Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth Looks Like A Technical Triumph

,I’ve made no secret about my love for Final Fantasy VII. The remake was a long-awaited treasure, and this week’s trailer for its sequel, Rebirth, made me pre-order immediately. It will be a masterpiece.

And while I’m mostly saying that as an excited fan, it’s undeniable that the trailer showed a game that I didn’t think was possible. The scope and scale of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth is something far in excess of what I expected.

Suddenly the “coming on two discs” disclaimer at the end of the original trailer makes a bit more sense. This game will feature so much of the original PS1 game in terms of locations, with what appears to be at least a large semi-open world connecting locations. Vehicles are back for the first time in how long? The Golden Saucer is available throughout the game and has loads of mini-games. This feels like something that wouldn’t have been possible on the PS4 – something that we unfortunately don’t get to say very often.

And all of this is coming from the love of the original game. They have looked at what the fans want to see, and then have delivered on it. Granted, some fans might be disappointed by the changing storylines. But honestly, when the storybeats are so similar and the world looks this good and fulfilled, it’s hard to imagine someone angry that it’s not the original and also unable to find anything they like.

Rewatching The Rebirth Trailer

This is the way I saw the world of Final Fantasy 7 back in the 90s. There is no bigger compliment than that.

That it is all constrained to a single game. And that there will be a third that will also manage to continue those improvements blows my mind. I never for a second thought there would be a workable Highwind in this trilogy. And I still have a healthy scepticism over that. But do you know what? It might just happen.

But it’s not just the detail of the trailer that is impressive. Look at the graphics and at the textures. Look at the fact that it’s only supposed to be three months exclusive to PlayStation. What that means is all the billionaires with 4090s will be able to play this game at its absolute best, hopefully well before the end of 2024. Then again, this is Square Enix. So maybe it’ll be locked to GeForce Now or something. Who the hell knows with them?

In my review of Final Fantasy XVI, I discussed the series not really knowing what it wanted to be. There was the famous XIII “towns are too technically difficult” talk. XV’s car rides. Actually, everything about XII. I like XVI because it delivers so much of the Final Fantasy experience within a modern game.

Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth looks set to deliver that and so much more. And while I’m not going to believe it until the disc is in my PlayStation, it could be a shining hint at what’s to finally come in the second half of this oh-so-slow generation.