New Review: Despite a catastrophically bad ending, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is easily the best Final Fantasy we've seen in at least 15 years

 

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is a game that I had no idea Square-Enix was still capable of making. It feels, in many ways, like a modern, next gen version of the Squaresoft Final Fantasy games on the PS1, and easily the best Final Fantasy game that we’ve seen in at least 15 years.    

I say this as someone who never quite connected with the original Final Fantasy VII the way so many people seemed to, having played it for the first time many years after its iconic release. Rebirth, the 2^nd part in the trilogy remaking Final Fantasy VII, shares some of the same weaknesses with the source material, and makes an extremely unfortunate series of storytelling choices during the game’s ending. But the game leading up to the disastrous final bosses/ending is so incredible, beautiful, and memorable that it’s almost impossible for me not to recommend it to anyone who’s ever considered themselves to be a Final Fantasy fan.

Picking up from where the first part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy ended, Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII escape from the city of Midgar, resting in a hotel in Kalm, a flat and uninteresting locale in the original now remade into a large, truly bustling town. After Cloud fills the group in about his history with the game’s villain, Sephiroth, the group sets off into the open world to look for him and to stop Shinra, the corporation responsible for the slow destruction of the planet.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this; for years, this development team’s Final Fantasy games have been linear, corridor-like experiences, with only tiny amounts of exploration or a sense of freedom. The original Final Fantasy VII, of course, featured a world map to explore, and open world games have come such a long way since then. But Final Fantasy VII Rebirth succeeds in bringing the “world map” concept into the modern era in ways that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Combining a strong, character-driven narrative with the ability to venture off the beaten path and sink your teeth into a world brimming with things to explore, quests to take on, and sights to see is a format that the series largely abandoned after Final Fantasy IX, and to see Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth modernize this concept so beautifully is something to behold.

Each region you visit is gigantic and brimming with things to do. Exploration is encouraged at every turn, with Towers revealing quests, which often lead to other quests and to yet other quests. It’s easy to keep track of all of this, and each Region has its own summon to unlock, providing an incentive to explore each region as thoroughly as possible. Visiting Chocobo Stops unlocks fast travel as well as a place to restore your HP/MP, and unlocking each region’s Chocobo gives you not only a fast means of travel, but also Chocobo abilities unique to each region that allow you to explore them fully.

Certain regions are a little more frustrating to explore due to their emphasis on tricky terrain; for example, areas accessible only by having your Chocobo fly over specific gaps. These mechanics feel tedious and dated in a world where Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom exist, games which allow you to climb up any wall and reach any areas you see without having to find the exact “right path” or “right gap” to access them. This is by no means unique to Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but it’s a design choice that I really wish open world games would find some way to do away with the way Nintendo has so successfully done. 

That said, the rest of the game’s regions have very minimal use of this type of thing, and even when they do, exploring’s always beautiful and interesting. The combat system has been pretty dramatically overhauled from where it was in Part 1 of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, and battles are fun, exciting, and addictive from almost start to finish. Your bonds with your characters and your party unlock cool Synergy moves, allowing you to link up with your party members to pull off major attacks. Limit Breaks, summons, and staggers are equally satisfying to pull off, and character movement feels fluid and natural. The frustrations I remember encountering in Part 1 seem to have been fixed here, and though it’s still frustrating that you can’t even use items while your ATB gauge is charging, it’s an issue that came up far less frequently for me this time around. As with Part 1, the AI characters remain pretty useless outside of basic attacks; these games are really designed for you to switch your controlled character repeatedly in battle when you want to use their special moves, magic, items, and limit breaks instead of relying on the AI. Thankfully though, Rebirth has a nice addition in the form of Materia that cause the AI characters to, for example, heal automatically. It’s definitely a nice touch. The new Folio system for unlocking abilities is also miles ahead of its confusing weapon-based equivalent from Part 1 as well. Only the radar system remains iffy; as with Part 1, you have the choice between the GTA-style radar in the right corner of the screen or the Elder Scrolls-style compass at the top of the screen, and multiple times I had to switch between the two to get a grasp of where I was supposed to be going. 

