How I really feel about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

The good, the bad, and the ugly. A roller-coaster of emotions, from ecstatic to miserable.

Still Alive

Welcome back, Scholars of the Lifestream!

I’m not dead yet, but I’ve been very unproductive ever since my last #CCOGems post on Twitter/X on March 9th, exactly one week after I started playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

This long silence on all platforms—besides our CCO Discord server—has a reason. Two, actually. Both relating to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and my experience with it from April 2nd through April 24th, having consumed my whole three-week vacation. Please be patient and read through to the end to learn about those reasons and what you can expect from CCO in the future.

Before I share my feelings about all aspects of this game, let me provide you with a run-down of optional content I ended up completing, which provides additional context to understand my stance on the game in a more informed way.

Unless you’re not interested in the specifics and just want to get to the meat of this article. Then you may skip the next section called Game Progress entirely and start with The Good.

Some disclaimers:

• Be aware that I won’t hold back on any content, story, or endgame spoilers. You’ve been warned.

• This article is not meant to be a review, even if it sounds or looks like one at times. It’s meant to present my chaotic thoughts and feelings about the game in a hopefully comprehensive and interesting way.

• I know this article does not represent my usual content since it has nothing to do with analysis, theory crafting, or any similar type of content but I think it’s important to let you know about the current state of things in this format for you to understand where I’m at.

• In addition to everything detailed in the next section, I watched Maximilian Dood’s full playthrough and re-watched several important scenes to get some clarity. What I express in this article is therefore not based on just a single playthrough and thus my understanding of this game’s content goes quite a way beyond the surface.

• Due to the different format and type of content, I decided against adding a table of contents and images. Also to reduce consumed time and effort and to focus on the written word and its expression alone.

Game Progress

When I finished the game, the in-game clock showed a bit over 135 hours. This includes extensive exploration, finishing all side quests excluding “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop“—because it involved playing minigames which I was done with at that point for this first run—completing World Intel save for Gilgamesh Island, fulfilling all Discovery objectives—except for Cait’s box throwing menace as retrying my failed attempt wasn’t on the table—and winning against all Queen’s Blood rivals plus solving the QB puzzles in Costa del Sol. I also beat all minigames, but not all of them with top scores, and I noped out of Gears and Gambits hard mode. Regarding Gold Saucer: I also bested everything in Wonder Square in chapter 8 but barely won any Musclehead Coliseum challenges. Maybe two or three with Tifa and one or two Six-Person Bouts. By the end, I also went through only those chocobo races that were necessary to enter the Gold Cup for a side quest, which is everything in the Bronze Cup and one in the Silver Cup. I didn’t feel like even attempting the rest for the rest of my playthrough.

Later, after deciding to focus on the rest of the main story when hitting chapter 12, I purposely ignored all new challenges in the Gold Saucer which were unlocked at that point, as well as the second Frog minigame. I did, however, race around with Mr. Dolphin in Under Junon but wasn’t able to achieve Rank III. Furthermore, I managed to get a star rating on all six piano performance pieces which yielded a reward but “only” an A rating for the secret seventh piece Let the Battles Begin!

By the end, I managed to find all chocobo stops and was therefore able to buy all types and pieces of chocobo gear available at chocobo shops across the world. Unfortunately, I missed around five bunny treasure spots. Speaking of treasure, while checking out the four fiends guarding the pirate treasure locations, I got mauled by three of them but managed to beat the fourth first-try. Since I didn’t feel like changing my equipment and Materia loadout, I still have to beat the other three.

And before you ask, Tifa was the one knocking on Cloud’s door for a date in chapter 8, and in chapter 12, Aerith showed up with their date ending in the intimate scene. And to get ahead of your follow-up question: no, I did not aim for specific dates. I just played the game normally like any other completionist would and tried to answer character questions either in their favor or what made the most sense in the moment. And yes, I did check out all the other dating options a few days after beating the game since the post-game options allowed easy and convenient viewing through the extra menu and chapter select.

I think that’s it. On to the good stuff.

The Good

Let’s start on a positive note. Or notes, plural. Because there’s a lot to praise this game for.

Interwoven Systems

First, its game design overall. Many aspects intertwine and barely anything feels out of place, tacked on, or disconnected. Let’s take item transmutation as an example. At first, it looks like a simple item crafting mechanic that supplies you with additional items you don’t have to find or buy. But it’s much more involved than that. While you can buy certain types in shops, the best way to stock up on ingredients is collecting them all around the world. Finding so many in every corner makes exploring the marvelous locations even more enjoyable and incentivizing. At first, you can barely transmute anything, which encourages you to actually perform some transmutations to earn experience points (EXP) which unlock higher levels the more you transmute. And not just consumables, but gear, too; many pieces exclusive to item transmutation, including some key items necessary for completing side quests! But that’s not all, some armor pieces and accessories can be enhanced via item transmutation and several end-game super gear pieces can only be obtained via item transmutation with ingredients only obtainable by defeating strong fiends, cruising around in the Tiny Bronco, or buying them in the Gold Saucer for GP, which requires you to beat minigames and coliseum challenges in there. But we’re not done yet. The information gained from certain Lifesprings enables Chadley to find and reveal new excavation sites where you can dig up new transmutation formulae. And since you need to wrangle a chocobo in some of the locations first, item transmutation is also connected to those lovely avian mounts. And this is just one aspect of the whole gameplay system collection this game provides.

One more example: Chadley’s world intel. While it looks like a typical open world checklist at first, each item on that list feels interconnected with the world, gameplay, and progression in general. You activate towers which reveal more world intel points of interest on the map—without clearing the fog of war, no less—and have to be climbed and sometimes even approached differently depending on the region you’re in. The destructible boxes on them also always contain some Moogle Medals required to trade unique items from the Moogle Emporium which you also need to unlock by completing the Mog House minigame in each region. Lifesprings provide intel about the region, excavation sites, and the classified fiend of the region, while activating a Summon Crystal strengthens that region’s summon Materia and unlocks lower difficulties for obtaining it in Chadley’s VR simulator. Combat Assignments drop more fiend and region lore and unlock more VR battles with sometimes unique rewards. Completing their objectives also teach you how to fight those fiends effectively. Lastly, the Protorelic intel quest chains act as important side quests containing unique minigames, activities, characters, and even side story beats which are at times quite important to the main story! And best of all, it involves a brand-new Gilgamesh side story culminating in end-game challenges ending with the final Gilgamesh battle that concludes his story arc in Rebirth. Chadley’s intel gathering quest also finds its end there rewarding you with a nice scene at the end, plus the powerful Genji gear recipe for item transmutation. Every step on the way to this conclusion is worth it in my opinion. It’s not just about going somewhere, fight an enemy or pick up an item, and return to bag the reward. It’s so much more than that. I had a grand time completing all main regions this way.

Combat

This is another very enjoyable component and arguably the heart of the game. A very solid and beautiful heart. Square Enix topped themselves by improving combat in every aspect, especially those which were criticized the most in Remake, such as aerial combat or Aerith and Barret. The former being a bit too unwieldy and the latter too boring and flat—as far as I remember at least. Each character feels to much better and smoother to play now and Cait is a delight, counter to many players’ expectations, mine included. While I really like how they improved Aerith’s combat, it’s not really for me as I usually have a hard time playing as her properly, especially in solo battles, to the point of having to turn down the difficulty to Easy for her Beast Battleground challenge for Leslie’s quest in the Dustbowl. During boss battles with two other characters, however, dropping multiple wards, warping between them, and going to town on the enemies feels very satisfying. As does Cloud’s new circle square long-range combat.

