Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Tim and Imran got the opportunity to sit down with FInal Fantasy VII Rebirth Director Naoki Hamaguchi. Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review - Combat - Updating This Section of FFVII for 2024 - Barrett’s Thoughts - The Variety of the Game - Closing Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I am Tim Getty's. I am joined today by the new face of video games blessing at E.O. Yeh Jr. Good day, Tim. The expert of Final Fantasy 7 to my hype man of Final Fantasy 7, Imron, the Dawn Khan. How about you, Tim? And rounding out the group today, it's Roger.

The Lock Percorny. If you could change your fate, would you? Kind of the same vibe. You know what I mean? It's kind of the same vibe. Definitely. Shout to Brave. And also shout up to your amazing shirt right now.

your cloud McDonald's shirt I thought because I've been wearing the shirt for so long that Cloud's last name was Mick Strife I don't know why I just Cloud McSryfe because he's thinking of Fox McLeod MacLeod yes Oh yeah yeah that's where what

That's what okay well everybody's strapped in We're gonna have a fun time today Of course this is the kind of funny games cast We each and every week we get together To talk about video games and all the things that we love about them You can get the kind of funny membership To get the show ad free over on YouTube

or Patreon, just like our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Streaky Naineezy, and Delaney Twining have done. Today, we are brought to you by the Kind of Funny Game Showdown, now being available on podcast services, but we'll tell you all about that later. Before we even get into this, though, and speaking about sponsors, the last couple of weeks, we have been sponsored by Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

on a whole bunch of our content. And as always, since we left IGN back in 2015 and started kind of funny, our entire ethics policy when it comes to this stuff, is transparency with you guys. So we want to let you all know that, of course, we did not allow them to buy the review, to sponsor the review that we're doing here.

So this episode is not sponsored by that. Obviously, take all that with the grain of salt. If you don't want to trust us, that's totally your prerogative, but we're going to continue to talk about things the way that we talk about them, how we're going to do it. And hopefully you will understand,

and we've gained your trust over the years. Also, not work here. Totally understand. Whatever. And also, yeah, exactly. There's a lot of things here. But, again, transparency is. is key when it comes to all of that.

And on top of that, because I was the one selling the deals and doing all that stuff, doing the ad reads, I am not the lead reviewer on this. Blessing is the lead reviewer. So all of that out of the way, we can now get into our review of Final Fantasy 7 rebirth. And that blows my mind because, you know, I can wax nostalgic about Final Fantasy 7 forever. And we have, I mean, me and you for years. But to think back to seven remake first being announced to that thing becoming real, because, coming our game of the year in 2020, due to Ron in a lot of ways.

Amazing journey. Just my votes. That's like, no, no outside influence. Just like me going like, hey, I really like this game. I'm going to put it as number two for my game of the year. Yeah. I think I also had as my number two. Yeah. Me too.

I added my number two as well. And then because of how numbers work, there you go. But to just a few short years later be here for Final Fantasy 7 rebirth. I just never thought that I'd be here. I'd never thought I'd be sitting with this group of people. It's such a special one for me because, like, I think Final Fame is the seven remake was one of the first big, big reviews that I did when I joined Kind of Funny, right? Because that game came out springish, 20, 20, and I joined.

It's like right after we went remote. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I joined at the beginning of the year. And so I think this is one of the first games, right? Not the first one, but I think there only been a couple now where I've gone to review the, like, first title or the first iteration and then review the sequel. And it's really cool to be here talking about rebirth. Absolutely. And you know, with that then, bless, I want you to kick this. off as lead reviewer here at Kind of Funny, what are you going to give on the kind of funny scale of one to five Final Fantasy 7 rebirth?

So this for me has been one of the tougher reviews because throughout my time playing this game and reviewing this game in the last few weeks, I put in about 70 hours, I think a little bit more than 70 hours into this video game. Throughout the bulk of that time playing Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, I was planning to come in here

and talk about this game being a five out of five and it being one of my favorite games of all time. The favorite game of all time thing, right? I think that for me still stands, But after finishing this game of 70 hours, after taking some days to like digest, think about it, reflect, I think I have to give this game a four out of five. A four to five is my final review score for it. The place I want to start is that I think this game is an incredible video game. I think it is marred by a few key things, both in story and in gameplay.

Talking about story, I think I want to start with the positive, right? I think this iteration of Final Fantasy 7 has my favorite cast of characters, possibly in any. video game. Like I think it's up there with God of War Ragnarok, up there with Metal Gear Solid games, like Arith, Barrett, Tifa, Cloud, the new characters that they introduce, they have such good chemistry and such good backstories to them. And the way that they get into these character stories and allow them to have their moments and allow them to have their interactions and allow you as a player to have like your own interactions with them, right? Like in this one, they introduced sort of like

a relationship level system that kind of lets you keep tabs on where you're at with all the different characters in the party. That stuff is so good and the character moments in this game are so good. When talking about Final Fantasy 7 remake, one of the things that I like to bring up of why I love that game so much is there's a moment, there's a story moment where things are going to shit and there's a cut to Barrett, the character, where he is like emotional. He's looking for his daughter. He's like, where is she? And you can see like the emotion in his eyes. It's so beautifully rendered like his character model and then like just the emotion in his face. I, that moment I was like, man, this is beautiful.

This is really making me connect with this character. There are so many moments like that in this game that super hit for me on the character level. On the overall story level, I think moment to moment, there's so much great stuff. But then there's also other things where I'm like, ah, you're setting things up and not delivering on them in a way that is making me care about this in the main story. I think there's the like, you know, big threads that involve Sephroff and the main villain, right?

I guess Saffroth being the main villain that feel like they're trying to go somewhere but then don't go somewhere. I was having like a conversation with Roger the other day and I was like, I think the Eureka moment that I found in talking about how I feel about the main story is that this game has commitment issues in a lot of ways.

There are so many places, there are so many threads that we set up that we don't then slam dunk and deliver on by the time we get towards the end. And I think a lot of that took the wind out of my sales for me. But there are also so many places where the writing is such a, success. The side quest, the side stories, so much of the open world content I think is there and is driven by the writing and it's such good stuff. On the gameplay level, obviously, like I talked about

the combat system when reviewing Final Fantasy 7 remake one or the first Final Fantasy 7 remake, right? And like one of the things I really commended that game on is the combat system, right? It is so fun. I like ATB. I like how to give characters all their own systems. That stuff remains here. That stuff is still really fun. The open world sort of set up this time around is very very fascinating to me and we can dig into this because it is as if you went to Ubisoft and went, hey, make an open world Final Fantasy 7 game because it is checklist city and usually that kind of stuff wouldn't work for me. And in this game, it really works for me even though there are places where I'm obviously like, okay, this is,

this feels like filler content, this feels like it could have been cut, this feels like it could have been edited down. They have to like the tower type stuff that you see in so many open world games. I feel like that stuff feels so checklisty and doesn't feel as inspired as you see in other open world games. But for every one of those, for every one of like the summon data things, which are like these random like mini games you do, you do that, feel like they're just filling in the open world. There's something else that is, oh man, this is a great side quest or Queensblood, which is a card game they introduced in the game that for me is on the level, if not way better than Quint, in my own opinion, right? I'm sure

people split on that. But like I really, really, really, really loves Queen's Blood and we'll get into that later. But yeah, like the open world is so fascinating and so fun to get lost in the first few areas that you discover in the game, I 100%ed everything. And I was on track to 100% the game, except for the fact that there is so much in this game. And at a certain point, I was like, all right, I can't do this.

