Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Critique 

Remake critique: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0mZIJ9gHTqQ.html Intermission critique: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uP_YxSDNSAE.html

Came here from Think Before You Sleeps channel.

The issue with Rebirth and Remake is that both games set out to answer questions that nobody ever asked in the first place.

I think what annoys me the most is after all of this, Sephiroth's plan is literally the same thing but with multiverse. Not only that, but his plan is terrible. Dude couldn't beat one Cloud, so he creates infinite Clouds to whoop his butt harder. He even tries to kick Zack and Aerith out of the pocket dimension because he can't handle Cloud having teammates.

You know, something else that significantly changes with the Barret and Dyne interaction in the remake: Dyne more or less forgives Barret by the end of their encounter in the original game. When Barret tells him Marlene is still alive and they fight, Dyne recognizes that Marlene doesn't need him anymore given the state that he's in. So with his final words, he tells Barret to never make Marlene cry and passes things on to him, since he's already been serving as Marlene's father in his absence. In Rebirth, he just dies hating Barret. He never changes from placing the blame at Barret's feet, which just leaves him feeling all the flatter. In the end, he's not concerned about his daughter living her best life; he's thinking about how he can just flip Barret off one last time before he goes. And then all that is followed up with a wacky fight with Palmer, of all people!

Doctor Kitase in the Multiverse of Mehness.

Rebirth fails at being different or subversive enough to be its own thing and at faithful enough to be a proper homage to the themes and core of what made the original so special. It feels like it's made more for people who've heard about how legendary FF7 is but have never experienced it outside of watching a lets play and reading a couple wiki pages.

This video made me more sad and portrayed loss a hundred times better than Rebirth.

I played the original FFVII for the first time last year before delving into the Remake saga, and even without the baggage of nostalgic attachment, I am perpetually baffled by all the decisions they keep making with the story of this project. For every plot beat and character moment old and new that they knock out of the park, there are three that are mishandled beyond belief either for the sake of subversion or fundamentally misunderstanding what made it work to begin with. For all the moments I still managed to enjoy during my playtime of Rebirth, it's incredible how much of that goodwill was washed away as my eyes glazed over playing through Chapter 14. I already deemed this overarching meta/multiverse plot as bad fanfiction after completing Remake, and Rebirth has only further cemented my belief that it is going to take a miracle to stick the landing in the final part. Years from now when this saga is complete, detached from the hype cycle and speculation, it's going to be very interesting to see how it holds up in the public consciousness. Even from a purely gameplay standpoint, it's gonna be a hard ask to reinstall half a terabyte of content to play a bloated journey with two hard resets along the way versus the cohesive 30-50hr journey of the original.

“Don’t ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products” - Square Enix

oh finally, someone with a brain

Remember that from 2005 up to early 2020, nearly every Final Fantasy 7 fan asking for a Remake was a "Purist". Now it's supposedly a bad thing? I don't think so. Proud FF7 "Purist" right here.

"They were never within touching distance of remaking this game." A quote that encapsulates this entire experience. It's like that Dom quote from the first F&F movie. "Almost had me? You never had me. You never had your car." Dom is the OG. Brian is the Remake project. And the car is legacy. This project will fade away into irrelevance and obscurity a few years after its conclusion simply because it's too convoluted to thrive in the years beyond its hype and recency bias.

IMO their greatest error was trying to include things from the expanded universe. Over the years Square have tried to milk the FF7 I.P. with all these spinoff titles that were just total garbage, like Crisis Core and the terrible movie etc etc. All these added content items had terrible stories and characters and Square made a huge mistake trying to pay homage to them in Remake and Rebirth as they just bring down the storytelling of the OG FF7 so drastically. I also strongly felt that the environments were terrible and generic. I remember going over the mountains after Costa Del Sol in the OG was just beautiful, cresting the mountain peak and heading off into that amazing sunset was perfection. You don't get that in Rebirth. The Nibel mountains in the original were these iconic green glowing spires jutting up like ragged teeth, in rebirth they were jut generic mountains. Every environment had no personality.

The crazy tonal whiplash is just unbelievable. This is current-day MCU crap--if something bad happens, IMMEDIATELY jump to a joke or a cool action scene. You can have slow moments to screw around, for hours, but you can't have a minute to process a tragedy or a revelation. Characters want to play card games and ride chocobos but not stop and have a discussion about the fate of the world. This results in me hating these remake games more than they probably deserve, because it's giving me "feelies" vibes; stuff just happens, in an emotional roller coaster but never TOO bad and never bad for very long, gotta get another dopamine hit every 20 seconds. And yeah, I keep saying this, but taking a game about death, about accepting it's finality, about moving past it, as envisioned by the original producer who had just lost his mother and needed a way to cope with his grief...and turning into this happy-go-lucky, consequences-don't-exist, saccharine sweet j-pop extravaganza, just feels insulting, especially coming from several people who worked with that same man to produce the original product that so poignantly explored the topic. Like, did they mail Sakaguchi a copy along with a picture of his mother and a drawing of a huge middle finger?

