Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Review: The golden standard for a modern day remake

As one of the most anticipated RPG releases of the year, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth delivers everything it promised and more. After pouring dozens of hours into the game, here’s an honest review from a long-time fan of the series.

Exploration

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a testament to why remakes should always involve the people who worked on the source material. Rebirth perfectly captures that “open world” experience people felt when they exited Midgar for the first time in the original game. There’s a lot to do and a lot of things to see.

The devs were also bold enough to add more to Rebirth than what Final Fantasy 7 had. However, since Yoshinori Kitase, the director of the original and now the producer of the remake trilogy, was involved, they were able to make the additions in such a way that further added to existing lore.

As a heavy content consumer of Final Fantasy 7 and the compilations, I can confidently say that every discovery only further completes the world that they’ve been building for a decade.

Plus, although there’s a lot to explore, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth managed to do it in a way that was never exhausting to do so. You’re rewarded for exploring—and each location brings something different to the experience, be it a minigame or lore. The map feels big but never empty, which is something I can’t say for a lot of games.

Score: 5/5

Related: All Minigames in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Story & Dialogue

True to Kitase’s words, the game remains faithful to the source material. You still have the Junon parade and you still have Dyne, but now you’re able to experience the events in a completely new way. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth always aims to catch you off guard when you least expect it.

The dialogue is also very faithful as to how everyone is characterized in the original game. Granted, it can feel too much or even awkward at times, which newcomers to the series will feel heavily, but as a long-time fan, I can promise you that every time it does, it’s completely intentional.

When you find yourself lost in all the humor and the banter, the game will never fail to remind you what’s at stake. There are also moments that can only deeply affect your experience because of all the silliness.

Score: 5/5

Music

If you thought Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s music was dynamic, Rebirth’s is on another level. The entire game sounds like it has one orchestral score. You only need to walk through an entire continent to feel it. For example, the transition from overworld music, to battle, and then back is seamless.

There are more things about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s music that make it incomparable to Remake’s. For starters, there is one overworld theme, but the arrangement is different in every new area. When you make a new location discovery, and it’s related to one of the summons in Final Fantasy 7 lore, a unique score plays depending on the creature involved.

Every story enemy has its own theme song. There are new songs in there that definitely were not in the original. I could go on, but the State of Play’s showcase can prove my point easily: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has more than 400 songs in its soundtrack. Four hundred!

Score: 5/5

Combat

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the more complete version of the real-time battle system they’ve been developing since Part 1. Aside from everything we already had in the original game, Rebirth introduces more mechanics, such as Synergy Attacks, Folios, and additional functions to the Square/Triangle inputs.

For example, sometimes you’ll get a completely new attack by holding Square or producing a basic attack after dodging. All of this makes the combat feel more immersive, if not a bit overwhelming, in the beginning. After all, it’s not a small pool of moves with infinite possibilities but a large one.

Related: All new and returning mechanics in FF7 Rebirth

But aside from that, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s combat feels rewarding if you’re able to pull it off. You can plan for infinite combos and execute them. Assessing the enemy also lets you know exactly what combos are going to work and what you need to do to “pressure” them into a stun. The latter can be difficult to pull off at times, but it's information the game doesn’t hide.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a game that’s accessible at all skill levels, making it a must-play for anyone who’s interested. It does its best to teach you everything you need to know about its mechanics.

Score: 5/5

Verdict: The truest, most complete version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the game Square Enix and Division 1 wanted to create in Part 1. It has a more complete version of Remake’s combat mechanics, and they’re finally able to be bolder with the “remake” aspects of the game post-Midgar.

Of course, the devs had nothing to worry about in that aspect. It’s hard to disrespect the source material when the creators of the source are working on it. But it’s nice to see that they care enough to gauge the community’s reception to the idea of a true Final Fantasy 7 remake.

Rebirth is a must-play for any RPG fan, and it truly sets a new standard on how remakes are supposed to be handled. Kitase and his team have set the bar so high for Part 3!

A free copy of the game was provided to PGG by the publisher for review purposes.

Interested in getting your hands on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? Check out its demo first! We have this FF7 Rebirth Demo Full Walkthrough (Nibelheim & Junon Guide) for that here at Pro Game Guides.