I just got to, like, get to the end. But yeah, I think the open world is filled with ups and downs. But at its core, this is still a video game I'm going to remember forever. This game has moments that are up there with some of my favorite video game moments of all time. It's, I think some of the moments, like some of the main story moments, big story moments, fill it in some ways. so many ways where it matters, the game absolutely delivers. And so I still stick to saying this is an incredible video game. It's a fun video game. It's a video game I'm going to remember

forever. But yeah, I have to give it a four out of five just for certain things that are also tough to talk about without spoiling things that for me take the win out of their sales. Roger Perkorney, you are newer to the Final Fantasy 7 franchise as well. What's your history with it? Yeah. So I never play. My first Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy 15. And I played than only a few years ago. And then when remake came out, I played that. So I never played the original Final Fantasy 7. And remake changed my brain chemistry.

That game during the pandemic became my entire personality. You see my shirt. I love Final Fantasy 7 remake. And then I liked it so much. I was like, you know what? Let me play this Crisis Score thing. And I like that. Okay, fine enough.

But I like the story. And I'm excited for Rebirth. Rebirth, probably definitely my most anticipated game of this year. But I think I like. I definitely like, and I think that Final Fantasy Rebirth is a good game. It's not a great game. I would give this a three out of five okay on our scale, but the reason I'm giving it three out of five because there's no good. I would say that this is not a great game, so it's a three out of five. The open world just feels so hollow to me. We talked about the Ubisoft checklist type deal. That just was kind of a non-starter for me. I feel like the first 13 hours of the game are very by the numbers and it feels like filler, right? And then by the time I actually got to the story that I'm invested in, the story that I kind of signed up this whole chapter of video gaming getting into Final Fantasy 7 and actually getting into it 15 hours into it. It just, it really felt like it was, it was great, really good moments, and then it would just stop, right? There would be a moment where it's like, okay, well, now you have to throw a box.

Now you have to move something really slowly. There was always something that was getting in the way of my fun. And that's kind of my experience with Final Fantasy 7. Like there's really amazing moments that just are hard-stopped by moments that I think are filler. And this game feels like it has a great 20 to 30 hours that has expanded into 50, 60 hours of content. And I was liking it and I think that the game was progressively getting better as it went on and then the ending happened. And I felt even more so kind of burnt by the whole experience being somebody who does not have that connection with Final Fantasy 7. I felt like they kind of just left

left me out in the rain and I just, I don't, I'm not excited for the next game as much as I was when I first entered this whole experience. So yeah, three out of five, okay. I think it's a good game. It's not a bad video game.

It's just not as good as the first one. Imran Khan. What would you give this? So if you're one of those people out there in audience land, it's like, wow, he listed a bunch of things he didn't like about the game and they gave it a high score.

yeah that's what I'm about to do I'm giving you that game a four out of five I think it is impossible it suffers a little bit of tears the kingdom syndrome where you were following up something I very very much loved and an objectively better game is not going to hit in the same impact and in most ways your birth is an objectively better game

and there are parts of it that are just like wow this is not better this is you you started a hell of a song and then you hit next track in the middle of the like thing and I think like things blessing is said things as Rogers said, I don't want to, like, re-rate those, but, like, there are asked for this game that are just absolutely amazing. And there's parts of that that are like, what were you thinking? What did you do here? What, what was the design? The design docs say, like, stop all pacing for 20 mini games? Because, like, that's what we did. We got to talk about the,

mini-game. Because a lot of them are fucking great. But it's like, though, one of the things I want to mention to, too, with, like, the open world stuff. And, yeah, the activities is that it's, it's designed in such a baffling way, because it is, like, you know, you know how inspired a man, everything you're doing is you being, for the most part, is you being inspired man, right? It is, everything involves either fighting in combat or swinging around the city. And like, there are parts where you're either playing as Peter Parker, Mayor Jane, and those are the things that people complain about sometimes, right? But like, in a video game, usually you want to have everything revolve around this gameplay, like this,

this, you know, either combat or like, whatever thing you've set to be, this is the gameplay of this video game. Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth is fascinating because there are so many moments where they're like, all right, you're playing Final Faces and Seven Rebirth. Now you're playing Rocket League. Rocket League. Now you're playing. Queen's Blood or now you're playing. And I think in any other game, it wouldn't work.

Like, that would be one of my main complaints in any other video game. They somehow in this game make so much of it work in a way that I kind of commend because, like, yeah, when I'm playing, Queensblood is probably the main example of, like, y'all put your foot in this, like, in a good way. Like, y'all killed this. Like, this is a great game that I really hope they spin this out and make a Queen's Blood, like, staying alone thing. And then, like, there's other things there.

I don't want to go through every minigame. I guess Chokeball Racing is one I can point out. Chokeball racing is so fleshed out. And like, I don't know if it's going to be for every. It's probably not going to be for everybody. But there was a good three hours where I was hanging out and I was like, you know what? I'm just doing Chokeball Racing. I did every single one of those races.

It's so fucking fun. Like bronze two gold cup. And I was doing that for hours. And I was like, this is great. This is awesome. And yeah, Final Faces 7 Reaper is filled with random ass mini games that somehow work. Not every single time, but a lot of the time. I put 105 hours into this video game so far.

And a non- insignificant portion of that was just the mini-games. And like, it's great that they're there. They're surprisingly fun, well-designed. They brought back some ones I really love. They didn't need to be mandatory. And that, I think, is where a lot of things fall apart. Like, Costa del Sol was a great example. Because, like, I don't think this game really gets, like, great until June on.

And then right after June on, we're in this city. And everyone just, like, hey, go. go to this place and go to this place to play this mini game, then right after that there's a side quest to go play these mini games all over again. I'm like, okay, I see what you're going for here. You want to familiarize me with all this stuff. You want to make sure I'm not getting too bored,

but what I want is like, this is a game that is like terrible for pacing if you are someone who does not self-governed your pacing very well. So like what I should have done is, did a little bit story, gone back and done this stuff. I didn't do that. I saw a checklist and I went through in all of them, I went through all the world intel for each region

and then I moved on to the next story base that was not great for me my advice that here IGN's guides whatever write this down put it in the guide bury your stuff up don't go after one thing and then just keep going because like you are going to get burned down in this game very fast if you do that

and I think like I don't know that they should have stopped me I don't know that they should just paste the game better because there are examples of that making it mandatory that you need to but like there's so much variety in this game that it becomes oppressive at some point. Yeah, absolutely. For me, this is such a simple,

five out of five, and everything all y'all said is totally, totally true, and I feel it. I just think that this is the biggest game I've ever played. And with that, it comes with some of the most great things I've ever had, and there's a lot of stuff I don't really love that much, and there's some pacing things,

there's some story decisions, there's some this, there's some that. But overall, it's all in a package that should not be possible to be this impressive. Like, the music, the presentation, the graphics, the choreography of the camera work, and every single fight scene, every single character dynamic.

It is such fan service, but in the right ways. Like, as a fan of this stuff, as somebody that really cares about these characters and these worlds and seeing them, I'm just so impressed with how often I said, holy shit playing this game, and just how good of a time I had.

And there were a lot of moments where I'm pushing something and it's slower than I wanted to be and things like that. That didn't get in the way of my enjoyment. I can understand being critical of that, and it totally adds up to me, but there was so much amazing in this moment to moment.