“Amplification, turn up the dial, blow out the speakers…. Subtlety is a banned word in Square Enix’s offices….Square Enix don’t know how to let an intimate moment just be” …. Couldn’t have said it better myself, in fact I actually have been something similar since Remake. I’m perplexed at how you were able to put this video together in such a short amount of time since it’s release, I only just managed to complete it 😅 Again, you give a voice to many, a masterful video, particularly the end sequence and match up of music. Thank you!

The Cetra and Planetoligists were wrong. You don't return to the planet when you die. You enter a new Timeline.

Sephiroth = Team Rocket 😂

i have been checking your channel everyday since i saw the ending of rebirth and the direction of the story and the convolution they introduced, i thank you for sharing your thoughts with us again. your remake and rebirth videos are golden

The most damning indictment of this continuation of the remake project, is that I already see very little conversation about it. FFVII is still talked about to this day, but this was merely flavour of the month. It focused too heavily on being shiny, forgetting the fact that something shinier always comes along.

"Let's do a sequel that doesn't respect the themes or plot of the original, and add multiverses! ...But enough about Chrono Cross..." But in all seriousness, in 10 years, when the trilogy is done and out on PC, there will be a fan projectFF7-DeMake to simply strip out and rework the games into the original or something approaching it.

The best thing this game has done for me is make me finally decide to replay the original.

"Square making sure we don't think the unthinkable for even a second" summarizes a lot of these awful story changes. All done to make sure the audience never feels sad. All to sell more Funko Pops of the more upbeat, more lovable cast.

I fear we have to understand that Squaresoft doesn't exist anymore, it's Enix now and they just don't have it in them to tell a good story. I try not to care anymore, I'm just fed up with bad story telling.

Prob the best review of FF7 remake I've come across. A good breakdown of the bigger scenes of the game and yet you found a way to get something out of a product that you knew would let you down.

It's pretty clear that they're doing all this to twist and re-shape the original FFVII so it fits in more with Crisis Core and Advent Children. I have a strong feeling that after the credits roll on part 3 will see a quick cut scene of AC! Cloud next to his motorbike and putting on his driving goggles and then driving away, instead of Nanaki/Red XIII and his children looking at the ruins of Midgar centuries later. This remake, in short terms is a big "fuck you", from SE to those who hated the sequels/prequels because they felt like retcons too much from the OG. They even re-released AC in cinema's for a short bit before Rebirth's release.

This is the best review I've seen. Took the essay right out my mouth.

The original FF7 is in my top 5 examples of best storytelling. To see Enix devalue and discard so much of what made the game a worldwide success (the character arc, emotional beats, worldbuilding) is heart breaking.

the most egregious part for me was when Cloud suddenly remembered who Zack was. that’s the biggest twist in the game and they just casually revealed it with all the subtlety and fanfare of a wet shart

What is death? Does it have any meaning if a person can be replaced by themselves from a different reality or brought back to life? The beauty of humans is our short lifespan and what we do within that time to give it meaning, whether that be a mother working hard to make sure their loved ones have an easier life or a person who dedicates their whole life to researching on how to cure a disease. We mourn those who have passed away because what they offered to this world was unique and nobody else can give us the same experience and moments that we had with them.

As much as I enjoyed Rebirth, I hope Square Enix will find, translate and more importantly understand this video

kingdom hearts was a mistake. remake's Sephiroth is Team Rocket xehanort, Zack is roxas/ventus inside sora's heart, Aerith is the kingdom key keyblade and now lives in traverse town canonically.

I belive that the writers chosen the following scenario, regarding Aerith's "death". They wanted the emotional payout from Aerith's death. But they didn't actually wanted her to begone from the story, so they decided to cheat. My book is this: If you want your audiance to be emotional, then recreate the OG scene. Have Sephiroth kill Aerith and recreate the exact moment with the Lifestream. But if you want to commit to the changes, then don't kill Aerith off. After Cloud blocked Sephiroth's attack, have the others show up just in time and saving her is a guranteed. Sadly, the writers chose to do both of the outcomes. And it comes out as utterly confusing, emotionally manipulative and nostalgia bait. In any case, good video there, Orion. 👍🏻

It felt like the entire narrative of the OG was put there, but an underlying plot point is: "We know you know the OG plot point, so we undermine it with the multiverse and Sephiroth/aerith subliminal plot". So it loses all gravitas.

This video said everything I thought, felt, and wanted to say. I love the original, and I wished Square Enix followed through with their new adventure they promised or kept faithful to the original.

What is pretty clear is that everytime they need to be subtle, slow or just deal with emotional moments they mess up because they just want fun and action with no "boring" moment, it's like when MCU characters joke around in a serious battle, so... Bad I kind of like Remake/Rebirth but honestly, the more i think about how they dealt with these things, the more i get bothered with it, this also emphasizes a lot how Square Enix's writting dumbed down with years and how these guys are barely able to tell anything significant nowadays (most of the story credits of FF7R go more to what was faithful to their work in the past than the things that are new and this tells a lot about it).

