LAUNCHING at the end of this week, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is going bigger than its previous game, with Square Enix pulling out all the stops to make sure the game makes an even heavier impact than its prequel, 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake.
To recap theSun’s coverage of the two games over the past month, Final Fantasy VII (FF7) was a hugely successful game from 1997 that went on to form a crucial part of the gaming zeitgeist that endures to this day.
Remake was a game that remade the first five hours of FF7 and Rebirth will be even longer, as it contains a bigger, more crucial bulk of FF7 and as such, provides much more content.
This article will explore just what gamers can expect from Rebirth.
A bigger cast
In the 2020 game, there were only four playable characters and an extra one in the side content that was exclusive to the PlayStation 5 (PS5).
For Rebirth, the game will include seven playable characters. Six will be the main cast and the seventh is the brief moment players will spend controlling the series’ main villain, Sephiroth, in the game’s opening.
The diverse cast will lead to more experimentation in how players plan their “teams” and go into battles, as there are more options than before, from weapons, individual abilities, enemy exploitation and synergy abilities unique to which characters are in a team, among many others.
Beyond Midgar
As previously mentioned, Remake only contained the first five hours of FF7. Players spent time in roughly six locations in the city of Midgar. These locations were in the different sectors — imagine the different districts in Petaling Jaya — of Midgar.
So while the locations had different enemies, maps and art designs, they were still part of the same core location. In Rebirth, the game picks up where Remake ended, with the main characters escaping Midgar and going into the bigger world of FF7.
According to PlayStation’s State of Play released on Feb 6, Rebirth will have different, bigger regions to explore. First off will be the grasslands south of Midgar, the first area in the game.
There is also the city of Junon, which, like Midgar, has different “sectors”. Players will also find themselves getting lost in the region of Corel, which has several locations.
These include the Corel Mountain, the beach town Costa del Sol, the amusement park Gold Saucer (imagine Genting Highlands in a video game) and the Corel Prison. The other regions are Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon, Nibel and the Meridian Ocean.
World-building and adding value through content
Each region and the locations within them in Rebirth play a pivotal role in expanding each of the main character’s stories while propelling the bigger narrative towards the game’s climax.
These places will also contain numerous activities unique to each specific location for players to try. Like Remake, performing and doing well in these minigames and sidequests will greatly reward players with items, equipment, magic and so on for them to use and tailor their gameplay experience as they make their way through the game.
The developers have made it clear that the minigames in Rebirth far outnumber the ones that were in FF7. For instance, the Gold Saucer will have all the classic minigames from the original game, along with a few new ones, such as playing soccer with one of the iconic creatures from Final Fantasy, the chocobo birds.
There will also be a card game called Queen’s Blood, which was not in the 1997 game, as card games were first introduced to the series with Final Fantasy VIII in 1999.
On top of the aforementioned, each area will have odd jobs for players to engage in if they choose to. Doing so will not only help lead character Cloud Strife’s bond with the other main characters, but it will also expand the lore behind the world.
As these are optional, players are free to choose if they want to engage with the content, with Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi saying, “This freedom to experience the story however you want is one of Rebirth’s greatest strengths”.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth launches exclusively on the PlayStation 5 on Thursday.
