I've played 450 hours, completed hard mode from zero twice and I still haven't done hard mode mini games or the hardest battles challenges. The game is immense. I love it.
4-8 has some great (and I mean GREAT) guides for the minigames in hard and stuff. Optinoob has some great stuff as well for VR challenges. And I'm not a shill, I'm too tired.
I hear ya on Cid. I felt the same way. But I do feel strongly that his demeanor will change in Rocktown. Because remember, most of his bitterness stems from Shera causing that original launch to be aborted. Which we find out later saved his life, but her mere presence seems to trigger him early on.
You will never see a man putting down a woman the same way Cid put down and guilt tripped Shera for what she did in the original with modern Square Enix if the 'ethics' department has anything to say about it. Her regret and dedication to Cid, the nuance of their relationship, and the fact that Cid still immeasurably values her in spite of her enormous fuck up is one of the reasons I believe he was changed this much. Death is super optimistic (and I think you share his optimism) that this may change when the party gets to rocket town but I don't think it will.
@@rufrox9947you’ve got it right. In the modern day, you can redeem junkies, terrorists, murderers, and psychopaths, but you are not allowed to redeem a man who is verbally abusive to women. This is who Cid is now, so we just have to get used to it.
@@KrakkaJax It runs down the problem of not being able separate own beliefs and the way how character is written. Well written character with morals or views different from one's own is still better than making pamphlet of a character spouting stuff which one already agrees with.
@@KrakkaJax lol they'll redeem the turks, rufus, and maybe even Sephiroth who literally killed the main characters mom and burned his village and killed aerith, but cid being Verbally abusive to shera is where they draw the line? insane.
Can't speak for the devs, but I feel like it was their intent on making us not feel as sad that Aerith died in Rebirth. We saw the death scene from Cloud's perspective. They wanted us to feel what Cloud was feeling at that moment where he's slowly losing his mind and can't tell from reality and delusion. I'm hoping that we'll see the rest of the group's perspective going into Part 3.
My thought after playing the game was that Cloud DID save Aerith in the timeline we played in, but then it transitions back to the original OG timeline. Now she’s alive in a different time and can still help. Is that wrong?
We did not see it from his perspective. We saw it from his POV in OG when he knew damn well what happened to her and wasn't in this 'denial' he's in now that is horribly ( and stupidly ) written and throws everything he said after her murder out the window.
The ending looks to me as setup for greater consequence in the fallout when Cloud hands off the black materia to Sephiroth in the 3rd part. Having him break through the illusions just before being flooded into the lifestream could potentially allow for the scenes with Tifa reconstructing Clouds mind, to show us the reality they all saw at the end there and get us to experience the gut wrenching feeling that Cloud will have realising she's gone long after the fact and that he missed the chance to mourn in the moment with everyone and now needs to step up in order to finish what's been started. An isolated moment in the mid point of the 3rd game with it's own breathing room, a newer experience of the reaction as well as more opportunities to expand on non-jenova'd up Cloud in that moment.
Cid is nice in Rebirth because we are his paying customers, and he's on the job, as our hired pilot. Watch him turn into classic Cid the moment we meet Shera, in part 3. I'll put my Gil on that. Anyway, excellent review, and very thorough. You basically put forward everything I have said about the game, and I haven't found a review I agreed with more, and I've watched them all. Great video.
Everyone says this and we know its not true. Nobody is fooled, we know why he changed. Square is very much partnered with Sweet Baby and ESG. As is the whole industry at this point. It will be interesting to see Part 3 make it through unscathed but i doubt it.
LOL on the job? he literally took them to the gold saucer for free and was being nice just for the sake of being nice. he basically forced himself into the party in rebirth lol
@@harry5384 Yeah, no. When you first signal him (at his job) you have to pay a few thousand gil to get to any location for the first time. This then goes down to something pretty meaningless (like 10 gil or free or something) after the first journey. He's absolutely on the job.
@@MrConeman when they leave nibelheim cid says “it’s on me” and takes them to the saucer for free. And then he forces himself into the party. Even when we’re at the temple of the ancients he says something like “when you get back I’ll be waiting for you” it’s never felt authentic or forced. It feels like cid almost knows the party from the beginning. He helps the party for no reason
@@harry5384 by that point he has already become part of the crew, and wants to help Aerith based on his supposed connection to Ifalna. When you first meet him (and for several trips after) you pay for his services. You know I'm right 🤷
This video was as anticipated as the game was. Though i followed the full playthrough live, can't wait to see what your final take is after you had time to let it sit
Fun fact about rebirth's end credits you may already know, when all the slides of cutscenes are scrolling with the credits, there are a few that seem to be _missing_ Two of them are right around a time frame that would have the lake scene after Aerith's death. It's like Sqaure putting Cloud goggles on us and then telling us.
Or they're just playing up the confusion for the fan base as a lead-up for part 3. If they showed anything specific from that time frame, it would be taken as confirmation, one way or the other.
16:36 I feel the need to push back on the idea that Aerith barely gets any important scenes in this game. What immediately came to mind is the scene where Cloud and Aerith are talking on the beach in Costa del Sol after the fight with Hojo. Here Aerith talks about the feelings of hatred she feels for Hojo, and worries about the darkness within her. She later learns from Gi Nattak about how intolerant the Cetra could be. And in Nibelheim she again admits to feeling jealousy about Cloud and Tifa's friendship (which she can probably tell will blossom into a full relationship by the end of game 3). And then, in the Temple of the Ancients, she reads the inscription about how the warrior must "forget not thine ire, for it shall remake thee." Afterwards she gives her speech about people need to have the capacity to forgive each other. All of this is important because Aerith's arc is about refusing to let the pain she has felt keep her from doing what needs to be done, which is save all of humanity, even sinners like Shinra, even probably the Gi, from the vengeful threat Sephiroth poses. It's all building to her resolve to go to the Forgotten Capital alone to pray to protect her friends. She definitely has her own arc in this game, and I think the setup and payoff is well done, for the most part.
I agree, also her big Cosmo Canyon speech. The only way she “dropped off” for me was in the side quests. We get a lot of Yuffi & Red side quests in the late game. I felt like it had been a while since I really hung out with Aerith & Tifa. Though I guess this can vary if you don’t do them in order of appeared.
Dude, that thing about the music/song volume being so loud you can’t hear the character dialogue really bothered me actually. I felt like this was something I hadn’t heard from anyone else.
I agree with everything you said about the problem with thr death scene mainly being that they didn't focus on the emotion of the scene (and the impact it had on the character) and letting the emotion really sink in. I wish they'd thought about it the way Yoko Taro and the Nier team design scenes: figure out what emotional response they want the audience to experience, and then build around that. Granted, the giant immediate-post-death final boss was awesome in its own right, but it is sad that it got in the way of such an emotional scene.
Dyne as a character was ruined for me, and Red's new voice wasn't necessary for me, and I didn't like it. Also I felt like the last 10 hours were the only part of the story that really mattered. It was information overload at the end. Those are my only real complaints. That, and also there's a bit too much content, and it gets exhausting when everything is a puzzle it feels like. A lot of it doesn't hit, and could have been cut. I just hated how Dyne was so polar opposite of his character towards Barrett than in the OG. And I felt the Shinra soldiers came from nowhere. O also, Aerith's part at the temple caused my control to have analog drift. I wish game devs didn't use mechanics that make you stress the analog like that. Lastly I was disappointed that progress from Remake couldn't carry over. Queen's Blood went from fun, but easy to legendary difficult immediately. It caused serious wiplash. Also, I wish Ft. Condor was done more like how it was done in Integrade where there were opponents in every area, and where you earned pieces and play style. Cid was completely changed, and watered down. And I hated battle with Cait Sith. Lastly, fuck the half button presses at Jules' gym. Fuck those in particular. And the Gold Saucer fighting mini game was impossible without pause spamming.
I'm astounded how amazing Rebirth was, can't even believe it's a real game. I was so impressed with the improvements on the gameplay, the music is just as great as always, and how much fun I had through the whole experience. Tone down some of the chadley dialogue and some of the bland open world tasks is all I ask though lol. With how great Remake and Rebirth are, the next game is going to be incredible.
One thing they keep doing consistently is botching their heavy scenes. They don't allow for sad or heavy scenes to breathe. Dyne's death is immediately interrupted by a Palmer boss-fight, who is the resident FF7 clown. Seto's reveal is interrupted by the Gi and a Black Materia lore-dump IMMEDIATELY, I don't hate this segment itself, I just hate how it interrupted a pivotal scene for Nanaki. Then there's the ending, which was just a mess, so the less said there the better. It's like the director wants to make you sad, but not too sad, so he immediately starts dangling keys after a heavy scene is done playing, to distract the player from processing the moment, going: "OOOOO Look at the jingling keys they make a jingly noise OOOO lookadit!". Beyond that, the game is pretty fantastic.
Yeah sadly both Remake and Rebirth lose so much gravitas due to this. I had fun with it but for me the OG is still the definitive way to experience the story. The pacing and emotional depth feels way better to me. I wanted to love Rebirth and went in with an open mind, but when it really mattered it failed to deliver. A great game, but not great storytelling.
I couldn't even get sad for the Dyne scene because of how over the top they made it. If I didn't know ff7 and you told me that it was a Bryan Fury cutscene from the new Tekken, I would've believed you.
100% spot on. Its like they don't have faith that the major moments in the original can stand on their own in a modern remake. Hoping they recognize this pattern for part 3. Can't imagine Cloud getting his memories back but have like 50 boss battles before during and after the sequence.
As far as game length, I think it is important to allow the player some flexibility in terms of optional content that is meaningful. Like OG FF7 did this really well. You can play through the main story pretty quick but if you are a player that really wants to take their time exploring every corner of the world you are rewarded with entire optional characters and extra storylines lines, awesome weapons/abilities, etc.
So refreshing to see a review from an OG fan who isn't on the hate train. I loved it. I had moments I could pick at, sure, as I'm sure anyone does. But I had moments of like kicking my feet in joy too. I'm looking forward to the end of the journey in pt 3.
