Square Forgot The Lard (FF7 Rebirth Critique) 

That. *sigh* that is crux of what Rebirth has done. It stole of the good will of FF7's name. I'm gonna say it until I'm blue in the face. DO NOT MAKE ME PLAY YOUR 100 HOUR GAME TWICE CAUSE the second time around is "harder" just give me hard mode. Rebirth does it again but worse. Not only is Gotterdamerung locked behind one of the most unbalanced elements of "challenge" content but hard mode is inherently unbalanced even though the mode is...effectively a speedrun. I feel like if you put yourself through Brutal and Legendary first you should be rewarded with using your damn items. Not to mention but forcing you to do every other side quest for folios for a trophy. The folio system is ass. By the time you make it to tier 2 spells all low cost magic abilities are useless and there are some insanely bad nodes like Faithful Thief or the ability Tifa gets where she gains concentration on revival....*sigh* She builds ATB super fast so I can used US any time and even still...I don't plan on dying to even need that to begin with. Just stupid. I've said my piece on minigames I just can't anymore. But I think in about another 3 to 6 hours of play time I'll have the Plat. It is easily one of the worst plats of my life. A game just should not get less fun as you play more of it and that's what this game does. Usually when I over indulge in a game it has a weird sort of sin wave phenomenon. That is the more I play of it the lower it gets. Rather its due to padding on grinding the game just feels like a 9-5. Its not the worst thing ever but you could just...be doing anything else. But then it jumps to the highest point. All of that grinding paying off. Doing side content with my awesome gear or explosive abilities and power, a nice story that can be enjoyed and it peaks and slowly collapses (in a good way) with the game's ending. You did everything you could and you put a lot sweat and lots of tears into grinding things out now its time to end things. Not Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It is a forever cascade of disappointment that only increases over time for completionists. You grinded all the minigames. Like all of them. If you're like me EVERY SINGLE one was done before beating the game. The only reason I didn't finish all of them because Loveless forces you to play it via Chap Select two more times. Other than than a trophy what do you get. Some extra dark matters to finish crafting. Most of those items of niche. You finish all of thosse Brutal challenges and Legendary challenges. For what? Gottendamerung is way weaker than it was in Remake because everything on Hard was overtuned. All and all you couldn't pay me to revisit this game. I want to say that Nomura and friends will do better for Reunion but Reunion is set to be one of the worst games in modern history and its only thanks to the fact that it has the legacy of FF7 behind it that people with live and let live or pretend that its amazing. The sad thing is behind all of my complaining there IS a game you can enjoy. But the shit where your only goal is to beat down the player. Not rewarding them well for doing well. Overpadding the experience with thing THEY MUST do for 100% compeltion. Making the game harder for harder sake. Even the whole jank ass story where the player and fanbase are smeared with the addition of literal canon ghost. All of it is leads me to believe the devs don't care.

The most unforgivable things square has ever done is to forget the LARD

PC player here, haven't experienced the game, sad to hear it wasn't received as well as remake part 1 was, i like your materia world map idea. i can't believe they would do Aeriths death scene like that.

I'm so glad they expanded on a town that was supposed to be nothing in the middle of nowhere and added needless mini-games to choral prison When they could have given us a rocket town instead

They kind of did ruin what made Sid so relatable he's bitter because he had his dream taken away that's something so many of us can understand

This should have way more views. I spent nearly 200 hours on this game trying to platinum trophy it. I loved so much of it but honestly can’t disagree with any of your gripes because they’re mine as well. Square Enix could’ve trimmed A LOT of fat from this game, left a little lard behind and they’d have a much happier fan base.

Also Red 13's new voice was no good. I liked his old one better

I think I understand this vid (Even tho I've never played FF7 rebirth so I'm sort of interpreting this through what you've said & shown about the game) The biggest red flag to me was that this is the 2nd freaking remake of FF7 -- it feels less like they're trying to recreate the magic of FF7 for a newer generation at this point and more like they're trying to milk it because the last FF game with a cultural impact was like FF10 (I think?). And that really segues into my next point: Square just hasn't been as cutting edge as they used to be. If you think back to Square wayyy back when, you can probably think of all the boundaries they pushed in graphical utility, gameplay & storytelling through Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger and the original Final Fantasy 7. But (as I've gleamed from what you've said about FF7 Rebirth's gameplay), it really seems like FF7 Rebirth is...The most derivative, standard & run-of-the-mill action-RPG possible with a bunch of useless & derivative features for mass appeal (Omg it's an open-world game with radio towers & crafting holy shxt bros this is insane!!!)....WTF happened here? I was gonna rant about how much they butchered my boy Cid's character and how they just turned him into broke Setzer but honestly that's more of a 'brown M&M's complaint' as you put it while the conceptual problems I've already outlined are far more important. Sorry if some of this seems incoherent -- I'm running on 4 hours of sleep LOL

I tried some hard levels myself without watching online guides and quickly found out what a mistake it was. Unskippable cutscenes during battles and extremely tanky bosses sucked all the fun out of the challenge, not to mention I destroyed my controller during the final fight with Sephiroth.

