Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Hands Review

GamesRadar

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is emphasizing party bonds in both combat and story, aligning seamlessly with its overarching theme. This integration enhances the overall experience by intertwining the gameplay and narrative elements.

Transcript

00:00So Heather has played the first chapter and a lot of the second chapter of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

00:06Is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth basically just Final Fantasy 7 Remake going open world?

00:11Like, now that you've actually played it, does it work? And is it any good?

00:16First off, it's very good. From what I've played so far, I would definitely say that fans of the

00:21original are absolutely going to love what they've done with, like, recreating some famous moments

00:25right from the beginning. But it's also, it feels so much bigger in terms of its scale to Remake,

00:32because obviously Remake, we were running around Midgar and we were quite confined in that space.

00:36It was still kind of a fairly big adventure, but obviously now we're going out into the wider world

00:40and it's done a really good job of recapturing the kind of magic of stepping out into that overworld

00:46in the original game for the first time. But now you're, like, looking out over this grassland area,

00:51which is the first open, sort of zoned area that you go in. Yeah, it definitely feels bigger,

00:56but it's also doing other things that make it feel grander in scale too. It's not just in the sense

01:03of its, like, size and scope. On the one hand, the map looks massive and there's, like, a nice,

01:07like, fog of war element where it's kind of like, when you first go and then you bring up the map,

01:11you can see how big it is, but you can't see there's anything there. But then on the other hand,

01:14to help you kind of navigate it, I've noticed that there's, like, a red flying bird and there's various

01:19little, like, golden elements and stuff that when you get close to something to discover,

01:23they'll appear and start leading you off into areas. So there's a nice thing where

01:27it looks like you can wander, but then if there is something to discover, like,

01:31they kind of, like, are pulling you in certain directions. So that seems to, like, help with that.

01:35Yeah, there's definitely, like, a sense of discovery where you're free to run around and find points

01:39of interest, but all of the markers are very clear. So you can definitely find your way, which I think is

01:44good, because sometimes in, obviously, this is more of an open zone-y type of experience,

01:51but in open world games, it can feel quite overwhelming of, like, where do I go? What do I do?

01:55This is very, like, you run around in the grasslands, you can fight enemies, but you can also

02:00find your way pretty easily as well.

02:03Yeah. Another huge thing for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth versus Remake is they've upped the

02:09interactions with party members. I think that the bar that we've now been set with something like

02:14battles get through with your companions and who you fight with is really high. Obviously,

02:19I'm not expecting them to necessarily hit those highs, but you mentioned that there is so much

02:23going on with the interaction with your party members and, like, upping your relationship with

02:26them and how that affects the story, the game, the combat, everything. Tell me about that.

02:30Yeah, so they've really gone big on party bonds in Rebirth. It's, like, one of the main themes of the

02:36game they're kind of positioning as. You not only have more chances to speak with them right off the bat,

02:42so you can go up and have conversation with them in calm, like in chapter two, pretty much

02:47very early on. They will ask you things and you have to make a decision that's timed and your

02:54relationship will change depending on what you choose to say to them. So they could be like,

02:57I want to go here with you, or does this remind you of something? And what you say will affect your

03:02relationship with Barrett, Tifa, Aerith, Red. And they'll bring it up later on?

03:06Yes. So yeah, depending on, basically, I decided to go somewhere with Aerith and then the team

03:12mentioned it later on. So you can see pretty much straight away how your choices are sort of

03:17affecting the group dynamics. They absolutely know what they're doing for shippers as well. I will tease,

03:23I don't want to spoil anything because I think the joy of discovering it for yourself should be for

03:27you to find out for yourself. But I'm definitely taking Barrett on romantic.

03:33And yeah, obviously, it's not just how much you interact with them in terms of conversation

03:38and story. It's also right in the combat too. It's baked into pretty much every feature of the game.

03:45And yeah, so we go to synergy moves, which is a new feature of Rebirth.