21 minutes in, and you already addressed the issues I was REALLY having a problem with in this game. As you stated, the original was about 'life', and learning to cope and move on after losing a loved one, family or even a friend. Square dropped the ball hard on this remake. Excellent video. Thank you!

At this point Sephiroth is little more than the figurative jingling of keys for the audience. What a way to waste such a great villain. Gotta love how Square just hacked FF7 into 3 mediocre pieces and are charging you premium price for each, not counting DLC.

This Game could have been THE game we have all been waiting for. It could have showed us more of what was shown in the original game.. But Nomura and his team made a big mockery of the story of this beautiful game. No buildup, no genuine drama, no sense. I feel sorry for the graphics team, music and audio team, voice actors, as these were the only good stuff that happened here on this game. The only credit I will give to Nomura is the Battle system.

Congratulations on this remarkable achievement, Orion! I've been looking forward to this video the most this year, and you delivered! You nailed the criticism on everything from world to story and characters. Your editing and presentation was great. Your musical choice at the end was fantastic, I really loved how it all concluded. Really proud to see this coming together! Hoping this one blows up and garners a ton of positive viewers and sees a lot of disenfranchised OG fans find a voice through your work! On a side note, that burn on Rebirth Aerith 28:40 was 10/10 hahaha

Wow that intro is incredible! Exactly how I felt. Been waiting for your opinion and it has not disappointed so far!

This is where I draw the line in terms of seeing how the remakes will play out. A multiverse story was not what I wanted and I won't be buying part 3.

I absolutely love the game for its gameplay, well "game" elements. Where it falls flat is that it's not FF7 and the story is so unbelievably tough to understand for newcomers, while simultaneously pissing off long time fans

Waited over half a lifetime to play the original again but done better, and it never came true

one of the best deconstructions of ff7 remake ive seen. something didnt seem right to me and this criticism hit every one of the issues that I percieved. I was open minded and minus the last 10 percent of the game I really did enjoy it but it felt soulless

I've yet to find a game that has better music pieces than ff7, Ocarina of Time is the only game that comes close for me , it's crazy how much more talent the Square team had under Sakaguchi

What an amazing video. Let me take a second to commend you on it! I have watched A LOT of Remake/Rebirth critique videos that lean towards praise for the OG and pointing out the absurdity of the Remake project. Definitely some confirmation bias on my part but that is what I want. I feel like not many FFVII fans agree with me on this point of view and everyone wants to argue with me. I am always looking for fellow fans who commiserate with my distain for the Remake project. FFVII means so much to me. It shaped so much of my childhood and takes me back to the 90s when life was much better. I am very upset about what they have done with this "Remake." I was one of the few fans who was not at all excited at the announcement of the Remake back in 2015. I instead had a very sinking feeling. I knew they would mess this up. I was never excited about it. Some things need to be left as they are. This video has definitely landed in my top 5 best Remake criticism videos. Many great points were made. You are the first who has presented such an insightful perspective of the future of this whole project. These games will fade away, but OG Final Fantasy VII will never fade away. It will out live the honeymoon phase of these games and beyond. Knowing that these games will fade into obscurity in the near future is very encouraging and new perspective for me. Also, in their poor attempt to remake the OG game it has caused many of us to love, cherish, and respect it all the more. Thank you for this. I have been bothered by this whole whole thing since the release of Remake. However, knowing that some people out there are just as upset as me and feel the same way I do, has helped me a lot. And hearing such intelligent and conscientious talking points and perspectives such as these has also helped. Thanks again for this. PS. The outro with the Carpenters was the perfect ending touch for a video like this. Cheers!

One of the major things with Aerith’s death in the original is there was zero time to grieve/no memories forced on the player to emphasize the hole created by her loss. The other side of this is how much they shove sephiroth/iconic songs in our face robbing the gravity of their presence from the original. The fact we get ANOTHER final sephiroth fight (and a hamfisted bizarro) just makes fighting him/interacting with him as a pest rather than this heavy force moving behind the scenes. Less is more.

That is one serious problem I have with Rebirth. The number of times Cloud almost kills his teammates and all we get is “what is wrong with you, man?” Uhm, what? At this point he has tried to kill Barret, Aerith, and has accused Tifa of being fake several times and tried to kill her………… why are they with him?

I think the third act is the worse part about this game, the lack of impact from Aeriths death, the many boss fights that take place and then all the multiverse shenanigans just makes it all come off convoluted. There’s still also many moments of paddling too which just becomes a complete bore to get through.

I just hate how they refuse to kill characters. Ruining the aerith death scene sealed the deal for me.