Like I loved remake so much for the quality of its writing and how much I cared and invested in the characters. I think it's so much better in this one. I feel like the group of characters that we have are so fascinating. I want to be with them, whether they're doing something world-ending or whether they're doing something small. And that's why the mini-games, the mandatory ones,

didn't really bother me pacing-wise, because that's kind of what I was there for. It's just the weird combinations of characters going off and doing their own thing. I can't believe how long this game is. I can't believe how little they cut from the original. It really felt like they took it as a challenge to remake the original and have every scene hit as hard as it possibly can for the people that remember those moments.

And in doing that, I think it kind of creates a scenario where, hey, the original game was a game from the 90s and had a lot of weird things in it. And they committed so hard to making those weird things work that for me, I'm like, I'm so impressed. And I think that you did such a great job with it. the majority of the time that I'm like, yeah, it's a five. Even though there's a lot of three out of five elements in there. Like, I don't think that there's many two out of five elements or anything around that.

Like, I think that at minimum, the things that you're doing in this game are good. But I think more often than not, they are amazing. And I'm so impressed that the checklisty open world stuff, like I didn't do what and Ron did. I did main quest a lot more. Still took me 52 hours, something like that, just to beat the game. I did a lot of the mini games that were either mandatory or that I fell in love with like Queen's Blood

that is so fantastic. And it's a new addition to the game. I loved that. But I was, I don't even want to say more often than not. I would just say I was so impressed with how well the mini games played. There are exceptions where that's not true. But the moment you start playing one,

you're like, oh, this is kind of like Rocket League. I'm like, this plays way better than a mini game and a game should, especially when there's, I don't know how many, 10,000 minigames is this. There are multiple RTS-style minigames. And I'm somebody who doesn't, I don't usually vibe with RTS.

The first one you encounter, which I think might have been in the first game as well. I'm not sure. But like, For Condor. For Condor, yes. That one, I didn't play it in the first game. Playing it here,

I got so into it. I am shocked by how much fun I have with Fort Condor. Where like there's a list, I think there's a short list of mini games within this game that I can go, hey, spin this on to its own thing. Like put this on mobile. Put this as like a $5 game on PSN.

Like whatever you need to do. because yeah, Chokeball racing is so fun. Queen's Blood, again, I was a Gwent person when I was playing Witcher 3. I probably spent most of my time in Witcher 3 playing Gwent. Queen's Blood has somehow for me, when you superseded that. I am like, I am fully in on Queensblood. You know what makes Queen Blood work so well is they know you're just going to get screwed sometimes. You're going to lose and whatever.

The fact that you can just go immediately restart, let me try this again. Yeah. It's like, okay, this game has so many actually good quality of life things. And then it has like some, like, not great quality of, like, none of the shit. Shooting minigames have inverted controls, which is the most insane thing for me. Because, like, you have that in the overall game options, but not for, like, pirate shooting, which is, like, it took me a while to get good at that game because I play inverted shooting. So, like, it's stuff like that of why is this inconsistent?

Why can't, like, everything work on at least, like, the same basic quality of life level? And that's where I come down on the mini games is that there's so many great ones. Of course, Queen's Blood's Incredible. The Rocket League, Red 13 one is, is, awesome, but there are just ones that I'm like, we did not need this. We, we did not. It's nice to have and that's, that's kind of like the big overarching thing. It's like a lot of nice to haves, but I would rather just have four or five really solid ones and then just kind of everything else is, oh, you go find it and if you want to play it, you can play it. Just having the mandatory

throughout the actual like story just felt unnecessary. Can I bring up soundtrack? Yeah, we had to tell you guys. Somebody has to. This is in my top three soundtracks of all time, I think, For me, I have to like stay with it, but this soundtrack hits on such a level where obviously it's taking so many of the arrangements that it had already from the original Final Faces 7 and then also from remake. But the way in which this game has respect and reverence for its own source material, it feels like it is, it feels like playing, it's like I'm playing something that was made by like the Disney, right? It has like that level of, oh, I am nostalgic. I am feeling magic. Like there is something here that really works. It's, you know, fun playing this as a

open world game that is like, you know, obviously Final Faces is that in the original, GRP, this game, GRPG slash action RPG, every want to categorize it, but also has a lot of like open world, almost like Western RPG elements when you're out and about just doing your thing. And even when you're out in the world, music is playing

the whole time and it works. Like, not many open world games just have music playing the entire time. And they do it here and I'm like, this is fucking awesome, especially in the variety of music. Like, not only is it arrangements from the original game that's, that are being you know, redone and reference the motifs and all that stuff here.

It is EDM songs, rap songs, like so many different types of genres of music that a lot of times feel goofy. Like a lot of time it's like, this is a weird pick, but for some reason it works. And I don't know how they're so consistently make that happen where it is the most random song for a side mission will start playing. And I'm like, kind of grooving to this though. And it's kind of making the vibe right for this mission. It is such a good soundtrack.

Yeah. I am the complete person who does not listen to video game music. It doesn't even register to me. There's a point where I was playing yakuza and some of the music was playing. And Lance was like, oh, that's like the main theme. I was like, I couldn't. I played three of these games. I couldn't tell you what these are.

This just completely hit for me in a way that I'm like, I'm going to buy this physically. Like, this is just a magical sounder. The orchestration, you're right. Like the rap stuff is like, you know, like, oh, this is actually really good. Like, every single thing about it just feels so premium. If you're someone who likes the light motifs, this game is, hella light motif. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's not going to be surprised

to any of you or anybody listening to me, but like, so much of my high on this game is how hard they want on the music. And it's not just, oh, it has a great soundtrack, because that's a disservice to what this game did. Like, they were talking about over 400 new tracks for this game. Jesus. Like arrangements and things in the state of play that they put out. That is, it was like 300 and 400. I think it was 400. And you hear it. And the amount of leitmotifs that come up of all these character

moments of any time of characters on screen, something's happening that's relevant to them and how their relationships with other characters can combine to make a new song, a new moment. This is very early, so it's not spoilers, but seeing Tifa in the, like, the Cowgirl outfit, you get a western version of

Tifa's theme. There's like dozens of versions of each character theme done in the style that fits the scenes that they're in, and they might be used once. They might be used a hundred times, but it is just so incredible. And on top of that, the dynamic switch between you're just in the open world and then you're in a battle and the same theme then ratchets up.

It's the Final Fantasy 7 main theme, but now it's the battle version. It's the Cosmo Canyon theme, but now it's the battle version. And there's just, it feels endless. And you say it might be in your top three. Like, I struggle to think of just top to bottom. If you're just talking about one game soundtrack, this might have to take the cake because I was talking to Imran about this. Like the closest I've ever come to this feeling is Smash Brothers Brawl, where

Sakurai got together a dream team of every arranger, composer, possible to just make new arrangements of all of the classic songs. Like, everyone is here in music. And they did that. This feels like that for Final Fantasy 7. And we know how many iconic themes are in 7. This game just made me realize how many more there were that I didn't even remember. The Mount Coral guys. Come the fuck on.

You know what I mean? Like, there's just so much music. And to me, that's why it's like, they were so. relentless with the presentation of the music and how good the game looks and how that stuff kind of combined, that the Ubisoft tower stuff, I never even considered it. It never bothered me at all because I'm just like, I'm listening to amazing music and I'm vibing right now where just walking around the world felt so satisfying to me that when I did see a tower that was close enough, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, might as well go pop that thing off. Like I like that it was just there for something. But like, I just feel like they really nailed the vision of this feeling like a gigantic adventure. that was pieced together by the most variety I've ever seen in a game from both a gameplay perspective and a sound perspective. And they just combined in this way that like,

it's simply magical. It's also overbearing. And it's also the most shit ever. So like, I get it. And this is somebody that does not like big open things. Like, this is easily the biggest game that I've beaten and felt this way about besides Zelda Tears the Kingdom and Breath of the Walk. They actually play with the music in a really interesting way.

