3/5 ★ – Elesh's review of FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH.

I went into FF7R2 not sure what to expect. I'd had mixed feelings about the first chapter of the remake, enjoying it for the most part but having some pretty notable frustrations both with the plot and the gameplay... but I also know that the FF teams rarely miss so I was still hopeful. Was this the rare Final Fantasy miss? Well, that's a complicated question, because I think the bones of this game are incredible. The combat, when you're allowed to really dig deep into it with a party you like, is a ton of fun. The voice acting is top notch. The music is as good as you'd hope. The graphics - especially the environments - are some of the best I've ever seen. And the story is very interesting and really leaves you questioning your expectations of what the next steps will be all the way until the credits roll. Exactly what you want for the middle part of a series. However, having a solid foundation doesn't necessarily a good house make. It also matters what you build on top of it, and I think the developers had some very weird ideas about 'what makes a game fun' that I strongly disagree with. So, let's air my grievances with the game, shall we? First and most painfully, I absolutely hated how frequently - especially in the late game - they forced you into either using the party they wanted you to use or, even worse, using just a single character alone. This is something a lot of these larger party RPGs do, and the only games I've ever felt did it well were the Legend of Heroes games. Essentially every other time I've seen it, it just saps the fun right out of the section, unless you're lucky enough to get 'assigned' a party you actually enjoy playing. I'm pretty sure 75% of the last three chapters were either solo sections or restricted party situations, and it was just about the only thing that marred the last chapters for me. I get that you put effort into designing all the characters and you want me to appreciate them but forcing me to use them is just going to make me resent them. And for this game specifically, solo sections are absurdly boring - so much of the game's combat revolves around teamwork and synergy and making use of multiple characters that any time you're forced into combat without a party it is just boring. Its not even difficult - they did a pretty good job most of the time of balancing around the player issue - but the battle system just isn't fun without a party. It just flat out is not enjoyable. Secondly, the dev team seemed to have it backwards - players don't want more minigames, players want fewer minigames but better ones. And Rebirth was absolutely jam packed with minigames and only a very small number of them were anything even remotely close to fun. There were a few great ones, but most of them were at best mediocre and at worst awful. As a quick tangent here, I do not have any idea how they managed to so badly screw up 'flying chocobo' in this game - it should be the easiest possible win. Just make the flying fast, free, and easy and everyone will fondly remember this chapter as the most fun part of the entire game. But instead they made it awful to control, slower than walking, and frustrating to navigate the zone. I just don't get it. At all. Thirdly, and these are definitely more minor, but there are a few issues in the combat system that they carried over from the first game that I really wish they hadn't. There are really two... first is the way aggro seems to be based on who you are controlling most of the time. It just makes using characters not built on counterattacks frustrating a lot of the time and really tries to push you into spending most of your time controlling Cloud. The other issue is the combination of how easily you get interrupted using abilities and the way getting interrupted not only stops the ability but also costs you the AP used to cast it. But, as I said, these were present in the first game too... so I wasn't surprised by them, just a little disappointed no improvements were made in this particular area. Just one extremely minor final gripe: Please, Square Enix, just let us use costumes the entire game - teasing me with costumes then taking them away is not a good idea. Don't make me unlock new game plus before costumes are unlocked - look at the popularity of XIV's glam system or of Infinity Nikki, just embrace it and let us play dressup from the start. Okay... Gripes out of the way, the game is actually a lot of fun. As I said at the start, when they're not trying to shoehorn unpleasant minigames or force you to do boss fights solo, the game just works really well. And the visual and audio spectacle is more than worth the frustration of some of the annoying parts - there were a few zones where I just had to stop and stare in awe at the scenery. I do strongly encourage anyone playing the game to just... ignore any of the side-content that isn't vibing. A lot of the worst parts are at least mostly optional. And you can get a much better experience by not stressing too hard over things you're not enjoying and just getting back to the fun stuff.