My notes playing the second FF7 remake game Rebirth (fully in Japanese).

Starting out

Playing FF7 Rebirth.

So far I like the acting and combat is fine enough. The minigames are fun as always in this franchise. I most dislike the lack of customization — it looks like you can play the characters only as the kind of “class” they were intented to, and some progressions like the skillbook and weapon upgrades seem quite pointless to me because you always get roughly the same thing. Bashing normal monsters lets me use the various abilities nicely, but I don’t really like boss fights because it’s so much about dodging/guarding the enemy attacks, which I suck at.

I find it quite awkward how obviously level designed the whole map is. There aren’t dead ends anywhere and you have to take very elaborate routes to get into locations, instead of you know, just jumping down or up the cliff like you would do in any western RPG. The whole game experience is similarly crafted and the hand holding never stops. It’s okay once in a while to play a game like this, but I find they tend to have no replay value, because it would be too annoying to go through the same exact course again.

Won the card bouting minigame’s last boss by using the unique Sephiroth card to destroy the boss card. Pretty satisfying!

Playing FF7. Still good, but I kind of want to be done already… The Gold Saucer date was kind of the highlight for me, because I was waiting for it since the beginning. At least in the first game the final boss fights were kind of annoying for me, I expect something similar in this game as well.

All game long, I’ve been quite disappointed with the weapon designs, in particular I wanted to see a nice staff for Aerith. Now the wait paid off — this Nanoha-style staff is freaking cool. I took so many screenshots.

This staff is so cool.

This game really has me taking screenshots constantly, I think the direction is just so good that they have managed to make everything beautiful. It’s like a (100 hours long) film that you can watch from different angles. I don’t think other games do it nowhere near as well, but I’ll have to try looking at them more carefully too. I also thought about recording videos, but I suspect it’s just much harder to get them come out right, and in gameplay you get all the distracting menus included. While screenshots are static and often fail to capture the full wonder of the animations they are great when you can carefully arrange the composition like when taking a real photograph. Also, even though I make some of the screenshots public here, the main point is that they allow me to remember parts of this game.

The last bost fights are ridiculous. Ruining the whole thing…

Finished

Finally finished FF7 Rebirth, took 104 hours in total and I wasn’t even being a completionist, nor did I get stuck on boss fights quite as badly in the first game. But the last ones were quite brutal, took some six hours of trying.

Now I finally got to the credits cutscene I had been waiting for. I’ll write impressions as it reminds me.

• The alternate timeline/universe thing with Zack wasn’t quite to my liking, but I understand it was a relatively straightforward way to give more screen time to the favorite character of many.
• I liked that the game tried to replicate the original, even for weird details. For example Cloud recounting Sephiroth’s visit to Nibelheim while in Kalm was very similar, down to clothing of the charactes, moving of characters in cutscenes, ability to control Sephiroth, fight with the dragon, Cloud exploring Tifa’s closet, etc. It was cool that Cloud and Sephiroth even had a synergy move (same with Zack in the end).
• Starting from the first match in Kalm I was immediately hooked on the card bouting minigame and completed all the matches as soon as they became available. The final boss match was quite memorable when I killed the boss character with the unique Sephiroth card. Also managed in other matches to completely cover the board. Enjoyed different strategies like damaging cards and cards that were placed on other cards.

• I didn’t like side quests that much. In the end I completed those that seemed interesting, and most dealing with Yuffie after I learned that was needed to get her as date for Gold Saucer.
• The implementation of Chocobos was very interesting, with each area having a specific kind. Sometimes the map design felt quite forced because of this, but I’m not sure I would have prefered something else. It’s not that bad when the level design guides you, freeing your mind to take in the beauty rather than suffer dead-ends and treasureless corners that more “realistic” level design would cause.
• I found the “world report” (Chadley) stuff quite tedious and repetitive. I mostly did it to get to the parts I wanted and ignored otherwise.
• About the Under Junon dolphin, this game had a ridiculous amount of minigames. Maybe something like 30? Most were pretty good, I almost always played enough to get the second best score (with the one above often requiring perfect play which was a bit too much). Also Priscilla a cute.
• The parade time at Junon was pretty fun. For example that bald club where Rude was a patron, also Aerith and Tifa being cute.
• Rufus had a pretty cool voice and design. His side plot with Guren wasn’t very captivating (I might have missed some parts). The fights with him gave me real trouble because I suck at blocking attacks…
• Yuffie was brought into the party quite nicely. In the first game she shadowed the group, in Junon she tries to assassinate Rufus, and finally joins the party in Costa del Sol, where they also replicated the dialogue system needed to convince her.
• I didn’t like Roche much because he is too over-the-top.
• Characters from the first game almost all made reappearance, which I thought was nice. For example on the ship to Costa there are the Wall Market bigwigs.
• I did not like the girl who was Cloud’s rival in the card games. Just somehow annoying design and personality.
• Red XIII as extra boss in the boat bouting was great.