Combine all of that with new features like Synergy Skills and Abilities, plus elemental ATB abilities and even the improved Enemy Skill Materia and you have an arsenal of options that fit into any play style and situation. All in all, Rebirth’s combat system is one of, if not the best JRPG combat system I’ve encountered so far.

Boundless, Terrific Freedom

What I really like is that the main story barely requires you to utilize or get into systems that resides outside the main gameplay loop of traversal and battles. If you want to only enjoy the story, you can. You may need to wrangle a single chocobo, play the Mr. Dolphin minigame once, endure the inauguration parade in Junon and go through some quick-time events during the Loveless play in Gold Saucer but that’s about it. You can even forfeit at the very beginning of the Queen’s Blood tournament on the Shinra-8 ship if you don’t care about that card game. Everything else is completely optional. Yet, the game incentivizes you with items, gear, Materia, or even story as reward for your “trouble,” making almost every side content worth checking out, especially the Protorelic quests. In the end, this game is all about freedom of choice. And not just in what to do but also in which order. Want to skip all side content until the point of no return and then catch up on everything? You can certainly do that.

Side Quests

Odd Jobs from noticeboards (green exclamation marks on clients and objectives) are such a step up from Remake. They are not even comparable. Each side quest includes one of the main party members besides Cloud and influences their affinity to him, contains one or more notable NPCs, new stories, lore, world building, or even unlocks new areas, like the Crow’s Nest in the Junon region. Many side quests also include more involved mechanics or even one-off systems or minigames. The provided gameplay variety and often times enrichment of the main story is not to be underestimated, which makes nigh every single side quest very much worth your time—except for the search for the Dune Worm in the Cosmo region. Screw that.

World Intel

Despite being close to burnt out from filling the region intel dot array after a while, it was still enjoyable to learn new information from Lifesprings, listen to summon lore while searching for summon crystals, find new transmutation formulae with chocobos, fight unique monster variants and completing MAI’s objectives, and climb towers and see the region from much a different perspective. The Mooglets can suck a pompom for all I care, however. Anyway, world intel is a good way to learn more about the world and explore every nook and cranny of the sometimes quite unique and intricate terrain. Though I must admit that the Gongaga and Cosmo regions drove me nuts while trying to find the last few intel locations…

Minigames

Like side quests, the minigames deserve their own section. There are so freaking many of them! And almost all of them were enjoyable at the very least, with Queen’s Blood being the top contender. Easy to learn, hard to master. The complete opposite of Gears and Gambits which has potential but is unnecessarily overcomplicated and has too many systems and details to consider for only being relevant during one Protorelic quest chain. Its horrendous UI and overwhelming tutorial don’t make things any better. At least we were treated with great Avalanche scenes as a reward, making the torture worth it in the end. Same for the strange chicken minigame in that one side quest in Gongaga. It’s an interesting concept but the minigame itself didn’t work for me personally. It’s fittingly silly but mechanically cumbersome and got worse with each round. I know it’s supposed to feel that way for the joke in round four to land, but I still had no fun whatsoever. But again, the conclusion of this quest was well worth the slog.

The World and its Characters

The locations, towns, characters, and NPCs felt already really good and memorable in the original game but Rebirth took everything to the next level and made each region and town feel unique and not just in terms of visuals. Layout, traversal, mode of transportation, environmental puzzles and mechanics… I never felt repeating the same song and dance in each section of the game again, despite the returning World Intel “checklist.” Quite the opposite. Partially due to the different traversal options, but mainly because you can really feel the different cultures and mindsets everywhere and each region and location also have unique and memorable flora and fauna, architecture, musical experience, and especially NPCs like Broden, Chocobo Billy and Chloe, Rhonda, the Commander, Captain Titov, Johnny, Dio, Gus, Cissnei, Bugenhagen, the Head Chef in Nibelheim, just to name a few and without mentioning all those quirky and sometimes absolutely insane Queen’s Blood rivals.

We don’t talk about Kyrie, though.

Returning characters are now more involved than ever, especially those from the original game, like Johnny. His whole Johnny’s Seaside Inn side quest line involving Yuffie’s Ninjutsu and the connection to your in-game trophy collection is probably the most stand-out optional content in this game.

Besides great character interactions among the main party and with NPCs, all those new stories and expanded world building is just sublime. I won’t go into details as there’s just too much but the most notable is probably the Republic of Junon which keeps coming up countless times, mostly on the eastern continent and usually in the context of Shinra. It’s them who are responsible for the demise of the Republic after all.

And we cannot dismiss the myriad of small stories told by random NPCs all over the place. Some just inform you about the state of things or flesh out the world, but others say different things or are even encountered in different locations later in the game. Two instances that stuck with me:

1. Akira, the singer who is only mentioned by his dad in Kalm at first but later gives a small concert at that very stage in Kalm, performing three whole songs.

2. Those two women, also in Kalm, who first rant about how their respective boyfriend just ditched them for another, until they realize they’re talking about the same guy who left one for the other first, leading them to bitch-slap each other the second time you meet them, and later make up and decide to go on a date together.

Speaking of Kalm, the realization of full-sized towns in this game is almost mind-boggling. Back in the PS3 era with Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix’s excuse for why it didn’t contain any explorable towns with NPCs, shops, inns etc. was simply: “HD towns are too hard to make.“ It wasn’t an issue in the PSOne and PS2 era and certainly is not an issue anymore either. Even during PS4’s lifecycle. Final Fantasy VII Remake already contained towns worthy to be called that. Granted, all of them were located in the slums, though you could count some of the Shinra building’s floors as a multi-tiered town, technically speaking. Rebirth, however, blows everything out of the water. With Kalm, Under Junon, Crow’s Nest, Junon proper, Costa del Sol, North Corel, Gold Saucer, Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon, and Nibelheim, we have nine fully realized towns. Some smaller than others, yes, but still fully realized and uniquely designed. Kalm especially has received an immense glow-up!

Finally, I need to commend the developers for adding in small details everywhere which they had no obligation to but did anyway. Like the three-phase Zanga workout routine in Nibelheim which is fully voiced and has Cloud stretching his arms into the air when approached. Furthermore, if you encounter Zangan in the Nidhogg Inn before visiting any of the other points of interest, he’ll be the one leading the group workout instead of a random female resident. On the Shinra-8 ship, there’s a yoga workout class going through 3 different poses which Cloud can mimic when approaching them. Akira’s concert in Kalm is another one of those unnecessary yet fantastic additions. Not to mention the unique and diegetic music performance groups found in almost every town, school classes in some of them, a anti-Shinra demonstration in Under Junon, kids playing SOLDIER in Nibelheim, residents getting high by smoking bongs sitting in a circle in Crow’s Nest… I could go on, but I guess you get the point. Those few examples are just a small glimpse into the wealth of details found in this game.

Remade Content and Moments

With Final Fantasy VII Rebirth being a completely remade portion of the original Final Fantasy VII, it incorporates many known and beloved moments and events, elevating them to new heights. There are too many to list, so I’ll focus on just a few.