Because like there's one scene where characters come, like, up it's like hey something happened come on real quick cloud doesn't know what happened so in the music you hear like the sephroth violins of duh duh duh because like that in his head that's what's going on and when you find out what actually is happening those violins stop but it's like a really interesting thing of oh we're gonna get a little bit of just a character motivation moment in here just through the music yeah and like that wouldn't work if this were not a remake of final 97 it almost feels like i'm watching a music or like an opera or something where the music matters so much to the

moments and I love how they do that. Like you will be in a middle of a cutscene and there's something there's something big happening, right? There's action happening and then like the camera will transition over to let's say T4 or Eareth and then you'll hear one of their themes and it turns tender and like the moment the energy of the moment shifts in a second and yeah like they manage that stuff so well. I'm like yeah I'm somebody who's a fan of like motifs, light motifs and all that stuff and like you know like when you want to talk about like my top three or whatever right I'm thinking about undertale. I'm thinking about near right And now, like, I think the thing that all these have in common is that they know how to tie their songs to certain characters and make those moments matter to tell the story.

And yeah, like the music here is top tier video game soundtrack, in my opinion. I want to keep talking about this game, but after a quick word from our sponsors. Y'all need to check out Kind of Funny Game Showdown, our weekly video game trivia game show. You can watch live on YouTube or on Twitch every Friday at 11 a.m. Pacific time. But now, thanks to popular demand, Kind of Funny Game Showdown, is available on podcast. podcast services. Whether you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Iat Heart Radio, or anywhere else, please subscribe and rate the show five stars. It really helps us get kind of funny out there, and we couldn't thank you enough. We aim to make this a video-only show, so many of the games

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Please subscribe and rate Kind of Funny Game Showdown on your favorite podcast service now. Let's talk combat. Big part of this game, right? taking what worked in remake, kind of added to it, a whole bunch more new characters in this, and also taking the system they put in place in intergrade, intermission?

Intergrade. With the kind of like buddy combo system. And I just took it to a thousand of all the different things. Emma, what was your take on the combat? So I thought the combat from FSA and remake was amazing, but it's not apparent unless you're in hard mode when everything is like just like a puzzle and you have to like solve it.

The big problems I think was M7 were like, okay, I don't have the, the right material for this fight, so I just can't pressure this guy. And like that, I heard that for quite a few people, reasonable. They fixed that in this one with like the elemental skills and all that. But they also don't back away from anything that worked in remake. And I think that's key to this. And I think, so I started on dynamic.

I don't know what, like, you guys started on. But like, I kept that the entire way through. And I think that's the way you should play this game because it keeps all a, every off doing side quest, you're going to out-level the main story very fast. But if you're on dynamic, then the main story keeps up with you. So, like, I thought the boss battles and the combat and, like, all that stuff this game worked perfectly. I thought the fact that, like, you can, they added, like, a long range attack for Cloud's

kit works really well. I think by far, this is probably a much better extension of remakes battles of them than I really ever expected them to do. Bless what about you. Yeah, I tend to agree with that. I like the, the synergy abilities. I think that's a cool addition. I think the new party members really, um, really step things up, right?

Yeah, Ufee's just as broken as she wasn't in her mission. I love it too. I love you. I didn't play intermission, but Ufi was my, like Ufi was constantly my party. Like any chance I got, I'm like, yeah, it's going to be me, the cloud Ufi, and then Ayrth, or somebody who has, somebody who can be my healer. It's basically a third. But Ufi is such a, yeah, like, I like her set of abilities.

I like that she has like this elemental attack that is long range. So it is a thing of, hey, if I'm out of MP or if I'm, like, you know, struggling in terms of not having a character that has a specific element. Ufi is there for me. It can like fill in all those roles. And for me, it really made things a lot easier to like manage just in terms of that. But yeah,

like I think overall, for me there was little I noticed about change in the combat system aside from things that, you know, the energy abilities and then yeah, cloud having more of a long range thing. But like it stays awesome. I don't know if they,

they probably didn't. I don't know if I noticed, but like new, did they add any new material? Like material, the material is the same. pretty consistent from the first game. There's a bunch of new material.

There's stuff though I think was not even an F7. Yeah. Like some of the static change material and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think a lot of it feels so seamless because I look through looking through the material like list, I'm like, oh yeah, like all this makes sense. All this feels like it's like a step up from seven remake, but I can't even pinpoint how because I think

that's how seamless they were with it with like adding the stuff. What about you, Rodry thing with combat? The combat's good. I like it a lot. I think I, the combat, the combat's good. The synergy abilities really helped me, like being able to just go there without having to deal with the active time battle gauge

or anything like that. Just throw things at people. Like, that's been really fun. I do think in between, you know, playing remake and then this one, Final Fantasy 16 came out in between. I'm like, oh, I like that combat a lot more. That worked for me in a way that this one just still doesn't. But it's not a negative towards the game.

It's just personal preference. Like that, Final Fantasy 16 is just way more action-based and you can just throw fire like nothing. This one is a little bit. You have to actually wait and say, okay, do I do an item? Do I do the magic or whatever? So, yeah, it's good.

I like it a lot, but it's not, it's not my favorite Final Fantasy Combat system. I love Final Fantasy 16th combat. I'm one of those people. I know that's not a popular opinion and whatever I stand by it. I'm right there with you, Raj.

Like, there were a lot of moments of this. I'm like, God, this game would just be a dream. It is a dream for me, but it'd be even more of a dream if I just got to hack and slash it, whatever. I was going to, I was not, gonna say this out loud. I was thinking it real loud. This game for me shit on F-O-16

real hard. Yeah, I would not say that. I would not say. I don't know. I'm kind of on both sides. I love both games. Both sides isn't blessing. Yeah, that's what they call me. I'm a fucking centrist when it comes to Final Fantasy. But yeah, I can see both sides when it comes to combat especially because they're very different systems.

But yeah, I think... I like being able to pause and like do the... Yeah, like it feels... I mean, I think they keep the energy of turn-based in Final Fantasy and Rebirth. That really worked. me because I feel like I have to strategize or else I'm fucked. I do think for 7, it gets better for me as it goes on, right?

In the beginning, I'm just frustrated, that I'm not able to do the attacks the way that I wanted to. I don't have this man or whatever it is. It gets way better and I think maybe gets better than 16 by the ending of 7, but like in the very beginning, I would take 16's combat any death. And for me, I love both so much.

I just like, at the end of the day, for me, I would prefer the 16 type battle system, but I think this thing sings, man. I think the combat system for this switching between the characters and like just the way that it moves. Like it feels so engaging and I'm such a broken record. I've said this a million times. But I will never forget watching Advent children and thinking it's the peak of what cool could possibly look like. And now play a game that looks better.

And you're actively controlling it blows my fucking mind. And the combat is so engaging, so fun, the music's playing again. So it's like all of it just comes together for me where I just, I know that like a lot of the things I've been talking about. I'm just like, oh, five out of five, five out of five, like all this stuff. Like, looking at last year, how many banger games that like really spoke to me, starting 2024 off with Prince of Persia, in my opinion, being a top 10 all time for me, getting to this, like, we might have two more Tim Getty's top 10 of all time games. And it's like, that's, like, they pulled this off for me in a way that I just didn't think was possible.