Despite containing a fully modern, impressive open world built into the experience, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth also puts a major focus into its characters and storytelling, similar to the PS1 Final Fantasy games. From the beginning, the plot is front and center, with the characters interacting incredibly frequently with each other in the many cutscenes and action scenes that occur along the way. Doing away entirely with the myth that you can’t tell a strong story in a fully explorable setting, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth provides what should (hopefully) be the blueprint for Final Fantasy games going forward, because it’s what they should have continued being all along. The characters, as with Remake, are portrayed in ways completely faithful to the original game, bringing them to life in ways only glimpsed in the original. Their personalities, their dynamics as a party, and their motivations are all brought to life here incredibly well. Moments where the game makes major changes to characters are incredibly rare, but in one particular instance (Cait Sith) Rebirth makes a major improvement to his portrayal in a key scene, and it not only makes a lot more sense than in the original, but it makes his character far more likable.

Unfortunately, other changes made to the narrative don’t work nearly as well (at best) and feel like a complete train wreck at worst. Despite its reputation for revolutionizing story-driven games back in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was actually pretty thinly-plotted; Sephiroth spends almost the entire game offscreen, with the main characters setting off from one location to another searching for him with very little emotional drive pushing them forward. Other than the handful of main, iconic set pieces, (usually happening at the end of each disc) not much really takes place in the story. This is a problem compounded by the decision to split the Remake Trilogy into 3 parts, even further necessitating the developers having to introduce new story elements to fill in the empty space. Sephiroth shows up repeatedly in fairly strange scenes, and though they make sense given Cloud’s often unreliable state of mind, they get old pretty quickly and I can’t help but feel that they should have left Sephiroth’s minimal presence the way it was. Rebirth also repeatedly cuts to playable flashback scenes featuring Zack Fair, a character who had only a minor (albeit key) role in the original Final Fantasy VII; though it’s cool to get to experience Midgar again, these flashback scenes are incredibly confusing and serve seemingly zero purpose. Evidently, they take place in a “separate timeline,” but the game never quite makes that clear, so a lot of the potential fun of these was ruined for me because I spent much of my time in them trying to figure out what was going on.

In addition, Yuffie, a bonus character in the original Final Fantasy VII who I hardly even remember encountering, is elevated here to being in the Main Cast, and she dominates almost every scene she’s in. Though it isn’t that I necessarily hated her character, her extremely cheerful personality and endless “comic relief” results in a major shift in tone from the dark, subdued, depressing original game. I suspect people will either love her or hate her, depending on their views of this type of character. Similarly, Red XIII goes through a change mid-game, including his voice actor entirely altering the character’s voice; while faithful to the original, I couldn’t help but wish that the actor had found a way to portray the character’s new personality in a way that didn’t make him sound, well, kind of annoying. 

The final point I’ll make in terms of narrative missteps in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is in its ending, with the game coming to a close shortly after featuring (and then entirely butchering) arguably the game’s most iconic scene. I won’t go into detail so as to avoid spoiling it, but the changes, aside from being terrible by any storytelling standard, effectively ruin what was originally meant to be conveyed, which was a sense of cold, true, indisputable finality. What it was replaced with is, for lack of a better word, awful. It not only destroys the spirit of the original game’s groundbreaking plot twist, but it even goes as far as to spoil what’s going to be the ending of Part 3. It’s difficult to say what Square-Enix was attempting to accomplish with this, but whatever it was they failed, miserably.

This comes after an hours-long gauntlet of final bosses, ones which were challenging but completely beatable, before Rebirth pulls a “gotchya” at the very end of the final one that requires an extremely specific way to beat the boss in a very specific amount of time. If you don’t have the right Limit Breaks, you’re totally out of luck. Even switching to Easy Mode (which you can do and which will probably enable most people to beat the final boss) requires you to start all the way back at the beginning of the slate of final bosses again, as does the ability to make any changes to your party or equipment. Yeah, really.

Thankfully however, and I can’t stress this enough, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is so good that a nearly disastrous ending and final boss doesn’t come close to ruining it. There’s something so surreal and magical about getting to explore a fully open world version of Final Fantasy VII’s planet, and there are parts of it that will stick with me forever; Cosmo Canyon with its tourist traps and beautiful views, Costa Del Sol’s beautiful beach scene (annoying mini-games aside), the energetic Gold Saucer, and just getting to immerse myself in this huge, mysterious, and incredible world.