I do think they robbed us of the emotion of the ending with Aerith’s death. We needed to see it as the player even if cloud doesn’t. There was a lot of teasing with does she die or not and they completely blew it. They can have questions about part 3 showing cloud seeing something different after. She could show up for the last fight and then cloud see her and then show clouds version. That would have still carried the emotional hit of the death. It’s an amazing game but they got Aerith’s death all wrong. Yes we’ll see it for real in part 3 but it won’t have the same emotional hit and anticipation
They didn't rob the emotion of her death. We see Cloud's feeling extreme loss and we also see how important she is to him. You were only robbed of any emotion if you're a Cloti shipper like this channel that doesn't understand the story and can't pick up on its emotional bits because of the bitterness he feels towards Aerith
The only part I didn’t really like even though how minor it is , is how rushed the ending feels from Temple of Ancients to the Forgotten City I would of loved to be able to explore the Forgotten City but we only got to go through it like only 5 mins, maybe we’ll go there in part 3 but either way it’s a minor fault
I understand what you are saying in regards to the ending and how it became a "is she or isn't she really dead" sorta deal. But, I have to say that I still very much felt the intended emotions here. The looming dread as Cloud walks up to the altar and we hear Aerith praying to the Cetra. Pleading with them to help her protect her friends because that is the only thing she really wants. The white whispers keeping Cloud away because her death has to happen, then the black whispers trying to force Cloud to try and strike Aerith down himself. Then Sephiroth swooping in and Cloud seeing him and actually acts and tries his damnedest to defy this fate. I was on the edge of my seat. I was hoping so hard that he would succeed and that somehow Aerith would not die this time... But she did. And I when Aerith's theme swelled up during the beginning of the JENOVA fight and could hold the tears back anymore. For me, seeing Cloud be given the opportunity to stop it but in the end it still happens anyway was heart wrenching. It really shows that Aerith's death was truly inevitable. She cannot be saved. And with her being my favorite Final Fantasy character ever, that hurt man! lol
Great vid death, for me the final was so confusing, and i agree, that it took off most of the emotion i felt for this moment in the original. At the end, i felt a bit pissed at cloud who kept thinking she's alive, and just sitting with a smile (?), completely lost on his own illusion. Concerning the last battle, having sephiroth comming again to fight and leaving for the second time as he please, was a bit annoying i would say. That being said, i really hope like you said, that we will feel the scene from other characters point of view, and foremost that cloud will stop being that weird, get back to reality
The thing you said about the Gi-Nattak scene... I agree wholeheartedly. This scene was such a comical mess. First you have one of the most anticipated moments, Seto's music, the uplifting story told by gramps... I remember that I was sitting and just crying because his story of identity crisis and getting to know the truth about his father felt so genuine. And then they had to do it! They had to ruin it by putting a newly made side character, that looks completely dumb with a worthless side-plot to ruin the whole scene. When I saw his stupid mask staring at me I started maniacally laughing like a lunatic. It was so jarring that my mind couldn't comprehend the emotional reaction to it. I think that it was one of the moments that ruined the overall experience for me. At least I had a totally unique reaction... The other time in my life I had a similar reaction was during the movie "Click" with Adam Sandler... That's not a good thing when you compare one of the most emotional moments in the game to an Adam Sandler movie. It was much worse then the Dyne scene - which was also not good, but not THAT BAD. I don't really know why did they change the Dyne scene from the original - it was much darker and it fitted the tone of the game much better. He was a tragic character that made so many bad decisions that in his mind - there was no other way. And here? He died fighting generic shinra grunts that finally have better aim and appear from absolutely nowhere? I loved the game, played it all almost to a platinum, but damn it has lots of issues... The best things from Remake were even better, but the worst things where even worse. This game was so tiring that I didn't play any PS5 games in a month. Great job dude, been watching you since forever, lol Cheers from Poland!
I have not watched a great deal of your content, but this was an amazing review. You hit all the points that I was interested about hearing your point of view on. Also, your tone and calmness made for a good watch as well. I had Covid when Rebirth released. I was able to play it nonstop and beat it in a week with a time of 102 hours. I was burnt out, though. I had played through it way too fast and have not returned to it since. I hope to get back into it sooner than later.
Well! I think you schould go back and pay attention to section and the monolog that Arieth has in Costa dela Sol. Becöuse whitout make any spolier. She is saying a lot of importent things on the beatch and whe dhe talks to red.
The arguement of a game being to large in this case just seems silly. You are forgetting that you are just an adult now, and seeing time as an adult, they still had these types of games when you were kid, and thats why you liked them.
Late to this but answering the primary question about length. The longest single game I have played is a Pokemon romhack called Pokemon Unbound, which took me 202 hours to beat the game 100%. The next closest is Octopath Traveler, which took me about 110 hours to beat 100%. I have never played a game so long as 300 hours but- Square Enix, if you are reading this- I'm down to try it. And if that means increasing the price to $100+ for a master craft of this story, I will still buy it. And I would pay another $100+ to fix all of the tiny nitpicks like the music volume, or lighting bug, or whatever else. In the modern economic landscape where every product feels like chasing safe dollars or recycling the same garbage, I will happily pay to play for an actual premium product. There's only one vendor offering a perfect FF7 experience.
Rebirth is too long because it's the middle ten hours of story in FF7 stretched to... about 100 hours. I can accept this kind of pacing because it's FF7 and I love FF7, but this kind of pacing is not good. It's not good for development because it makes it take too long to get their point across. We'll have had about 7-8 years on this trilogy. It's costing them a fortune and it's not getting the yields it needs to justify that fortune. It's also not good newcomers who just aren't getting the kind of amazingly paced story that the original Final Fantasy 7 was. We aren't getting enough new story to justify the added length. We learned very little in Rebirth that we didn't know coming in. I feel like we've learned more in Ever Crisis's 45 minutes of First Soldier story than we did in Rebirth. I don't feel ripped off, but i do feel sad about it. The reality of the matter is that we didn't need the open world. It added a ton of expense and the point could have been gotten across entirely with an old school abstracted-scale world map for pennies on the dollar. Some fans would like it less, some would have liked it more, but the only things we would have *had* to lose with that are stupid Ubisoft towers and something that honestly felt like nothing more than a series of repetitive checklists. The best things we got out of it were some interesting fights in each area... and we could have gotten those with a regular old world map too. I guess we would have the annoying traversal of Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon too. Whoop-de-doo. I love the game, don't get me wrong, I just don't love that we've got this chopped up business of three very long games that we have to wait a decade to get through to experience a story that, for the most part... we already know.
I don't agree with your take on the marathon of minigames simply because almost none of it is required to progress. You said you HAD to do the QB tournament on the boat but you actually don't have to play even one game. You can just not participate and talk to the receptionist to move on. In Junon you only need 5 groups of soldiers and not the full 10. In Costa you only have to do I think 3 or maybe only 2 of the mini games to get the costume tickets and its player choice to do the rest. I invite you to replay this section of the game in a speedrun and try to blitz through this section as fast as possible and I guarantee you will change your mind. It falls under the same umbrella as what you said about the towers, you can just do a little bit and move on. I think like 95% of players played remake and suspect there would be a hard mode and chapter select to come back to these areas to 100% it so can choose to move on, like I did. You spent WAY longer in this section of the game than I personally did.
Although I do agree I find that most people want to interact with most things their first time through so they don't feel like they missed things. I would imagine next to nobody skipped the entire queens blood tourny unless they really disliked queens blood, and I wanted to find all of the soldiers because the interactions were funny and I wanted to know what the reward was. Costa Del Sol there was a pretty obvious hint that you could do the minigames later if you wanted so I agree there, but I think most people would want to do most if not all of the above mentioned to avoid FOMO, then regret it after the fact, which isn't what you want from a game design standpoint.
Loved the game but by the end I was so tired of it: there was just too much bloat in the open world. Sailing the Bronco in to floating crap in the ocean, the summon shrines, the wellsprings, the infamous mushroom-picking minigame... the list goes on. Even that weird sphere grid thing was wholly unnecessary. It really affected the pacing of the game for me. They could have slimmed it down to a 60/70 hour game instead of 80/90 quite easily. I genuinely think it would have been one of the greatest games ever if they had just had a bit more control over the scope of the game. Throughout my life I'd always looked forward to a second playthrough of FF games. FF7 Remake is such a tight game (okay there are two filler episodes...) that a casual re-play doing everything takes 30 hours. Playing this game again does not appeal greatly to me. I think if I were to play it again, I genuinely think it would be to just slam through the story and experience that again, because that aspect was worth every penny.
I always saw Cid as being miserable he lost his shot at going to space. So miserable that he chained smoked. Happy people don't chain smoke like that. So when I played the original game, I imagined a broken has been of a man, short on breathe and expecting to die and deciding he had a bit more left to give. It would not be possible to smoke and do that kind of combat unless you were on a planet of super soldiers and magical powers haha. Good review. I have to find the time to finish Rebirth. I kind of expected they would give him a toothpick instead.
ff7 original will always be the best. i didnt mind rebirth but the gongaga map was awful. and the design of cosmo canyon was a maze nightmare... could have made it eaiser to navigate. overall a 7.5 out of 10
@Avowed009 what?.. ummm first of all i never "liked" my own comment, and second of all do you even know what a casual is you bafoon?.. a casual is a gamer who hasnt played the originall ff7 or any ff for that matter.. they are in it just to play. where as I have played all the ff and can thouroughly analyze the review. clown comment so try again
You make a really valid point if a game can be too long, I believe it can. I love that a game is long, it makes me feel like it was worth the money. But then on the other hand, if you had a game that was 200 hrs but the pacing was inconsistent you would start to get impatient for more of the story and want a conclusion to the hrs you just put into the game, if a game is extremely long the pacing NEEDS to be consistent or risk losing the interest of the player. In my style of play, I like to go from start to finish and get the entire story at a consistent pace, and then later after finishing the game, I will do more exploration etc. I'm not into games making you finish certain aspects of the game (Mini games etc) before moving on with the story, when I was watching your play though, I didn't get that impression, you could stay and finish a zone or move on. But what makes this game long (I feel) was them trying to tell the story, and in my opinion if its the story that long, that's not a problem, there is just SO much story they want you to get before moving on, Its all about the story for me.👍
I'm so ready for your broken builds and stuff PLUS your predictions for part 3. I agree with your interpretation of the ending, exactly. I think the trials scene totally does take away the weight. The boss fight was amazing on its own as a big spectacle but I totally agree that things don't really tie together in the same level. Anyway I look forward to your future content and especially the Final Fantasy VII you were the one who helped me beat Ruby weapon and emerald.
Great review, i largely agree with what you say save for a handful of points but i don't feel like nitpicking. The one thing i really want to pushback on is the discussion about the game being too long. A game having a ton of content is not a bad thing, specially when everything past the 60 hours mark is entirely optional. Trophies are optional, most mini-games are optional, hardmode is optional. If you don't want to spend time on them either because your life is too busy or you wanna play other games, absolutely no problem. Nobody will hold it against you, it doesn't make you less of a "fan" or a member of the community or whatever. Also, i get why you treated the game like a sprint, it kinda comes with the territory of your job, but for everyone else who feels burnt out, by all means take a break, maybe in a year you'll get the itch to replay it then you'll finish the trophies you're missing. Lets not remove the option from people who do want to make the choice to spend more time with one specific game do so.