And I think a lot of that does have to do with how well the combat system backs up these characters and makes me want to use all of them, even the ones that I didn't vibe with as much. There's a couple of characters and this is like, this is kind of fucking weird. But like, yes. But at the end of the day, though, I'm just like, I love parts of it, right? There are things like, Ufi was always my girl, whatever she could be. But I'm impressed with the depth of the combat system from a base level. And then when you start to realize how many of those synergy attacks there are

and how many unique situational things there are between every combination of characters, it's like there's a lot more here than there wasn't seven remake. I have restarted on hard. and the very first boss, Matery Keeper, I got my ass kicked, like, two or three times until I realized, like, oh, it doesn't want me to just play a Sephiroth. It wants me to switch around and, like,

go by what the actual moment-to-moment battle is, like, dictating I do. Because if I am just one person, that Materiakeeper is going to destroy that one person. Yeah, and speaking of the boss fights, one of the things I love most about Seven was when they'd go all

out for the set piece bosses, like the Airbuster being one of those examples, I feel like this game is just relentless. I feel like there is probably no less than 10, like between 10 and 25 minute battles that have so many phases, and it's not just gameplay stuff. It's like story and cutscenes happening

that don't just feel like quick time things that you're doing. Like I was so in the moment to moment stuff where I'm just like, let's fucking go playing through the game that I was so surprised at how many of those AirBuster quality fights we've gotten this one. Every single Turk fight feels like a 3D fighting game.

Oh, it's so weird. The Turks, bro. I love the turks. Alina is, like, she is by far, like, my favorite character in this game. Really? That's wild.

Really? Yes. Because she's nothing, she's nothing in seven. She just, like, sort of appears and, like, make some jokes about how, like, rude and Reno worked stupid or whatever.

But, like, here she's, like, a character that, like, has jokes, is frustrated. Think this whole thing is just stupid. And for me, that's a running theme

of this game, is that if there's anybody in the original, Final Fantasy 7 that like if there's a sneeze in that game either there's a back story to it and things are so elaborated upon in this game in a way that I think is really cool for the most part right like I think that lends to it being a little bit long but oh shit if you're an audio listener the set just changed to Sephora scary as hell but yeah like there is so much context to everything in every single character and I was shocked by you know after I beat Final Fantasy

remake back in 2020, one of the things I did was immediately pick up Final Fantasy 7 for PS1, like the version that's on PS4, and I started playing it. And I played about 16 hours, even though my game clock is weird because I was playing in fast forward when I was on like the overall mode. And so I'm sure my hours are really screwed because of that. But I was shocked by how much of this game that I played in Rebirth that was still catching me up on things that I had already experienced in Rebirth in the original game, right? Where I'm like, oh, I'm still, I'm still not past like where I put the game down. I'm still experiencing things. And moments again, that like feel like just split second

things are so well fleshed out. And yeah, like a character like Elena where I'm like, I don't who the fuck is Elena? Now she's a big part of what's going on. There are so many characters in this video game. And I think on top of that too, that also lent itself to you a lot of the goofy energy this game has that I absolutely love. Like this game has, I think the remake, like already had a sense of humor, right? Because it's Final Fantasy. It's Final Fantasy 7. Rebirth takes that and really upset to where they're doing some dumb shit in some of these moments that is so fucking funny and weird and goofy and I think sometime can be immersion breaking but I think for the most part lends to a game that has such fun energy and like you have characters that you meet where it is

what the fuck are you what the fuck is up with this guy and they do that so often but I think it just lends so a fun energy to this game that I really appreciate it which is like not to like endlessly compare this to 10 but one of the things I didn't like about 16 is it took itself so seriously the entire time I appreciate that And this never had, like, the Ufi introduction. When she first joins the party and she has this whole magical girl like introduction and Cloud just like, cool, and walks away. Like, there's nothing like that in 16.

There is stuff like that and other Final Fantasy games, which to me is like part of the core DNA in that series. But I love that Seven just leans into it so much. There's genuinely a lot of laugh out loud moments this game. Yeah. So jumping off of what you guys are saying, like something that I feel to the core of Fallen Fantasy 7 is it is the Star Wars of Video. games. Like it's cast of characters

and it might even the great it at its best still has some things that are a little weird or like who the fuck is that guy? Why does he sound that way? Or like this is weird whatever and then yeah there's some examples of like oh you guys went too far here or you guys are over prequelizing this and giving us way too much info crisis core

I'm looking at you. It's to love you but I you know it is what it is. And then you know things like Final Fantasy 16 different franchise from seven but like that to me is more like an and or and I can appreciate that different things can work way. But for Fall Fantasy 7 being this like big romp adventure that is so serious, but at the same time, the least serious thing ever with the cast of characters that's so

lovable and fucking weird. When you look at all of them, you're like, I cool, cool guy with a sword, a couple cool girls that like, which one's he going to be with? And then everyone else is just like, well, here's a cat. Here's a red cat. And here's like all this weird shit. And it works. It only works because they, present it as serious and not serious at the same time to the right level but I just really think that at the end of the day I enjoy Star Wars, good and bad

so that's why it works. I think for me, I'm with you that I think it was like the unserriness of it works but then there are moments where I think there are like, I think with the, it's funny it's fun to like compare to FM 16 right because it's fresh in our brains and it's such the antithesis of this game because Final Fans 16

yeah so serious this game so insurious even though it's serious at the same time but I think the thing that I really liked about 16 is that it always felt grounded to some as far as you can be grounded with magic and all this shit right but it felt grounded to some extent where I'm like okay a equals B equals C like I can track all these things going on here with FF7 there are moments that are like main story moments where I'm like all right like I understand that we're not taking this serious but like in this moment we should take this serious like why are we letting this happen like why are we just

overlooking this thing that's happening here and I think some of that is hey man you know this is part of the story. Like we just got to move this thing along and then other parts of it, I think, are like, the numeraisms of it where it is, hey man, this game is just a vibe. Like we're just, we're, we're, we're molar focused on vibes than we are on like some of the logic of the storytelling here and you kind of have to go with it. But I think that's part of what brings moments in the story back for me where I'm like, ah man, but I wish, I wish we took this a little bit more serious because I think the balance is just slightly off. Yeah. For me, somebody who probably has the least knowledge of the original game

comparatively to everyone here, I felt like more often than not that I was watching a seven-hour-long director's cut of a movie that I've never seen before. Like that was kind of the comparison that I would make. And in a good way and a bad way, right?

Like there's some great moments where it's like, I'm glad that you guys really went down this rabbit hole and it's better for it. But there was a lot of moments where I'm like, why are we focusing on this? Like, it feels as somebody who does not know the original game

like just like super apparent when they're going down those rabbit holes. And again, for better for worse, but I think a lot of the times in this game more than remake for worse. That's the way I would think. I will say like, as someone who played the original game, like I want to say maybe five, six times, I had to have a wiki open with some stuff. I'd be like, who were these guys? When did this happen in F-O-7?

Like, there was a thing that was like, I don't remember this being mentioned at all. You're like, here's the whole dungeon. Yeah, totally, exactly, right? And like that is, go for it, but I was just going to say, I'm very happy I played crisis score. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If I didn't play crisis score, like the new one that came out about a year ago, I, there are moments of this game where I'd be like, I don't know what the fuck is happening here.

