A week ago, I had almost no idea what to expect from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake Project trilogy and the follow-up to a somewhat divisive first chapter, but in the time since the world has been treated to a pretty eye-opening new trailer at the PlayStation State of Play and we’ve been treated to an extensive hands-on with the game as well as an interview with some of the studio leadership steering this nostalgia delivery craft out of the safety of the estuary and into the great, wide ocean.
Yep, there’s no better way to kick things off here than whooping, cheering, hollering on behalf of anyone who lamented the linearity and listlessness of Final Fantasy VII Remake, because the folks at Square Enix have blown the lid off of this proverbial magic pot. Not only are Cloud and Co. finally leaving the dreary and walled-in confines of Midgar for the greater Gaia, but Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is serving up a seamless, spanning recreation of the original Final Fantasy VII’s world for players to explore to their heart’s content.
But we’ll get to that in a second – my initial experience with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came by way of a much more familiar-feeling sequence that echoed the tone and structure I’d come to expect from Remake. Granted, the content itself was exciting, given this tutorialised section of the game that I was handed to play took place in the Mt Nibel flashback sequence with a young Cloud, Sephiroth and Tifa, which OG fans will understand makes a fair amount of sense as something of an opener for Rebirth (though it’s unclear if this is exactly at the beginning of the game or just where my demo jumped off). It’s also an exciting start because it meant that I immediately had access to Sephiroth as a playable party member.
PRE-ORDER AT AMAZON FOR $105 WITH FREE SHIPPING.
While this section of my preview was noteworthy for a number of reasons – the gorgeous recreation of Mt. Nibel and the scenes within and the introduction to improved traversal among other things – the highlight was certainly being able to lay the smack down as Mr. Grumpypants Longsword himself, and it did not disappoint. Combat in this early section hadn’t deviated too much from what was established in Final Fantasy VII Remake just yet, but playing as Sephiroth was immediately a blast. His basic square and triangle moves are laid out as a flexible combo and finisher, his guard becomes a Retaliation Stance that allows for devastating parries, and he’s fast as hell, making him feel exactly as skilled in the hand and look exactly as stylish and imposing in motion as you’d expect.
Along with being able to whip my luscious, silver hair back and forth across the field of battle, this part of the game also introduced some of the biggest shake-ups to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s combat system: Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities. Although I’m not entirely sold on how similarly-named they are, this pairing of new mechanics deftly brings together the disparate halves of Remake’s pairing of real-time action and stop-and-think strategy into a more cohesive whole than before. Synergy Skills are simple enough, giving the various pairings of characters in a fight a suite of special moves that can be used any time while guarding without spending ATB gauge or MP and aren’t powerful enough to turn the tides of anyone’s fortune but are a nice little way to round out your moveset and give you incentive to try different party configurations.
Synergy Abilities on the other hand are more devastating or game-changing moves that similarly pair different characters together but require that your controlled character and their pairing both have enough slots filled in a brand-new gauge. The beauty of these is that said gauge is filled by spending ATB on your solo abilities, not only giving you incentive to keep using every tool in your arsenal to fill your own metre but also encouraging you to get your hands dirty with your teammates’ abilities via the tactical menu so that they’ll have the required gauge to help you execute the Synergy Ability you’re trying to pull off.
This first part of my hands-on culminated in a thrilling multi-stage boss fight against the Materia Guardian (known as Materia Keeper in the original), a returning beastie that has had the expected graphical glow-up, and one which I was hoping to blow-up. Those Synergy Abilities came especially in handy here as I used Cloud and Sephiroth’s Double Helix move to bring my six-armed assailant crashing down to the ground whenever it tried to slurp down a hot serving of Mako from a nearby pipe. Cloud’s eyes lighting up as he deals the finishing blow and Sephiroth gives him a warm, “Nice work,” is heartbreaking in retrospect.