Yuffie: …

• Ability to change clothes in Costa del Sol was too limited for my taste. I really like character customization in these types of games and almost always wish there was more of it. Yuffie’s moogle hoodie is great but only few opportunities to see it in this game.
• The “Weapon” monsters were a bit too much different from the original game’s concept.
• I recently learned from Steam that this belongs to game genre called “Spectacle fighter”, which I suppose refers to the bombarding of visual effects and totally unrealistic character moves (all characters can fly and teleport in some manner). I think it was pretty enough with my new graphics card, but I felt like I could never actually see the monsters because there were always so many particles and shader effects in front. The fights were just constant explosions basically. I also don’t like action games that much, so I kind of wish this leaned more on the RPG side with time to strategize.
• Around middle game, every second town was really hostile (Corel, Under Saucer, Nibelheim), and every other really friendly (Costa, Gold Saucer, Gongaka, Cosmo Canyon). I thought in both of these remake games the “positivity” is a bit jarring, with too much black-and-white morality going on. Death and blood are really rare in the game, and while it’s somewhat internally consistent how “death” and “down” are very separate concepts in this universe, I find it rather immersion-breaking. Basically no one dies unless the plot demands it, and then we are suddenly expected to care.
• It’s natural that the positivity peaks in the middle to keep tension (starting with Nibelheim and the end of course are the darkest parts), but I also realized the same probably occurs across the trilogy. The first game took entirely place in Midgar and was more pessimistic in tone. This second game was relentlessly positive and fun for most of the time, and I think the third game will be relatively dark again.
• The moogle houses were painfully sugary.
• Gold Saucer introduction dance was nice. This series does dancing great.

Esther a cute

• The Chocobo trainer girl Esther from Under Saucer was seriously cute. I also liked the aesthetics of people of that town.
• Chocobo racing minigame was okay. I think I expected a lot because in the original game the related music was great, but now it varied more so it was just a minigame among others.
• Dyne and Barret were a bit difficult to take seriously. This game series relies a bit too much on delusions to justify why people do bad things. Cloud in particular is in a permanent fugue state.
• I really looked forward to Cissnei since she was great in Crisis Core, but was quite disappointed because she was so different in all ways.
• The Gongaka area was weird. The area felt massive compared to stuff there was to do.
• I didn’t like the player character approval dialogues because the time limit was slightly too fast for my Japanese reading ability, so I sometimes got them wrong.

Woof.

• I initially found it a bit weird that Red XIII and Barret were often paired for things, and had many synergy abilities for example (or do all have the same number?). But when for “Nanaki’s vision quest” in Cosmo Canyon Bugenhagen paired him with Barret, I thought the dynamic worked great.
• I probably did not understand the whole business with Gi-zoku very well, but I thought later the main point was probably to make the setting feel old. The stuff with Cetra also happened very long time ago and it’s at times hard to remember it was basically some kind of fantasy world back then. Aerith’s lineage is really important and in that sense it’s not weird how she has immense powers over moving between worlds and realms of life and death.
• The visit to Nibelheim was very different from the original game and not particularly memorable. For example the part where a sub-party gets stuck in Hojo’s trap was entirely pointless, except that controlling Cait Sith was fun.
• Yuffie’s motion sickness never stops being funny.

The Gold Saucer date

Aerith: Well?

• I initially wanted to mostly do it with Yuffie because she’s “non-standard” choice I guess, but in the end I liked her a lot and probably was the right choice for me. Aerith is great character but she’s a bit too obvious — like I can imagine exactly how the date scene will go (probably I actually can’t, but it feels that way). Also I want to use my favorite characters in combat as much as possible, but I just could not enjoy Aerith’s combat mechanics. For Tifa I neither cared for the personality nor the combat. And I’m not really into the other choices of Barret and Red XIII, although the latter has me at least a bit curious…
• I think the point of the initial ballet play with Jessie was to put the viewer in a romantic mood.
• Barret’s costume in the play was fabulous, and with Black XIII on his side, superb.
• The kiss tease and Yuffie’s nonverbal communication were great.
• Yuffie and Cloud looking together at crying Aerith after the song was priceless.
• Looking at the end menus, I just realized the earlier Gold Saucer date could also be chosen, I didn’t realize that and got Aerith.

Thanks, I definitely needed the chair after those fights.