This was without a doubt the most sincere and professional analysis from fan to fan. We continue on this journey together, and I hope that this time they exclude all the timelines and whispers stuff for part 3. Wutai, submarine underwater, weapons, midgar raid and final dungeon. I can't wait that long!!! ( oh yeah, rocket town and Knight of round too )
You can of course have your opinion and desires for what you want to see, but "and I hope that this time they exclude all the timelines and whispers stuff for part 3" is just setting yourself up for disappointment. You KNOW that's not happening.
Yea I put the game down ages ago and never went back. Stopped at gongaga. It just hasn’t gripped me like the OG also a thing you pointed I really agree with. There was so many mini games that it ruined the gold saucer. At no point did I want to stay at gold saucer as you feel like all you do is mini games. I still think they should have just made it 1 big games like the OG. It would have been better that way and less filler.
loving this vid so far Death, for some reason you pointing out how original Cid just had AK-47s laying around in his house really made me laugh. Come to think of it, you're probably right; New Cid doesn't seem like the guy to have a bunch of AKs laying around
On the game being too long, yes, it absolutely is. I would rather have concise game without bloat, then something with way too much to do. Most of the time, I'm not going to do a lot of it. I'm not the kid I was when the og came out. I don't have unlimited time. Chrono Trigger is still my favorite game of all time, partly because it is so streamlined and doesn't have a bunch of extra busy work to do that I didn't want to do anyway. I like games in the 20-40 hour range. It means you have to have something to say with your story and you also can't over bloat things with hunts, and picking up materials by walking over them (I hate this trend in games, no more trash loot!), or sidequests that are just fetch quests with no character development. I like to do my own method of completion. It's not usually the platinum trophy, it's usually find all items, defeat all bosses, and see all scenes. In order to do that in Rebirth, I had to platinum the game. I generally like to complete things as they become available, so I was doing all of the intel, the sidequests, the mini games, hard modes of all the mini games, and everything else as I played through the game. With that said, it took me 174 hours to complete the main story of the game. That is way too long. I got platinum at about 240 hours. I would have rather game been half as long to play as it is. I would have cut about 60% of the mini games. They don't add anything and they were often reskins of games I had played before, but implemented with poor controls. Queen's Blood was great, I loved that the entire time, but a lot of the other stuff just needed to go (crunches, gliding chocobo, frog jumping, etc.). I would have also scaled back on the exploration. I loved it initially, but Gongaga killed it for me because it's so hard to navigate and changing my controls every time I took off and every time I landed in Cosmo Canyon didn't help either. I was glad when I got to Nibel and had the chocobo right away and could fly over everything. I loved the game! Almost everything was great, but it just had too much some of the time.
Excellent review. I agree with you on 99.9% of you opinions, ESPECIALLY Cid. He felt nothing at all like Cid in OG. His upbeat positive attitude did not match what i felt from OG. I just finished FF XVI and i felt like that Cid was closer to FFVII OG Cid than Rebirth. Really loved the game overall but they definitely missed the mark on a lot of key things.
My thoughts on the content issue: It's not so much that the game itself is long - it's more that to feel any progression, you need to invest a lot of time into the game. Let's take a look at an MMO. While keeping on topic, let's look at Final Fantasy XIV. Obviously, an MMO is not possible to "complete" in the traditional sense, but at the same time, people will play these without issue. I think the problem is that with a game like Rebirth, you can have long stretches of either a major story point or boss battle, etc. that just seem to eat up any available time you have to play. This can make the game seem like a complete slog to get through. If it takes me two hours to defeat a single boss and do nothing else in the game, I won't feel a great deal of satisfaction since I haven't really done anything outside of fight one boss. I feel that Rebirth (or any long games for that matter) need to have a way to break progression into chunks. Something where you can complete a lot of smaller tasks to feel some kind of progression. You can do this with side content, sure, but this needs to also hold true for the main storyline. My other thoughts about the Aerith scene: You aren't feeling that same emotion since you already know it's going to happen. You're at the Temple of the Ancients. You subconsciously know what is coming up soon. You've anticipated this the whole time, and you already know the twist. You may not know how it's going to play out, but you already know it. YOU may not feel that same emotional impact, but you've already been spoiled by the original game. It's the same reason why a similar plot twist in a different game or movie doesn't feel that impactful. You may even go and say "oh, this is like that one game", which will take you out of the moment. To be fair, SE had no way of re-capturing something we all knew was coming. The only way they could have changed that is if they re-wrote what happened either earlier or later in the game and threw us off guard. I'm willing to bet that someone who went into the game completely blind might have had that gut punch. Maybe not AS impactful as the original game, but still. Seeing Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge during the theater scene actually hit me way harder. Like - WAY harder.
Thank you for all your work. I've been watching your videos for years because FFVII was one of the first games I owned. It was well after the PS3 era but it was a game I always came back to. I loved this game, the OG and remake for similar and different reasons. Now I'm just a humble guy on the internet although as much as I love it there are a few things that annoyed me like Gongaga traversal was tedious at times, the music for Aerith's segment in Chapter 13 was a little too short for how long you're in there, and some of the mini-games didn't seem well balanced. That said, I don't think I have both laughed or teared up over any source of media ever. There are a few quality of life things that could be better, such as; saved load outs or access to weapons and materia within the VR menu, and I love to see a sub-chapter select if there is a specific boss you want to fight but those nuisances don't compare to the amount good quality gameplay that the game has to offer. I just got a consistent "counterfire" with Cloud after an embarrassing few hundred hours and it is awesome. Anyways, as much as I would love to write about this game for hours I appreciate all the work you have put in over the years. I hope to see this channel to continue to grow, thanks again.
Excellent review. Somehow, my experience and opinion on everything lines up with yours. The only exception is that I didn't feel the mini-game drag until Gongaga. The mushrooms....
Loved your review and you explained your opinions really well, especially as a deep fan. The ending scene felt very overstuffed and sort of rushed. It's like they didn't want there to be any point in the game where Aerith just "leaves the party" and you go do the digging mini game before City of the Ancients (which I was kind of looking forward to lol). But I just beat it about 3 days ago and it's been on my mind 24/7 so that says something? It COULD be ambitious, depending on how part 3 plays out. But in the moment I have complicated feelings about the ending, and that kind of sucks. The pessimistic side of me just feels like they threw in a lot of Kingdom Hearts-ish messiness that really ruined how special and emotional that scene was in the original. But the optimistic (or more forgiving?) side of me kind of respects their attempt to do something different that might make the actual realization that she's gone-gone that much more world shattering. At least for players who are holding onto some hope that she's alive, somehow? All in all, both games so far have been handled with a lot of care for the characters, which is what's most important to me.
I'm going to have to seriously disagree with your opinion about Aerith and Cloud's relationship being sidelined. I think if anything it's an improvement, because not only was that born out of Cloud simply thinking he's Zack, something he partially comes out of this time, but it made disc 1 a lot more annoying than it otherwise would have been. Instead of being an enjoyable story about a bunch of characters, it's instead of story about how this out of place character who doesn't fit with the rest of the game (I guess she was supposed to be different because she's an ancient, but still) keeps creeping on the main protagonist, even if he keeps choosing dialogue options to reject her. Not to mention that because square enix decided to make her a critique of annoying woke Western women in this trilogy, she is now a far more toxic character than she originally was. If they kept up the love triangle heat going, it would have made both remake and rebirth insufferable experiences As it is, chapter 8 from remake was rather annoying. I will say however it is definitely a change, and if your issue is that it's not purist enough, then I guess there's nothing that could be said other than we just have to respect each other's opinions. I can honestly say I don't agree with you about this though. I largely agree with most of the rest of what you said however, just wanted to point out weather might be an alternate perspective.
Completely disagree with your takes on Aerith. I feel like their relationship is much deeper here than in the original. There's so much subtext in everyone's interactions that was simply impossible in the PS1. Sometimes, I feel like "oh my god this performance is so good" but then I remember that these aren't actors but ANIMATED CARTOONS LIKE WTF. I mean, obviously the actors did an amazing job (I played it in Japanese) so that may add to the nuance to their interactions, but I really feel like Aerith's relationships are really deep and well thought out.
Nope. The game length is fine. Less time to wait for the 3rd game. It was 4 months for me. 2h per day max. Ok. 300h would probably to much:) but 200h was fine.
I hated the story decisions but gameplay wise its obviously amazing. No shera, paralel universe shit again(tired of seeing it, its everywhere), middle finger to Clerith shippers like myself etc etc.
I still think us Clerith shippers might have some opportunities in the 3rd game. I'm intrigued by what'll occur. It would be an odd choice to remove any and all nods hinting to that ship.. More so because FF7 Remake and FF7 Rebirth barely had any romance scenes with Zack and Aerith ... so it's hard for me to think that's the direction Square wants to take things. It's ideal to build up chemistry and I definitely see more chemistry with Aerith and Cloud right now over Aerith in Zack. If you're concerned about the lack of a kiss at the Gold Saucer date, my take is that Aerith is holding back her affections because she wants Cloud to discover himself, not masking a certain someone. She's uncertain about locking lips until Cloud is himself, the Cloud she admires. I hope it turns out we get a Schrödinger's Aerith. She's dead in the Beagle Stamp dog world and after Cloud blocked Sephiroth's blade another Aerith survived in a new world. Cloud just sees both worlds or outcomes simultaneously. So we can have new experiences or moments with her character. I hope Cloud will summon Aerith in the 3rd game and have more conversations and cute moments with her.
@@ourfamilyaccount Those last sections were confusing really. I think equality in the date system is fair. To me Zack is a stereotypical goofball char who always smiles, laughs etc to take the seriousness away.