After this section, I was jumped forward further into the game where I was able to get a small taste of the enormous, explorable world on offer in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I found myself at the rocky, mountainous outskirts of Junon, where Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret and Red XIII are banded together in pursuit of some mysterious, robed figures that seem to be headed towards Junon. After a short cutscene, I immediately find myself on the back of a chocobo and free to roam around a decently-sized area full of things to distract me on my way to the next goal.
One of the first things I happen across is a total surprise – a wandering chocobo chick, beckoning for me to follow it to a nearby Chocobo Stop. These are a new type of rest spot that Cloud can open up by re-erecting a fallen signpost. The Final Fantasy fan in me delighted at multiple things here. For starters, the chocobo chicks walk around with the shell of a giant nut still attached to their backs, which is a cute nod to the breeding mechanics in the original Final Fantasy VII (and you can pet them!). Tents, a longtime Final Fantasy staple item, also make something of a comeback here as “cushions” that Cloud can spend to rest at these dilapidated benches. He’s clearly got a discerning bum. Bringing these chocobo stops back into commission also grants Golden Plumes, which can be spent at shops on new cosmetic riding gear for your chocobo, which is neat.
Moving on from my big bird friends at the nearby chocobo ranch, I also happened across a few Fiend Sightings, which are special battles with monster variants dotted around the place. These encounters give players a handful of optional objectives to achieve in battle, and can be replayed by revisiting the same spot at any time, with the voice of someone named MAI coming through over comms and measuring your progress while offering educational insights into the fiends you’re facing.
I didn’t get to properly investigate it, but it seems as though each region of the map in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth measures how thoroughly you’ve explored and completed gameplay activities within it. I reckon I spent around 30 minutes fully exploring and completing objectives in this one section that my demo allowed me to roam around in and, based on a quick pan of what I’m mostly certain is the entire map, it was easily a single-digit percentage of the whole thing. Limited for time, I also didn’t get to tinker with it too much but there’s a whole crafting system that can be pulled up any time where you smash bits found littered around the environment into useful gear like potions.
Of course, regular monsters roam these fields as well, and getting to go toe-to-toe with a decent variety of foes gave me the opportunity to get a feel for Red XIII, who was a companion character in Remake but is now fully-playable here. His “gimmick” sees him build up a special “Vengeance” bar with the more damage he takes, then spending what he’s accumulated to significantly buff his stats for a time. Between his and other characters’ playstyles, and the Synergy stuff, one thing I definitely noticed in my time is that guarding is much more important in Rebirth and forms a crucial part of a lot the new and updated systems.
It’s cool to see how the team has kept things familiar in combat while still thinking about how to expand and iterate in meaningful ways – I also noticed that whichever characters aren’t chosen for your immediately-controllable party of three will still roam the outskirts of battle and throw a few attacks in here and there.
Original Version Image: Fandom
After pottering around for a while, I followed my main quest marker in this part of the preview to Under Junon, where my party quickly found none other than Yuffie under attack from another boss, Terror of the Deep, which is the new name for Final Fantasy VII’s Bottomswell boss. Fans of the original will remember this monster originally attacked a local girl named Priscilla, but here we’re seeing Rebirth’s revised take on the Final Fantasy VII story use this moment as an excuse to bring Yuffie into the fold. Don’t worry though, the dolphin has made the cut.
If what I played here is anything to go by, there’s a good cadence here of modern-feeling open exploration bookended by visits to stunning recreations of familiar locales from Final Fantasy VII along with thoughtful updates to scenarios, characters and encounters that OG fans remember. This small taste has me incredibly excited to see the rest of Rebirth’s vast world and whether the team truly has managed to keep up the fidelity and depth of gameplay, visuals and sterling fan service achieved in Final Fantasy VII Remake in a far grander scope than before.
We don’t have all that long either, with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth set to launch on PlayStation 5 on February 29th next year. You can pre-order it now on Amazon for $105 with free shipping and pre-order price guarantee.
