With just weeks to go before the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, we’ve had our second hands on and now, on the eve of the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo’s appearance on PS5, we can finally share our thoughts from the first few hours of the game.
We’re going to gloss over the first chapter, running around Nibelheim and the reactor mission, because that’s something we covered last year in our last preview. We all know what happened, though we will add that watching Sephiroth’s psychotic breakdown happen in real time, in glorious 4K, was a treat for lore-lovers like us. Square Enix has gone to lengths to flesh out an integral part of the story that was over relatively quickly in the original.
Plus, running around Shinra Manor in almost mouth-watering detail, is always going to be a treat. It’s like childhood, but swapping rose-tinted glasses for actual, prescription specs, and it is glorious.
But not as glorious as what comes next: Kalm.
Where Chapter 1 is retelling the story of Sephiroth at the Reactor for the party members who were absent (specifically Barret, Aerith and Red XIII), Chapter 2 is where the game puts meat on the bones.
What starts with watching Red XIII yawn in ultra high definition (we figuratively died from the cuteness), continues with fleshing out the world we find ourselves in. Half of your party thinks that you’re an asshole (which is totally fair) and you begin a slow process of building up those relationships. This also forms part of the tutorial process, introducing you to new characters and mechanics as you go.
As you explore the town, you come across possibly the most exciting addition to the game (I will die on this hill): the all-new card game Queen’s Blood (or QB as the cool NPCs call it).
Triple Triad fans beware: this game is a lot of fun, and feels like a pared down version of Marvel Snap. Not only do you get to play a mini-game involving the monsters of the land, but you get to spend your time in game collecting cards and ranking up to be greatest player of all time. Sadly, I was told that there are no known plans to make physical QB cards.
While these minigames are never the real reason for buying the game, those of us that love the likes of Blitzball or (god help them) Fort Condor from the FF7R DLC will be pleased to know that QB appears to be genuinely fun and well designed. The idea is to get more points in a row than your opponent; these rows add to your score, but not the opponent’s. If you have a higher score at the end of the game, you win; unlike Snap, which is simply a game of winning two rows, how much you win by becomes crucial. This led to some interesting games in the first few matches, and we’re looking forward to seeing how this pans out when you have a sizable collection and more ‘experienced’ NPCs to play against.
Getting out of Kalm and into the grasslands, we come across not only open-world roaming, but another new mechanic: item crafting.
That’s right — with your handy new Item Transmuter you can collect ingredients out in the field. Put them together and you can brew yourself a Potion or a Phoenix Down (which seems weird considering phoenix down is literally a feather from the fire bird). As you brew more things, you learn how to brew more things, expanding the repertoire of items you can make.
With the ingredients for these transmutations simply lying around the overworld, the expectation is that the player will be actively rewarded for exploration. Zooming out of the world map, it does look like there is a fair chunk to explore.
Given how open-world exploration was a huge part of the original Final Fantasy 7, and how the linearity of the Remake was one of its biggest criticisms, fans will no-doubt be pleased with the chance to stretch Cloud’s legs. Or, if you fancy it, some chocobo legs — unsurprisingly, if you can complete the mini-game where you sneak up on and catch a chocobo, you get to ride a feathery friend.
The open world, as we previously saw, plays home to much more than just crafting and open spaces. There’s baby chocobo to find and chocobo stops to restore, and there’s also the Fiend Sightings, which give you battles against the local fauna with special modifiers and challenges in place – great for brushing up on the new Synergy abilities that feed into the party-based combat.
However, be aware that this is still a chapter-based game, with certain characters being added in along the way. In our previous preview, we covered how Yuffie is found, and the key art shows off Vincent, so it seems that the optional characters are far less optional this time around.
Hopefully, what will follow is a huge open world where chapters trigger based on when you get across the map and into the next town, with plenty of free roam in-between.
All in all, what we’ve seen is very exciting, and we can’t wait to get our hands on the full release this month.
