything great except making a mediocre game that is carried hd og parts.
The more time passes, the more baffling the open world design in Rebirth is for me. Mechanically, it's one of the best open worlds I've played in a game. You don't have to use map markers to find most things, the side quests lead you to most of the objectives in a really organic way, and the enemy placement along those objectives are really good at acclimatizing players to their tactics.
But outside of RPG-typical stats and resources, the open world is very inessential to the game. Dynamic difficulty allows you to bypass the resource grind altogether, and thus the entire open world, and still have a consistent difficulty throughout the main story content. Almost none of the story takes place in the open world. Every new area immediately presents the player with a fork in the road, go one way to continue the main story or go the other way to explore. Exploration is never on the way to the rest of the game. On the one hand, Rebirth can be played as a 100% linear game, more focused than Remake even, just by taking the main story path every time you get to a new area. But on the other hand, it makes the open world feel irrelevant and the overall world feel kind of small.
in the end, I loved exploring the open world but I wish that exploration was actually part of the journey as depicted in the narrative.
I had such a fun time with that game until I hit the 90 hour mark and still had a lot of way to go. It became such a drag after a while, that I just wanted to finally end it. There is so much fun stuff in it but it just overloads at some point. There is one thing I don't understand though, and nobody seems to talk about it: these scenes where you have to slowly walk and occasionaly hit the trigger buttons. I literally layed around on the ground when the good old sephi-village scene happened. And they just stood there. Nothing happened, zero consequence, except wasting time on cinematics that could have been in a cutscene. They only start moving if you crawl towards them. So yeah. It's a fun game, but there are some weird design decisions in the story that I just don't care anymore. I'm sure I won't buy the next entry. That ending was just....hmmmmmm. mhm. Hmmmmmm....
Unfortunately, a lot of those slower parts I think are just to add play hours onto it by design, but at the same time I do think it's a very good game. Different intentions behind it and the original one though.
Playing through it right now but I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. I have lots of mixed feelings.
i gave up on this shit during the costa del sol bikini minigame (ff7 is my favorite game of all time) and I started playing bloodborne and elden ring right after, I think fromsoft are like modern version of 90s squaresoft, except their longevity has been more impressive as they've yet to crater.
I agree with you in many respects. Especially your last statement. This is an amazing game in spit of what ever flaws you consider it to have. You can say the exact same thing about the OG FF7. It's an amazing game worth its plays in history, despite its flaws.
It definitely has its faults and some gameplay things that can be improved but I love this game, one of the best games I’ve ever played
Oh man I’ve been waiting for this review Jack. I’m excited
Great review but for me the negatives really put a strain on the game for me to the point where I hated it. The pacing was abysmal, I like to call it "Final Fantasy Colombo" because every bit of story seemed to have a "just one more thing" moment. Just defeated a boss, "just one more thing", another battle, ok now surely the end of the chapter, "just one more thing". Ridiculously bad pacing!
I love your channel man but I hate this remake so much... it's disheartening to have modernists fck with my beloved childhood media.
The content rich vs content dense perception is great way to compare opinions on this game. Btw love that you will often balance your opinion with someone else's even if it's just a youtube comment you received, good take Jack.
I believe they "overloaded" Rebirth because i think pt 3 will be more linear akin to Remake in order to focus on the conclusion of the overall because there is ALOT left to cover from the OG story, which they'll also add more content too. Then there will also be the added stuff about Zack.
Like is the multiverse "real" or is it just an aspect of the afterlife he is experiencing? Or is it Aeriths doing? Etc...
So that's why i think the game may be 50-60 hours long, but without 50 hours of side quest. Rebirth is roughly 40 hours from start to finish of the main quest with about 50 hours of side quests while Remake was about 30 for the maim quest.