It's weird. So here's the thing. That's all true. And I'm just going to say this. I don't think that for the most part, not playing any of the other things and then playing this really changes that much. I'm just as fucking confused. Yeah.

So I just think, I think you're going to be more confused and whatever and your willingness to be like, it's going to happen, whatever. where I stand with the game right now, like with the whole franchise is, they have one more game left. So I'm really just like, I loved so much of what they did with remake. I loved so much of what they did here.

Then I'm just like, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that it'll all make sense eventually. Because where we're at right now, there's a lot of things that I'm like, I don't know if I love this. I don't know if this makes sense, but I'm along for the ride

and they're giving us the ride. So it's like, I just feel like there's, it reminds me a lot of the people being like, how can I watch the marvels if I haven't seen this, this and this. It's like just fucking watch the movie, man. And like the things you don't get, you won't get, but. But I will say, like, I think comparatively, like, you guys have the buy-in already of the original game, right? Like, of just knowing these characters and falling in love with

them in your own personal ways. I end up blessing less so, right? Because you only played half of it. But I just don't have that, right? Like, I'm still getting to know these people. So, like, to have this game that is so indulgent, it didn't feel like it gave me those moments where I'm like, I love these characters more. I don't think I'm in love with them as much as I would be if I played the original game. You get what I'm saying? Like I just, that whole vibe is,

is good, it's getting somewhere, but by the ending of this game, I just, I looked at the whole situation. I'm like, okay, well, I know I'm gonna play the next game,

but I'm not, if I was a normal consumer, I probably wouldn't be as excited for the next game. I'd be like, this is fine. I'm gonna agree and disagree with you on the characters

because like for me, the, when it comes to most of the main party, when it comes to Eryth, Tifa, Barrett, and like most of like the party characters. I fucking adore these characters.

And my version of Barrett is like the remake Barrett, right? Like my version of Tifa and Ayrrith are these versions. And I've had moments where I'm like tearing up and crying playing the game based on like some of the things that they build up and really deliver on with the side characters. And like some of the story focused stuff on certain party characters, it's so fucking good. What I will say though, Cloud and Sephiroth are the two that I'm kind of like, I'm not in love with what they're doing with these characters. For me coming in and playing Rebirth as like, remake and Reeferoth.

birth as kind of like my first full foray into these characters. It's not from Crisis Corps, because I plead through Crisis Corps. But I think a lot of the stuff they do with Cloud in this game is like, it would be good if this comes back to my commitment issues thing. If they rounded it out, like by the time we finished, by the time it was all set and done at the end of this game, there are certain things that they're doing with Cloud where I'm like, y'all making me kind of dislike Cloud in this game. And like, I wish we kind of, I wish there was some sort of like, I don't know,

Like more they did to kind of build up cloud character. Especially when you were just getting to know Cluck. Because he is so, and I know a lot of the backstory and like reveals of Cloud or whatever, right? I understand what's going on with him. But like there are certain things where I'm like, man, like y'all, I wish I really liked this character more. I think he's cool. I think him and his big ass sword is fucking dope, right? Like he's well designed and all this shit, right?

But like he's kind of like a gruff, you know, kind of blank slate. I get it. He's a main character. But also he's doing things where I'm like, what the, what the fuck, man? And then step for off. They're learning. Cloud sucks. And then, Cloud sucks.

Okay, is that the case? Love sucks, because that's always sound. I don't like this guy. They do, they don't explain what's happening with Cloud unless you already know

what's happening with Cloud. They give like a thing, like a one scene where it's like, oh, I can piece together enough of the information to know what this means. Yeah. Having already played a phone 7.

Yeah. But like if you haven't, like they go through great efforts to make sure everyone in his cast is likable, even to an extent like more so, then if it was like Ufi they took away a lot of for like more negative aspects like they kind of

split that into Kriere and like gave Ufi like less annoying aspects but everyone is more like except cloud cloud they're keeping the same kind of like not great person that is like actively being swayed to the dark side kind of thing and like there is a there's a like Tim you know what I'm talking about I'm not going to say it but there's a part where they're like hey this this is a proper noun that what explained was happening in cloud assuming you know everything about that proper now. And my problem is, I think, in a, when you're turning one game into a trilogy, now I'm ending this game. And I'm like, this fucking character sucks. You know, I'd have to wait for like multiple years to get like the rest of the story to then decide like, I feel about the full thing.

But as it stands at the end of this game, I'm like, y'all didn't treat this character well. At least y'all didn't make me fall in love with this character compared to the other characters in this game. So it's like in the prequel Star Wars when Anakin has taken out an entire village. And you're still like, oh, we're still in another movie with Anakin as the lead, huh? Yeah. Like, all right, let's see where that goes. And then my thing with the Sephraoth as well is that Sephraoth in this game feels like, and I know this is the case in the original, I believe, right?

He feels like a MacGuffin, right? It feels like, okay, we're going to spend this game going after Sephora. Like, that's the whole thing. And they try to create moments where Seph Roth matters to the main story. And I feel like you could have made this game. Sephroff couldn't have been there the whole time.

Would have been the same game. Yeah. So ultimately, one of the complaints my head about this game's narrative structure is that there is not it is you are following just the black rope guys yeah that's it yeah and that's because like this is the middle chapter of the of an original game you were not supposed to have like a grand motivation yet you were just following these people so you could get to sever off eventually and like that's great for that but for this it kind of feels like they were trying to go for kind of a vignette thing for like oh every region has

its own story whatever it just doesn't gel quite well and like those individual stories are so good I love that stuff so much. But then, yeah, like, when you get on the overarching level, I do look back at my journey of Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth, and I'm like, wait, so where did we go? Like, where did we get to here? Yeah, and that's where it comes back to of, like, I know why they're stopping me.

I know why they're stopping me dead in my tracks as I'm playing this game because there's not much more story to do, like to give me. They're stopping me saying, hey, you got to be Kate Sith and throw a box because, oh, it's not really much we got to get to. It's the end battle after this. Like, it just feels like that the entire time for me. as somebody who just,

who only played remake. Right. For me, it's funny because it's like, I feel like, and we'll see when rebirth comes out, but I almost feel like rebirth is, sorry,

the third one, whatever the hell it's called. It's going to be a more linear tight experience like remake was again. Like I feel like it's going to be like the, whatever shape that is. I hope so. Because I feel like this very much is the,

like there's a lot of flash, a lot of style, like so much. I think the art direction of this game is phenomenal. Yes. And it really lends, itself to like everything being so special and epic. But I feel like the substance comes from not like being this one deep story, but deep

character moments with backstories and like build up to like make you understand the dynamics between characters or the backstories of why people are the way they are. And you go to city to city, town to town, go to the hotels. Like there's something about it that really felt like this group is traveling together and then being able to get the little splintered stories. Like I enjoyed that stuff, but it very much didn't like remake felt like a movie. this felt like kind of multiple seasons of a TV show that had a lot of those episodes

that just focus on one character here, one character there or whatever. And that's going to be a give or take type thing. I don't think everybody's going to absolutely love it, but I do think there's a ton of people that are going to be like, this is the best thing ever. It's actually very similar, I think,

to the recent Like a Dragon, where, like, the actual main story, like, sometimes it just doesn't make sense and sometimes it feels very meandering. It doesn't, like, we don't really know where we're going. But, like, the character moments are great. And that's kind of what you're there for. But I will say in Like a Dragon, if we're going to do that comparison,

when you're running around Open World Tokyo, like you're able to have those conversations with your companions in a way that you just don't have in this game, right? Like going, of course, the side missions, you're talking the entire time. But when you're going to do a tower, like, they're silent the entire time. Like, there's no real, like, hey, well, how are you doing? On my arm hurts my, you know what I mean? Like, there's no, like, just.