53:00 - I finished the game and I am an adult with kids, game is definetely 18+ so I had to play in late evenings. 135hrs and I finished it on Normal, without Gilgamesh island, and without all VR bosses. And I felt overwhelmed. Like extremely overwhelmed. To the point of being tired of playing. And to be honest - PS5 is now a media player. I don't play, I bought it for FF7 Rebirth specifically and I do not regret it. Maybe I'd move some VR bosses to postgame? Not hard mode only but available postgame - this way it would generate less FOMO. I have a "difficult and busy moment in my life (same happened when Remake came out)" - but I am sure that will come back do FF7 Rebirth later because it is The Place I’ll Return to Someday
I think it's cool that they denied the player closure in the same way that cloud was denied his. Even if you think you know what really happened the way the sequence is done makes it really difficult to feel whatever the reality is. I expect the full impact and weight will be explored in the next game, probably filling in those moments we lost in this game because if they don't I don't see what the point would be
Truth word But I can see why they done that This game build open world from zero and so much story so much cutscene Every dungeon will need line of lore of story , ncp , and monster They cut that off and put every on chadley back But now Most of system open world are online (not from zero anymore) if they want put dungeon into then part 3 will be that game But maybe am wrong they just do not care about dungeon
I don't think the game's too long, BUT. I was kinda wondering if you'd touch on this - one aspect got really old really fast for me, and I'm sad to say it's the intel mechanic. Or not the whole thing, I loved the world intel and lore we got, and aside from the needlessly cumbersome tower climbs Chadley's stuff was fun to do. But the gameyness of them really took me out of the immersion and feel of all the unique areas with their amazing music. Did there have to be a short jingle every time a tower was activated etc., a sound every time a piece of intel ball plopped into the line? And for that matter, Chad-boy didn't have to inform Cloud vocally (after a tedious animation) each time that now he could update the summon or whatever if there was no other info. Now I love OG, loved Remake and at first/mostly loved what Rebirth is, but towards the end I didn't love it anymore and that is actually why. (Thank goodness temple was amazing and jingle-free, but the damage was done, way before it.) I do get that it's its own thing and games are different now than in 1997, but I feel like the feel of the game (which they nailed in many aspects) suffers, the sense of wonder is being... cheapened by the jingles. Let minigames be minigames and exploration be about finding SECRETS, monsters and treasures. Thanks for the amazing review and let's play
Finally got around to watching this, now that I'm mostly through the game (just got done with chapter 12). Great review! I'll come back again when I finally finish the game for that spoiler talk. I so fully agree on your feelings about the characters, especially Cid. Cid just doesn't feel right. Hopefully his character more aligns with the original character in the next game, because his growth in the original game is really important to who he is. I still mostly liked how they did Dyne's character here, but he did feel more like an wacky insane shonen anime character, rather than a broken man with righteous/understandable hatred. The question about is it too long is one I have been wrestling with as I'm now hitting the 100 hour mark in my first playthrough. There's many other games I want to play, let alone other hobbies and things in life I want/need to do. But learning to not keep up with the Joneses is best I think (I'm still learning this lol). It's impossible to play every game, read every book, watch every show, hike every mountain, etc etc. I'm learning to be ok with that and it's helped as friends move on to other games. But also, I'm still getting to revel in FF7Rebirth and it's amazing every step of the way. Not everyone gets to experience their favorite thing again for the first time. But FF7 fans get to with the Re:Trilogy, and I'm happy we all get to experience this. I'm also interested to see how I'll feel with a second hard mode playthrough that is purely focused on the main story and then comparing the two experiences. We'll see!
I don’t think it was too long, the content was right up my alley so I enjoyed all of it. I would argue elden ring and BOTW was too long despite being shorter imo. BOTW had a very short story but the side stuff was way more massive than Rebirth and Elden ring. Rebirth only feels longer bc of the cutscenes and character moments.
my biggest gripe, too many mini games. half the game is mini games and most of the mini games i found to be more frustrating and tedious than fun and enjoyable (QB was done well)
So far still the best arpg I have experienced in 2024, shadow of the erdtree come close to be 2nd. Personally, I quite enjoyed FF7RB most mini games and appreciated the end game challenges boss fights.
Nothing you said about Red XIII I felt during my play through. I never felt like he was just “a dog”. I thought the game did a great job showing us he was just a kid that the original FF7 attempted to portray but couldn’t translate it due to the technology of its time. If anything I felt they did Red XIII justice, and I really loved his shift into the kid he always was when you get to Cosmo Canyon. It was a refreshing surprise. I agree with a lot of what you said up until Red XIII, but then you just started not to make any sense. I don’t just disagree, I strongly oppose your take on Nanaki.
Amazing game. It is so big that I needed to take a break after completing the story. I am just getting back into clearing side content before my hard mode playthrough. While I do agree that the side content can get overwhelming (especially, if you are a completionist, like me), it's side content. You don't need to do it. But I am going after that Platinum and I'll get it! Haha.
I'm thinking about eventually playing Remake & Rebirth, but... The little bit of Remake I watched when my brother played it convinced me it's not a storytelling style I'd like. Original FF7 was rightfully very coy about Sephiroth, just barely hinting at who/what we're up against. Remake was dangling Sephiroth around constantly, like they just couldn't wait to jump to the end. It's like listening to someone who doesn't know how to tell a joke... tell a joke. They're so busy telling you about the punchline, they keep interrupting the setup to jump ahead.
@Avowed009 What are you talking about, liking my own comment? And yea, if my brother starts playing, I'll start watching. And when Sephiroth is already showing up in the first few minutes and talking to the protagonist, that's a huge pivot from the storytelling style of the first game. I can guarantee you're not here on authentic terms. You're just here to gaslight and pick fights. Based on that, I'm guessing you're what... like 13 years old? Keep to yourself, kid.
@@legend36555 You can ignore this Avowed account and report it. It's just another bot. It posts copies of the same comments all over, and even replied with duplicate text to my comments on other videos from other creators.
After how much i despised the ending of Rebirth idek if im gettinf part 3 (im a much more recent FF7 fan for context) but if it was a hundred hours longer than Reb than no way in hell Granted, i had clinicals during my playtime, so i was for sure in the "2 hours a day" camp
It is rarely that I comment, but I feel that your review is very much on point and addresses the "flaws" of Rebirth quiet accurate specifically regarding certain story aspects. However I strongly disagree with your assesssment of the love-triangle and the interaction between Aerith and Cloud. While playing the game I never felt that the interactions between the two were not there, hollow or goofy. I guinely felt that they were getting closer every chapter. If anything I always felt a sting knowing that by the end she will be gone and he will be heartbroken. To me it seemed that she had a feeling that this was going to happen thus appreciated every moment with him e.g. the beach scene, Gold Saucer date 1 & 2 or the Cosmo Fire scene.
Red's voice change. I don't mind the voice on its own, it's a good voice, the issue is simply that it absolutely does not fit even slightly with who everyone on earth feels red is supposed to be. The voice is good but it's not red. It doesn't fit the character we know and love.
I understand why people would think this game feels too long, but to me it felt short. I've grown so attached to these characters that I wanted to keep hanging out with them even after the game was over. I got the platinum and even though it cost me my sanity, I still want to go back and play it again from scratch. This game is amazing though they really need to tone it down with the mini-games in part 3. Anyway, great review. ^^
I really wish they would have killed off aerith in a clear manner and just end it with a jenova fight like the original. I wanted to feel emotions but with this ending there wasnt emotion, just confusion. My wife watched me beat the game and i had to explain to her that aerith is actually dead and she still didnt understand cause aerith was fighting and in the ending scenes
I love that while having 100% different opinions we have the same though process. Eg I for one dislike the ost because of those remixes and not reusing og music. Great review.
A lot of people have missed the NPC in Cosmo Canyon who talks about her parents dying but not actually dead but on a different plane, the lifesteam and memories emotions create worlds. It’s included for a reason and easily missed. I felt the emotions more in this than the original, I disagree with you on that part.
Long gameplay is good, lots of minigames are not. There are games like ff12 that are packed with fights and its great, but it isnt full of useless, cringey, boring minigames.
I am impressed how extremely balanced this review is. I know from the playthrough that your general impression was very positive, but I deeply appreciate that you have also found the time to describe all the drawbacks so that anyone can carve their own experience.
Dude if it was any other game that would take 100 hours long for the story, I’d pass. But because this is FF7, I will endure and see it through to the end.
I agree with a lot of the points you made I would like to talk about cid though. Although you are correct in some of the point you made about him I have a different take on him. I think he is only being nice to aerith and it just happens to benefit the party. When they make their first flight to cosmo canyon he is shit talking Shinra and at the start of chapter 12 he is fairly brash with barret showing the cid from the og game. I think that him being nice to aerith will set up why he joins the party nicely. The way he joined the party in og doesn’t really make sense. In the og he just says that your a numbskull and joins cuz he has nothing better to do. So this will be a nice change as to why he joins the party.
Red13 - is he a steward of the planet or a teenager dog? Well the answer to that is simple: both. It's the case of a child who had to become adult to soon, who feels that he has obligations, has to prove himself. But on the other hand he hasn't lost that part of a teenager yet. A constant dillema and a mixture of emotions that are greatly presented by voice actor. And I understand that some people do not resonate with that theme. We all had our own paths in life, and therefore we understand art differently.
The video I've been waiting for.
Yes! I watched all 100 of your YT let’s play videos and have been waiting for this.
I've played 450 hours, completed hard mode from zero twice and I still haven't done hard mode mini games or the hardest battles challenges. The game is immense. I love it.
I'm sorry to hear that.
4-8 has some great (and I mean GREAT) guides for the minigames in hard and stuff. Optinoob has some great stuff as well for VR challenges. And I'm not a shill, I'm too tired.
@@wren7195 I'd rather figure them out for myself... When I have time
@@108Rudi No problem man, I hope you get the time and opportunity! Best luck and wishes
I hear ya on Cid. I felt the same way. But I do feel strongly that his demeanor will change in Rocktown. Because remember, most of his bitterness stems from Shera causing that original launch to be aborted. Which we find out later saved his life, but her mere presence seems to trigger him early on.
You will never see a man putting down a woman the same way Cid put down and guilt tripped Shera for what she did in the original with modern Square Enix if the 'ethics' department has anything to say about it.
Her regret and dedication to Cid, the nuance of their relationship, and the fact that Cid still immeasurably values her in spite of her enormous fuck up is one of the reasons I believe he was changed this much. Death is super optimistic (and I think you share his optimism) that this may change when the party gets to rocket town but I don't think it will.
@@rufrox9947you’ve got it right. In the modern day, you can redeem junkies, terrorists, murderers, and psychopaths, but you are not allowed to redeem a man who is verbally abusive to women. This is who Cid is now, so we just have to get used to it.
All valid points. Cant argue any of it. But I hope you're both wrong haha. We'll see.
@@KrakkaJax It runs down the problem of not being able separate own beliefs and the way how character is written. Well written character with morals or views different from one's own is still better than making pamphlet of a character spouting stuff which one already agrees with.
@@KrakkaJax lol they'll redeem the turks, rufus, and maybe even Sephiroth who literally killed the main characters mom and burned his village and killed aerith, but cid being Verbally abusive to shera is where they draw the line? insane.
Can't speak for the devs, but I feel like it was their intent on making us not feel as sad that Aerith died in Rebirth. We saw the death scene from Cloud's perspective. They wanted us to feel what Cloud was feeling at that moment where he's slowly losing his mind and can't tell from reality and delusion. I'm hoping that we'll see the rest of the group's perspective going into Part 3.