I find two things amazing about people defending the game. One is the headcanon. I can see in my recommended feed right now multiple videos like "What happened in the ending" or "The TRUE ending" or whatever. Some people think this is deep. No, it's bad writing. It's called layering; a story should have a clearly understood surface layer of "stuff happening" and then the depth should be in the characters and themes. But folks are making hour-long videos to argue about what even actually happened, and so they fill gaps with headcanon or assumptions. And then they go even further and ridicule anyone criticizing the game as idiots who just didn't understand it...although even the other fans of the game have totally different views too. If no one can agree on what freaking happened, that's a mess. And second is the constant refrain of "It's a new story, it's not the same, why don't you understand that?!" Well, then why is it so dang similar? Why constantly recreate things from the OG, if it's not supposed to be just a different take on the same basic story? And they go back and forth; they praise the "improvements" to the original story, while defending every change by saying, well, it's an entirely new story. I've even seen them get mad at calling the remake trilogy, remakes; they say "It's YOUR fault for expecting a remake, it's not a remake" when that was the name of the last game! But even then, they'll circle back around and defend how great of a remake this totally not a remake is, instead of just acknowledging the simple truth that it's a BAD remake. Again, contradicting themselves, contradicting each other, there's a whole mess of people who get tingly in their nether regions when they play it and so come up with countless explanations for why everyone who doesn't is dumb, instead of admitting that this game is basically FF7 porn--it's got the action and it's pretty to look at it, but nothing more. I dunno, it just always amazes me when I see people defending something so emphatically, insulting critics, and yet they can't agree with each other any more than they agree with the critics, and somehow don't see that. They don't see that critics are mostly on the same page, giving the same points, proving the same arguments, while their defenses are all over the map and undermine each other, and fail to realize that that's a pretty good indication that their view is probably, objectively wrong.

Very beautifully said, as always. What more can I say? This perfectly captures how I feel.

Glad there’s at least one review that isn’t just “we blindly give Current Thing ™️ a 10/10 because reasons”

The real question now is how badly are they gonna F*ck up the final installment? There's no way they can turn this series into anything meaningful at this point.

I'm at this point where I'm not on the edge of my seat for part 3 (which I should be considering what that arc of the og story entails). My concern was never them "changing" the FF7 story, it was always the devs telling basically the same story with worse storytelling mechanics. Yet I completely underestimated how bad SE storytelling could get. Granted, you cannot recreate a masterpiece, but they fumbled so many things by trying so hard to be "same but different." When I think about great remakes, I think about RE4R. Yes, a completely different genre - but it's about how they approached the idea of a "remake." They struck the right balance between same story and feel but with enhanced character depth, new segments, several changes which were actually improvements (eg the Luis and Ashley segments) and the sequence of things just making more sense. Convolution is bad for reasons beyond just being confusing. I think many of the remake defenders fail to consider that each of the remake titles are supposed to be standalones and are many people's entry into FF7, not just another FF7 fanfiction/extended universe spin off made just for them to theory craft over.

This was beautiful! Square-Enix hasn't completely lost its ability to show and not tell: they definitely left alot to the imagination in XV, they just always struggle to modulate anx gauge it.

I hate how Rebirth makes Sephiroth into a fucking idiot by the end. They tried so hard to appease everyone and destroying it's own new direction/themes.

It’s gotten to the point where I literally have a physical reaction when I hear the term multiverse. It’s like my body is rejecting the very idea of it haha. So of course that word was used in the first 60 seconds of this vid that I’ve been very much looking forward to ever since hearing of it on Think Before You Sleep hahah. But i soldiered on. I’m an inspiration, I know.

While I enjoy it, this stretch of FF7 was rather unfocused (a series of episodic adventures) so it was always gonna be hard to adapt. They made the job harder for themselves

If only Hironobu Sakaguchi worked on FF7R

It's rare I totally agree with a RU-vidr; but you got it 100% right and expressed it very well. Alot writers can't write multiverse stories. Multiverse handled poorly equals a meaningless story. Michael Moorcock wrote multiverse well where it's an ever increasingly complex tapestry. Also whilst I'm at it - Zack is a terrible character, the only reason people like him is because it's Zack in cloud's recollection instead of Cloud - it made Zack fans falsely feel Zack had depth, it's also a virtue signal to say you've beat the game.

Agreed with it all, man. Incredible work putting this together. It's a burn in the chest that you describe in this very video. I hate the phrase that "This isny MY (product here)" but...this encapsulates that so well. Overbloated copratized mess looking to cash in on modern trends with a splash of gamings most veloved characters...I hate it.

I see fans of FF6 and 8 upset that 9 is supposedly getting a remake before them and like…. Y’all should BE HAPPY that square isn’t going to destroy those games

I’ve been waiting patiently for this video. I feel like square made this game mainly for themselves. It’s beautiful and fun but pleases only the writers it feels like. Cuz they know the full picture. Just feel like lazy edging for us. Idc how mysterious you can make the story, just make it good.

