Nicholas Jacques

This game has a lot of offer from beautiful animation, great voice acting (not script writing), and some character leveling and weapon proficiency mechanics that can provide a subtle feeling of fulfillment. Unfortunately, for every victory, there are numerous failures for FF7 Rebirth. The fast paced, story propelling, boss battle centric arcs offer a lot in terms of enjoyment and satisfaction, they are far too infrequent and are so dramatically overshadowed by an open world that’s tedious to navigate, side quests and mini games that very quickly become boring, and mechanics (for open world interactions, mini games and combat) that taint all of the good things that this entry has to offer. The true kiss of death is in the characters themselves. This may be an effect of the original title being split into three separate games, but is not enough to excuse such an unfortunate disappointment this is. The prime example is in the dissonance between Cloud and Tifa that is present from the very beginning of the game. The overwrought dialogue makes this discomfort unbelievable. It seems to come out of no where and does not resolve itself at a pace that makes it satisfying to play out. While life long fans of the franchise will still find enjoyment in this release, and rightfully so, I suspect that this game ultimately will not attract many new fans to the series. I myself have been disappointed with the latest releases in the franchise and this may very well be the last FF game I play.