ends with five simple words - “The unkဣnown journey will continue.”

With this, invited us all to spend the next four years pondering what was to come. With the defeat of the Whispers — whose entire purpose was to maintain the timeline of the original — Cloud Strife and friends’ first step into the vast world beyond the gates of smoggy Midgar hel꧅d the promise that this ti🐻me, the story would be different.

With right around the corner, we’re all about to find out. After enjoying a few hours with its first two chapters at a preview event back in January, I am convinced that Rebirth isn’t simply a continuation of Remake so much as a full-fledged evolution. The same game, yet on a grander scale — from larger environments and deeper combat mechanics to more diverse gameplay options and bigger nar🌟rative gambles.

Flashing Back

The original Final Fantasy 7 contains an extended story sequence shortly after the party’s departure from Midgar in which Cloud regales the others with his painful memories of Sephiroth’s descent into madness and the subsequent des⭕truction of Cloud and Tifa’s hometown of Nibelheim.

Fittingly, then, this flashback is the subject of FF7 Rebirt𒁏h’s first chapter. It’s a tragic tale on multiple levels: sorrowful in its own right, but made all the more bitter by Tifa’s deep-rooted doub✃ts. Cloud’s recollection of these pivotal events does not match Tifa’s own, and his inability to provide critical details leaves Tifa — and players — with more questions than answers.

Just as memorable as the plot beats from Cloud’s supposed past are the fleeting opportunities to experience Se𒈔phiroth’s significant power firsthand in battle. Final Fantasy 7 automated Sephiroth’s combat actions, but this time around, the developers sought to increase the spectacle by allowing us to control Sephiroth ourselves. Square Enix has gone al💞l-out here. His animations are superbly flashy, his agility is off the charts, and he’s got numerous maxed-out Materia on tap to eviscerate the fiends on Mount Nibel foolish enough to stand in his way.

There’s a fitting mix of signature be✃ats and fresh fare during the brief stin꧃t in the Nibelheim of five years past. You’ll still catch up with Cloud’s mother, and you’ve still got the option of jamming on Tifa’s piano. (This time, however, Cloud’s in deeper trouble if he admits to having rummaged through Tifa’s stuff.) But you can also climb the village’s water tower, leading to a somber little scene in which Cloud exhibits serious discomfort.

Or you can eat a pork sandwich. Or two pork sandwiches. Or three pork sandwiches. Young Cloud wolfs them do💎wn with ease, as only 16-year-olds can, but in-game text chastised me afterward because he’d have no room left in his stomach later for a homeꦫ-cooked meal.

The Kalm Before The Storm

Following the inevitable things-fall-a🍨part finish, I was returned to the present-day evening inside the inn at Kalm where Cloud has told his tale. Unlike in the original, Tifa actually attempts to confront Cloud over the fact that, as far as she remembers, Cloud never returned to Nibelheim at all — a revelatory wrench ꧟that classic FF7 does not throw until much later.

The cꦗonversation quickly devolves into an argument, and while written fine, it strikes me as a crash course on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s affinity system — not because it employs those mechanics, but because it’s as decent a reason as any for players to have to build up Tifa’s affection for Cloud pretty much from scratch.

Here’s the gist: 💦when you’re wandering around a settlement — in this case, Kalm — your party members will hang around various places, and you have the option of compelling Cloud to interact with them. At some point, a dialogue wheel pops up, and your choice of response alters the party member’s affinity towards Cloud. I felt a bit unnecessarily pressured by the limited amount of time allotted to determine Cloud’s answer, but I guess staring off in silence for longer than five seconds would be pretty awkward.

There’s plenty more to do in Kalm than just chat up a cast full of clever quips and insightful outlooks, and it’s here that my confidence in Rebirth’s quality is at its greatest. Not since Final Fantasy 12 has a single-player mainline Final Fantasy handled settlements especially well. This 🐲is the first time Square’s outr💝ight nailed this beloved aspect of old-school FF in ages. Kalm is lively, but not too lively — it’s a quiet town in FF7, and while it’s louder now, it loses none of its charm.

I had fun listening to the townsfolk chattering among themselves, from two women swearing off a cheating ex-boyfriend to an old couple, blinded by the conveniences of Mako, hailing the evil Shinra as saviors. An ice cream seller barks out that their product is made by real chocobos, which is odd. But Final Fantasy 7 is supposed to be odd. So it works. The b﷽est NPCs, however, are the trio of potential Queen’s Blood opponents: a guy with an enlightened perspective on the art of crying; a little girl with a flair for ventriloquism; and a woman who has erected a barricade by stacking boxes all around he♊r. Of course, I knocked every box into oblivion. She wasn’t amused.