Great analysis. Just to add to the conversation: I think they botched the feeling of the chase for Sephiroth not only because he's not threatning anymore as you've mentioned in your Sephiroth part, but also because Square was terrified of another one of their mainline games feeling too railroaded after so much criticism towards XIII. So instead of this sequence where the party has this sense of urgency while they chase the shadow of Sephiroth down, they are free to roam around, do side content, scam towers, break dance in the beach, waste time, in short all sorts of things that could be fun in a game but that need to be restricted during certain segments in order to maintain the tension. Sure, the original did not force you towards chasing Sephiroth, but it also didn't give you a million of side activities to waste your time on (outside of the Goldsaucer, which is it's own mini-game hub separate from the flow of the main story for the most of it), so you pretty much had to go continue the chase. That chase also ties thematically with the Reunion and how Cloud was not only voluntarily chasing Sephiroth, but was drawn towards him on a subconscious level. But to hell with all that and that feeling, it's more important to have content such as luring chickens.

This series is more kingdom hearts then kingdom hearts is.

I agree about the towns, every location is so over populated which is good for costa del soul and golden saucer but is it good for nibelheim. Also som places are too cheery for there own good.

There's so little nuanced discourse about this game and I find it particularly interesting. Even just playing the demo it was clear that this was a very polished but also flawed product. If looked at from a purely surface level degree of analysis I don't think you could possibly conclude that this game was a 9/10 product worthy of standing toe to toe with any of its predecessors or more recently Baldur's Gate 3. And with even a moderate level of analysis it pretty rapidly starts to fall apart. The gameplay loop is interposed with a lot of the same issues that plague Toriyama's games (abrupt loss of character and camera control, forced walk sections, janky collision, cumbersome animations for common repeated activities, overly long corridor style dungeons) while not really doing anything original with its open world. It's packed full but none of these activities are breaking the mold, doing Witcher 3 level things, or attempting to encourage exploration and engagement. This felt very much like a FF15-2 between its checklist style world map and uncanny-valley modern stock SquareEnix npcs. Its exceptionally sterilized and it is not helped by making traversal in each of the zones a chore, the bombardment of mandatory minigames, and complete lack of gravitas in the majority of its side-quest writing. There's no interesting or challenging notorious monsters to hunt down or rare materia that can be discovered. Everything is spoonfed to you by an npc who, ironically, Square seemed to be aware was divisive since they give you the option out the gate to have Cloud dunk on him. The battle system is fantastic but its never stretched to its limits during a standard playthrough which, like Remake's, is where it shines the most. When usage of items is taken away from you your resources and strategies become significantly more important and your execution of the action mechanics needs to be brought up to snuff. It's held back by preventing you from accessing its harder difficulty from the start. The music, while the quality can't really be argued against, Hamauzu is a phenomenal composer, really isn't quite deserving of the universal praise it gets. Mostly in the choices made in what songs to play when and the compositions themselves being such a mismatch with the world and story of FF7. From the unwillingness to reuse tracks from Remake or play a song more than once you dont get that tonal consistency in the music. Mood and arrangement shifting from scene to scene. Like the scant few heavier moments in the story, you don't get to sit with them for more than a second before the game blasts the next track over the top of the one you just heard and won't hear again in the playthrough. I counted 6 different Temple of the Ancients arrangements in that dungeon, not a single one really adequately capturing the exotic mystique of Uematsu's original and none of the new ones sitting with you long enough to recognize them anyway. During the Keystone acquisition boss rush the music turns into an absolute cacophony of noise that was genuinely difficult to listen to. The sudden shift from the well composed and nicely arranged Corel Mountain theme in the Costa Del Sol area to the FF13-2 dance club rave music on the mountain path was so jarring I had to stop and take a moment. Why play the existing Birth of a God theme for Bizzarro Sephiroth when another 10 remixes of One Winged Angel will do the trick because thats the only song people recognize now. There were so many times like this that the music alone tore me out of the game and made me wonder what the hell they were thinking. Was Hamauzu, the composer who wrote the beautiful leitmotif of Saga Frontier 2 and those lovely spritely piano pieces that were so iconic in FF10, the guy who made these decisions? It was all the same issues I had with his work on Remake turned up to 11. I barely remember even hearing Those Who Fight, one of my favorite covers of his and one of the few that really captures the feeling of Uematsu's music accurately; more than once or twice in the playthrough. Seeing the universal praise for this has been pretty baffling. I felt like I played a totally different game than the rest of the world. I think it might just be that people who had a dissenting opinion were chased away by the Remake/FF7 Compilation fans and did not come back for this. Can't say I blame them. This was definitely a reminder that the theme of loss so deeply explored in the original is alive and well in the Remake in a metacontextual sense.

Imagine making a remake of FFVII where you wish Sephiroth would just buzz off and stop popping up all over the place. Cloud: *farts* "Estuans interius, Ira vehementi, SEPHIROTH!, SEPHIROTH!"

You hit the nail on the head with lack of replay-ability. I've probably played the original a dozen times but don't feel compelled to replay these new games at all. Forgotten Capitals handling is the most egregious thing in Rebirth IMO, we don't get the wonder of finding it or exploring it, which was one of my favorite moments from the original. The pacing of losing Aerith and finding her is all of a few minutes in game time. The once mysterious iconic track from the OST now subdued beyond recognition. and I have Sephiroth fatigue myself, fighting him should have been saved for the end of series. Sad because he was my most iconic villain in gaming history & now why should we be scared of him? We've already seen the characters have literal plot armor when Barret got stabbed.

