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Saying Goodbye (For Now)
What FFVII Rebirth can teach us about life...and letting go.
My first Christmas memory is unwrapping an NES, meant for the entire family, immediately hooking it up to the TV in the room, and playing Ducktales until my family forced me to stop. Our family Christmases were always held in the metro area of our home state - both sides of my family lived there, so it was always convenient to have one big trip for the holidays. The trips were always long, and we relied on family to put us up for the nights we were there, but we always visited everyone we could. After all, this might be the only time we saw our family for the year (or even years).
I generally hated these trips (or any other trip to the cities), but there was always at least one bright spot - visiting my uncle. I was really too young to understand the particulars, or even to know my uncle well, but every time we visited it seemed like he had something for me. He was especially supportive of my art, providing me with materials to draw and color as much as I wanted on his table - or his floor, which was my preferred spot. He once gifted us a large box of art supplies that seemed to last forever. A box of crayons, colored pencils, pastels, and paints - it was the go-to whenever I felt like creating something new. It was always there when I needed it.
My uncle passed away in 2000, and it was a difficult time for my family. Especially so for my dad. Both my grandfather and grandmother had passed away within the last few years, and he had now lost a brother. To be honest, I don't remember much of the time we spent with family at these funerals or gatherings, but what I do remember was seeing my dad cry for the first time at my grandmother's funeral, and for the second time at my uncle's funeral. I didn't really know how to process anything that was going on.
When we arrived back home, a friend lent me Final Fantasy VII for the PSX. We were a few years removed from the massive frenzy surrounding the game, but I had never played it and didn't know much about it at all. I had played Final Fantasy I, IV, and VI, so I was at least somewhat familiar with the series, and since I didn't have to go to school anyway, I figured I'd give it a shot. What I got was a deeply moving, and personal, experience.
Aside from being a fun RPG with cool guys, big swords, and killer music, Final Fantasy VII (FFVII) is also a game about life, death, grief, and acceptance. Through Final Fantasy, I was able to gain a better understanding of not only these things and how they affect people, but I was also able to contextualize and process the events that I was going through. The most famous event in gaming history is a powerful moment, to be sure, but even beyond that singular bit, much of FFVII's mid portion deals with the party's previous losses, their grief, and their acceptance of the events past and present that haunt them. It is my favorite part of the game.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second of three installments in the Final Fantasy VII remake project, which was announced in 2015. Rebirth, in particular, covers that aforementioned mid portion of the Final Fantasy VII story, and aims to do so in a larger fashion. Much like 2020's Final Fantasy VII Remake, Rebirth extends and extrapolates the events to give us a more in-depth look at the world, all with a great new coat of paint.
Rebirth has a great balance of new scenes and characters with retelling the old story in both a recognizable and satisfying way...some of the time. In between all of the great character moments, and exciting action of the battles, the game manages to muddle the big moments of the original game, more often than not. Major moments from FFVII are often presented in a tonally inconsistent way with the original, or even move from one tone to the next in the same scene - giving major moments no time to breathe. It is an extremely long game with so many things to collect and see, yet it somehow never makes adequate time for the moments that really matter in the narrative - moving at breakneck speed from somber goodbyes to slapping butts all within the same cutscene.
I am not particularly averse to change, or having a new spin on old material. Much like with music covers, I don't think it's worth doing unless you've done something new with the material. So, for me, it's not that things are different - it's how they've deviated that confuses me so frequently. Which, in retrospect, is a shame. I do believe there is a great game in here somewhere. For all the narrative faults, there's so much to love. The soundtrack, with over 400 songs, is a phenomenal blend of arrangements of old songs and new material. The combat is fast, fun, and flashy. The characters, voicework, and cutscenes are some of the best I've ever seen in a game. So why, then, does this feel so hollow in the end?
My major grievances are with just a few elements of the game: Overwhelming side content, and main story presentation.
The side-content, in particular, really wore on me as I played through the game. Mountains of filler collectibles and towers litter each map - all of which distract from the actual good and fun things you can do. Unfortunately, you need to complete everything in order to do all of the sidequests and get many of the good moments and content in the game. You need to pick those leaves, and hit those towers, and collect that trash in order to get your best materia, or unlock the character quests. All throughout that, Rebirth throws minigame after minigame at you. There seems to be a bespoke minigame for about 40% of the quests in each area. This sounds like a cool idea in theory, but most are really underdeveloped. Some have bad controls, some are broken mechanically, and most are just plain boring, but you have to do them all. You want to have a moment with Aerith? You better play this boring ass mushroom picking thing we threw in here, buddy.
For the story, there's a lot more to love. Great action, voices, characters, and emotional moments throughout the game kept me engaged and wanting to see more. Not just the retreads of the original FFVII, either. The original beats of the story end up being some of the best moments. They give us a deeper understanding and appreciation of the characters and world that just wasn't possible back on the Playstation, but they fumbled the major incidents from the original game in ways that had me asking 'why' more frequently than I would like. The final moments of the game are especially baffling. I feel like I have a good grasp on what happens, what they're going for, and where they're taking it for the next game, but I do wonder how a new player (one who has not played Final Fantasy VII before) takes all of what is happening in.
To me, it's not just that the ending is intentionally confusing/misleading - it's that it takes a major bite out of the events, in general. So much of the messaging is lost in these moments, all so they can save them for the next game in the installment. This was frustrating enough that I began to question whether we really needed 3 parts at all. So much of this game was tedious in terms of the actual gameplay experience - could it have been condensed into a better game? By the end of this project we will have spent 10 years and what we get is a retelling that can realistically only land in one of two places: A fundamental change of the events that took place in the original FFVII, or a significantly worse, bloated, retelling of the original narrative.
To be honest, I'm not really sure where I want them to land here. It might be more exciting to have them do something drastically different in terms of outcomes, but I don't really have faith that this team could pull off anything satisfying. Landing on the original plot, would be nice because it's an all-time classic, but then I wonder what the point of all the plot ghosts and rainbow worlds and other nonsense over the last 10 years was for.
So when I sat down to review this game, I had to think about how I could possibly score it. It is often a lot of fun, but is maddening to me in so many ways, as well. As I ruminated on the things I liked and didn't like, I quickly realized I couldn't score it at all. It became impossible for me to really take this work on it's own merits. Every scene or mechanic was, in one way or another, chasing the ghost of a game that came out in 1997. The story, in particular, was impossible for me to decouple from the original work and the major impact it had on me at a vulnerable point in my life.
Rebirth, then, has once again given me a valuable reminder that the cycle of grief can manifest in so many different ways. Only this time, it's dealing with the death of my time with the Final Fantasy VII universe. I will probably not play the next game. My frustration with the game and it's errant retelling has really soured me on the project as a whole. I just have to accept that this game, and this trilogy, was not meant for someone like me. There are so many other people who get the chance to play this game (and the others in the trilogy) without their expectations or experiences colored in the way mine are, and I truly hope they enjoy it.
In the end, I can take some comfort in the fact that my memories of my original experience will stick with me forever. Final Fantasy VII is a core part of my gaming identity, and even if I don't necessarily count it among my favorite games, it came at the perfect moment in my life. The original Final Fantasy VII, much like that box of art supplies from my uncle, will always be there for me, just waiting to be picked up whenever I need it.
Photo credits: Square Enix
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