A Review of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
In 2024 I walked out of Furiosa. I surprised myself that I had the strength to do it. I had gotten to the point where I was about to watch a child watch her mother be tortured and murdered. I found the whole movie to the point completely unpleasant. I didn’t need to be reminded of how easily what is good in this world could/can/will be destroyed.
I stepped out into Futa-Tamagawa RISE and took a breath. The summer heat hadn’t completely destroyed the desire to go outside for 4 months. I took a second breath and remembered I was recovering from surgery. At this point I still didn’t know my brain chemistry had been completely ruined.
For the sake of that ancedote, let’s say I went home played more of Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth. Which is definitely THE GAME OF 2024. I was sitting in a hospital bed, recovering from just having a cancerous ball of my flesh removed when it was February 29th, and you could first go into a store and buy Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth. I’d preordered it at The Last Game Store in Tokyo. It’s Topboy in Kamata. I’m saying that now because it’s been picked clean, and is 65% Yukiyoh cards, and signs saying Please Don’t Shoplift.
While I was sitting in that bed realizing opiates don’t work on me and screaming, I almost held the thought I wasn’t playing Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth Right Then. Before the thought would come to a close my hunger from not eatting for 48 hours and the 5 inch incision in my body and the opiates working on my mind would return. I bet Cloud Strife felt like that some times.
Since I missed buying it on release date, I took my time on starting Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth. I couldn’t be more starved to start a game. But first I needed to recover from surgery. Then I needed to know the right moment. I am saying I made decisions with my entertainment consumption in 2024. Such that I walked out of Furiosa because it wasn’t for me, and knew when I started Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth it would be for me. Anyone reading this knows if Rebirth was or is for them. They don’t need review or criticism to decide to play Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth. They know it is going to happen.
So when I did return to Kamata two months later and find it at a closing rental store new with 20 of its brothers for 5,000 yen I did in fact choose to buy it. Then I went home and took care of my kid and fell promptly asleep.
Eventually I broke the seal and found the two mislabeled discs that define Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth Japanese Physical Release. I lolled at the included apology. I put in Strider 2 and installed the game then put in Strider 1 hours later.
ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT THE GAME NOW
There is only one question to those determined to play Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth. By the credits the game does answer that question. The answer left me cold. I guess I have to wait for the final third of Final Fantasy Seven R to find out what the answer even means.
The game holds your breath on resolution for as long as you want it to. Because The Video Game in the game is a one year pass to The Pasta House. How much pasta can you really eat before you hate the concept of pasta? How many side-quests, mini-games, vinettes, dialog options, random battles, boss battles, immaculate voice acting, stunning CG, tiny little character moments that almost hint at something greater can you experience before you’re sick of it? I became sick of it. Everyone I know who has seen the ending of the game became sick of The Video Game and rushed to consume the final 7 hour dungeon. We gotta stop having end-games that are as long as Call of Dutys.
Not to say I hated The Video Game. This is a video game of All Middle. The story is The Middle. The Video Game is when you just play a giant open world game until you’re bored enough to start the next story section. You’ve been able to start the next story section for five hours. Some side-content caught your eye, then some other side-content caught your eye further. Then it is five hours later. Ugh, I guess I’ll start the next story section, I’ve done The Video Game enough.
Then you’re trapped in The Video Game for 3 hours. You push forward in a linear dungeon. The game changes your party composition. You kick open dozens of boxes. You fight 3 bosses or 5. It drops you in a new open world section and you rush to unlock the chocobo because otherwise you cannot fast travel. The Middle settles in again until the cycle repeats.
For me the cycle repeated for a full 65 hours before I decided to tackle the 9 hours it took to see the end of the credits. I was done by the time it happened. It still took me two days to delete the install. I had gotten the answer to my question and was left with dissappointingly knowing I was going to spend somewhere around 8,000 yen to play the next one.
I’ll end this with a positive note. I thought the moment to moment script of Final Fantasy 7 Remake was horrible. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has a fantastic moment to moment Japanese script perfectly delivered and expertly written. It is an astoundingly Japanese script and I barely read the english text. It’s so well written it betrays itself. The story and character development crafted by hundreds of people can’t keep up with the excellent individual sentences people spout. The nods and tells fall to the wayside. Each dialog exists excellent and without a greater connection.
Which is to say I am going to be positive and give one example that made me spit out a whole coke, open up another one, spit it out. Then give a 21 gun salute of spitting out a coke each day for a week straight.
In the end one of the side-quests involving recurring gag wasteland marauders where it goes in circles as much as anything in Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth does, the story comes to an end. Remarking on the marauders good fortunes Cloud says, “I’m jealous, NOT!” He says the “Not!” in Katakana. I immediately saved it and played it over and over sure I had misheard it. There’s 90s American slang in this very modern game? Is this from the original? It wouldn’t be out of character for Sakaguchi ‘N Company to like Wayne’s World. I tried internet searching. I asked Lady Rude. I played it for others.
We came to the same conclusion, Cloud definitely says “Not!” I’ll spare you making any witty closing remarks here.
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Hinge Problems 
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