They had the butterfly edge and *kinda* had Force Edge according to some people (Umbral Blade i think it was called). They just renamed them. I forgot which one was the butterfly edge, but I believe it was either the second or third sword you get in the game. (I’d have preferred they kept the name Butterfly edge, but yeah)
The content density issue is highlighted when you start again with Chapter Select, if you have all side quests finished/all world intel checked off, the pacing actually becomes just like the original game. The Ubisoft checklist actually robbed the open zone areas of any mystery, because you knew the same five activities would be in each new region.
It's funny you mention the musical track that accompanies the climbing of Mt Corel as a soundtrack highlight because it honestly might be one of the OST's biggest failings.
Remake's OST is frankly awful. Most of the motifs are played so often that they lose all meaning and most of the reorchestrations just come down to "add symphonic strings".
Uematsu was an absolute masterpiece of musical storytelling. You can learn so much about characters and locations from the ideas that he baked into the music. INTERmission honestly fixed it pretty much straight away with it's rendition of Descendant of Shinobi. You can pick up her gender, age, nationality and personality just by listening to it. Incredible stuff. The original Under The Rotting Pizza said so much about the slums and what you might find there but the Remake one doesn't compliment the visuals in any meaningful way. And that's one of Remakes *better* tracks.
Does Collapsed Expressway sound like the scene of a horrific accident, now abandoned by Shinra? No it sounds like a jaunt around a massage parlour. Mt Corel is cut from that sort of cloth. It's technically a fine piece of music but it doesn't *say* anything and any piece of music in an FF7 game that doesn't succeed with musical storytelling in a complete failure
Great stuff. Been loving your chats with the Birds of Play. Maybe next time you'll let Petur talk
Thanks, and great I'm glad you're enjoying the Birds of Play discussions. Petur's observations are gold, when his mic works, I shall pester him henceforth to speak.
Og lets me get op but remake makes me grind twice....
Will be 3 times by the end of it.
🫶🏼🫶🏼
Just as I finished Rebirth the other day this dropped. Loved almost every moment of it yes the game has some obvious faults but the other parts of it made up for it. I can see why this game has received such high critical acclaim It is truly a great game felt like I was back playing og FF7. I can’t wait for what is gonna come in part 3.
I loved this game. Getting the platinum is a different story.
I think everyone doesnt understand the remakes clearly expected you to have played the original. Remake literally spoils OG like 50 times. I feel like if people looked at it from that lens theyd see how amazing it actually is. I dont go watch a play and complain it was different from the film
Uh. No. Absolutely not because we do see it from that lens. I played and adored OG since I was a teenager and I saw exactly the lens Remake was pulling and it's absolute garbage. We understand and that's exactly why people rightfully complain. This isn't a play and the Resident Evil remakes were a hit, being different enough to keep it fresh and faithful enough that you're not missing anything or REQUIRED to play the OG for actual context. Remake and Rebirth did not do that at all. FF7 really does have pokemon syndrome where no matter how bad a product is people will make excuses for it.
I hate those trashbag ring wraith dementor things..
It's a shame new fans are playing these games over the classics in the series.
The classic is cool. But I prefer this lol. I'm left with wondering what will happen next. If it's a 1:1 remake I would've gotten bored.
@@watchmehope6560 There's a reason the original FF7 is everyone's favorite and has been remade and used so many times, it's the masterpiece and a classic.
I do not believe that's true for these new games which apparently can entertain the masses and keep their adhd boredom at bay.
@@watchmehope6560No you wouldn’t. It’s not nice to lie.
You and everyone else were expecting a remake until it was evident that it wasn’t.
@@Murasameabsolutely. We asked for a remake. That was not delivered and instead we got a bastardised KH version of FF7. Nomura strikes again. Get that man out of SE.
@@watchmehope6560 Riiight. Because people got bored with the RE1 remake, RE2 remake, Re4 remake....... oh wait, those are smash hits.
You can make a faithful remake and make it good. Not this trash SEQUEAL ( not even a remake ) that literally no one asked for.