I think you kinda hit the nail on the head when you said that they don't know what we loved about the original, and this may be mostly because the limitations of the PS1 created spaces where the devs were forced to be more reliant on space and silence, or just simply rely on the powerful music compositions. This is even more apparent when you look at even older FF games like FF5 and FF6, and then draw those comparisons out into FF7, which is clearly a reflection/perfection of the same concepts. Similar music for a sad moment, etc. I've had this thought recently while listening to the music from Ff7 original and remake, sometimes comparing them.. The comparisons in the music is a perfect articulation of the differences between OG , Remake, and even Rebirth. The OG music is the simplest, but often the most emotionally deep, and every second of the tracks relatively short duration is powerfully felt. Whereas many tracks from Remake add this cinematic flare, a much longer duration that sometimes feels more "general". There are many more layers and instruments, it's literally more complicated, but that takes away from the focus of the original tracks. So I guess I basically agree with your opinion, however.. I still enjoyed Rebirth, and I enjoyed getting deeper looks into specific events. It's still ambiguous whether or not the remake trilogy truly is a sequel or not.. but I don't care either way.. If it's a sequel then the original is still in tact, and if it's the same story in more detail, then it's just like the music. The original is still there, and if that's the perfect way I want to hear the song, I'll go back and listen to it 1000 times.

Thanks for this critique video Orion! What bothers me in in this remake trilogy, is that, from the OG's save the planet theme and dealing with loss of Aerith's death, it becomes a "defy destiny" trope, wherein only Seph and Aerith have stakes in it, yet the whole party seems too much invested in this goal. Not that other parts in rebirth is almost useless and undermines the main theme of the OG...

This is insanely well done 😳

Spot on review! I’ve been a fan since 1997 and you really nailed it when you talked about all the NPC’s in the towns and not being able to enter houses. The sense of discovery and exploration is lost in this game. Can you imagine in 1997 if there was icons all over the world map . Honestly I thought pushing select and having indication arrows on which buildings/pathways you could enter was to much back then. This game feels like they’re holding your hand and dragging you everywhere you go.

Truly Amazing. I couldn't have worded what i feel about this FF7 Remake project as well as you did. In taking liberties with the original story, Sqeenix not only showed their inability to tell a good story, But how timeless the original work is even with all the new bells and whistles. An excellent Critique, Good sir. I am so glad to have found your channel.

Your videos are so well made. This video had better pacing and story telling than the actual game had. I love the way you have written this, it's just beautiful. Thank you for saying what I was thinking and feeling.

I highly doubt these games will stand the test of time. The story isn't written to be timeless like the original. Instead Square has chosen to bet everything on twists, mysteries and subverting expectations, stuff that'll keep conversation alive between games, but will mean nothing after part 3 is out and everything is revealed. I wonder how many will think this was a story worth telling at the original's expense, once it's all done and over with.

All I keep hearing is how much "content" this game has! It's like people forget how Final Fantasy had phenomenal stories that really moved people, but people's tastes have become so used to garbage that they think this is an equally valid way to tell this story. There is a fundamental misunderstanding by developers and fans about good writing. People need to play the Yakuza series and actually turn their brain on during the cutscenes. Wake up to human emotion rather than anime tropes.

The only thing that could (partly) save this story is if it turned out that the whole timelines/whispers thing was just Cloud's delusion as he's in the Lifestream after the Northern Crater events desperately trying to think of how he could have changed things, while Sephiroth takes adavntage of his mental state and Aerith tries to stop him

I quit after chapter ten. No more towers, no more simulation battles. No more multiverse for me.

I'm so glad I found this video essay because now I know I'm not alone in thinking these thoughts about Rebirth. I concur with all of these points with the exception that I'm a lot more tolerant about the exploration of the open world mechanics. I especially agree with how Sephiroth's image was tainted in this Remake. He was such a figure of mystery and legend which you only got glimpses of in Midgar and the Nibelheim flashback. It was really such a disservice with how they turned Sephiroth into a kill stealer when in the OG, you see the aftermath of his slaughter of a creature that could flat-out yeet your party members out of a fight. This is a major con of the choice of turning him into a recurring boss fight. Once you beat him twice now, I have difficulty accepting that "this is all according to plan" smile he has plastered on his face. Then there's Corel Prison. By god people can be such sheep. I made a comment about how unbelievable that street thugs could take out Cloud and co and someone actually unironically defended that writing move. I had even offered an alternative scenario where the party could be imprisoned and Cloud goes chocobo racing and still keep things logical. (It involves the party realizing that they'll never find Barret on their own as the desert is too big so they play along to stay on Gus's good side rather than being overpowered by thugs akin to Beck's Badasses) Next there's Dyne. During that part, I was so focused since I remember the OG scene vividly with how he had gone mad with hatred. In Rebirth, its more like Dyne had just gone mad. Aside from the incredibly unnecessary Shinra soldiers interrupting, I had been waiting for Dyne to regain his sanity for a brief moment so that he can pass his wife's locket to Barret to gift to Marlene. It was the biggest thing I remember from the OG scene. His final gift he could give his daughter. But no. Dyne's last act was to commit unaliving-by-cop so that he can add his blood to Barret's hands. Somehow the producers thought that this was better. Really? As for the other points, the video had expressed them succinctly. Particularly with Schrodinger Aerith. In pleasing everyone, you please no one. Now there's so much pressure on Part 3. Do the producers want to make a whole new story or do they just want the old one with modern graphics? They kicked that can down to the last game now. One way or another, they have to answer that question. And if they want the old game with all its old beats, then why add all this convoluted mess about timelines and multiworlds? Why make all that song and dance about defying destiny when it's all leading to the same end? Why flood Cloud and the player with all that foreshadowing if you're going to do nothing with it? Imagine if the producers had the guts to change Aerith's fate at the end of Rebirth. Can you imagine the hype it would generate for Part 3? It would confirm that there's a brand new plot in the making and fans would be excited to see what happens when an iconic piece of video game history has been altered.