During the Nibelheim flashback sequence, I really missed the pipes section from the original game. Granted, it was quite silly having to slide through pipes to progress and pick up treasure but exactly such silliness is what makes up Final Fantasy VII’s DNA. I’ve already given up and forgot about those pipes so that they completely blindsided me in chapter 11 upon returning to the Nibelheim reactor with Tifa and Yuffie via an alternate route. I probably had a constant grin on my face while sliding through every combination of pipes as to not miss out on any hidden treasure. Though I’m still bothered by Cloud’s sword piercing through the pipes off-screen. It would be physically impossible for him to slide through the pipes this way. Why not lie on the sword and use it as a sled? Would be much funnier to look at and physically feasible! Ah well…

Another one that got me good is… well, let’s start from the beginning. During the whole inauguration parade segment, I was hoping to see at least a reference to Red XIII in a Shinra security officer uniform as the other four did appear in their disguise from the original game. When I finally reached the ship and everybody got in, I still had hope but then, they all changed back into their normal attire as their disguise was no longer necessary. Bummer. I suppose a two-legged Red XIII did not work out after all. Later, as the highly anticipated Queen’s Blood tournament began, I found it a shame but also funny that Red wasn’t able to participate as an animal, but I didn’t think more of it. Still, I expected him to lurk around somewhere, but I was not able to find him during any of the tournament rounds. After beating all my opponents, including Regina, I heard Red’s voice coming from the off and thought: “No, they didn’t, did they?!“ and the next shot of him from behind in a security officer uniform made my day. And then he started dancing, twirling, and moonwalking, leaving my brain unable to compute. This whole sequence is this game’s brightest highlight without any competition. Well done, Square Enix Business Unit 1, you got me good.

Besides those two examples, there are countless more in all shapes and forms, even closures from Remake like Wedge’s death or the myriad of references to other compilation works and even other Final Fantasy games like Aerith’s Lifestream dance (FFX) or Cloud Jr. sitting on Barret’s head (FFXIII). With a work of art done with such love and care, I can easily forgive them moving locations like Fort Condor, Wutai, and even Rocket Town to the third entry in this remake project. The first two were optional at this point in the story anyway and as long as Rocket Town receives enough time to shine with Cid’s story arc and going to space, I’m happy. Those three locations aren’t even important to the plot at this point in the story, so it’s a fine compromise. Especially since Gongaga received such a massive expansion! From a tiny optional village with some jungle and a blown-up reactor around it to a fully realized and explorable region with crucial story segments and additional character inclusions, I can only applaud the developers for the awesome work they did, despite the convoluted level design which makes it hard to reach certain points of interest as you don’t see their elevation on the map.

New Mysteries

Like in Remake, I was invested in the new mysteries while playing through the game. what’s up with Zack’s reality? Why is the white Materia still intact there but empty in our reality? Where does the story go? What will happen to comatose Cloud and Aerith? Why is Biggs still alive but not the others? Will Sephiroth manage to pull Tifa and Cloud apart for good? What flustercuck will transpire at the end of the game?

The interspersed Zack segments certainly kept the intrigue going, especially when the connection to the prime continuity started to become apparent through Cloud seeing through his wheelchair-bound counterpart’s eyes after falling asleep and Aerith feeling Zack’s touch while on the boat to the Village of the Gi. In addition to this, Glenn’s appearance and the slow build-up to another war with Wutai as well as those new Weapons and their connection to Shinra’s desire to obtain the Magnus Materia before Wutai does provide another hook. I was looking forward to where those additional and expanded story strands would lead to.

Descent into Madness

Another aspect that Rebirth nailed hard was Cloud’s slow but sure descent into madness. Sephiroth was able to manipulate him more and more into distrusting Tifa and fetching the Black Materia for him, to the point of Cloud completely losing himself a few times to such a degree where I felt very uncomfortable controlling him as a player in the Temple of the Ancients after the trials. How he was acting, moving, and even speaking like Sephiroth at times felt very eerie and disturbing. In a good way. It’s really well done. From subtle hints to outright acting like a mental case and a threat to the group.

Silly vs Serious

Final Fantasy VII is known for its constant pendulum-swinging back and forth between being silly and very serious and Rebirth took this aspect to a new level. Certain segments are dead serious and grim while others ooze with pure joy and silliness. Other times, those two opposites are found within the same scene, creating a unique experience. The whole inauguration parade is a great example for this. Infiltrating the enemy base is serious enough, not to mention their goal to get close enough to Rufus to assassinate him, which Yuffie almost does. Yet, the whole gathering troops and parade performing segment is nothing but silly, most of all the Glabrescent Bar with Rude and their silly song. You can even add every time the Turks show up into the same category. Elena talking too much, Rude being Rude, and Tseng casually shooting a black robe in the Mythril Mines, paired with Elena trying to punch a party member and then literally falling off the cliff when dodged during the battle,¹ just to mention a few. There’s one parts in the game where this pendulum swing misses, but that’s for later.

Dating Sim

Just like in the original game, dialogue choices and some other activities count towards the affinity system which culminates in the date at the Gold Saucer. However, Rebirth takes this one step further and adds a protodate in chapter 8 where we visit the Gold Saucer for the first time, including a character-specific arrangement of the Gold Saucer theme while running around with your date. It’s a good teaser for getting a taste for the real thing later and the game lets you know which path you’re on. It’s also a really nice change of pace and a moment of reprieve after the depressing Corel segment, Barret being all moody, and before being thrown into the desert prison.

Music

Last but not least, a few words about the music.

Marvelous. S-Rank. God Tier. Phenomenal.

That’s it. Nothing more to say.²

The Bad

There are only a handful of things I would consider bad, although you could rather move them into the “not so good” category since barely anything can be considered truly bad in this game, at least in my opinion.

Well, besides certain parts in chapter 14, but that’s a completely different realm of “bad” and very personal, which is why I will save that for the next chapter of this article.

Minigames

I already mentioned some minigames which didn’t land for me, but I’d like to elaborate on them and explain why I feel negatively about them. Gears & Gambits is an oddball. Contrary to Fort Condor, which was already introduced in Episode INTERmission and got streamlined for Rebirth, this minigame is completely new and way too involved considering its place in the grander scheme. You need to play four rounds to complete the Cosmo region’s Protorelic quest line and each round adds a new part of the system. Which is good in practice, but it’s too overwhelming with all of its intricacies, rules, and options in my opinion. When I learned that there’s yet another minigame this late in the game, I almost checked out, especially upon realizing how deep it goes. I tried to create my own Gambits for the first round. It’s just like Final Fantasy XII, right? Wrong. I lost. And from then onward, I just used one of the pre-built AI sets for the respective round. However, even that wasn’t enough for the fourth round. That stupid King Flan kept outhealing my damage, so I reduced the difficulty to Easy and beat the crap out of it, just to be done with it. I haven’t even touched the hard versions of it yet and probably never will. It’s just not fun enough for me.

Next up is the chicken minigame where you have to lure four runaway chickens back to the old woman using a clanger. Which sounded funny in theory, though actually playing it resulted in cumbersome trial and error, many mistakes due to slow reaction times, and diminishing patience, especially since each chicken adds more mechanics and increases the luring distance. The fourth one outside of town was the least annoying because I realized very quickly that the game wouldn’t make me endure this torture for 150 meters or so and I was right. Which was fine. And the payoff with the ominous lighting and camera angle during the woman’s line “Say goodnight, Pippity!“ combined with the game over music after the “feast” redeemed the quest to a certain degree. Still, the main mechanic and execution of the minigame remains very annoying for me and I don’t want to do it again.

The third crappy minigame I mentioned earlier was Zhijie’s Dune Worm hunt quest Victim of Circumstance using the vibration detector gadget. Who came up with this UI and sound hint system? I was barely able to tell which direction to move towards and thus kept running around for almost fifteen minutes like a fool while the detector alternated between blue and red. The necessary information felt poorly delivered to the player. Why not add a wave animation roughly towards the target that becomes more visible and bigger the closer you get? That way, you at least know where to go and the worm doesn’t even need to be stationary and can freely roam around, making it really feel like a hunt and not like a fight against the bloody vibrodetector. Also, Dune Worms can go to hell. Nanaki was the only one remaining and his HP were already deep in the Red.³

Characters

Much less problematic are some of the characters I personally didn’t like as much. In general, all characters—major, minor, or just NPCs with more involvement than merely background chatter—are really well made, likable, or purposely written just to annoy you. However, there are a few characters which didn’t land quite as well for me as they were meant to.