My thought after playing the game was that Cloud DID save Aerith in the timeline we played in, but then it transitions back to the original OG timeline. Now she’s alive in a different time and can still help. Is that wrong?
@@Pawnbandnah, You could be right. Aerith is now free to do exactly what Sephiroth is doing, But in her own way.
We did not see it from his perspective. We saw it from his POV in OG when he knew damn well what happened to her and wasn't in this 'denial' he's in now that is horribly ( and stupidly ) written and throws everything he said after her murder out the window.
The ending looks to me as setup for greater consequence in the fallout when Cloud hands off the black materia to Sephiroth in the 3rd part. Having him break through the illusions just before being flooded into the lifestream could potentially allow for the scenes with Tifa reconstructing Clouds mind, to show us the reality they all saw at the end there and get us to experience the gut wrenching feeling that Cloud will have realising she's gone long after the fact and that he missed the chance to mourn in the moment with everyone and now needs to step up in order to finish what's been started. An isolated moment in the mid point of the 3rd game with it's own breathing room, a newer experience of the reaction as well as more opportunities to expand on non-jenova'd up Cloud in that moment.
I don’t think cloud is that deluded, it’s more sephiroth and jenova continually fucking with him. He 100% knows aerith is dead though
Thank you for doing an actual review and not a 4 hour long plot summary
Cid is nice in Rebirth because we are his paying customers, and he's on the job, as our hired pilot.
Watch him turn into classic Cid the moment we meet Shera, in part 3. I'll put my Gil on that.
Anyway, excellent review, and very thorough. You basically put forward everything I have said about the game, and I haven't found a review I agreed with more, and I've watched them all. Great video.
Everyone says this and we know its not true. Nobody is fooled, we know why he changed. Square is very much partnered with Sweet Baby and ESG. As is the whole industry at this point. It will be interesting to see Part 3 make it through unscathed but i doubt it.
LOL on the job? he literally took them to the gold saucer for free and was being nice just for the sake of being nice. he basically forced himself into the party in rebirth lol
@@harry5384 Yeah, no. When you first signal him (at his job) you have to pay a few thousand gil to get to any location for the first time. This then goes down to something pretty meaningless (like 10 gil or free or something) after the first journey. He's absolutely on the job.
@@MrConeman when they leave nibelheim cid says “it’s on me” and takes them to the saucer for free. And then he forces himself into the party. Even when we’re at the temple of the ancients he says something like “when you get back I’ll be waiting for you” it’s never felt authentic or forced. It feels like cid almost knows the party from the beginning. He helps the party for no reason
@@harry5384 by that point he has already become part of the crew, and wants to help Aerith based on his supposed connection to Ifalna.
When you first meet him (and for several trips after) you pay for his services. You know I'm right 🤷
This video was as anticipated as the game was. Though i followed the full playthrough live, can't wait to see what your final take is after you had time to let it sit
Fun fact about rebirth's end credits you may already know, when all the slides of cutscenes are scrolling with the credits, there are a few that seem to be _missing_
Two of them are right around a time frame that would have the lake scene after Aerith's death. It's like Sqaure putting Cloud goggles on us and then telling us.
Or they're just playing up the confusion for the fan base as a lead-up for part 3. If they showed anything specific from that time frame, it would be taken as confirmation, one way or the other.
16:36 I feel the need to push back on the idea that Aerith barely gets any important scenes in this game. What immediately came to mind is the scene where Cloud and Aerith are talking on the beach in Costa del Sol after the fight with Hojo. Here Aerith talks about the feelings of hatred she feels for Hojo, and worries about the darkness within her. She later learns from Gi Nattak about how intolerant the Cetra could be. And in Nibelheim she again admits to feeling jealousy about Cloud and Tifa's friendship (which she can probably tell will blossom into a full relationship by the end of game 3). And then, in the Temple of the Ancients, she reads the inscription about how the warrior must "forget not thine ire, for it shall remake thee." Afterwards she gives her speech about people need to have the capacity to forgive each other. All of this is important because Aerith's arc is about refusing to let the pain she has felt keep her from doing what needs to be done, which is save all of humanity, even sinners like Shinra, even probably the Gi, from the vengeful threat Sephiroth poses. It's all building to her resolve to go to the Forgotten Capital alone to pray to protect her friends. She definitely has her own arc in this game, and I think the setup and payoff is well done, for the most part.
I agree, also her big Cosmo Canyon speech.
The only way she “dropped off” for me was in the side quests. We get a lot of Yuffi & Red side quests in the late game.
I felt like it had been a while since I really hung out with Aerith & Tifa.
Though I guess this can vary if you don’t do them in order of appeared.
The only rebirth review that matters.
This is fr THE Review !
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Nope.
This and Max Doods'
@@francisdaly1757 true ~
Dude, that thing about the music/song volume being so loud you can’t hear the character dialogue really bothered me actually. I felt like this was something I hadn’t heard from anyone else.
Nah fr like im weirdly used to it cause i still play rebirth even now but damn its gets bad, especially with the tiny bronco in the water
I modified the settings pretty quickly. After that I didn't have issues with it.
I put FX on 3 and music on 6, that was just about bearable.
I noticed too, I lowered the music to 7 and I didn’t have a problem with it again.
Yeah I just lowered the volume early on and then when talking to my friend about the game a few days later he said the same thing.
This video is going to be wonderful! I can't wait for FFVII Rebirth Materia Combinations!!!
I agree with everything you said about the problem with thr death scene mainly being that they didn't focus on the emotion of the scene (and the impact it had on the character) and letting the emotion really sink in. I wish they'd thought about it the way Yoko Taro and the Nier team design scenes: figure out what emotional response they want the audience to experience, and then build around that.
Granted, the giant immediate-post-death final boss was awesome in its own right, but it is sad that it got in the way of such an emotional scene.
Great work here. Very much agree to just about everything. The minigame point was SPOT on.
Dyne as a character was ruined for me, and Red's new voice wasn't necessary for me, and I didn't like it. Also I felt like the last 10 hours were the only part of the story that really mattered. It was information overload at the end. Those are my only real complaints. That, and also there's a bit too much content, and it gets exhausting when everything is a puzzle it feels like. A lot of it doesn't hit, and could have been cut.
I just hated how Dyne was so polar opposite of his character towards Barrett than in the OG. And I felt the Shinra soldiers came from nowhere.
O also, Aerith's part at the temple caused my control to have analog drift. I wish game devs didn't use mechanics that make you stress the analog like that.
Lastly I was disappointed that progress from Remake couldn't carry over.
Queen's Blood went from fun, but easy to legendary difficult immediately. It caused serious wiplash. Also, I wish Ft. Condor was done more like how it was done in Integrade where there were opponents in every area, and where you earned pieces and play style.
Cid was completely changed, and watered down. And I hated battle with Cait Sith.
Lastly, fuck the half button presses at Jules' gym. Fuck those in particular. And the Gold Saucer fighting mini game was impossible without pause spamming.
@Avowed009 I'm sorry, do I know you?
Don’t forget Chocobo racing 😭
@@skysetblue9578 That was fun haha. But I wish they had chocobo breeding. It peesonalized it more.
The amount of skill to have a perfect in One wing angel is insane ! Kudos to you 🤓
I'm astounded how amazing Rebirth was, can't even believe it's a real game. I was so impressed with the improvements on the gameplay, the music is just as great as always, and how much fun I had through the whole experience. Tone down some of the chadley dialogue and some of the bland open world tasks is all I ask though lol. With how great Remake and Rebirth are, the next game is going to be incredible.
One thing they keep doing consistently is botching their heavy scenes. They don't allow for sad or heavy scenes to breathe. Dyne's death is immediately interrupted by a Palmer boss-fight, who is the resident FF7 clown. Seto's reveal is interrupted by the Gi and a Black Materia lore-dump IMMEDIATELY, I don't hate this segment itself, I just hate how it interrupted a pivotal scene for Nanaki. Then there's the ending, which was just a mess, so the less said there the better.
It's like the director wants to make you sad, but not too sad, so he immediately starts dangling keys after a heavy scene is done playing, to distract the player from processing the moment, going: "OOOOO Look at the jingling keys they make a jingly noise OOOO lookadit!".
Beyond that, the game is pretty fantastic.
Yeah sadly both Remake and Rebirth lose so much gravitas due to this. I had fun with it but for me the OG is still the definitive way to experience the story. The pacing and emotional depth feels way better to me. I wanted to love Rebirth and went in with an open mind, but when it really mattered it failed to deliver.
A great game, but not great storytelling.
I couldn't even get sad for the Dyne scene because of how over the top they made it. If I didn't know ff7 and you told me that it was a Bryan Fury cutscene from the new Tekken, I would've believed you.
100% spot on.
Its like they don't have faith that the major moments in the original can stand on their own in a modern remake. Hoping they recognize this pattern for part 3. Can't imagine Cloud getting his memories back but have like 50 boss battles before during and after the sequence.
@@ry2950 get ready for cloud and tifa to fight sephiroth's whispers in the LS sequence lol
The Platinum trophy simply made me give up playing this game. I was tired of Chadley's demands.
PS: I love the original game...
As far as game length, I think it is important to allow the player some flexibility in terms of optional content that is meaningful. Like OG FF7 did this really well. You can play through the main story pretty quick but if you are a player that really wants to take their time exploring every corner of the world you are rewarded with entire optional characters and extra storylines lines, awesome weapons/abilities, etc.
So refreshing to see a review from an OG fan who isn't on the hate train. I loved it. I had moments I could pick at, sure, as I'm sure anyone does. But I had moments of like kicking my feet in joy too. I'm looking forward to the end of the journey in pt 3.
I do think they robbed us of the emotion of the ending with Aerith’s death. We needed to see it as the player even if cloud doesn’t. There was a lot of teasing with does she die or not and they completely blew it. They can have questions about part 3 showing cloud seeing something different after. She could show up for the last fight and then cloud see her and then show clouds version. That would have still carried the emotional hit of the death.
It’s an amazing game but they got Aerith’s death all wrong. Yes we’ll see it for real in part 3 but it won’t have the same emotional hit and anticipation
They didn't rob the emotion of her death. We see Cloud's feeling extreme loss and we also see how important she is to him.
You were only robbed of any emotion if you're a Cloti shipper like this channel that doesn't understand the story and can't pick up on its emotional bits because of the bitterness he feels towards Aerith
The only part I didn’t really like even though how minor it is , is how rushed the ending feels from Temple of Ancients to the Forgotten City I would of loved to be able to explore the Forgotten City but we only got to go through it like only 5 mins, maybe we’ll go there in part 3 but either way it’s a minor fault
I understand what you are saying in regards to the ending and how it became a "is she or isn't she really dead" sorta deal. But, I have to say that I still very much felt the intended emotions here.