03:50They're kind of like cinematic limit breaks, but like tag team style. They look absolutely amazing.

03:55Yeah. And so is it a case of if you're if you have a better relationship with somebody,

04:00your synergy moves work better?

04:03Yeah, there's like a system that's when you go around doing quests and overcoming challenges

04:08together, your party level will increase. And so instead of like leveling up individual characters,

04:13you kind of you still level up individual characters, but all of their synergy moves level

04:18up with the party level. So you can unlock new skills that two pairs can use.

04:22Yeah, if that makes sense. But there's also synergy skills on top of synergy abilities.

04:28And synergy skills are tied to your block mechanic on R1.

04:33Okay, so you can do synergy blocks as well.

04:35PS5 controller. I just said PS1 controller.

04:39Heather's retro. She only plays PlayStation games with PS1 controllers.

04:43Oh my God.

04:43The amount of compatibility issues she has is insane.

04:45Yeah, so you hit R1 on the PS5 controller for your block, and that will bring up some specific

04:52synergy skills that each character will have. So for example, if you're fighting with Red

04:5713, Cloud will have synergy powers that sort of feed off of what he can do with Red.

05:03Yeah, it's obviously in episode intermission, which was the DLC with Yuffie and Sonnen.

05:09They had synergy abilities, which is basically the same thing. So they've sort of brought

05:16that forward. And that was one of my favorite things of the DLC.

05:19The thing with Yuffie in intermission was it was just the two of them. This is another level.

05:24Yeah.

05:24This is a whole nother level with all different characters. And we know there's going to be

05:27new characters introduced. And even people like Red 13 and stuff, you can see that he plays

05:32very differently. Especially something like Barret. He's much more fluid and moving around

05:36and stuff. And so we have different weapons. We have different abilities. We have different

05:42things that you can slot. We have different items. And now we have synergies, both attack

05:46and defense and different characters. It's that thing where if you're one of these people

05:49who loves to go into the weeds of Final Fantasy VII, the first, the original, and play with

05:54all the different things in the back end and really tweak everything and min-max stuff

05:57to your preferred play style, you're going to be suited down to the ground here.

06:01How did you feel that newcomers will come to that? Because they are positioning this,

06:05strangely, I don't really get it as a standalone game. So they're going to be targeting this

06:10to newcomers. How do you think? There seems to be a lot going on here. Do you think newcomers

06:14will be able to pick this up?

06:16Yeah. I mean, right away from Chapter 1, they tutorialize everything for you. So you're going

06:21to go straight in, being told how to make use of the different powers. You're going to

06:26combat quite early on in Chapter 1 with Sephiroth, which is very exciting.

06:30Sorry, what?

06:31Yeah. So you can fight with Sephiroth and you can control him as well. They have this

06:36feature, which is party leader. So you assign a character to be the party leader and whoever

06:41is party leader is who you will control when the battle starts. But you can switch between

06:46any characters as you're fighting. And Sephiroth is one of them. So you can control him, which

06:51is really cool. And you see him fighting with Cloud in Chapter 1.

06:54There's going to be so many people that are playing it going, oh, this Sephiroth guy is

06:57quite cool. I like him. Like if they haven't played it before. And then he'll be like,

07:01you said, hmm, okay, fine. Yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that later, but go on. Okay.

07:06Yeah. And then once you reach Chapter 2, it will also tutorialize all of the other systems

07:11like weapon upgrades, how your folios work, which is a whole other part of it, which is basically

07:16like the rebirth version of skill trees. So each character will have a folio with their

07:21own set moves. And this is going into the synergy abilities again.

07:25Yeah. I did notice that a couple of characters that when you meet them, they go, do you remember

07:28me? Wink, wink, wink. And it's like a yes, no answer. And it's clearly like, yes, I remember

07:33you. They'll go, okay, I won't tell you about how the combat tutorials work then or the Chocobos

07:37work.

