4.5/5 ★ – Sharff's review of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

This game does so much right. It manages to nail the asthetics and feels of final fantasy vii while recreating it into a brand new experience. It doesn’t feel like a replacement but more so an addition. Heres a new perspective on an old thing. The first part of the remake had me excited for what was going to come next, but it also left me a little worried. There were a lot of bad pacing moments and some of the new content (imo) wasn’t handled very well. While those issues are a tiny bit prevalent here, its not nearly as much, at points its barely noticeable. Most of the gameplay relies on the open world, so however long the story takes is up to the player. Theres a lot to do here, it’ll take you at least 120 hours to do all the normal mode stuff, and thats of course excluding the extra hard mode content. Its awesome. I’m not gonna go too indepth but its a lot of fun. I think the only downside is are the amount of mini games but they’re… doable. The story is great for the most part, a lot of moments done right and a lot of new moments which fit super well. I love the dynamic between the group, especially between Cloud and Tifa. It was done incredibly well. The new Zack story moments were okay, weirdly I wish there was more. It didn’t feel very engaging, mostly just felt like I was watching a side movie. Its fine for the most part but I wanted more, which is a good thing. Theres one part, that in retrospect, could be better. A certain moment from the original wasn’t handled the best it could be, not because of what happened, but more so the writing and execution of said moment. Like Remakes final chapter, it had a lot of really cool ideas, in fact I think its all really creative, but the execution of it ruins what the original moment brought to the story. Rather than focusing the emotions the moment could’ve brought, it decides to focus on making the player confused or question whats going on. There was a loss of focus here that made the original moment really meaningful. It doesn’t ruin the entire game by any means and again, it was a very cool moment too, but we did lose something very important Overall its wonderful. It has flaws, but not enough to bring down this amazing experience, and not something that the third part can’t fix. It leaves me excited to see what they’re cooking. Go check it out.