The long awaited second part of the Final Fantasy VII remakes is finally here. Taking place right after the party arrives in Kalm following the events in Midgar in the first part, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth aims to take us on an unforgettable and somewhat familiar journey. Strap in, it’s going to be a big one.

Some mild spoilers ahead. Nothing story or major character related events, but there are inevitable content spoilers to fully discuss the game.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is massive game. A story experience alone that spans upwards of thirty hours, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth looks at what the first game was able to achieve, laughs and sneezes in its face. A pseudo-open world (more akin to large explorable zones), an unbelievable number of mini-games, side quests and environmental features to explore, as well as hundred of different encounters, brand new and unique bosses, and an array of new weapons to use. Rebirth is more than just a run-of-the-mill sequel to Remake.

The earliest and first major difference you’ll come across in Rebirth is the sheer size of the world being crafted. It was always going to be an interesting thing to see how they would deal with the size of the world that exists within Final Fantasy VII. Earlier Final Fantasy games are notorious for the sheer size of the worlds that were included in their titles, with little areas to explore for secret items, superbosses or just story tidbits that are designed to reward the player. Rebirth streamlines this process somewhat but does so in a way that makes the sheer size of the world feel more achievable.

Rather than hiding all these areas, Rebirth has introduced Remnawave towers and World intel. Remnawave towers act almost like an Assassin’s Creed synchronisation spot. There’ll be a few of them spread through-out an area, with an enemy encounter protecting each of them. When activated these towers will reveal special fiend battles, lifesprings to scan some unique spots as well like Chocobo Wrangling grounds or Mog mushrooms. Through engaging with these different areas you’ll unlock excavation grounds, new battle simulator encounters, boss type encounters and an array of narrative scenes that would not previously have been seen. The size of the zones can be intimidating, but by giving these focal points to move towards whilst you explore each region, the daunting size of the game becomes far more approachable and enjoyable.

The best part of this is in the fact that every piece of the world you interact with and clear, as well as individual places called Chocobo Stops, you can quickly fast travel between these areas. This makes re-traversing zones or getting between side quest locations much quicker and easier. The Chocobo stops encourage you to first explore the world on foot, ‘activating’ them which causes immense joy to the baby Chocobos that guide you each of the stops. On top of that, you’ll have a Chocobo at a minimum (or something far more exciting in some areas) to help you traverse the areas, with later regions giving the Chocobos unique abilities to make exploring even more fun. Be that the ability to scale walls or fly over the water with the ability to blast water so aggressively at the ground to float everywhere.

The combat in Rebirth is massively improved over that in Remake. The fundamentals of the system remain, two-part ATB gauges that you build through attacking enemies in battles. You can block and perfectly timed blocks with immune damage, and in some cases pressure enemies. The obsession with action RPGs in this day and age with a stagger system persists here but is done in a way that feels intuitive rather than obnoxious. Whilst the fundamentals feel the same, the combat itself feels like it smoother and much slicker. There are an array of new abilities that you’ll unlock as you progress the game, with an upgrade system that gives you control over the development style and paths of the characters themselves.

These new abilities will give every character access to synergy abilities and skills, which whilst not game-changing, exist alongside the rest of the abilities and MP-free elemental attacks you’ll unlock, to make the combat feel a little fuller. Particularly in boss encounters where certain abilities can be mitigated and negated with the use of synergy skills. Synergy skills will also give you combat benefits at times, be it increased defence, the splitting up of the ATB into more segments that fill quicker. The synergy abilities can be unlocked to link different characters together, giving you a wider array of abilities to use in different battles to keep things fresh. Ironically, despite the combat being a big part of the game, with an unbelievable amount of combat simulator-style encounters unlocked across the game, the combat is probably the part of the game that you’ll spend the least amount of time.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth could be titled the Rebirth of the Minigame. There is an unbelievable amount of minigames and challenges to take part in through-out the game. The base ranks of almost fifty percent of the minigames are required for story and side quest progress, so you’ll never have to go out of your way to find a lot of them. This may actually be what makes or breaks the games for a lot of players. There are so many minigames, most of which are fun and enjoyable, but the sheer number of them is almost ridiculous. In fact there are so many that there is just too many to mention the good ones, with a few stand-out bad ones that really take the focus. In particular the Fort Condor and Gizmos and Gambits minigames are just plain unenjoyable. Fort Condor’s final couple stages are in particular just hugely unenjoyable and painful messes to progress. There are a few that require slightly more precise gameplay than is demanded in 90% of other minigames throughout the game in, such as the flight courses and piano rhythm game.