Triple Triad 2024

But yes, Queen’s Blood. It’s a card game. It’s also the first in-game card game that Final Fantasy has introduced since Final Fantasy 9. Back in the days of the PS1, it felt as if this sort of thing would become a series staple. FF8 gave us Triple Triad, and then FF9 gave us Tetra Master. But that was it — nothing else followed. There’s been a card-shaped hole inඣ my heart for 24 years, so I was eager to get started.

Queen’s Blood pits you against eccentric citizens like these three, and emerging victorious means earning new cards and rising in rank. It’s not clear to me just yet what exactly the tangible reward is for all this card-playing, if indeed there is one, though promotional materials for Rebirth have shown us that there’ll be a tournament aboard a certain ocean liner. In any case, you build a deck of 15 cards, start off with five, draw one every turn, and vie for supremacy on a five-by-three board﷽.

Cards have a power rating, as well as a rank from one to three, and once placed, they affect a particular area around them. Some have abilities that’ll buff or even debuff other cards. When the game ends, each ‘lane’ (the five-tile horizontal rows) awards points to the ♛player who scored highest, and whoever 🌞scores the most points between all three lanes wins. The closest comparison I can make here is Bind and Divide from Bravely Default 2. In short, it’s fun, and I’m going to lose hours on it with ease.

Character Development

After pulling myself away from Queen’s Blood, I made my way out of town, and into the vast Grasslands region situated between Kalm and the Mythril Mine. I received something called an Item Transmuter, which is your ticket to Rebirth’s crafting system. I’m not a fan of ‘crafting for crafting’s sake’, in which a game sports a simple item-plus-item-equals-item feature that’s so mundane, it comes across as more of a marketing checkbox than a meaningful addition. Thus far, I think the Item Transmuter෴ earns its keep: the materials you’ll find strewn throughout the world are plenty varied, and you steadily elevate your ‘craftsmanship rank’, which not only broadens the number of things you can create, but crucially, unlocks craftable gear that is actually worth the effort.

As characters level up, they gain SP as well; SP was used in Remake to learn new skills and stat boosts from equipped weapons, but it also serves the purpose of teaching brand-new techniques, like Synergy Skills, vi🐭a books called Folios. The idea of waltzing into a bookstore to gain new power is reminiscent of FF12’s Gambit Shops, or FF5’s Magic Shops, and I’m here for it.

Square has put those aforementioned Synergy Skills front-and-center throughout Rebirth’s trailers, an𒐪d for good reason. This game’s central ambition, it seems, is to expand upon the cast’s relationships with one another in memorable ways as they embark on this unknown journey. Showcasing this through joint attacks -🅰 akin to the Dual Techs in Chrono Trigger - not only fits the theme, but gives the battle designers and art team a chance to really strut their stuff. Synergy Skills are as practical as they are fanciful.

Open World Map

I can’t speak as to whether Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s op🌼en-world slant will keep players consistently engaged in its wide-open spaces the whole way through, but if the Grasslands region serves as something of a tutorial, then there’s cause for cautious optimism. Caches are strewn throughout the land, with treasure chests as your prize; importantly, the locations tend to service the game’s lore, like the broken-down remains of a republic-era tank, or the ruins of an♓ aqueduct. These spots paint a picture of a planet before Shinra’s revolutionary Mako technology, adding texture to the timeline that is purely a Rebirth-driven invention; and seeking them out is but one of several secondary objectives.

As my time with Rebirth drew to a close, I beelined the main story so that I could see as much of the second chapter’s core events as possible. So 🐻I did not fully map out the Grasslands. Frankly, I didn’t come close, and I surely missed out on myriad cool tidbits. I did meet up with Chadley, the young prodigy who assists Cloud in Remake by concocting new Materia, including Summons. Once again, we’ll be helping him with his research; and once again, he’s tied to the acquisition of these fabled beasts. Based on what I did manage to accomplish in the Grasslands, Chadley’s got a lot more presence in Rebirth than he did in Remake.

Ain't No Gettin' Offa This Chocobo

With Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Square Enix is freed from the shackles of the Final Fantasy 7 saga as we know it, and they’re banking on our collective trepidation just as much as our enthusiasm. Will they deliver a stellar storyline that both honors and s꧅ubverts a cherished title? I’m no closer to knowing the answer to that question than you are, but at least the character writing remains razor-sharp.

Even if the ride through Rebirth’s story ends up bumpier than I’d like, I know this game will cast a spell on me. Queen’s Blood is captivating, exploration is rewarding, and Square has recognized my long-held desire for this series to tout impressive towns again. Will Rebirth be a fun and engaging video game no matter what hap🐈pens to a certain flower girl at the City of the Ancients? All 🌠signs point to yes.