The looming dread as Cloud walks up to the altar and we hear Aerith praying to the Cetra. Pleading with them to help her protect her friends because that is the only thing she really wants. The white whispers keeping Cloud away because her death has to happen, then the black whispers trying to force Cloud to try and strike Aerith down himself. Then Sephiroth swooping in and Cloud seeing him and actually acts and tries his damnedest to defy this fate. I was on the edge of my seat. I was hoping so hard that he would succeed and that somehow Aerith would not die this time... But she did. And I when Aerith's theme swelled up during the beginning of the JENOVA fight and could hold the tears back anymore.
For me, seeing Cloud be given the opportunity to stop it but in the end it still happens anyway was heart wrenching. It really shows that Aerith's death was truly inevitable. She cannot be saved. And with her being my favorite Final Fantasy character ever, that hurt man! lol
Great vid death, for me the final was so confusing, and i agree, that it took off most of the emotion i felt for this moment in the original. At the end, i felt a bit pissed at cloud who kept thinking she's alive, and just sitting with a smile (?), completely lost on his own illusion. Concerning the last battle, having sephiroth comming again to fight and leaving for the second time as he please, was a bit annoying i would say. That being said, i really hope like you said, that we will feel the scene from other characters point of view, and foremost that cloud will stop being that weird, get back to reality
I think they nailed it and kept the whispers shit just small enough that I could stand it. Best game of the year so far for sure
The thing you said about the Gi-Nattak scene... I agree wholeheartedly. This scene was such a comical mess. First you have one of the most anticipated moments, Seto's music, the uplifting story told by gramps... I remember that I was sitting and just crying because his story of identity crisis and getting to know the truth about his father felt so genuine. And then they had to do it! They had to ruin it by putting a newly made side character, that looks completely dumb with a worthless side-plot to ruin the whole scene. When I saw his stupid mask staring at me I started maniacally laughing like a lunatic. It was so jarring that my mind couldn't comprehend the emotional reaction to it. I think that it was one of the moments that ruined the overall experience for me. At least I had a totally unique reaction... The other time in my life I had a similar reaction was during the movie "Click" with Adam Sandler... That's not a good thing when you compare one of the most emotional moments in the game to an Adam Sandler movie.
It was much worse then the Dyne scene - which was also not good, but not THAT BAD. I don't really know why did they change the Dyne scene from the original - it was much darker and it fitted the tone of the game much better. He was a tragic character that made so many bad decisions that in his mind - there was no other way. And here? He died fighting generic shinra grunts that finally have better aim and appear from absolutely nowhere? I loved the game, played it all almost to a platinum, but damn it has lots of issues... The best things from Remake were even better, but the worst things where even worse. This game was so tiring that I didn't play any PS5 games in a month.
Great job dude, been watching you since forever, lol
Cheers from Poland!
I have not watched a great deal of your content, but this was an amazing review. You hit all the points that I was interested about hearing your point of view on. Also, your tone and calmness made for a good watch as well. I had Covid when Rebirth released. I was able to play it nonstop and beat it in a week with a time of 102 hours. I was burnt out, though. I had played through it way too fast and have not returned to it since. I hope to get back into it sooner than later.
Well! I think you schould go back and pay attention to section and the monolog that Arieth has in Costa dela Sol. Becöuse whitout make any spolier. She is saying a lot of importent things on the beatch and whe dhe talks to red.
I was waiting for this one so much. Seriously you are one of the few person on the planet who love OG VII more than me! ♥
10/10 review, one of the best I've ever seen. I've got some serious issues with Rebirth but overall, I got more than my money's worth.
I been waiting for your review for this game for a long time. GREAT review. Really looking forward to the next part.
The arguement of a game being to large in this case just seems silly. You are forgetting that you are just an adult now, and seeing time as an adult, they still had these types of games when you were kid, and thats why you liked them.
Late to this but answering the primary question about length. The longest single game I have played is a Pokemon romhack called Pokemon Unbound, which took me 202 hours to beat the game 100%. The next closest is Octopath Traveler, which took me about 110 hours to beat 100%. I have never played a game so long as 300 hours but- Square Enix, if you are reading this- I'm down to try it. And if that means increasing the price to $100+ for a master craft of this story, I will still buy it. And I would pay another $100+ to fix all of the tiny nitpicks like the music volume, or lighting bug, or whatever else. In the modern economic landscape where every product feels like chasing safe dollars or recycling the same garbage, I will happily pay to play for an actual premium product. There's only one vendor offering a perfect FF7 experience.
Rebirth is too long because it's the middle ten hours of story in FF7 stretched to... about 100 hours. I can accept this kind of pacing because it's FF7 and I love FF7, but this kind of pacing is not good. It's not good for development because it makes it take too long to get their point across. We'll have had about 7-8 years on this trilogy. It's costing them a fortune and it's not getting the yields it needs to justify that fortune. It's also not good newcomers who just aren't getting the kind of amazingly paced story that the original Final Fantasy 7 was. We aren't getting enough new story to justify the added length. We learned very little in Rebirth that we didn't know coming in. I feel like we've learned more in Ever Crisis's 45 minutes of First Soldier story than we did in Rebirth.
I don't feel ripped off, but i do feel sad about it. The reality of the matter is that we didn't need the open world. It added a ton of expense and the point could have been gotten across entirely with an old school abstracted-scale world map for pennies on the dollar. Some fans would like it less, some would have liked it more, but the only things we would have *had* to lose with that are stupid Ubisoft towers and something that honestly felt like nothing more than a series of repetitive checklists. The best things we got out of it were some interesting fights in each area... and we could have gotten those with a regular old world map too. I guess we would have the annoying traversal of Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon too. Whoop-de-doo.
I love the game, don't get me wrong, I just don't love that we've got this chopped up business of three very long games that we have to wait a decade to get through to experience a story that, for the most part... we already know.
I'll watch this review in a few years after I get a PS5 and play the game. Until we meet again, my friend.
I don't agree with your take on the marathon of minigames simply because almost none of it is required to progress. You said you HAD to do the QB tournament on the boat but you actually don't have to play even one game. You can just not participate and talk to the receptionist to move on. In Junon you only need 5 groups of soldiers and not the full 10. In Costa you only have to do I think 3 or maybe only 2 of the mini games to get the costume tickets and its player choice to do the rest. I invite you to replay this section of the game in a speedrun and try to blitz through this section as fast as possible and I guarantee you will change your mind. It falls under the same umbrella as what you said about the towers, you can just do a little bit and move on. I think like 95% of players played remake and suspect there would be a hard mode and chapter select to come back to these areas to 100% it so can choose to move on, like I did. You spent WAY longer in this section of the game than I personally did.
Although I do agree I find that most people want to interact with most things their first time through so they don't feel like they missed things. I would imagine next to nobody skipped the entire queens blood tourny unless they really disliked queens blood, and I wanted to find all of the soldiers because the interactions were funny and I wanted to know what the reward was. Costa Del Sol there was a pretty obvious hint that you could do the minigames later if you wanted so I agree there, but I think most people would want to do most if not all of the above mentioned to avoid FOMO, then regret it after the fact, which isn't what you want from a game design standpoint.
Loved the game but by the end I was so tired of it: there was just too much bloat in the open world. Sailing the Bronco in to floating crap in the ocean, the summon shrines, the wellsprings, the infamous mushroom-picking minigame... the list goes on. Even that weird sphere grid thing was wholly unnecessary. It really affected the pacing of the game for me. They could have slimmed it down to a 60/70 hour game instead of 80/90 quite easily. I genuinely think it would have been one of the greatest games ever if they had just had a bit more control over the scope of the game.
Throughout my life I'd always looked forward to a second playthrough of FF games. FF7 Remake is such a tight game (okay there are two filler episodes...) that a casual re-play doing everything takes 30 hours. Playing this game again does not appeal greatly to me. I think if I were to play it again, I genuinely think it would be to just slam through the story and experience that again, because that aspect was worth every penny.
I always saw Cid as being miserable he lost his shot at going to space. So miserable that he chained smoked. Happy people don't chain smoke like that. So when I played the original game, I imagined a broken has been of a man, short on breathe and expecting to die and deciding he had a bit more left to give. It would not be possible to smoke and do that kind of combat unless you were on a planet of super soldiers and magical powers haha. Good review. I have to find the time to finish Rebirth.
I kind of expected they would give him a toothpick instead.
ff7 original will always be the best. i didnt mind rebirth but the gongaga map was awful. and the design of cosmo canyon was a maze nightmare... could have made it eaiser to navigate. overall a 7.5 out of 10
@Avowed009 what?.. ummm first of all i never "liked" my own comment, and second of all do you even know what a casual is you bafoon?.. a casual is a gamer who hasnt played the originall ff7 or any ff for that matter.. they are in it just to play. where as I have played all the ff and can thouroughly analyze the review. clown comment so try again
You make a really valid point if a game can be too long, I believe it can. I love that a game is long, it makes me feel like it was worth the money. But then on the other hand, if you had a game that was 200 hrs but the pacing was inconsistent you would start to get impatient for more of the story and want a conclusion to the hrs you just put into the game, if a game is extremely long the pacing NEEDS to be consistent or risk losing the interest of the player. In my style of play, I like to go from start to finish and get the entire story at a consistent pace, and then later after finishing the game, I will do more exploration etc. I'm not into games making you finish certain aspects of the game (Mini games etc) before moving on with the story, when I was watching your play though, I didn't get that impression, you could stay and finish a zone or move on. But what makes this game long (I feel) was them trying to tell the story, and in my opinion if its the story that long, that's not a problem, there is just SO much story they want you to get before moving on, Its all about the story for me.👍
Spot on like always, Death.
I'm so ready for your broken builds and stuff PLUS your predictions for part 3.
I agree with your interpretation of the ending, exactly.
I think the trials scene totally does take away the weight. The boss fight was amazing on its own as a big spectacle but I totally agree that things don't really tie together in the same level.
Anyway I look forward to your future content and especially the Final Fantasy VII you were the one who helped me beat Ruby weapon and emerald.
Listening to Chadley gave me a brain hemmorrhage.
Great review, i largely agree with what you say save for a handful of points but i don't feel like nitpicking.
The one thing i really want to pushback on is the discussion about the game being too long. A game having a ton of content is not a bad thing, specially when everything past the 60 hours mark is entirely optional. Trophies are optional, most mini-games are optional, hardmode is optional. If you don't want to spend time on them either because your life is too busy or you wanna play other games, absolutely no problem. Nobody will hold it against you, it doesn't make you less of a "fan" or a member of the community or whatever.