For every bad minigame however there is ten good ones, and one of the major ones that also has a unique storyline alongside it and is nicely weaved into your progression through the game is Queen’s Blood. A three-lane card game designed around getting winning scores in each lane. You’ll engage in mostly specific card games throughout the game, with the only expanding on this done through challenges at the Gold Saucer and Costa Del Sol. Queen’s Blood is a great addition to the game, that gives you something to focus on to break up the combat and storyline, with an over-arching connection to the greater story at hand. A generally approachable game, developing your own deck style and getting good at Queen’s Blood feels rewarding and is one of the best minigames put into a Final Fantasy, since the likes of Triple Triad and Blitzball.

Story-wise, Rebirth sticks somewhat more tightly to the original story than Remake did. Focusing less so on the Whispers and the altering of the timeline, Rebirth follows much more the party’s journey through the world to try and stop Sephiroth. The key events and locations are all here, with small flair changes and twists to add some life and uniqueness to them. Costa Del Sol, The Republic of Junon, Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon are all here in a brand-new world to take us through a newer version of the story we’ve come to love. Due to party limitation choices there are a few changes that occur, with a major one being the inclusion of Gongaga as a major story segment, replacing what would have been the Rocket Town segment in the original story. The changes all make sense within the realms of Rebirth, with the flow of the story feeling less stop and start as a result. Wholly new characters that were introduced in Remake return here in Kyrie and Roche, who in their own ways add some extra depth to the world.

The depth of the world is very impressive, just on that note. Every town feels full of life and energy. There are people everywhere, talking, interacting, and going about their everyday life. You can hear the chatter as you run through town form point to point, picking up the side quests at the town noticeboard where the locals are looking for someone to help them. The NPCs despite being somewhat locked to their locations, feel like they are part of everything, and as a result every town feels like it is doing more than just existing. They are all living.

With everything good there has to be some bad. There are some design choices made in Rebirth that I really do not agree with. Most notably are the decisions they’ve made with the Moogles. Rather than the iconic rounded bodies with cute features. The Moogles now look like fuzzy white Koalas or Teddy bears that have been brought to life. There is going to be some that enjoy this design, but I for one, absolutely hate it. Rebirth may have the worst designed Moogles in the entirety of the Final Fantasy franchise, and that is a hill I am willing to die on. On top of that, some iconic enemies have had their visuals updated, but may have benefitted from going the route of the Final Fantasy XIV or Final Fantasy XVI styles, rather than trying to take the older designs and put them into the world. The boss designs for the most part are great, and the summons all look fantastic. But the Zu and Dragons are just kind wimpy compared to what they should be.

The typical Final Fantasy summons are here too, with the strange decision to include Kujata and another Bahamut variant, rather than some more iconic ones such as Ramuh and Leviathan. Not that this is problematic, but did Bahamut really need another variant? Bahamut Arisen is a scarlet-coloured armoured beast and Kujata is an impressive three-faced Bull creature. The designs of the summons in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth may actually be some of the best in the series, taking serious influence from other more modern titles whilst putting their own twists on them still. For every poorly designed Moogle, there is a well-designed Odin in its place.

Finally, we come to the music. Final Fantasy VII has one of the most iconic soundtracks in not just the Final Fantasy series, but in gaming as a whole. Aerith and Tifa’s themes. Cosmo Canyon and Costa Del Sol, even the classic Chocobo themes, the iconic battle, and of course the boss themes of the game. Rebirth brings these iconic tracks with a modern retouching and flair, but still have what made them iconic. Anecdotally, I had the game paused with the music playing in the background and a family member who had introduced me to Final Fantasy was instantly able to recognise it and commented that I had to be playing Final Fantasy, that you could just tell by the music.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth looks at what was achieved in Remake and laughs at it. An experience that will take you upwards of sixty hours minimum to finish the bulk of the story, with a world that dwarfs the previous entry. If this is where the series is headed to finish off the story, then we are in for one hell of a ride in the 3rd part. Rebirth is a masterfully made title, with strong game mechanics, a seemingly endless supply of side content to do and explore, with the music and designs that make Final Fantasy VII what it is. An unapologetic journey into a world that mirrors the dangers and fears of our own, in a fantastical setting. Rebirth may go down as the best Final Fantasy game of all time, which is impressive being the title that spawned it.