FF7 Rebirth Impressions
This game's a lot of things all at once and I think it's fairest to take a look at each facet separately.
As an adaptation, it's poor. It has lost track of the meaning and intent of FF7, which is the most important thing for an adaptation to capture. You cannot play this game alone and have a different but equivalent experience. In fact, you probably shouldn't play this game at all if you haven't played OG.
As a narrative-driven game, it's mediocre, poor by my standards. Most individual scenes are competent, but the whole does not hang together. New plotlines don't connect, and old plotlines are adapted in such a way that they don't really work anymore*. The tone is all over the place, and the best moments feel rushed. The pacing is abysmal, even if you rush the story and ignore the side content. Some folks have said they like this game for the camaraderie among the cast, but even that's pretty thin for me, especially in comparison to other character-driven JRPGs like Tales or Persona. Excepting perhaps Red, the characters don't really develop past where they began at the start of the story, and a lot of the writing is fluff. Remake did better on just about every front here - despite my dim view of it, it's a lot more coherent and careful.
As its own piece of art, it's empty. It's flashy, maximalist, and obviously afraid of getting too real. It refuses to let its most meaningful moments breathe lest they become bummers and it doesn't really have anything in particular to say - again, even less than Remake. It's entirely a piece of FF7 fanfiction/metafiction. The implications of the ideas that it does bring to the table are extremely tone-deaf, particularly the Shinra apologism.
As a sequel it's a worse story, but a better game. The battle system is much improved. Bosses and trash are a lot less spongy. The environment design is way more impressive (not to mention exhaustive) and there is a lot more of it to explore. It's clearly a lot more ambitious and it tried out many different things and stretched quite a lot. It is just more fun to play... as long as no one is talking.
As an open world game, it's so-so. On the positive side, I found the objectives well spaced out, so that if I was just running around the area I moved pretty freely from one to the next to the next. The rewards for your exploration points are always good and substantial, so it does feel rewarding. On the other hand, it's extremely repetitive and bloated. The maps are not very fulfilling to explore in terms of landmarks and interesting things of note outside of your map markers. Many of the areas are extremely difficult and frustrating to navigate. I was constantly in and out of my map trying to figure out where I had to go.
As a collection of minigames it's exceptional. There are so many minigames. I lost track. I think you'd need to play an MMO to find more variety in minigames really. There is so much Content here, I have never seen a game more ambitious about minigames. There is a part of me that feels bad for leaving it on the table when so much has gone into it.
As a piece of fanservice for compilation fans it's probably pretty good! All the locations are there and rendered in stunning detail for at least one good shot, the music is there and very hummable, unexpected fan favourites return, references are many. If all you really care about is seeing your blorbos you probably like this game.
As a compilation of FF7 entry it's about where Remake was, a little lesser. Better than most of the slop, nowhere near the original, different in very meaningful ways, and marching bravely forward towards a world state where the only person who has ever done anything wrong is Hojo.
And overall, this game felt like it was Cocomeloning me. It was long and bloated and over the top and afraid to give me any space to think about any of what was happening. It is also so long, and so bloated. I would say it is functionally a marvel movie. Good if you're in the mood for that, bad if you happen to really care about story or games or the source material.
I gave each segment grade ranks as I played through, they're under the cut if you're curious.
This is actually the point where I just officially gave up. Despite all the changes, despite more Shinra apologism, despite gus and his grills, despite how much they toned down Dyne, when he died I actually felt something for the first time the whole game. I felt they got Barret's half of that as right as they could - that he's got to carry a weight, no matter how difficult.
And then they hard cut to Palmer shaking his ass at me and I was done.
Sephiroth is also a lost cause I agree. He's so much not my boy that whenever they say anything about him that's OG accurate I get jump scared. I never want to hear one winged angel again.
