Final Fantasy VII REBIRTH

A sequel that vastly expands the scope from the original, while adapting the rest of Disc 1 of FFVII.

Alright so this review is my experience just over twelve hours in. After twelve hours I am just arriving in the second area (Junon), and it's only Chapter 3. But honestly, where do I even start with this game? I mean, what an insanely drastic improvement from Remake!

For starters, one of my biggest complaints about FFVII Remake was the world design. Midgar itself was incredible, almost to the point of disbelief. But the actual design of it, like from a map perspective, was pretty lacking. A lot of small "open" areas connected with linear hallways. Not bad by any means, especially for a game with that level of scope, but definitely disappointing.

This game goes completely in the opposite direction, and is fully open-world, and I mean fully open-world. Like, it has Ubisoft towers for god's sake. And I am not complaining. I don't know what it is, but I'm not really tired of open-world games yet. Perhaps that's because I just don't play that many open-world games, or the one's I have have just been so good (Breath of the Wild, for starters). Maybe it's just the juxtaposition of jsut having finished a game that is so linear, like FFVII Remake, that something more open and free-form is refreshing. But either way, it's been a blast so far. Maybe the "grindy-ness" of the open world objectives will wear on me after long enough, but it's really working so far.

I can't comment much on the story, seeing as I haven't even come close to beating it; honestly, not much story has even happened as of yet, so I won't dwell on it. The character interaction has been great so far, and I did like the story of Remake, for the most part (Objections withstanding). I have read some people's opinions that the story falls flat, but I'm not going to let a random redditor's opinion of a game I haven't finished myself affect my own thoughts on the game.

I'm not going to give the game a score just yet, not until I beat the story. I can safely say I'm enjoying it a lot more than FFVII Remake, and I did quite enjoy Remake... so I'll probably rate this higher than that! But who's to say, it could fall flat on its face 60 hours in.

Spoilers below.

Also, I have absolutely no idea how they're going to handle the whole Aerith dying thing. I hope its tactful and well executed.