Let’s start with the obvious one: Chadley. I know, it’s popular to hate on Chadley but I’m being serious here. I don’t dislike him or think that he’s badly written. Not at all. Quite the opposite. He’s meant to follow Cloud around and being a smartass. My gripe is more about the constant nagging and the repeating lines when entering or exiting the Chadley menu. Since you’re using Materia crafting and VR battle mode quite a lot, his repeating lines can become quite annoying, especially when you just lost against a hard VR battle, and he patronizes you with his arm-chair wisdom trying to perk you up or provide some advice. I wanted to strangle him more than a few times. Furthermore, his nagging about completing open tasks and especially Protorelic quests becomes very aggravating quite fast. Yes, Chadley, I know what’s still on the to-do list. I’ll get to it. Let me go through the game at my own pace. I think I understand why he is acting like that. His primary goal is to learn as much as he can about the world and archive everything before the planet dies and the knowledge is lost forever.⁴ Still, would it kill you to just let me do my thing, Chadley?! One of this game’s main design pillar is freedom. I suppose Chadley didn’t get the memo. And while I dislike how he treats MAI—accusing her of butting in and interrupting him during “important” speeches and even turning down her volume more than once—their interaction is at least a welcoming comic relief in between tasks.

Kyrie is another popular character to dislike and while I would certainly dislike any person acting like her, I do think as a fictional character, she’s well made. She’s meant to be despicable, annoying, and a troublemaker. That’s why seeing her miss the ship from Junon to Costa del Sol feels so satisfying. Instead of feeling bad, you cheer for her misfortune! Peak schadenfreude. I also like how the odd jobs with her as a client always end with Cloud doing the work for her and cleaning up after her. It tells you a lot about both of them. However, even after two games, she hasn’t learned a thing. No real character development. She is still an insufferable brat who can’t admit fault, doesn’t realize how much trouble she keeps putting onto others or even turn over a new leaf in a way. Maybe that’s for the third game, but as for now, the lack of development makes me label her as a net negative in terms of personal player experience.

The Avalanche HQ trio in the Cosmo area were a welcome addition as returning characters and thanks to them, we learned what happened to Wedge and how Lucia and Matt from The First SOLDIER story in the mobile game Ever Crisis are involved in Avalanche. But other than that, they are nothing more than incompetent and useless plot dispensers. They even directly tell Barret and the others that very sentiment. There’s just nothing there, really. I find them likable and endearing, but after the “I know those guys!“ moment, they felt like background cardboard cut-outs. Let’s hope they make a more meaningful return in the upcoming game.

The next one is a newcomer and one I actually like, despite her looks—outfit, hairstyle, and color scheme—not being to my taste. However, she’s another character that falls flat at the end of the day for me personally. The introduction of the Queen Queen⁵ on the Shinra-8 ship was well done and her card play theme rules. She even makes some reappearances here and there and—who would have thunk—is the final rival and taken over by the Shadowblood Queen. When looking at all those aspects, including the final cutscene involving Vincent, I should theoretically love that character, but for some reason, I just don’t care. Maybe it’s because of the lack of any meaningful connection to anything else in the game other than wanting to be the best at Queen’s Blood and thus happening to get caught in the Shadowblood Queen’s curse. Maybe it’s that one-dimensional presentation of her that makes me not care at all. In any case, she’s fine but… that’s about it.

Finally, one who you probably have not expected: Sephiroth. And not for the reasons you might think. I don’t dislike him, his backstory, his general involvement, or even his master plan. What I find annoying is that nigh everything that happens, in Remake and now here, is orchestrated by him in a way. It feels like everybody, even the planet, are his puppets. This makes everything else feel insignificant and irrelevant. Of course, the protagonist and his party need an obstacle to overcome, stakes, and conflict. But as things stand now, we’re just bumbling our way through the story where everything that goes our way is tolerated by Sephiroth and everything that goes awry is caused by him. Even Rufus’ endeavors are controlled and directed by Sephiroth. Aerith is the only one at the very end of the game who is able to push back a little, but according to Sephiroth’s reaction when he flies off, her rebellion barely left a dent in his grand plan, though the temporary set-back did seem to annoy him. I don’t dislike Sephiroth, the way his plan is constructed, or even his inclusion in the game. It’s just that he’s too much in control. It doesn’t feel like there are high stakes. If feels like everything that has yet to come has already been laid out and we can’t change that, no matter how hard we try. Even beating him in battle, twice, seems of no consequence. It just feels empty to me. But what do I know. I’m just an old man yelling at a Cloud.

Great Moments Done Dirty

This game has so many great scenes and moments that really shine in their own right and are not just recreations from the original game. However, the context they are shown in sometimes diminishes their impact, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. There are not many, fortunately, but those who are overshadowed by other aspects really suffer for the worse of it. Let me provide you with some examples.

One such sequence of cutscenes and gameplay segments happens in chapter 8. The build-up to the whole Dyne section is a bit different but still well made. I can’t complain about that. However, as soon as Barret finds him in the shack way out in the desert, things start to go downhill. What I learned about Dyne so far did not mesh well with what is shown to me. It seems like Gus let Dyne loose in the Gold Saucer to lure Cloud and his party to the Dustbowl through Barret’s connection to Dyne, then tied him up in the shack, just for Barret to find him and provide Dyne with closure by enabling him to fight Barret to the death. That’s at least how I understand it. Which makes Dyne seem like a pawn without much agency and thus completely diminishes his character; from prison boss to a puppet—unless I completely misunderstood or misinterpreted the sequence of events. The actual scenes with him and Barret were outstanding, however. No beef there. Very raw and emotional. Although, several interspersed segments completely killed the mood and left this whole section of the chapter stained with nonsense in my memory. Let me explain. Their battle starts and I’m really into it. However, I’m not as versed in Barret solo combat, so I performed quite poorly, which already soured the mood. Then Dyne goes all Tetsuo from Akira or Eustas Kidd from One Piece with his magnetic tentacle arm being enlarged by a pile of debris. It felt like I was in the wrong game. Not a fan. Later, Shinra forces show up out of nowhere. That at least makes sense, as the Turks were already on our heels. Cloud and the others notice the commotion and take care of the problem. After the fight is over, more security officers appear at the same spot and out of nowhere again. How did they get past Cloud and the others? Nobody knows. That section feels constructed by a storyteller and not organically developed at all. Dyne’s final stand in itself is a great scene but marred by the nonsense around it. And then, just after his death scene and Barret’s scream of agony and sorrow, freaking Palmer shows up in a frog mech and even taunts us with some disgusting butt cheek claps. What is this garbage? Let the impactful and emotional scene rest and sink in for at least a little bit! Afterwards, things calm down and we go fetch Barret. But then Dio shows up, Rude and more Shinra forces join in, we have to flee and then… another freaking minigame! One which I did poorly at, leading Barret to be disappointed afterwards. Didn’t feel great. Especially since Palmer and his trash froginator was a part of that shooting minigame, too. Thank you for completely undermining and ruining an otherwise very well recreated scene.