And that's Barrett, of course. Come on, man. But, you know, like, there's no, like, just banter. between them. It is just silent. And of course there are the side missions and all that jazz, but I just don't think that that group gels in the open world, Ubisoft type thing they're going for.

I get what you're talking about, especially when you're doing random activities. But when you're doing side quest, of course, yeah. Yeah, like, oh, but I mean, there is, in terms of the volume of the game, like, there's so many icons on that map, and they're like, hey, check them off. And when you go to those icons, a lot of them are just, fight the thing, do the thing, go up the tower. It is weird how much I was listening to podcasts. And that's the thing.

And that's the thing, right? I will say, and I've been sitting on this, like, complaint for, like, two weeks. The waypointing in this game fucking sucks. It is like, yeah, it is actually, because it doesn't show you height. And so much stuff is just above or below you. So you'll go somewhere and be like, how do I get here? I don't know if this game needed a mini map or just a better overall map. But yeah, there are quite a few places where I'm like, I am getting lost.

Yeah, and also just the traveling of this open world. It is, there's no jump on, right? Like, so there are so many moments where I'm just, ram it into a rock. And I'm like, do I go up here? No, okay, it's not. You can go up halfway a mountain with a Chicago, and then you can stop.

And then you're just stopped there. Yeah. Weird. Barrett, what did you think about this? Because you also beat this game. I did, and this is an interesting one because I'm coming in here as, I would say a hater is too strong of a word

for Final Fantasy 7 remake, but I did not vibe as much with remake as the rest of the panel here. And a lot of other people, right? I really loved Rebirth, and I was not expecting that. Like, my kind of biggest gripes with Remake were, like, I felt like Remake had commitment issues in that story. The combat I never, I didn't really click with,

and that's mainly just because of the way they modernize Final Fantasy VII's combat system felt a little bit kingdom-heartsy, and that's just not the kind of guy that I am when it comes to combat, and then bloat. Like you're turning a, what, six to seven hour portion of that game into a 35, or 30-ish hour game. I just, I really felt that personally. And there's still a lot of that, like, bloat is definitely the, I think, rebirth's biggest problem.

And there's even more of that here. But there's a certain magic man that, like, really took me over and made me fall in love with rebirth. And I think it is because it is this section of Final Fantasy. when it comes to everything y'all are talking about of the different regions, the music, the character moments that it's just like going to like June on or I always forget the name of it, like the canyon area.

Cosmoa Canyon. Yeah, like those moments and like reliving some of the moments with like Red 13 or like the golden saucer and all that stuff like really just like that stuff in this game brought me back to playing the original with my babysitters, like more than 20 years ago, more so than any moment in remake did. And I just adored it for that. I think it's a much messier game than remake, for sure. But there is a certain magic here that I loved. I still think there are some commitment issue things here that Bles alluded to that I didn't quite as much

vibe with in either rebirth or remake, but I am, where we leave things off when it comes to main story stuff, I am more excited for the third one than I was expecting to be. Definitely way more excited than I was leaving remake going into rebirth. And also the combat, like, I think it was just like the simple addition of the synergy skills and abilities, which I didn't fully understand at first. So like the combat I still wasn't clicking with, but then when you get like the When I put together of like, oh, there's the synergy, like, skills that are more like you're using moment to moment. I think that little addition, which, from what I understand, is part of Integrade.

Correct me if I'm wrong there. Yeah, I think the synergy stuff started in Integrate. Yeah. That simple stuff, like, really gave the combat a flow and pace that just, like, clicked in my mind way, way more. That made me really, really dig it and had me searching for combat stuff. whether it was like the summon materia and like, you know, trying some of those fights on the hardest difficulty ever. Yeah, I think it has a lot of problems.

I'm very interested to see where this lands in just kind of the plethora of people that will play it, especially for people who maybe are like Roderan, like really dug remake and don't really have a connection to the original. And I think it is purely because of my connection to the original that like there's just, there is something here that I absolutely adored. Like, I would personally give it a four out of five because, yes, there is a lot of open world stuff. A lot of just like, I've been saving this tweet for the longest time because of all the yellow

marking for like traversal and stuff, that discourse for the last couple weeks. It's like, I have nothing to add to that discourse. All I know is you climb slow as shit in Final Fantasy seven games. Oh my God. Like the open world stuff is uninteresting for the most part to do, and you do it so slow. and it drives me up a fucking wall. This is not a story spoiler, but there's a moment towards the end of the game where you're climbing, and he goes fast as fuck. I'm like, where was that?

Where was that? Why was it? How frustrating was it seeing like the yellow, like, paint discourse while having the game and being like, there's not that much. No. It's not that much of the game. Also, kind of needed, because otherwise you just like run past that whatever you think you need to climb up. Yeah. I honestly wish there was more.

I wish there was more areas where I'm like, okay, go up here, cool. I will say like Barry mentioning like the messiness of it right like I when I reviewed Sonic Frontiers last year or two years ago at this point one of the things I let off with that review was that that was that was that game was a three out of five that I love like a five out of five I think for me found Fancy Rebirth is a four out of five that I love like a six out of five like there was a moment in this game like one of the later chapters where I go to our slack and I'm like this is an all timer for me right like it has those moments like Barrett, like, talking about, you know, what the wider discourse is going to be, like, when the game comes out for everybody. I think for the most part, people are going to fucking adore this game, right?

Like, I think it's us having to play it on a critical level and go, okay, well, it's this and this and this is this. I think that's the thing where I'm like, if I'm not a fucking video game reviewer and I'm not having to assign a number to this thing, I'm going around. I'm like, yo, y'all got to play Final Faces and Rebirth. But at the same time, it's like, it is interesting because it's like talking about the pacing and, like, all the mini-game stuff. I am interested to see, like, are people going to be interesting?

interested, like, you know, when you go to, what's his name, Don Corleone in Remain. Oh, yeah, Don Corleone. Like, that whole segment of that game leading up to Hell House and all that stuff stands out because that is the one, like, really weird chunk of Final Fantasy 7 remake. You got, like, 10 to 12 of those in this game, and I just wonder how people are going to take to that, which I personally did, because I like the weird shit. It's so weird. And, like, they lean so much.

into the weird shit, which makes me like the different weird shit more than I did in remake, right? It was a bit frustrating in remake, and I felt like it made a bit more tonal sense here. So, yeah. Speaking of Hellhouse, one thing that, like, kind of bothering you out this game, and there's, like, a very specific enemy that I wish we would have seen is that it wasn't, there's not a ton of enemy variety in this game. It is mostly, like, wolves and birds, which is, that was just kind of this part of the game, was that, those are the enemies.

but like there was no like real hey this is the weird guy that we turn into a boss and there there were options there was a triceratops that with motorcycle wheels there's an enemy in the original we could have done something with that we didn't didn't really yeah you're right in terms of like the basic enemies and there just was a lot more bosses in this one but yeah there is just a lot of just like fairly easy to kill just like cannon fodder yeah people around yeah um any any closing thoughts on this i'm sure we're going to talk a lot more about this this game yeah i this is one of those ones where I had so much of this game is just in the eye of the beholder.