I was disappointed with the return to Nibelheim. Tifa immediately reveals that Shinra rebuilt it. In the original it had an air of mystery and made you wonder why the town is not a big pile of dust.

Usually with RPG’s and JRPG’s they have too few npc’s for believability….this is a new weird counter version of that.

Fantastic video. The ending credits made me want to go fire up the original again.

Hail to you, Orion85! I agree with pretty much everything you mentioned. Imo, the biggest problem this franchise has; and its a huge one, is its naming. Rebirth, is proper, knowing what this trilogy(?) IS at heart, but calling its predecessor "Remake" was marketing death. I'm happy to see this game/series get picked apart. There are good even great elements in both games, but this is a game series with the consistent problem games have nowadays "1. Take my wallet! 2. This game kinda sucks"...its become a thing now. This series SHOULD have been called "FFVII Reimagined", because thats what it is. I HATE multiverses in media for the most part, because a grand majority of the stories are life-draining, boring, trifle crap, and this series is just adding too much and rendering its stakes meaningless. This series is NOT, I repeat NOT a remake; and my proof, is IN its multiverse storyline; its both a soft reboot and a sequel, and since it even adds elements of other FFVII side-games, its how they got away with changing/adding so much new content. Too many fans cant enjoy these games to the max because they take the "remake" necessity to heart. When FFVIIR was first announced years ago, I remember going "wha...? Why not just make an FFVII-2 instead?". But that's square for you; "we'll take a huge risk and make a trilogy of the most divisive games in our series!(XIII), we'll make a direct sequel to FFXII...on a handheld system not everyone owns, thats wont piss anyone off!, we'll remake FFVII but it wont be a remake, it'll be so much more, and we'll throw the whole kitchen in there!!, Wha..? People want an FFVII remake? Nobody wants that, we'll just sit on the idea for years til all possible hype dies down to death!". I swear, they make decisions stupider thank modern day Konami! That said, curious to see how this one unfolds

Someday, someone who truly loved the original will remake it faithfully as it deserves.

Since the end of Remake, and now having finished Rebirth yesterday I have been waiting forever for the major plot twist that has been missing which will stitch EVERYTHING together. Instead I have more questions, and its just easy to say "multiverse" so you can see which way the wind blows a year from now and then decide how to end this story. I am not impressed, less minigames and more story fleshing out would be have been so much better, so many Disc 2 story elements were just axed.. e.g. rocket town???? Sephiroth does not even have the aura of horror anymore, he isn't scary, there's no gravitas, and the bits of the original story which were kept were actually changed. I am disappointed with this installment, I liked Remake slightly more.. Rebirth plays amazingly, its still a top 5 game in recent offerings for sure with the combat, but the muli-verse theme, the crapload of minigames, changing original story beat narratives that were MORE compelling, and straight up losing sections of the original story is not for me. By the end I was rooting for Sephiroth, I am actually tired of Aerith!

At this point, I need to accept that the primary themes of Final Fantasy are now mid-2000s fashion and J-pop.