Ask yourself: how many of these problems can be solved with mods on a PC release?

Palmer being a maniac is somewhat in character. Think about it. Palmer is a cowardly character that has an inflated ego.

A gripe I can’t get away from: There’s so much stuff on the screen in this game, I feel like I’m getting flashbanged in an intentional attempt to distract me all the way through.

Aside from how dirty they did cid in this one, i wanted to mention how they fumbled Dynes death as well, the suicide by Shinra grunt has nothing on the FF7 "fuck the world i hate everything and everyone" Nihilist dyne that is so far gone even after hearing Marlene is alive he decides to kill her so she can be with her mother, that was some heavy shit and rebirth missed the mark.

I'm a huge FF7 fan and yes you're right.

In the Aramaic dub, Palmer actually shouts "IT'S LARDIN' TIME!" and proceeds to Lard all over the place. Weird that they cut that out of the english release 🤔

Great, hilarious review. You should do more of these types of videos

I like the style of this upload. Basically, a detailed review with constructive criticism.

4:50 I was a tadpole when I started fighting adamantoise in 15 and by the time I beat him I was a full grown frog

My home dawg did chantix sad

Last part is very accurate. I think it also goes to other games as well. Saying skill issue when that person already knows what to expect, with either a walkthrough or some sht. Is like saying to a student ur dumb as fuck cause said student does not know what has been already thought or known to you. Incredibly stupid

I still don't understand why they don't just use the already finished aspects of remake and rebirth and just remix them w/ a turn based combat system to give us an actual remake of FF7. Most of the work is already done and would be sure to sell a ton of copies for all us OG fans... though I guess since they left out rocket town for rebirth that might be an issue for that portion of the game.

harv is a mega master in thumbnail let's the fat elephant 🐘 rolling

Perhaps the most infuriating thing about your no items complaint, is that Square already solved that problem in Kingdom Hearts. You just equip items to a party member and they can only use those items while actively in a battle.

“Interactive gameplay” totally fucking agree man, why not just make the crawling a cutscene, or when we had to chase sephy in part one through the burning city at the beginning, instead of making us painstakingly push through it

I feel that Cid critique was off, ive seen people look younger at 32. Edit: Wait is this a meme video? A 4K tv definitely doesn't mean your tv is good :P

Rebirth was such a let down for me. Remake was promising but super linear then once I saw the open world in Rebirth I was hopeful. As soon as Chadley started with the towers I knew it was a rinse-and-repeat from there on and I wasn't wrong. Each map just felt like a Chadley errand run with nothing at all changing except the environment. This was exactly what Nintendo did with LoZ Tears of the Kingdom. Unlock tower, see new areas that contain the thing you need which you already did before, just now in this area. Repeat. That's not unique gameplay and was just a way of bumping the playtime without being rewarding in the process. Legit it's just lazy design. Hey! There's flying chocobos! Let's fly through rings, like every game has done in the past since Pilot Wings for the SNES, but now with chocobos. Chadley and the tower/errand mechanic killed this game. The original was way better.

Great video Harv

A critique should fairly criticize all aspects of the game. You ignored everything this game does right and cherry pick negatives and make them seem like much larger issues. The red dragon fight is complete bs especially on hard mode, but you act like unavoidable attacks are a widespread issue when only one enemy out of the hundreds have it. You complain that fights are too gimmicky, while everyone is entitled to their own opinion you never even consider that a large portion of the player base does enjoy this as it provides much more variety and strategy. You should acknowledge the positives of mechanics even if you disagree with it as a whole. You complain that hard mode limits your options. Adding restriction is a very common way of increasing difficulty as it adds a new layer of strategy. Just doing a stat boost would cause you to play nearly identically. Item restrictions puts a much greater emphasize on SP conservation. Adding restrictions becomes a problem when they are inconsistent. Rebirth doesn't do this as it adds that one restriction and sticks with it. You never mention any positives when critiquing the story. You complain about 5% of it and never address anything else. I understand that your trying to keep the video focused but this makes it seem like the entire story is shit. A critique shouldn't cherry pick issues that only plaque a 10% of the game while completely ignoring the 90% that is good.

Havent played Rebirth yet (because PC). Lard vs Butter i can understand as a translation thing. I'm more upset that they kept the mistranslation of Cait SITH, which was an artifact of 8 character limits, instead of the more accurate Cait Sidhe. They fixed Aerith's name but got Cait Sidhe wrong. I also agree with you from what you said about Cid. Hes a decade two young and should still have the cigarerres. I wonder if they toned down his cursing. As for the death scene. I agree. I remember being stunned at that point in the original. Just a complete 'what the hell' moment. And i didnt particilarly like Aerith. There was definitely a fugue moment that a constant string of battles wouldn't gove me time to process.