And so, yeah, I'm very excited to see what people think. Because it's for every, like, you know, every, for every, for every, uh, I'm in the open world, isn't it? I'm like, dude, open world stuff might have been some of my favorite stuff just on like a pure gameplay level, uh, in this game. Like, I really like going around and doing the random shit. Even the stuff that was like, you know, again, one of my complaints with, like, the towers and the, um, there's like these summon data things where you go to it.

And you have to like click the buttons to a rhythm. Yeah. Like, it's like a clock thing that goes around and you have to memorize what, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you had to remember. Yeah, it's like,

what the fuck are we doing? I love that shit. And like, and honestly, after a while, I was like, you know, fuck it.

Like, that's podcast time. And it's a fun, like, when you accept it for being open world blow and you get into that mode of, I'm just knocking out checklist shit. It does become fun.

It does become a thing. But I'm also like, it is, coming off of remake and playing this game. In a lot of ways, it's a different game. A lot of ways it's the same game too, right?

But like, it is, you're signing up for something different. If you were expecting like the linearity of remake. Now, having said that, you can do that. There's a lot of mandatory stuff. You can skip the majority of the side stuff. If you don't like the open, if you don't like the towers,

you don't need to do a single power. I guess you have to do one. But besides that, you do not need to do two towers. I mainline the game. I finished in 40 hours. And I did the open roll stuff in the beginning because you kind of have to and they kind of like push you down that direction. But then once I realized that you didn't have to do it, I just do it.

I'm putting it out just for the people that I know aren't going to dig as much as that stuff. I'm saying that I dig it. Right. Like I'm somebody who, again, I played 70 hours. because I was like, I'm going to 100% everything. And I got a whole point where I was like, I can't 100% everything. You're at like, what, 24 hours in like chapter 5 or something like that?

Yeah, dude, I was fucking, it's funny too because Barrett saying that this section of the game was his favorite in the original. This section of the game is probably my least favorite of the original. Like, I very much prefer the more linear midgar part, as short as it is of the original. And there's something about just the, because I came to seven late. Like, I did not play seven when it first came out. Like, I played it after 10, which was my first one. And I remember like once you're in the world map, like I know this is blasted me to say, I fucking hated that shit.

Like I hated how it looked. I hated how like walking up to the Junon canon and I was just like, what the fuck is this? Like my imagination couldn't work correctly to like understand that's a city. Seeing it here, experiencing it like it, I enjoyed all of that stuff so much more just given the context of this. There are scenes and characters in this game that despite me playing through Final Fantasy 7 multiple times, I never quite realized certain things. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to be talking about these moments. Me and you talked a little bit, I think we did too. There are some things that I'm like,

huh, that is what it meant back then in text, but you didn't get that because we didn't get a performance back then. And then you hear it here and you're like, okay, this is different, but I kind of fucking love it, but I don't know if everyone's going to. But I think that that's what's cool about this is like,

yeah, there's going to be opinions every damn which way about this game. I was going to think the environmentalism message actually comes through a lot better in this remake than they did in the original. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like especially if you do the open world stuff, it's like, oh, yeah, I'm an environmentalist or environmental terrorist, I guess. But yeah, you're actually doing stuff that's good for the environment. Because, like, you actually do get to explore the world and see like, oh, this is what Shinran is doing to the world. Yeah.

Like, this is, especially with the mutated enemies you see every so often, like, oh, every single one that was like, yeah, this had didn't show up until the macro reactor was built. Now it's just terrorizing the village. Yeah. I guess on like closing thoughts, right? Like, one, everybody play Queen's Blood. Like if you're playing this video game, even if you're mainlining, if you're going to do one side thing, make it Queen's Blood. They make you do it.

It make you do it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And like, it's fun. One of two like side things that I actively did throughout. Like I very quickly was like, all right, I'm done with the open world stuff. Queen's blood and then summon material stuff just because, you know, it's cool. You can't not have cool fucking summits, man.

I got to ask you, Barrett later if you beat one of those because there's one of those I cannot beat yet. I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you after. But yeah, I also finished the Queen's Blood quest yesterday. yesterday. Holy shit, y'all. It's so good. But yeah, like it's an actual Yu-Gi-O story. Like it's- It is and it's so good. But yeah, like I, it's, I'm so, I like so much of the side stuff. I like so much of the writing moments. I like so many of the characters. Like, this game has such goofy energy that worked for me. And so, yeah, like, I absolutely adore this game.

I wish, and for various reasons we can't, I wish we could talk about the story. We are going to later, I'm sure, but like it makes some very interesting turns and I just love to know how the overall audience is going to react to this. And like, it makes some turns, it expands and stuff and it also in other places just doesn't go as far as I would like. And I, again, we'll get to that later, but like it's very hard for me to review this game without saying

this happens and I wish that like blah blah blah. Yeah. But like that's the story aspects and things I liked about it, things I didn't like about it. are also what contribute to that four out of five. And for me, you don't put 105 hours into a game without liking some of it and disliking some of it too. So I, overall, I'm going to keep playing this game.

I'm probably going to end up platinum again, even though I've looked at the platinum list, and I've been like, that's insane. I don't know how I'm going to do this. But I'm very, like, I'm firm on that four out of five because I feel like this is one hell of a game. It was always an impossible ask for it to be, the same impact that remake had.

Yeah. Yeah, I wish I love this game, but I am positive on it. I still think it is a good game. You don't need me to tell you. If you play the remake, you're probably going to play this one. But, man, I know we will talk about the story one day, but like, we got to talk about the ending just burned me in a way that I just did not expect. I love the ending of remake and the ending of rebirth.

And just as, again, somebody who did not play the original game, felt like I was, they were just kind of throwing me aside. And they're like, you know what, screw you? We're doing this other thing. They do not give a shit if you understand that anymore. Yeah. Well, even that is just... I've not met one person yet that understands that ending.

It's not even about understanding. It's just like, there's a moment that happens, and they just ruin it for somebody who's never experienced that moment. And it just kind of hurt me. And I'm like, okay, well, awesome. I guess I'm excited for the next game. I don't know. What do you want me to do with this information?

They have... I will say, like, in your defense, along with your argument, they have to stick the landing in the next game. They have to. If they don't... They really do. Like, it will retroactively. damage this one. I entirely agree

with that. I'm just on the side where I'm like hey man, so much of this shit's not going the way I could have ever thought and could have ever theorized. There are things that happen in this game specifically towards the end that I outright don't agree with. I am upset about it, but I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to let him keep going because I feel like overall it's great.

The last thing I want to say about this that we haven't talked about yet is the new theme song for this game the vocal track. When we first heard it a while back, I was just like I don't care about this. This is just attempting to have a phone Fantasy 6 opera scene or a thousand words from 10-2 or like whatever it is. Oh my God, in context in this game.

And the way they use that song, the versions of that song, just the orchestral version without vocals, I am blown the fuck away. And I think it backs up the theme and everything they got going on here that to me really elevated of like, oh, this shit's special. I kind of wish they never showed it in a trailer. Me too. I wish we just saw it into the game the first time. Yeah.

But let us know in the comments below what you think about Final Fantasy rebirth coming out next week. If this review has changed your opinions one way or another got you more excited, less excited. Anything you want to talk about Final Fantasy, I'm sure we're going to be doing a whole bunch more of it. Imran, thank you so much for returning to join us for this. Thank you for having me.

Blessing, of course, always a pleasure to have you. Thanks for putting me on lead review. And shout out to my boy, Roger Percorny, for stepping up multiple reviews this year. It's been awesome to see. So thank you for that. And thank you all for watching us and supporting and just having a great time. Until next time,

Love you all. Goodbye.