Excellent vid!! This game turned out almost exactly as predicted. - Gameplay is good (albeit not something I enjoy, and have 0 interest in). - Music is great. - Graphics really good. - Characters will, for the most part, be recognizable. Not a botched/fanmade version. - Content will be added/changed, minigames, new story beats, new story content, etc. - Sidequests will, for the most part, be bad. - Sephiroth will be everywhere. - There will be a new Zack story. - Style over substance (Dyne being an obvious example). - Story will be further botched with the ridiculous convoluted mess introduced in FF7:Remake. They are adding story dimension such as: Defying Fate, Revival, Multiple Dimensions, Time Travel(? maybe ?), Alternate Timelines, etc. On top of what OGFF7 already had, such as: Science Fiction, Magic, Fantasy, Aliens. Bringing the convolution level to over 9000! - But at the same time try to keep to the original, even though that, for some reason, wasn't clear, even though everyone knew it had to happen. I dunno, you understand what I'm trying to say here, in this point I mean? I dunno? The thing that surprised me is that the world is "true"-ish openworld. Which makes the world seem extremely tiny. Tbh, I thought SE would go for a FF10 style world. That is, you don't see everything, you're kinda going through the places that matters most for the story, with no world map, rather connecting places via a fancy menu or something similar. This way the world don't shrink to the size of a small country at best. Then again, to be fair, this isn't supposed to be the entire world. Still, the scope has been drastically reduced. No one ever asked in FF7:OG if the worldmap actually was the entire world. As it obviously was supposed to be. But it was highly abstracted, and you had to fill in the blanks yourself (optionally). FF7:Remake was the game that finally killed any interest I have for any future mainline FF. The gameplay can be excellent, but if it's something that doesn't appeal to me, and will in fact bore me, there really isn't anything left. I still find it interesting to see how the games are received, though, and discussions about them. But me buying a new mainline FF again will probably not happen. Tbh, and to be fair, the game probably deserves an 8/10 -ish, mainly due to gameplay, overall presentation and amount of content. Giving it a 10/10 however, without any sort of copium and/or fanboy glasses on, is impossible.

Think before you sleep sent me here. Keep up the good work dude!

Exactly my sentiment. Relieved to hear an honest discussion and not be hounded down by the hype train from other spaces of the Internet.

Mate, I played ff7 at 12 years old and it changed my life. I used to tell my dad about going to the northern crater etc. Eventually I got on the Internet and entered a wider FF community - don't think anyone even knew the word 'fandom' back then. The reason I say all this is because I wanted a faithful, HD, Unreal Engine remake of FF7. What they gave me was a kick in the nostalgic tits and a big "fuck you" for some incredibly formative memories. And that was the best thing they could possibly have done. FFVII is important to me. They fucked it up and made me love it. That's art.

Likely I’m old enough to have played the original. Sorry for those younger gamers who don’t know the true narrative power of FFVII.

There are some things I disagree with here, but for the most part I think that this is all the way true. I think that this shows exactly how Square barely gets their older games, even the people who wrote for those games. It was more of a collaborative effort than they would like to admit. A good example of the things you didn't even mention is that the history of the world getting fleshed out doesn't allow things to make sense. Like in the old game we get little clues to a pre-Shin-Ra world, but in this game as they tell us the history of this Republic and all of that it doesn't match up well, it doesn't fit the world that we know. And everything is too crowded, like you said about Kalm and all of that. I also didn't really see if you said it, but the game having all of these dynamic tracks for the music is kind of a double edged sword. There's no songs you get to hear enough for you to get used to them. We use the victory fan fare being as big a part of things and the like, but it's also the battle music, the overworld theme, etc, the songs you get one extended version of like Cosmo Canyon stick out because it is so actually present and feels right. I also got excited for the whole thing with Tifa being cut and maybe being JENOVA and how they didn't show us if she had the scar or not (probably for censorship) but it really felt like she might have not had a scar and like it might have been there to make the audience think it was happening a different way. After what they did with Remake and how they advertised this game I wanted crazy changes that are controversial. Give me a cut where Tifa is JENOVA and the real Tifa is in the Lifestream, where Sephiroth kills Cloud, or whatever. Give me all that. Instead every time that they made an interesting change (like in Gongaga) they rushed to get things back on track. They went from Cloud shoving Tifa into the life stream to Cloud being in her room armed and no one batting an eye. None if it makes sense.

I clicked on this yet another video about the ending of FFVII Rebirth, because it doesn't end with the word "Explained".

I hate all the change they did with a lot of cutscenes. They added kh cringe into great moments(aerith death, Dyne)

While I still loved rebirth and don’t agree with EVERYTHING here, I agree with A LOT. Especially the bit where if we go against the ending or the problems with the game we need conditioning and we have to be told we’re old heads who “don’t want change”. Like on Reddit I said a lot of the beats sucked and the ending was nonsensical and ruined aerith and that I wish they would’ve just remade the original with great graphics because now it’s out of control and you shouldn’t destroy what was already amazing. I was met with much guile and was told that I’m holding on to a game that “wasn’t that good” anyways. Like wth? I’m not allowed to critique or dislike stuff?

I'm greatly looking forward to this. You're so well-spoken and articulate that I know I'll enjoy this video from start to finish!

You know what? I would have been fine if the remake collectioin(?) had just embraced the idea of being an alternative timeline and gone with it. Wouldn't even mind if they toss in a little nudge now and then to point out this is just one way these events could have unfolded, and that in parallel realities, they have gone differently. Just don't make it part of the "plot", and dont market it a remake/retelling/reimagining, because even by the lousiest definition that still has any semblance of meaning, it aint any of those either. It is still inferior to just making an original game and story that just takes FFVII as a base rather than as a veneer, but if it is a sufficiently decent compromise between marketing/executive demands and creativity. The lack of honesty in all levels, with us and themselves, it really hurts this whole thing.