168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth looks terrific. At a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:State of Play earlier this week, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Square Enix , with a polished new trailer and a dozen-plus minutes of more casual gameplay showing off the sequel's locations and mechanics. I'm not one to look a gift chocobo in the beak, so I'm really looking forward to hanging out with Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, Aerith, Red XIII, and Yuffie even if it takes 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:100 hours to beat.
During the presentation, Square showcased the game's various regions, each distinct from the others, that will come together to form its vast open world. There's the Junon region, where Shinra soldiers march through the streets of its occupied city. There's the Grasslands, where the green landscape is home to ruins, an atmospheric marsh navigable by choco-boat, and also a thriving European-style city. Maybe most exciting is the sunshiney Corel Region, which houses both the Gold Saucer (home to, perhaps, this section's most exciting narrative moment: Cloud's romantic date with one of his party members) and the seaside resort town of Costa del Sol. There are several others, and all of them have me as stoked as I've been for any open-world game this side of GTA 6 in years. The game looks stunning, and the shift ൲to an open-world has 💟me eager to visit areas I was less enthused with in the PS1 original.
That leads to the one fracture in my enthusiasm's armor. In 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7, the Midgar section is by far the best part of the game. It gave us the aesthetic that became synonymous with the FF7 in the popular imagination going forward, captured in the evocative cover art of Cloud standing, Buster Sword crossed between his shoulders, staring up at Shinra's HQ. The greens and blacks that defined FF7's look are there on that cover, and captured with gorgeous pre-rendered backgrounds in the game's opening act.
Midgar, both in its original incarnation and as reimagined by Square Enix in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, is one of my favorite video game settings. I'm a big fan of the cyberpunk genre and Midgar's plate, where the wealthy live, hanging above the slums below, and SPOILER ALERT eventually being dropped on the innocent people that live there, is an evocative visual metaphor for life under capitalism. By leaving Midgar for the necessarily diffuse geography of an open-world, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has to leave a setting that perfectly encapsulates the overarching story's themes behind, too. Corel and the Grasslands and Junon may grow to mean something to me as I play, but will they hold as much meaning for the game itself? Will Square Enix find interesting things to say with them?
I hope so. And, to be honest, I remember the rest of Final Fantasy 7 much less vividly than Midgar. Maybe these locations are already ripe with meaning that I've forgotten. Regardless, Rebirth is trading in one thematically consistent city for a variety of locales. Finding meaning in that beyond the busywork of the open world checklist may prove challenging. But, Final Fantasy 7 Remake did the impossible in recapturing the magic of the original for a new generation, so pulling off the challenging may be no sweat.
I Can't Tell If Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Is Too Big, Too Small, Or Just Right
After this week's State of Play, ꦇI'm excited to see how grand Rebirth really is.