Another similar but much less egregious example happens in the Cave of the Gi. Red XIII a.k.a. Nanaki’s revelation and resolution scene with his father Seto was very well adapted and felt like a great closure to his main story arc. However, not even one second after the scene concludes, the environmental light turns red and Gi Nattak appears, destroying the nice moment and overshadowing Nanaki’s emotional reconnection to his past with new lore and intrigue. After having gone through the whole Gi Nattak segment, I barely remembered Nanaki’s great scene with his father, at least on an emotional level. I knew it was there and that I liked it but the rest is a murky haze. That’s why you need to let scenes meant to leave an emotional impact breathe for a bit before you throw the player into the next action sequence, mystery, story sub-arc, or even involved gameplay segment. Otherwise, the desired effect is lost.

This game also presents some “intermission” scenes back to back in certain segments which can also overwhelm the player. At least it felt a bit like that in my case. The sequence of scenes I mentioned before also includes another Zack scene. Which means, we get to see Nanaki learning the truth about his father before immediately being thrown into new lore territory with Gi Nattak, only to be interrupted by more Zack story just to get thrown back into Gi lore, which includes the Black Materia and Sephiroth as a consequence. It’s just too much at once. Another example transpires on Mt. Corel when we meet the Turks and fight the Valkyrie 2.0. After our victory, a Shinra executive meeting transpires in the Shinra building in Midgar, followed by another Zack segment. And right after, we reach the Corel Mako reactor where we meet our first new planetary Weapon and Yuffie loses her mind over the gigantic Materia. At least this last bit is a continuation of the scene in Shinra HQ where they introduce the Magnus Materia and those new Weapons. Still, they could have spread those intermission scenes a bit further apart instead of concentrating those in just a few spots in the whole game.

While I vastly prefer the pacing of Rebirth over Remake’s bumpy ride, it still has major issues at times, albeit with a small impact in the grand scheme of things. At least in my opinion.

Musical Dissonance

For my last point, I unfortunately have to criticize the otherwise phenomenal soundtrack of this game a little bit. I don’t like all the tracks individually thanks to my personal taste⁶ but even those tracks largely fit very well into the scenes, segments, or regions they are used in. Except for one area: Mt. Corel. To me, that kind of music just doesn’t fit the mood and location. Let's Go, Mt. Corel! and Firework Blade just don’t evoke the feeling of hiking up a mountain for me. It also doesn’t help that I don’t like listening to those two tracks, at all, especially the battle music. They’re just not my style. But this section of the game was the only one where the music felt disconnected to the gameplay and mood, and thus diminished my experience instead of elevating it.

The Ugly

Now it’s time for the big criticism. If you love Rebirth with all your heart, including everything chapter 14 has to offer, then you might want to stop reading now or at least jump to the Conclusion section for some information about CCO in general. If you decide to read on, brace yourself for heavy criticism and lots of negative emotions. This is your last warning.

Ya good? Then let’s start.

Temple of the Average

While my ire is solely directed towards chapter 14, chapter 13 already showed signs of things to come. However, far be it from me to say that I disliked the Temple of the Ancients. I’d still give it a rating of 4 out of 5. While this sounds really good, it does seem less significant when I consider all previous chapters together a 7 out of 5, despite the flaws I detailed earlier, thanks to the overwhelming amount of God-tier content and experience. Since the Temple of the Ancients is only good and enjoyable at baseline, the not-so-good parts drag down the whole experience for me. But why the perceived decline after twelve grandiose chapters? Let me indulge you.

Leaving Sephiroth out of the equation for now, this whole segment felt lacking in perceived variety and left a feeling of sameness. But why? It offers many different gameplay segments to change things up and several elements from the original version make a return, so why the downplay? It’s hard to explain in just a few words, so I’ll have to elaborate a bit.

Each section in the original version of the temple feel unique and even contain unique interactions. First the M. C. Escher look-alike maze, then the ducking beneath C-shaped rolling rocks, a water surface acting as a window to the planet’s memories showing us what happened to Tseng, with Sephiroth’s will aware of our peeking, the clock room where you had to manipulate time to reach different pathways, the room with the puzzle passages where we had to chase the silly bearded Black Mage spirit of an Ancient, the mural room where the Black Materia lore drop happens and Sephiroth reveals his grand plan, and finally the path to the exit blocked by the Demon Wall. Each section looks and feels significantly different to play, even though some parts do exhibit some old-school jank. Furthermore, the stakes only really start gearing up once we learn about Sephiroth’s plan and Meteor and then realize how the Black Materia is retrieved. But the action does not begin right away. We know what needs to be done but have time to digest it and come up with a plan—two random boss battles later that only act as a final barrier before this part of the story ends. Still, we can run around at our own pace and have one last chat with Cait Sith #1 before he decides to sacrifice his body to retrieve the Black Materia for the group and thus make up for his betrayal earlier. We casually exit the temple and wait for Cait to do his thing. It’s only then when things start to go south, Cloud loses himself, returns the Black Materia to Jenovaroth⁷ and lashes out at Aerith upon realizing what he has done, just to be knocked out by the third combat party member.

Now we compare this to Rebirth’s version of the temple. To me, each section looks and feels very similar, save for the mural corridor at the end. I don’t really know why, but the different gameplay features in each section don’t do a well enough job to noticeably make them feel wholly distinct. It feels more like a singular dungeon (which it is supposed to be) with different gameplay elements thrown in for variety. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the gravity shift feature and Aerith’s unique character gimmick. Even the Whirlwind Maze-like Lifestream torrents made me smile. Still, I don’t get the same feeling of unique “rooms” like in the original version. Even the clock, while somewhat present in the circle of trials, acts as nothing more than a callback and a backdrop for the trials room where the minute hand merely points to a door that opens. That’s about it. No player input necessary or even possible. Interestingly, this very observation is an omen for what’s to come later on. Anyway, the Ancient spirits are completely missing, which is a shame, and I personally prefer the way the original game handled Tsengs’s involvement. We find him injured at the entrance up top and only later learn about how it happened by using a water window into the Lifestream which simultaneously acts as an explanation for how memories function and the role water and the Ancients play through showing it to us first-hand. This creates intrigue. In Rebirth. There is no intrigue. Tseng just gets stabbed in front of the group by “Sephiroth,” then shoots the robed guy underneath the illusion. Cue a short version of the original scene.

A few more points of contention: Instead of the Demon Wall being the guardian of the Black Materia or the Temple as a whole, it only appears once summoned by Sephiroth. It’s as if the original aspects have lost their agency and are now left to be puppeteered by Sephiroth’s whims.⁸ Though adding a second Demon Wall on the opposite side was a nice touch and increased the stakes in battle. Rewinding a bit, I was also annoyed by the fiends constantly interrupting the Cetra and Jenova lore drops while walking along the mural corridor, especially the Moss-Grown Adamantoise. Screw that piece of compost. This is yet another example of an important segment being unnecessarily interrupted by other garbage, taking away the (hopefully) intended impact. How they handled the security mechanism for the Black Materia also didn’t land for me. It turned from a problem to be solved into an Indiana Jones action segment, even lacking rolling boulders. Missed opportunity. Cloud takes the black orb away from the pedestal which immediately activates the security system that ends in the disappearance of the Temple, crushing everyone inside. It’s the same in essence but the polar opposite in execution. Cait suddenly pops up out of nowhere, rushes in, and makes it in the nick of time to buy the others time to escape. This takes away from what the original version tried to do. Instead of making the conscious decision to offer his body for the cause, he has no choice but to rush in and sacrifice his body without giving the others time to process any of it (this has become a recurring theme by now that will remain to the end). I guess the quota for a tight escape action sequence needs to be fulfilled nowadays. At least they handled Cait Sith #2’s appearance much more sensibly and effective. That I very much appreciated.