Some flaws from the original carry over in terms of an over-abundance of mini-games, frustrating moments from the characters, and a villain who feels more like a random annoyance than a key part of the journey, while featuring new additions that either work or fall completely flat on their face. But with one of the best combat systems I’ve experienced, an amazing world to explore, a solid cast of characters, and a great soundtrack and voice acting, there’s no question that Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is the best RPG I’ve played in years, or even possibly decades. It’s unfortunate that being the Part 2 of a Remake of a game from 1997 may have limited its audience, but I genuinely hope that with Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, we’re seeing the blueprint for what will be the future of Final Fantasy. And if so, what an incredible future it could be.

8.5/10

New Review: Super Mario Bros Wonder delivers a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer

I never thought I’d see the day when a 2D Mario game would win me over to this extent, but Super Mario Bros Wonder is not only a fun, immersive, inventive, and at times awe-inspiring adventure through the brand new Flower Kingdom, but it even tops Super Mario Odyssey as the best Mario platformer this gen.

The Switch has seen a creatively-rejuvenated Nintendo release one incredible game after another, and their latest take on 2D Mario, their first since New Super Mario Bros U in 2012, proves to be one of the best 2D platformers of the year, if not in recent memory.

Nearly every decision made in the development of Super Mario Bros Wonder was the right one; the plot doesn’t feature Peach getting kidnapped yet again but instead tells a story in which she gets to be a part of saving Flower Kingdom with all the others. Freed from the constraints of having to take place in Mushroom Kingdom, and freed from the philosophy that 2D Mario has to play it safe and closely mimic games from 30 years ago, Wonder from the start feels fresh, invigorated, and genuinely unpredictable and delightful from level to level.

Flower Kingdom is an expansive one, with something like 15 hours of playtime awaiting. Each “World” you visit features plenty of levels to complete, along with a boss or two. The world map, a hybrid between 2D and 3D, has sections where you can free roam in 3D from one level to the next, which opens up all sorts of possibilities not only in terms of finding hidden secrets and levels, but in giving off a true sense of scale, atmosphere, and immersion completely missing from the previous several 2D Mario installments.

The levels themselves are creative, varied, well-paced, and just the right length. The powers are fun to use and frequently entertaining. The best new feature by far though is the Wonder Flower, which transforms each level into a psychedelic, Alice in Wonderland-like trip, in which your goal is to find each level’s hidden Wonder Seed. These sections are totally chaotic and crazy, unlike anything I’ve seen in a Mario game, and many offer a good amount of challenge to the proceedings.

Super Mario Bros Wonder offers a pretty decent amount of difficulty, with it only rarely devolving into frustration. The game maintains the Lives system, something which other modern games of this type have been doing away with, but it’s a good choice here and one that I still prefer over the various alternatives to it. The levels provide just the right amount of challenge, while still being designed to be beatable with only a limited number of lives, creating the difficulty balance that (so far) really only the Lives system delivers.

The visuals are gorgeous throughout, with the worlds appearing sharp, distinctive, and very smooth. Nintendo often has a strong command of their hardware’s strengths and limitations, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is a great showcase for that. Character animations and facial expressions are also a major improvement from any previous 2D Mario outing.

The only areas where things fall a little short are in terms of World number and the bosses; the boss battles are pretty underwhelming; though they’re generally fun, and none are frustrating to the level seen from those in Sonic Superstars, for example, I do wish that a little more was done with them. They lack the creativity seen in other aspects of the game and often feel like an afterthought.

Super Mario Bros Wonder also only features 6 main Worlds (plus an additional World-ish for the Final Boss segment of the game) for a total of 7. Though there’s still a ton of content here, along with plenty of post-game content, it’s similar to Nintendo’s shorter games during the Wii U era, which often also only had 6 Worlds, as opposed to the typical 8. My guess is that the developers just didn’t have the time, as the Switch, now having been on the market for almost 7 years, is nearing the end of its lifespan, and Super Mario Bros Wonder likely had to release in 2023.

That said, though an 8^th World would have been nice, ultimately what’s here is more than enough to warrant a purchase. Super Mario Bros Wonder was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2023, a game I didn’t expect to love nearly as much as I did given my lifelong preference for 3D Mario, and the very standard, uninspired feel that 2D Mario’s had for well over a decade. But Wonder breaks through, delivering a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer, one with a sense of freedom and innovation that I felt even Super Mario Odyssey held back on. The Nintendo Switch continues to be a source of some of Nintendo’s best 1^st party efforts in a very long time, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is no exception.

4/5