If you could change the story of your favorite childhood video game, would you? Or is it better to keep it just as you remembered? That’s the question at the center of Square Enix’s grand project to remake the classic 1997 roleplaying game Final Fantasy VII, and its latest chapter is about to begin.
Fans of the original Final Fantasy VII were curious how Square Enix would modernize it in 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, and discovered an exciting mix of nostalgia and novelty as the game ended by boldly promising to pivot away from the original plot. The new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, out Feb. 29 on PS5, picks the story up from there, launching main characters Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Barrett into another similar-yet-different adventure — but bigger than its predecessor in every way.
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After 50 hours of playtime so far (and still a ways from finishing), I’ve enjoyed nearly everything Rebirth has to offer. My chief frustration is that it’s short on answering the biggest questions that its predecessor teed up about how Cloud and company will change the story we know so well, leading me to wonder how much of the teased plot diversions are buried into the end stretch of the game. That is where one of the most infamous of Final Fantasy moments — Aerith’s fate — is expected to be. Â
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But the game is bursting with charm and affection for the world Square Enix has built on the bones of its source material, and my pains are forgotten in a gleeful sea of cactuars and combat. I can patiently wait for the game to unfold, even if it’ll likely take another 20 or 30 hours for me to complete it.
Rebirth adapts the middle chunk of the original Final Fantasy VII. Now free of the industrial city of Midgar and diverging from their fated path, Cloud and friends set forth into the broader world. In meta-narrative terms, they’re free to change crucial…
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