Where Things Start to go Downhill

Sephiroth summoning the Demon Wall was already unnecessary, but why those silly Whisper “tree” branches stretching across the hole in the ground left by the temple? Just to increase the tension by adding the danger of falling off of it? Fall damage doesn’t even exist in Final Fantasy games. Just so Sephiroth can cut the branch Aerith is standing on once Cloud delivers the Black Materia key? I find this addition entirely unnecessary. Why not having them run along the cliff? Or how about the temple leaving some narrow pathway down to the bottom of the hole? That way, the whole party can descend first, Cloud can pick up the Black Materia left behind by the disappearing temple—like in the original, instead of Cloud carrying the key with him—and then the same sequence as in Rebirth can play out but with Aerith running back to the top along that narrow pathway. The Whispers can still make Aerith fall, Cloud would catch her at the last second, leaving Sephiroth an opening to cut the path and make both fall back to the ground. Which also happens in Rebirth where the rest of the group also makes it down there “somehow.” Them being already at the bottom makes the following scenes more believable to me, actually.

In short, I disliked that part of chapter 13. Not every aspect, just the general presentation and logistics. Later on, we see how Cloud and Aerith get rescued by the others and later making their way into the Sleeping Forest, for which Cloud is mostly out of it. We don’t even get to hear what the others are talking about until they notice that Cloud comes to and then begin to talk to him. And since this part is only shown through Cloud’s eyes and not from a different point of view, it feels like we’re robbed of an important sequence. I don’t dislike this sort of presentation at all, but when it’s not resolved within the same piece of media—in this case a full game within a trilogy with each entry taking years to release—it feels… hollow. But that’s not all. Between Cloud falling into the hole with Aerith and him being carried along into the Sleeping Forest, we get to see what Shinra and Zack are up to, play through Aerith’s so-called dream with more interspersed Zack scenes, receive the real White Materia, are thrown into the void where Sephiroth drops the explanation about the multiple worlds, then we proceed to a representation of the Sleeping Forest or a dream version of it, have to fight Whispers, meet Aerith again, return the White Materia to her,⁹ and then Cloud finally wakes up. Afterwards, the group only has the last leg of the journey through the forest ahead and can easily reach the exit thanks to Sephiroth’s “Blessing” that leads Cloud towards him. Being thrown around from scene to scene like that feels very disjointed and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. On the “bright” side, this strategy allows the developers to streamline the journey to the Forgotten Capital instead of having to create a long and believable path northward which would have necessitated more gameplay and battles. So, I understand the decision, it just doesn’t feel right from my perspective. My observation thus far is that original content is either cut (Bone Village) or now only acts as a backdrop for the new mysteries and presentation of the new direction. At least from the end of chapter 13 onward.

And again, there’s barely any room to breathe. Black Materia, the fall, Shinra scene, Zack scene, Aerith’s dream with more Zack scenes, Sephiroth’s villain speech, Whisper battles, Aerith in the forest, Cloud’s awakening, a conversation with each party member while walking through the forest and then we’re already in front of the Forgotten Capital. The only real opportunity to breath and process what just happened lies in a very tiny spot between locations—on a bench—and only when you don’t move or just turn off the game for a while to continue later on. There’s just way too much happening in a short amount of time without any time to process anything without actively pausing or suspending the game.

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Am I too hard on the game? Just you wait.

The Capital Best Forgotten

The City of the Ancients is not the only thing that has been forgotten it seems. Where’s the Coral Valley? It just doesn’t exist anymore. The outlook over the Forgotten Capital has been connected to the exit of the Sleeping Forest. Another truncation that is overtly palpable. However, I decided to look past it and was looking forward to checking out the Forgotten Capital myself, do some exploration and see the sights while taking one last breather until that scene happens and the inevitable final boss gauntlet begins. Approaching the decline triggers the usual introduction scene of a new area and Nanaki drops some information he heard about this place from Bugenhagen. Even Vincent is seen sitting around somewhere. I felt one last bump of hype. However…

Then, Whispers appear, a scene reminiscent of Sephiroth’s appearance after defeating the Whisper Harbinger in Remake transpires, where he talks about worlds merging while disfiguring the topography around the main shell building in the process, destroying any remaining hope for one last casual exploration through one of the most beautiful places in the original game. The only way forward now is jumping from one chunk of debris to the next and approaching the city’s center. Thanks to the myriad of Whispers flying about, you can hardly take in the sights; what’s left of it anyway. If that wasn’t enough, we then have to fight white Whispers on our way down and when we reach the building, black Whispers block the entrance. It’s Remake chapter 18 all over again. In addition to that, how Cloud is able to get through the Whisper wall feels a bit strange. I understand what’s happening, but… I don’t know. Maybe I was just too defeated by the game’s handling of the source material at this point and overwhelmed by the new shenanigans that made me not receptive to campy friendship nonsense, nostalgia for Remake, and “Aerith!“

So far, I’ve been robbed of the journey from disembarking on the northern continent to the last legs of the Sleeping Forest, the Coral Valley, and even the City of the Ancients. Let me at least have the good stuff inside the main building and at the altar. What greeted me was a generic elevator instead of glassy stairs, Whispers blocking most of the vista while descending, and a literal and boring looking corridor to the altar which also lost a lot of its splendor in terms of visuals. No jumping from pillar to pillar either. Aerith’s insecure dialogue was nice and felt natural. Some hope welled up again, which was swiftly crushed by the stream of both white and black Whispers trying to keep Cloud away including another L2 and R2 slog. As if that wasn’t enough to crush the mood, they then proceeded to make Cloud raise his sword over Aerith. What is this? At that point in the original game, Cloud is being controlled by Sephiroth’s call through Jenova cells and the Reunion. You can try to resist by pressing the directional buttons, though only pressing the cross button progresses the scene progress and makes Cloud raise the sword higher to eventually bring it down on the last Cetra. Well, almost. His friends’ cries make him snap out of it in the last second. Cloud basically had another mental breakdown, got possessed, almost did something inexcusable. It was an internal struggle and force driving him and an external counterforce stopping him. Here, Cloud doesn’t even want to do anything to Aerith. He’s not possessed or has any mental breakdown. He's merely steered by external forces, the Whispers—Sephiroth and fate enforced by the planet. Yes, we can also struggle against their pull by mashing the L2 and R2 buttons, but you don’t have to. I purposely didn’t press anything to see what happens. Well, the outcome is the same. The button prompts disappear, Cloud still struggles against the Whispers’ pull, Sephiroth brings down his blade and Cloud “breaks” destiny and deflects Sephiroth’s attack. The only difference in my case was the lack of Cloud’s struggle animations while the button prompts were visible. Another important moment ruined.

Am I done complaining? Not in the slightest.

Schrödinger’s Aerith

Starting with Sephiroth’s descent upon a praying Aerith, the story goes off the rails completely. I don’t dislike the new mysteries and the multiple worlds. I find them fascinating. But where I draw the line is when those new additions are inserted at the expense of original content. Which is what’s happening in this segment, and here’s why.