07:38You can kind of see that with like meeting Chad Lee, for example, in Chapter 2.

07:42Chad Lee. The biggest Chad ever.

07:44Exactly. It's kind of, they've clearly done things to be like, if you've never played remake

07:48and you don't like, who is this kid? You have an option to be like, I don't remember you.

07:52Refresh my memory.

07:53He's a small annoying child.

07:54Yeah.

07:55Unless you can help him up.

07:56But nicely, you can be like, yes, I remember you, Chad Lee, go away. I don't want to do any.

07:59Yes.

08:00More importantly, let's go back to Sephiroth.

08:01Yes.

08:02You start the game playing as, is it Cloud and Sephiroth?

08:04Yeah, you're playing Cloud first. He joins the fray. He joins the fray.

08:08He joins your party, which is very exciting.

08:09And then you can play him in combat, which is really fun with, he has his sword and he

08:13has his own cool powers and skills.

08:15And moves.

08:16So they've brought back the same systems as Remake.

08:20So you can have like the classic mode or the action mode and you can pick whichever one

08:27you want.

08:28But yeah, it's still kind of the same systems as Remake in that sense.

08:33But synergy sort of ups it and changes it.

08:35So it is that thing where they have taken Remake and just made it bigger, better, faster,

08:41stronger, more complex.

08:42Like, you know.

08:43Yeah.

08:44I really love what they've done with Bonds above everything else, because you really get

08:48the sense that this is a unified party that are overcoming things together and they're

08:53really growing their relationships because of, you know, the fact that they're going through

08:58so much together.

08:59And I think that's such a big part of what makes Final Fantasy 7 so great.

09:04It would be really unfortunate if you built all those bonds up and then something happened.

09:08Anyway.

09:09Who can say?

09:10Oh yeah.

09:11Who knows where this story can go.

09:12You can see again why they've kind of done it for that reason too.

09:15Teasing probably.

09:16Wrench your heart out even more.

09:18We'll see.

09:19Like, I don't know if I like it because I'm just like, I know where this is going.

09:23Don't make me cry again.

09:25I'm very curious to see how much it will make certain moments affect you more potentially.

09:32But we'll have to wait and see because we don't know.

09:34We don't want to do it.

09:35I'm probably going to do the Bambi thing in Friends.

09:37And just before it gets to that point, be like, Anna, finish the game.

09:40I'm done.

09:41Done.

09:42Finished.

09:43Ignorance is bliss.

09:44Precisely.

09:45So it is coming out very soon exclusively for the PS5 on the 29th of February.

09:51There is an exclusivity window where it is coming to PC later in the year.

09:55But initially, if you want to get your hands on this and if you want to play it,

09:58you've basically only got the PS5 to play it on, which is unfortunate.

10:02But they're more available now.

10:04Just to summarize, it's good.

10:06It's fantastic.

10:07I really think if you're a fan of the original game, you're going to get such a kick out of

10:13some of the things that they've done right from the beginning.

10:16And it just makes me all the more excited to see some of the moments that I remember playing

10:20as a kid on the original version.

10:22But even if you're completely new to Final Fantasy or you started at Remake, Rebirth's

10:26a fantastic continuation or maybe a starting point, but I'd still say play Remake.

10:31I say play Remake.

10:32Anyway, very excited.

10:34Rebirth out the end of February.

10:36And we'll look forward to the review.

10:38Promise not to tell?

10:41When she wakes up, a scary man is going to kill her.

10:45find out.

10:47She's a very excited.

10:48man.

10:50You're the only chance to see her live after the game.

10:52Please ask, we see a clear one.

10:53Check out the target point dinosaur.

10:55She's going to tell her where she ain't even 누가 from there.

10:57Look.

10:58Aren't you still going to pull her theле?

11:00The return of her camera.

11:01The return of the game.

11:02How much banish is.

11:03She's got the try and have a good one.

11:04You can see a text, the image of one movie.

11:06What is it written for Legend of ?

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