Final Fantasy VII Rebirth PC Review – A Great Improvement

The Unknown Journey continues on PC with a fantastic port.

Eleven months on from its maiden voyage on PlayStation 5, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth makes its way to PC with a range of technical improvements. Those still reeling from Remake’s technical issues at launch can breathe a huge sigh of relief, as my time with Rebirth has been nothing but smooth. 

Square Enix’s middle chapter of the Final Fantasy VII remake saga takes Cloud and his team away from Midgar and out into the open world. Packed with things to do and see, a myriad of side quests to uncover and a story that keeps you engaged from the offset, it’s a sprawling JRPG that I’ve truly loved playing through. You can read our full review here, which dives further into the game itself. 

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC Review - Aerith

As for the port, I was initially hesitant given the high spec requirements released in December. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see my 7800X3D and RTX 3080Ti combo handle Rebirth with relative ease at 4K. While I’ve been playing on the ‘Medium’ graphics preset with DLSS on, there’s a significant graphical improvement over the PlayStation 5 version – textures look excellent across the board, while character models are stunning.

Even during the most intense battles, I never noticed the game drop below 60. It’s a massive improvement over the truly woeful launch experience of Remake in 2021, where even high-end PCs fell victim to awful stuttering. It’s worth noting the game does support frame rates up to 120fps, however I couldn’t test this as I couldn’t quite get the game to that level with my current hardware spec. 

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC Review - Chocobo

Rebirth offers a variety of graphical options and tweaks to tinker with, which serves as another stark comparison to Remake’s PC port. While the options are still relatively limited when compared to other titles on the market, most options offer toggles between low, medium and high. You’re also given the reins to play around with a limited DLSS suite, which is… better than nothing.

The upscaling tech hasn’t looked too bad throughout my playtime either, with noticeable artifacting only really showing around character hair. That said, I’m excited to see what NVIDIA’s new transformer model technology may be able to produce when it launches.

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC Review - Combat

Bugs were far and few between during my time with the game, and I didn’t have a single crash. The port feels impressively polished, which tells me the team’s clearly learned a lot from what happened in 2021. There were quite a few instances of texture pop in, but I personally didn’t find them too bothersome.

Unfortunately, Steam Deck performance left a lot to be desired. Despite its ‘Verified’ rating, Rebirth struggled to maintain 30fps on the low or medium preset at 720p. Combat felt slow and unresponsive, while the game looked like an absolute mess no matter what settings I tinkered with. You may have better luck with one of the other more powerful PC handhelds out there, but for Steam Deck users I can’t recommend the game in its current state unless you want to solely focus on Queen’s Blood matches. It’s a shame, but given the sheer scope of the game I’d already assumed getting Rebirth to run decently well on a Steam Deck was going to be an uphill battle.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC Review - Exploration

Even so, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s PC port is great. It’s a wonderful experience from beginning to end, packed to the brim with things to do. It’s a game that wears its heart on its sleeve throughout, and I adore it for that. Whether you’ve played the game before or have been waiting for the PC release, there’s no better time to jump in.

Conclusion
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth makes its way to PC packed with a range of technical improvements. It plays great, looks fantastic and is easily the best Final Fantasy PC port in recent memory.
Positives
A technically excellent port
DLSS implementation is solid
The game itself is phenomenal
Negatives
Some bugs still pop up every now and again
The range of graphical options available don’t compare to other modern releases
Steam Deck performance is lacklustre
9