While trying to break free of destiny’s hold—the black and white Whispers, one steered by Sephiroth, the other by the planet—Cloud breaks through destiny itself and creates a new world as seen by the rainbow effect; and by the fact that he deflects Sephiroth’s Masamune, causing it to miss Aerith. However, in our prime world, Aerith still dies. Everything happens as preordained—or how it always transpired. I still maintain that all the worlds represent memories within the Lifestream, with the prime world being the planet’s true memories made up of experiences and knowledge created by prior living beings, depicted by Remake’s and Rebirth’s main story and later on the main chain of events in the third entry of the trilogy. This in itself is a cool concept but instead of showing us both in a satisfying manner, Aerith’s original death scene is only shown post stabbing up to the White Materia falling into the lake below. Everything afterwards is essentially a back and forth between Cloud’s newly created world with Aerith alive yet weak on the ground and the true world where Aerith is dead with everybody mourning, including Cloud. Again, this sounds cool in concept, but the way it is presented feels shallow and relegates Aerith’s death scene and everything that follows to the background as a mere tool for the new mystery. What really happened is only shown in fragments while the focus lies on Cloud’s new world and delusion. I didn’t feel the emotional impact of the original scene. The game was shoving the new mysteries into my face instead of letting the actual events linger and sink in.

While I do appreciate Aerith’s theme being prominent during the first parts of the following Jenova fight and how everybody but Cloud has their limit bar filled up, it wasn’t enough for me to care. Moreover, many characters still spout their usual witty one-liners during that battle, creating a dissonance between how you expect them to act and behave in this situation and how they actually present themselves. A dissonance that completely ruined the mood for me. Why not disable their battle taunts and only let grunts and cries play? Even some of the scripted lines felt a bit out of place, especially Yuffie’s, given their beloved friend was just murdered in cold blood by their main adversary. Unless this is meant to reflect how Cloud perceives the fights? Even so, it doesn’t land since we, the players, are not as delusional as Cloud. There’s a huge disconnect happening in this fight.

What made everything worse was personal experience of that fight. I was already heavily annoyed by how they treated the source material and after an admittedly nicely designed multi-phase Jenova battle with a hype lead-in to the final phase with the Avalanche trio kicking Jenova’s butt, Jenova kicked my butt instead, really hard. I was almost exclusively busy trying to stay alive with healing and reviving spells and items, but it wasn’t enough. The Game Over screen appeared and I rage-quit the game within a second. Afterwards, I was seriously considering leaving it at that and never touch the game again. I was done. I couldn’t deal with such bullcrap anymore. Too many negative aspects in that last segment. After sleeping on it, however, I realized that I eventually need to know what happens afterwards lest I check out of the Final Fantasy VII community completely, which I didn’t want to. So, I spun up the game once more on my final vacation day, switched the difficulty mode to Easy and rushed through to the end.

Did I like the rest more after that small break? Not really. Zack’s involvement felt like pure fanservice I didn’t care about, his one-on-one with Sephiroth Reborn didn’t feel well gameplaywise as charging up his sword was nigh impossible without being constantly interrupted and I had no idea what that white circle was meant to do.¹⁰ Having to fight another Whisper Bahamut in Rebirth felt completely unnecessary and annoying, and during the Core and Wing segment of Sephiroth Reborn, it took me a long time to figure out that you need to attack the wings with their current elemental weakness. Yuffie yelling into my ear that “It’s those stupid wings!“ didn’t help either because I did try to attack the wings but it only showed “immune,” which confused me even more. Until I noticed that magical attacks did damage the wings and as that boss phase was almost over, I realized the strategy and finished it off with a well-placed elemental attack. I don’t know if Assess would have helped. I didn’t have it on any of the three characters in that specific group anyway. Maybe I was just burnt out and didn’t care enough to pay attention to what was happening, but almost every boss fight in chapter 14 felt like a slog, not fun, and I was just bashing my way through. It was so bad that I didn’t even realize that Sephiroth sometimes stuck his sword into the ground during the final fight or that he used his on-brand skewer attack from Advent Children on Cloud and even Aerith. I also never saw or noticed Tempus Finis, so I was surprised at how everybody else had such difficulty beating him. I suppose Easy mode really is Easy mode.

Anyway, enough hating on the battles. They were not bad. It’s just my experience with them in the context detailed above that made me not care and not really like them. It also didn’t help how Zack came in and out of the picture and especially how Aerith suddenly appeared. I know what’s going on now and I also understand what they’re going for, but shoving Omni-Aerith into my face after Original-Aerith’s supposed death doesn’t help. On the contrary, it lessens Aerith’s incomplete death scene even further. In fact, simply removing Aerith from that Sephiroth fight would have helped quite a bit, since that would have made the other scenes with her not dead hit much harder because it would be clear that it’s all in Cloud’s head or a peek into yet another world of possibilities. Omni-Aerith’s appearance just muddies the whole thing in my opinion. I suppose that’s the point of this new mystery, that we’re supposed to be confused about her fate. Is she dead? Is she alive in another world? Is it just Cloud’s delusion? Or is it just Aerith’s force ghost? While that is commendable, after re-watching it once later on made it pretty clear what’s going on. I just wasn’t paying enough attention on my first playthrough to realize or even care what the game tried to show me. Does that make me appreciate this part more now? Not really. I’m just not confused anymore.

“Are you done criticizing my Game of the Year yet, ya hater?” I hear somebody shouting from the other side of the screen. The answer is…

The Forgotten Burial

Not in the slightest. There’s more. I already think it’s a travesty for Square Enix to rob us of the Coral Valley, the Forgotten Capital as an actual location instead of a measly hallway dungeon, and the complete version of Aerith’s death scene and its aftermath. However, there’s this other missing crucial piece which is represented by the black cherry on Sephiroth’s turd I was served after he stole my lunch and ate it gleefully in front of me.

After everything I ranted about in the previous section is done and over, we return to the Forgotten Capital where everybody is quietly sitting in front of a body of water. My first reaction: “Oh no… they did not just skip this part…“ Again, I do understand what’s happening there and why they did it. By creating this alternate world where Aerith lives, Cloud is completely in denial about her being dead in the prime world. Everything that would show him the opposite is wiped from his perceived memory, just like his true past as a Shinra infantryman. But instead of making that clear to us, the players, Square Enix forces us into Cloud’s shoes where we only see what Cloud consciously sees and experiences. The same happened between the Temple of the Ancients and the Sleeping Forest. To the detriment of my personal experience with this otherwise fantastic game.

There are three vital components to Aerith’s death in the original game that make it so impactful in my eyes:

1. The sudden death itself. Cloud and his friends barely manage to keep him from killing Aerith with his own hands, only for Sephiroth to do it anyway right in front of him and everybody else. And not just that. Sephiroth enjoys the situation and slowly and contently pulls the sword out of a now lifeless Aerith, reveling in Cloud’s despair. Before Cloud can get a hold of his overflowing emotions, we get thrown into a boss battle without any change in music.

2. The farewell. Afterwards, Cloud and his two battle companions receive time to say goodbye to Aerith, each in their own way,¹¹ before Cloud picks Aerith up and leaves this place.

3. The burial. Here comes probably the most important part of this whole segment: returning Aerith to the planet by letting her sink into a body of water, which generally represents the Lifestream, where every life is born and returns to. A perfect wrap-up of the events that just transpired. However, the group has no time to grief. They need to continue following Sephiroth and retrieve the Black Materia.

With the farewell and burial segments missing, this whole part feels empty and hollow. Purposefully so, I imagine, to evoke the same sudden loss that the removal of the party’s healer did in the original game, while creating a new mystery at the same time. I get what they are going for, but it just doesn’t work for me. Having two and a half points of the three listed above removed from Rebirth is an unforgivable slap in the face of every fan of the original game in my personal opinion. If other fans feel differently about this, I’m completely fine with that. This article is meant to reflect my personal feelings and thoughts about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and I do not aim to tell anybody else how to feel about anything mentioned here. I would prefer to like chapter 14 more than I do but I just can’t. The final ending cinematic on the grassy landscape before the party flies northward with the now fixed-up tiny Bronco was beautifully made and did provide some sort of closure, but not really. It also sparked several annoying theories but that’s for another time, maybe.