• The Dio VS Corneo battle was again quite fun with the rapping commentators, but I couldn’t hear their banter during the actual matches unfortunately (it was really good in the first game).
  • That part when ~4th boss fight is about to start in a row, they bring the resting chairs and item vending machines to the stage was hilarious.
• Cait Sith stealing the keystone was somehow poorly executed. Also there is again that story-gameplay segregation that feels somehow jarring, as the characters movements are completely different between the two (actually three if we count moving and combat separately).
• Reno was on a holiday or something if I recall correctly, and only appears in late game. I’m not sure what the point of that was. Maybe because Elena and Rude were quite enough on their own?

Temple of the Ancients

• In the original game the Temple of the Ancients was in a completely different place, but the change made complete sense.
• This game was very light on puzzles which was to my taste because I usually find them either tedious or insulting. The gravity altering stuff in the Temple wasn’t that unique, but done quite okay.
• The game’s weapon designs were quite bland save for the last ones in the temple. Aerith’s Nanoha-style staff was gorgeous.

• The dream sequences in the temple where every character (except Cloud) goes into a door was rather well done. Cool transitions between locations. Usually these kind of scenes suck in games, but I actually liked these ones a lot:
  • Red XIII’s capture by Hojo was quite scary.
  • Yuffie’s mental dialogue with Sonon was a nice reminder that she also has a backstory. The villain who killed Sonon was freakier than I remembered.
  • Barret’s memory was quite grisly with his bloody hand stump (maybe it’s good these games doesn’t have that much blood after all).
  • Aerith’s memory from childhood had me crying. The character design was really nice and her crying sounds and motions really emotional.
• Cloud being constantly under control of Sephiroth, and not himself even at the end cutscenes is quite tough to take in. If I recall correctly, in the original game he was mostly just confused and in pain (after he falls into the lifestream and becomes wheelchair bound).
• The North Forest or whatever that area is called was very nice in the original game, but didn’t feature much here. Or maybe there’s more in the third game.
• It bothered me that the black hooded people all had identical clothes and face.
• Item crafting felt a bit pointless because I would just pick all the ingredients I saw and they couldn’t be bought, so there was really no choice involved.

Gameplay

Yuffie's duplication ninjutsu

• I didn’t bother much with different weapons: Initially in the game the number of abilities felt quite overwhelming, so I didn’t feel the need to “upgrade” and many of the options didn’t seem that innovative.
• The skill system seemed quite pointless, with many small numeric changes you will never remember you are benefiting from. The weapon upgrade system was also too weak to be interesting.
• In aggregate, I hated it that you couldn’t really customize the characters like in a western RPG. For example you basically have to play Aerith as a caster type. There were some weird materia that interchanged melee and spell abilities, but it didn’t really do the trick. The one to change MP and HP was just a gimmick I think, characters using that would always fall to the first strike, no?
• The battle simulator was way too difficult for me. I won exactly one summon match (weakened Titan), and I had similar luck in the original game.
• I think I got good enough at the battles only towards very end of the game. In theory it might be interesting to play again the normal fights at harder mode, but I can’t stand the idea of doing even more difficult boss fights, and also repeating the story would be just too much. I think it’s likely I will never play these games again. Unless AI will enable some kind of supercharged modding ability for any game (I doubt it).

Player characters

• Cait Sith was a surprise favorite. I liked him the least in the original game, but now he had very nice voice acting and beautiful animation. The combat mechanics were okay, maybe I liked them mainly because it was new from the first game.
• I wanted to like Yuffie from the start, but I found her too bratty. She got much better later though and was my favorite playable character. She also has the best fighting mechanics in my opinion, with ranged option and easy ability to do any elemental damage. I played her maybe 50% of the time I could, with Cloud at 30%, and the remaining in decreasing order of play time: Aerith, Cait Sith, Barret, Red XIII, Tifa
  • Yuffie’s default clothing isn’t that great.
• Red XIII’s voice and personality changing completely after Cosmo Canyon was bizarre. I liked the original overly serious and wise tone better, and hoped they had at least alternated the two for good effect more.
  • I didn’t like his fighting mechanics, probably because they involved blocking which I was bad at.

Other characters

Johnnies in unison: Aniki!

• Kyrie was not very funny, but her male counterpart Johnny had me in stitches multiple times. That subplot where Yuffie’s ninja duplication spell accidentally became permanent, haha.
• Chadley has the most annoying voice acting, and possibly speaks most in the game…
• Elena had great personality and voice acting.
• Cid’s personality was very different from what I expected. I don’t remember how he was in Advent Children, but he was nothing like I imagined him in the original game (English translation). I suppose we will see his true colors in the third game.
• Vincent was cooler than I expected. It was a great decision to have him only appear as boss in this game, and similarly have Cid appear as non-playable. It makes complete sense they want to save new playable characters for the final game.

Virtual photography

This game really awakened me to the past-time of “virtual photography”. Below are few more screenshots I took while playing.