Also, i get why you treated the game like a sprint, it kinda comes with the territory of your job, but for everyone else who feels burnt out, by all means take a break, maybe in a year you'll get the itch to replay it then you'll finish the trophies you're missing.
Lets not remove the option from people who do want to make the choice to spend more time with one specific game do so.
This was without a doubt the most sincere and professional analysis from fan to fan. We continue on this journey together, and I hope that this time they exclude all the timelines and whispers stuff for part 3. Wutai, submarine underwater, weapons, midgar raid and final dungeon. I can't wait that long!!! ( oh yeah, rocket town and Knight of round too )
You can of course have your opinion and desires for what you want to see, but "and I hope that this time they exclude all the timelines and whispers stuff for part 3" is just setting yourself up for disappointment. You KNOW that's not happening.
Fantastic job. Awesome review. Nailed it.
100 hours of minigames….hoo boy.
I shudder at what Jules would have in store.
Yea I put the game down ages ago and never went back. Stopped at gongaga. It just hasn’t gripped me like the OG also a thing you pointed I really agree with. There was so many mini games that it ruined the gold saucer. At no point did I want to stay at gold saucer as you feel like all you do is mini games. I still think they should have just made it 1 big games like the OG. It would have been better that way and less filler.
Didnt watch. Great video 👍🏽
loving this vid so far Death, for some reason you pointing out how original Cid just had AK-47s laying around in his house really made me laugh.
Come to think of it, you're probably right; New Cid doesn't seem like the guy to have a bunch of AKs laying around
On the game being too long, yes, it absolutely is. I would rather have concise game without bloat, then something with way too much to do. Most of the time, I'm not going to do a lot of it. I'm not the kid I was when the og came out. I don't have unlimited time. Chrono Trigger is still my favorite game of all time, partly because it is so streamlined and doesn't have a bunch of extra busy work to do that I didn't want to do anyway. I like games in the 20-40 hour range. It means you have to have something to say with your story and you also can't over bloat things with hunts, and picking up materials by walking over them (I hate this trend in games, no more trash loot!), or sidequests that are just fetch quests with no character development.
I like to do my own method of completion. It's not usually the platinum trophy, it's usually find all items, defeat all bosses, and see all scenes. In order to do that in Rebirth, I had to platinum the game. I generally like to complete things as they become available, so I was doing all of the intel, the sidequests, the mini games, hard modes of all the mini games, and everything else as I played through the game. With that said, it took me 174 hours to complete the main story of the game. That is way too long. I got platinum at about 240 hours. I would have rather game been half as long to play as it is. I would have cut about 60% of the mini games. They don't add anything and they were often reskins of games I had played before, but implemented with poor controls. Queen's Blood was great, I loved that the entire time, but a lot of the other stuff just needed to go (crunches, gliding chocobo, frog jumping, etc.). I would have also scaled back on the exploration. I loved it initially, but Gongaga killed it for me because it's so hard to navigate and changing my controls every time I took off and every time I landed in Cosmo Canyon didn't help either. I was glad when I got to Nibel and had the chocobo right away and could fly over everything. I loved the game! Almost everything was great, but it just had too much some of the time.
i think bro needs new glasses. performance is blurry as fuck
Was waiting for this! Tremendous common sense review as usual 🎉
Thank you!! Been waiting so long for this and I’ve just slipped into my Jim-Jams. Yay 🎉
Much love Death 😎
Hope I don’t have to wait too long for the Vagrant Story let’s play.
Excellent review. I agree with you on 99.9% of you opinions, ESPECIALLY Cid. He felt nothing at all like Cid in OG. His upbeat positive attitude did not match what i felt from OG. I just finished FF XVI and i felt like that Cid was closer to FFVII OG Cid than Rebirth. Really loved the game overall but they definitely missed the mark on a lot of key things.
My thoughts on the content issue: It's not so much that the game itself is long - it's more that to feel any progression, you need to invest a lot of time into the game.
Let's take a look at an MMO. While keeping on topic, let's look at Final Fantasy XIV. Obviously, an MMO is not possible to "complete" in the traditional sense, but at the same time, people will play these without issue. I think the problem is that with a game like Rebirth, you can have long stretches of either a major story point or boss battle, etc. that just seem to eat up any available time you have to play. This can make the game seem like a complete slog to get through. If it takes me two hours to defeat a single boss and do nothing else in the game, I won't feel a great deal of satisfaction since I haven't really done anything outside of fight one boss.
I feel that Rebirth (or any long games for that matter) need to have a way to break progression into chunks. Something where you can complete a lot of smaller tasks to feel some kind of progression. You can do this with side content, sure, but this needs to also hold true for the main storyline.
My other thoughts about the Aerith scene:
You aren't feeling that same emotion since you already know it's going to happen. You're at the Temple of the Ancients. You subconsciously know what is coming up soon. You've anticipated this the whole time, and you already know the twist. You may not know how it's going to play out, but you already know it. YOU may not feel that same emotional impact, but you've already been spoiled by the original game. It's the same reason why a similar plot twist in a different game or movie doesn't feel that impactful. You may even go and say "oh, this is like that one game", which will take you out of the moment.
To be fair, SE had no way of re-capturing something we all knew was coming. The only way they could have changed that is if they re-wrote what happened either earlier or later in the game and threw us off guard. I'm willing to bet that someone who went into the game completely blind might have had that gut punch. Maybe not AS impactful as the original game, but still.
Seeing Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge during the theater scene actually hit me way harder. Like - WAY harder.
Thank you for all your work. I've been watching your videos for years because FFVII was one of the first games I owned. It was well after the PS3 era but it was a game I always came back to. I loved this game, the OG and remake for similar and different reasons. Now I'm just a humble guy on the internet although as much as I love it there are a few things that annoyed me like Gongaga traversal was tedious at times, the music for Aerith's segment in Chapter 13 was a little too short for how long you're in there, and some of the mini-games didn't seem well balanced. That said, I don't think I have both laughed or teared up over any source of media ever. There are a few quality of life things that could be better, such as; saved load outs or access to weapons and materia within the VR menu, and I love to see a sub-chapter select if there is a specific boss you want to fight but those nuisances don't compare to the amount good quality gameplay that the game has to offer. I just got a consistent "counterfire" with Cloud after an embarrassing few hundred hours and it is awesome. Anyways, as much as I would love to write about this game for hours I appreciate all the work you have put in over the years. I hope to see this channel to continue to grow, thanks again.
Thanks!
Excellent review. Somehow, my experience and opinion on everything lines up with yours. The only exception is that I didn't feel the mini-game drag until Gongaga. The mushrooms....
The layout of Gongaga was horrible
Loved your review and you explained your opinions really well, especially as a deep fan. The ending scene felt very overstuffed and sort of rushed. It's like they didn't want there to be any point in the game where Aerith just "leaves the party" and you go do the digging mini game before City of the Ancients (which I was kind of looking forward to lol).
But I just beat it about 3 days ago and it's been on my mind 24/7 so that says something? It COULD be ambitious, depending on how part 3 plays out. But in the moment I have complicated feelings about the ending, and that kind of sucks. The pessimistic side of me just feels like they threw in a lot of Kingdom Hearts-ish messiness that really ruined how special and emotional that scene was in the original. But the optimistic (or more forgiving?) side of me kind of respects their attempt to do something different that might make the actual realization that she's gone-gone that much more world shattering. At least for players who are holding onto some hope that she's alive, somehow?
All in all, both games so far have been handled with a lot of care for the characters, which is what's most important to me.
I'm going to have to seriously disagree with your opinion about Aerith and Cloud's relationship being sidelined.
I think if anything it's an improvement, because not only was that born out of Cloud simply thinking he's Zack, something he partially comes out of this time, but it made disc 1 a lot more annoying than it otherwise would have been.
Instead of being an enjoyable story about a bunch of characters, it's instead of story about how this out of place character who doesn't fit with the rest of the game (I guess she was supposed to be different because she's an ancient, but still) keeps creeping on the main protagonist, even if he keeps choosing dialogue options to reject her.
Not to mention that because square enix decided to make her a critique of annoying woke Western women in this trilogy, she is now a far more toxic character than she originally was. If they kept up the love triangle heat going, it would have made both remake and rebirth insufferable experiences
As it is, chapter 8 from remake was rather annoying.
I will say however it is definitely a change, and if your issue is that it's not purist enough, then I guess there's nothing that could be said other than we just have to respect each other's opinions. I can honestly say I don't agree with you about this though.
I largely agree with most of the rest of what you said however, just wanted to point out weather might be an alternate perspective.
Dog counter in effect
I really expected a “pretty good” to be added in. 0/10 /s
Great review, I agree with all of your points.
Completely disagree with your takes on Aerith. I feel like their relationship is much deeper here than in the original. There's so much subtext in everyone's interactions that was simply impossible in the PS1. Sometimes, I feel like "oh my god this performance is so good" but then I remember that these aren't actors but ANIMATED CARTOONS LIKE WTF. I mean, obviously the actors did an amazing job (I played it in Japanese) so that may add to the nuance to their interactions, but I really feel like Aerith's relationships are really deep and well thought out.
Nope. The game length is fine. Less time to wait for the 3rd game. It was 4 months for me. 2h per day max.
Ok. 300h would probably to much:) but 200h was fine.
I hated the story decisions but gameplay wise its obviously amazing. No shera, paralel universe shit again(tired of seeing it, its everywhere), middle finger to Clerith shippers like myself etc etc.
I still think us Clerith shippers might have some opportunities in the 3rd game.
I'm intrigued by what'll occur.
It would be an odd choice to remove any and all nods hinting to that ship.. More so because FF7 Remake and FF7 Rebirth barely had any romance scenes with Zack and Aerith ... so it's hard for me to think that's the direction Square wants to take things. It's ideal to build up chemistry and I definitely see more chemistry with Aerith and Cloud right now over Aerith in Zack.
If you're concerned about the lack of a kiss at the Gold Saucer date, my take is that Aerith is holding back her affections because she wants Cloud to discover himself, not masking a certain someone. She's uncertain about locking lips until Cloud is himself, the Cloud she admires.
I hope it turns out we get a Schrödinger's Aerith. She's dead in the Beagle Stamp dog world and after Cloud blocked Sephiroth's blade another Aerith survived in a new world. Cloud just sees both worlds or outcomes simultaneously. So we can have new experiences or moments with her character.
I hope Cloud will summon Aerith in the 3rd game and have more conversations and cute moments with her.
@@ourfamilyaccount Those last sections were confusing really. I think equality in the date system is fair. To me Zack is a stereotypical goofball char who always smiles, laughs etc to take the seriousness away.