(SPOILERS) People act as if this is the end all be all video game. It's a tedious grind to complete in any way. Just playing the story and nothing else is acceptable but even then you have the likes of the notorious Caith throwing boxes part slowing everything down. I really liked many of the side quests fleshing out each character with more personality, story and interactions but it's hard to know beforehand what to skip and not. Map exploration aside, do we have to find each lifespring and press triangle 3 times in timing so many times per map? Do we have to find 3 summon statues? Why not make it more hidden and only one. What's the point in having several even? Then there's the story. I love FF7, it's up there on split first place with FF9 for me. And I love all the fan service but do they have to complicate things so much with alternate worlds/timelines/dimensions or whatever? Sure Sephy is now a interdimensional being or whatever. Thanks, I'll leave that in the fanfic section. And then there's the death part. They didn't commit to it and made everyone unhappy. I liked the moments leading up to it to the contrary of many other critics. I liked the little date sequence and the "end of the world" feeling. They had the ball and only had to drop it downwards for a slam dunk but they fumbled it and missed still. Either have her dead dead or alive. Not this middle thing where she hangs around still but not. For me, OG is a 10/10. Remake an 8/10 and this is a 6-7/10. I get hanged on reddit for this opinion but idgaf.

The moment at the end with aerith could be a synergy limit break, a Holy Omnishalsh if you will, like the end of the original. I really liked rebirth but gotta recognize that i agree with the faults since remake on the hard mode situation or play every piece of ff7 to understand the story even the gacha game. If you ate gonna includd the story add the costumes as well at least. The open world zone i liked the most was grassland, the first ine felt like a long time of a homecoming, but then some areas overstayed their welcome

I agree with you 100% on the aerith stab part

FF7 remake is the highest quality, most polished poo poo I know of

true, i rather sit myself through that ultra super boring Platinum Trophy of the so called "Death Stranding" then fucking my self over with Rebirth Platinum. And dont get me wrong, i do love me a good challenge, as kid i played all those Kingdom Hearts Games on Hardest difficulty just because i wanted to see the secret cutscene. In the KH Games everything is more challenging but its still possible without Rage Quitting over everything. But Rebirth Hardmode is just not good, alone the fact that they restrict you from so much stuff, damn, FF16 Final Fantasy Mode was a good Hardmode that had a good Balance of challenge, they should stick more to that tbh

Dang......all this rant and zero mention of the horrible Gongaga navigation with even more nonsensical minigames (lookin at you, mushroom picking). Well done.

I think in the japanese palmer says "dont forget the lard" but they changed it it the english.

1:20 Did someone say toad?

There are so many good games to play these days, it would be a surprise to meet anybody playing games that doesn’t have a backlog. If their game is 100+ hours in 2024, they need to respect our time and AT LEAST let us fast forward where it makes sense.

God I'm getting Ubisoft vibes lol with the towers etc

Great video!! This game was such a drag and does not respect your time!

Reeeeeee-barf

Lol so glad you brought up how hot they made Cid.

I stopped watching the moment he said one of his issues is Hard Mode not allowing items. Bruh Hard Mode is meant for you to strategize and get good not cheese it with items. Materia has limits, you can only have one or two of the very good ones, as are Weapons and Armours and Accessories, The Devs intentionally put limit on those as part of the combat design, to make you think what is the best to use on what character on what scenario, not just give every character the best one. Hard Mode are meant to be challenges you tackle with the chess pieces you are given. Items are unlimited you can buy as many as you want from the stores.

This is the most boomer take I have heard on the game so far. FWIW, I beat the whole game and I was able to figure everything out on my own with zero aid from strategy guides. Was it always easy? No. And I'm absolutely glad that it wasn't I don't want my hand held. I like figuring shit out on my own. Between that and your comments on the battle system makes me think you just don't like (new) video games.

This is one of the greatest video games ever made...comparable to uncharted 2 and mass effect 2

I swear to god, I try to watch the negative videos of this game to see another side that I can''t get [what to do? i love this game], but when the video starts with "convoluted story", jesus i want to quit the video with all my strength. I'm simply taken by the spirit of "so what...", because no matter what you think about the complexity of the story, you are a brain dead person and cannot read, watch and observe the things that happen on the screen to extract the minimum and at the end of it all, the fucking story is not done yet, my god. You can't get the answer to everything right now and that's normal, is there worse anxiety than waiting for "all the answers in the middle of the movie" [game in this case]? Because of it i can't watch these videos. I know the story is convoluted and i love it, i want my final fantasy to be a fucking complex story with many ramifications, visual narrative, photography, cinematography and all kinds of intricate things that irritate a lot of people. Please square, do more.

There was always the danger that FF7 remaster trilogy was going to have problems. As a remaster, it risked changing the story and tone of the original by fundamentally changing the gameplay. As a trilogy, it risked shoe horning in other game genres like open world and action RPGs to pad out the games with questionable results. As a sequel, Rebirth risked making the gameplay stale and boring by not changing enough from Remake.

I wish I wouldn’t have came across this atrocious video. I wish you all the best and all the best to your channel. But listening to this drivel made me lose many brain cells- and I am a person who sees OG FF7 as the best game of all time

Stick to brain dead turn based then grandpa

Whats the song in the background of the video?