Mysteries over Respect

In summary: the missing pieces from the original game are mainly responsible for my dislike of chapter 14 as a whole. Even if those missing pieces are shown and wrapped up in the third game, it doesn’t matter. My experience has been made and I don’t want to wait another three to four years to fully make up my mind about Rebirth. It’s a single and complete game and I will judge it as such. I don’t mind unresolved mysteries and I also don’t mind moving certain locations or segments to the third game in full, like Fort Condor, Wutai, and Rocket Town. All three don’t become important and crucial to the story until the Huge Materia segment in the original game anyway and Wutai is completely optional. As was Gongaga, which is why I love what they did to it in Rebirth. Bone Village is also not crucial to Final Fantasy VII’s plot, so moving it to game 3 and possibly even utilizing it in a different way is perfectly fine for me. While I’m still miffed about not being able to enter Avalanche’s hideout via the pinball machine, its absence in terms of explorability doesn’t bother me nearly as much as crucial story sections being hollowed out just to serve the new mysteries, even if those removed bits should make an appearance in the third and final entry. That’s why I didn’t mind the new mysteries in Remake at all. They never replaced or removed content from the original work or diminished any of it. Everything connected to Sephiroth and the Whispers were purely added on top of the original game’s content and new additions like Jessie’s home and the warehouse raid also did not replace any original content. To be fair, the prison scene was replaced with Aerith’s former room where she and Ifalna lived, but this is an actual improvement over the original in my opinion as talking through thick prison cell walls made no sense and neither did pairing up some of them in a single cell. Though I do agree that Cloud’s cell suddenly being open, Jenova being gone, and the trail of actual blood with several Shinra employees lying dead along the way makes for a much eerier atmosphere and creates a mystery that culminates in the president having been stabbed by Sephiroth’s sword, which is still the superior and less drawn-out sequence of events over The Drum and the Purple Goo.

I’m all for changes if they make sense and elevate the original intent and I do like additional mysteries that make people theorize and talk about for years until the next game eventually releases. Where I draw the line is when changes are applied and new mysteries are added at the expense of aspects and content from the original work. That doesn’t work for me and eliminates the mood and lessens my experience overall. While individual parts, concepts, and elements of additions and new mysteries in Rebirth were actually pretty cool and interesting, the way some of them were implemented marred everything around them. When being burned by some inexcusable shenanigans, I’m unable to appreciate the good things surrounding them. Fortunately, I can easily separate chapter 14 from everything else and consider chapter 13 as its own thing, which is why I still love the game overall. I just pretend those heinously handled parts don’t exist and I’m good. Sort of. I still have no motivation to jump back into the game to complete all those open tasks and play through hard mode, but there are other reasons at play, too.

Conclusion

In the end, I still consider Final Fantasy VII Rebirth a very strong Game of the Year or even Game of the Decade contender. When separating my personal feelings from the equation and looking at it through an objective and analytical lens, there’s not much to criticize besides the pacing and weird tonal shifts in a few sections. And as mentioned before, I still had a grand time with the game until the end of chapter 13 and I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. Aside from my personal issues with chapter 14, I think Square Enix handled the source material really well and massively expanded on it, creating an unforgettable experience that just kept on giving and I had to regularly and repeatedly pick up my jaw from the floor and apply some balm to the chin from the hard impact on the ground each time. The nostalgic kid inside me loved almost every single part of this humongous game, which I am still in awe over how they were able to pull this off in only three years¹² despite a lot of the groundwork from Remake.

Nonetheless, the emptiness and disappointment I felt during chapter 14 won’t go away for quite a while, if ever, and might only be put into context once I play the third and final entry. As long as Rebirth needs to stand on its own feet, I will treat it as such, because I have no other reference to draw from. Not yet anyway. I will probably have a different outlook once I can play through all three games in direct succession as if it was one singular story—the modern version of old-school disc-swapping. Though that will take at least three more years.

Regarding the reasons for my absence on Twitter/X and the lack of content here and on YouTube: Yes, my disdain for how the story, locations, and chain of events have been handled in chapter 14 does contribute to it, but not by much. The following two and a half reasons hold the majority share of the blame.

1. During my three-week vacation, I was too engrossed in playing the game to also care about creating #CCOGems to post on Twitter/X. My primary goal was to finish the game while completing as much optional content as I could and wanted to. And even by playing almost 6 hours a day, I was able to reach the credits on Sunday April 24th, my last day of vacation, after starting the game three weeks earlier on Saturday March 2nd. This barely allowed me to carve out time for content creation.

2. Playing it like this apparently burned me out by the end. Not liking many sections of chapter 14 might have also contributed to the drop in motivation. Another aspect of this encompasses the fact that there’s so much to analyze, so much to say, so many cool moments, comparisons, Easter eggs, hidden stuff, and several big topics to tackle that it’s simply overwhelming. I don’t even know where to start. Some cool bits have already been shared around and I don’t feel like providing redundant content. That’s why I’m currently going through the footage of my own playthrough and take notes for each chapter and section of the game to have a comprehensive overview of all important information for smaller posts and bigger analyses later down the road. This will take quite a while, however, not least because of my regular lack of energy and, given my day job and other things in everyday life, a lack of time.

That being said, you can eventually expect more Rebirth content in the usual format and detailed analysis where I dive deep into all the mysteries this game has to offer, though I cannot provide any time frame as of now. It’s just a hobby for me, after all. I might also sneak in some transcript articles of videos published before establishing the CCO Substack page here and there. We’ll see.

If you made it this far into this old man’s Rebirth rant, congratulations and thank you for your perseverance. Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t, maybe a bit of both. Let me know in the comments below and subscribe if you haven’t already. This type of content is a foray into uncharted territory and definitely not a regular occurrence, since I usually focus solely on evidence-based analysis work with a bit of theory crafting sprinkled in. However, with such strong and clashing feelings about this game bottled up inside, I just had to bring everything onto digital paper and share it with anybody willing to listen to what I have to say.

And remember: it’s not death, it’s a homecoming.

Take care!

– Vyzzuvazzadth

1. Which is a reference to her trying to punch Cloud in Icicle Inn, missing, then tumbling downhill with her guards running after her.

2. Besides two tracks in one area but that’s for a later segment.

3. Pun indented.

4. And to unknowingly help Hojo provide with invaluable data and a functioning world-wide network for his eventual digitization at the end of the raid on Midgar atop the Sister Ray. Maybe.

5. Regina means “queen” in Italian and Königin is German for… “queen.”

6. Like Jungles of Gongaga. For some reason, I just don’t jive with that composition and the singing children. It still fits Gongaga’s jungle theme, so I guess it’s fine.

7. Jenovaroth is a portmanteau of Jenova and Sephiroth that describes Jenova’s body appearing in the form of and being controlled by Sephiroth’s will from the northern crater through the Lifestream and the Jenova cells’ Reunion function.

8. Maybe touching the wall is what made it appear and it could have been “summoned” by anybody besides Sephiroth. Maybe I’m too hard on the game. Maybe. Or maybe not.

9. Cloud keeps receiving and returning special Materia, huh…

10. Before you yell “Skill issue!” at the screen: yes, it certainly is. Everything you read here represents my personal opinion and experience. No objective reality or facts.

11. I personally advise you to have Tifa and Yuffie in your team before approaching Aerith. They have the strongest and most impactful reactions in my personal opinion. And I think I’m not alone in this.

12. Of the four years between April 10th 2020 and February 29th 2024, around one year was allocated to creating the Intergrade version and Episode INTERmission.