53:00 - I finished the game and I am an adult with kids, game is definetely 18+ so I had to play in late evenings. 135hrs and I finished it on Normal, without Gilgamesh island, and without all VR bosses. And I felt overwhelmed. Like extremely overwhelmed. To the point of being tired of playing. And to be honest - PS5 is now a media player. I don't play, I bought it for FF7 Rebirth specifically and I do not regret it.
Maybe I'd move some VR bosses to postgame? Not hard mode only but available postgame - this way it would generate less FOMO.
I have a "difficult and busy moment in my life (same happened when Remake came out)" - but I am sure that will come back do FF7 Rebirth later because it is The Place I’ll Return to Someday
I think it's cool that they denied the player closure in the same way that cloud was denied his. Even if you think you know what really happened the way the sequence is done makes it really difficult to feel whatever the reality is. I expect the full impact and weight will be explored in the next game, probably filling in those moments we lost in this game because if they don't I don't see what the point would be
Give me a punishing fight that is not in a simulator. The simulator is lazy design. Monster in cave. Boss in castle.
Truth word
But
I can see why they done that
This game build open world from zero and so much story so much cutscene
Every dungeon will need line of lore of story , ncp , and monster
They cut that off and put every on chadley back
But now
Most of system open world are online (not from zero anymore) if they want put dungeon into then part 3 will be that game
But maybe am wrong they just do not care about dungeon
I don't think the game's too long, BUT. I was kinda wondering if you'd touch on this - one aspect got really old really fast for me, and I'm sad to say it's the intel mechanic. Or not the whole thing, I loved the world intel and lore we got, and aside from the needlessly cumbersome tower climbs Chadley's stuff was fun to do. But the gameyness of them really took me out of the immersion and feel of all the unique areas with their amazing music. Did there have to be a short jingle every time a tower was activated etc., a sound every time a piece of intel ball plopped into the line? And for that matter, Chad-boy didn't have to inform Cloud vocally (after a tedious animation) each time that now he could update the summon or whatever if there was no other info.
Now I love OG, loved Remake and at first/mostly loved what Rebirth is, but towards the end I didn't love it anymore and that is actually why. (Thank goodness temple was amazing and jingle-free, but the damage was done, way before it.) I do get that it's its own thing and games are different now than in 1997, but I feel like the feel of the game (which they nailed in many aspects) suffers, the sense of wonder is being... cheapened by the jingles. Let minigames be minigames and exploration be about finding SECRETS, monsters and treasures. Thanks for the amazing review and let's play
Finally got around to watching this, now that I'm mostly through the game (just got done with chapter 12). Great review! I'll come back again when I finally finish the game for that spoiler talk.
I so fully agree on your feelings about the characters, especially Cid. Cid just doesn't feel right. Hopefully his character more aligns with the original character in the next game, because his growth in the original game is really important to who he is. I still mostly liked how they did Dyne's character here, but he did feel more like an wacky insane shonen anime character, rather than a broken man with righteous/understandable hatred.
The question about is it too long is one I have been wrestling with as I'm now hitting the 100 hour mark in my first playthrough. There's many other games I want to play, let alone other hobbies and things in life I want/need to do. But learning to not keep up with the Joneses is best I think (I'm still learning this lol). It's impossible to play every game, read every book, watch every show, hike every mountain, etc etc. I'm learning to be ok with that and it's helped as friends move on to other games. But also, I'm still getting to revel in FF7Rebirth and it's amazing every step of the way. Not everyone gets to experience their favorite thing again for the first time. But FF7 fans get to with the Re:Trilogy, and I'm happy we all get to experience this. I'm also interested to see how I'll feel with a second hard mode playthrough that is purely focused on the main story and then comparing the two experiences. We'll see!
Let's go!!
I don’t think it was too long, the content was right up my alley so I enjoyed all of it. I would argue elden ring and BOTW was too long despite being shorter imo. BOTW had a very short story but the side stuff was way more massive than Rebirth and Elden ring. Rebirth only feels longer bc of the cutscenes and character moments.
my biggest gripe, too many mini games. half the game is mini games and most of the mini games i found to be more frustrating and tedious than fun and enjoyable (QB was done well)
So far still the best arpg I have experienced in 2024, shadow of the erdtree come close to be 2nd. Personally, I quite enjoyed FF7RB most mini games and appreciated the end game challenges boss fights.
Nothing you said about Red XIII I felt during my play through. I never felt like he was just “a dog”. I thought the game did a great job showing us he was just a kid that the original FF7 attempted to portray but couldn’t translate it due to the technology of its time. If anything I felt they did Red XIII justice, and I really loved his shift into the kid he always was when you get to Cosmo Canyon. It was a refreshing surprise.
I agree with a lot of what you said up until Red XIII, but then you just started not to make any sense. I don’t just disagree, I strongly oppose your take on Nanaki.
Amazing game. It is so big that I needed to take a break after completing the story. I am just getting back into clearing side content before my hard mode playthrough. While I do agree that the side content can get overwhelming (especially, if you are a completionist, like me), it's side content. You don't need to do it. But I am going after that Platinum and I'll get it! Haha.
I'm thinking about eventually playing Remake & Rebirth, but... The little bit of Remake I watched when my brother played it convinced me it's not a storytelling style I'd like. Original FF7 was rightfully very coy about Sephiroth, just barely hinting at who/what we're up against. Remake was dangling Sephiroth around constantly, like they just couldn't wait to jump to the end.
It's like listening to someone who doesn't know how to tell a joke... tell a joke. They're so busy telling you about the punchline, they keep interrupting the setup to jump ahead.
@Avowed009 What are you talking about, liking my own comment?
And yea, if my brother starts playing, I'll start watching. And when Sephiroth is already showing up in the first few minutes and talking to the protagonist, that's a huge pivot from the storytelling style of the first game.
I can guarantee you're not here on authentic terms. You're just here to gaslight and pick fights. Based on that, I'm guessing you're what... like 13 years old? Keep to yourself, kid.
Agree 100%. They removed mystery and any subtlety. Downgraded remake big time for me.
@@legend36555 You can ignore this Avowed account and report it. It's just another bot. It posts copies of the same comments all over, and even replied with duplicate text to my comments on other videos from other creators.
@@danielhale1 mate, I ignore 95% of the Web 😂
@@legend36555 That 5% includes FF7 so you might be onto something :D
After how much i despised the ending of Rebirth idek if im gettinf part 3 (im a much more recent FF7 fan for context) but if it was a hundred hours longer than Reb than no way in hell
Granted, i had clinicals during my playtime, so i was for sure in the "2 hours a day" camp
This review summed up my thoughts perfectly, can't disagree with a single thing.
It is rarely that I comment, but I feel that your review is very much on point and addresses the "flaws" of Rebirth quiet accurate specifically regarding certain story aspects. However I strongly disagree with your assesssment of the love-triangle and the interaction between Aerith and Cloud. While playing the game I never felt that the interactions between the two were not there, hollow or goofy. I guinely felt that they were getting closer every chapter. If anything I always felt a sting knowing that by the end she will be gone and he will be heartbroken. To me it seemed that she had a feeling that this was going to happen thus appreciated every moment with him e.g. the beach scene, Gold Saucer date 1 & 2 or the Cosmo Fire scene.
Death, you couldn't have enjoyed the hours and hours of breaks between stories... every map should've been half the size. Quality not quantity
Red's voice change. I don't mind the voice on its own, it's a good voice, the issue is simply that it absolutely does not fit even slightly with who everyone on earth feels red is supposed to be. The voice is good but it's not red. It doesn't fit the character we know and love.
I understand why people would think this game feels too long, but to me it felt short. I've grown so attached to these characters that I wanted to keep hanging out with them even after the game was over. I got the platinum and even though it cost me my sanity, I still want to go back and play it again from scratch. This game is amazing though they really need to tone it down with the mini-games in part 3. Anyway, great review. ^^
"I didn't feel sad" - are you secretly a psychopath?? Lol
Listen I felt shocked okay that's normal
I think that's normal
@@4-8Productions You don't like Aerith, that's why
I really wish they would have killed off aerith in a clear manner and just end it with a jenova fight like the original. I wanted to feel emotions but with this ending there wasnt emotion, just confusion. My wife watched me beat the game and i had to explain to her that aerith is actually dead and she still didnt understand cause aerith was fighting and in the ending scenes
I love that while having 100% different opinions we have the same though process.
Eg I for one dislike the ost because of those remixes and not reusing og music.
Great review.
A lot of people have missed the NPC in Cosmo Canyon who talks about her parents dying but not actually dead but on a different plane, the lifesteam and memories emotions create worlds. It’s included for a reason and easily missed.
I felt the emotions more in this than the original, I disagree with you on that part.
38:23
You basically said what Cid said in Abridged:
"When things get tough, CID-GETS-SHIT-DONE!"
Long gameplay is good, lots of minigames are not. There are games like ff12 that are packed with fights and its great, but it isnt full of useless, cringey, boring minigames.
Mt coral is my walking theme now! Both normal and battle. Amazing music and thanks so much for your thoughts! Really appreciated
Remake had more ounces of tears extracted than Rebirth. This is bad because Aerith dying is supposed to be more sad than the stuff in Remake.
I am impressed how extremely balanced this review is. I know from the playthrough that your general impression was very positive, but I deeply appreciate that you have also found the time to describe all the drawbacks so that anyone can carve their own experience.
Dude if it was any other game that would take 100 hours long for the story, I’d pass. But because this is FF7, I will endure and see it through to the end.
It sucks.
I agree with a lot of the points you made I would like to talk about cid though. Although you are correct in some of the point you made about him I have a different take on him. I think he is only being nice to aerith and it just happens to benefit the party. When they make their first flight to cosmo canyon he is shit talking Shinra and at the start of chapter 12 he is fairly brash with barret showing the cid from the og game. I think that him being nice to aerith will set up why he joins the party nicely. The way he joined the party in og doesn’t really make sense. In the og he just says that your a numbskull and joins cuz he has nothing better to do. So this will be a nice change as to why he joins the party.
I loved this game. One of my favorite games of all time. It’s the first time I’ve ever had post-game depression once I finished a game.
Man I was taking some guid from u long time
Glad I found ur channel
My best game every is ff7
Red13 - is he a steward of the planet or a teenager dog?
Well the answer to that is simple: both.
It's the case of a child who had to become adult to soon, who feels that he has obligations, has to prove himself. But on the other hand he hasn't lost that part of a teenager yet. A constant dillema and a mixture of emotions that are greatly presented by voice actor.
And I understand that some people do not resonate with that theme. We all had our own paths in life, and therefore we understand art differently.