Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Steam Reviews

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• Recommended Posted February 10, 2026 on Steam This isn’t a “play it once and move on” game. It’s a commitment. If you like story-heavy games, sick combat, and getting emotionally attached to fictional characters when you should be doing homework, Rebirth is 100% worth it.
• Not recommended Posted July 6, 2025 on Steam FF7 Rebirth is a wildly inconsistent game. On the one hand it’s the most confident Final Fantasy since 10, with a clear direction in both its art and mechanics (and as a bonus it didn’t spend ten years in development hell). However, it’s also a bloated mess that has no respect for the player’s time and takes terrible liberties with a classic story. I should point in spite of the big red thumbs down that I didn’t hate FF7 Rebirth, as I’m not generally in the habit of playing games that I’m not enjoying for the best part of 100 hours. But it’s a game that was a waveform of enjoyment that resembles an EKG of a massive heart attack, with lofty highs and some absolutely shocking lows. The big things it does well, thankfully, are pretty core to the experience – an excellent combat system (an improved, slicker version of Remake’s), a wonderfully realised cast of characters, and an understanding that part of what makes FF7 so memorable is the fact that it’s really really weird. FF7 is a strange, transitional game that has the silly gags and broad-strokes anime archetypes of the SNES era, while also wanting to be something more experimental and adult. This often leads to wild tonal lurches, but it’s a key part of FF7’s identity, and adjacent media never really seemed to understand this. Rebirth, like Remake before it, is not afraid to have a big gay dance number, then 5 minutes later have a character go through a dissociative mental breakdown. The characters, always the heart and soul of FF7 are not only intact, but arguably improved and expanded on compared to the original. Cloud is sullen and traumatised, but is also a massive dork, and that latter quality is what makes him likeable even as he’s losing his marbles. Tifa, something of a blank slate in the original, is shown as quiet and kind, but also has a deceptive streak that is much more prominent here. Barrett might well be the biggest glow up – he’s just a big old bear with a bad temper, a big heart and a real soft spot for kids. It makes his relationship with Marlene so much more credible, and his story with Dyne marks a high point in the game (though I do take issue with the santised ending of that arc). I did wonder what they were going to do with Cait Sith, as he was always an awkward part of the original whose presence severely deflated some very serious moments. If Square were going to make big changes anyway, I would have been happy to see Cait Sith sidelined, heavily altered or frankly removed altogether. Instead, naturally, Square doubled down and as well as being just as strange and unnecessary as he ever was, he now has an agonisingly long solo dungeon where you’re forced to complete seemingly endless box throwing minigames. I get that Cait Sith adds to the surreal, sometimes nonsensical atmosphere of FF7, and he has his fans, but at least give me the option to bench him forever. Sadly, Rebirth has much more serious issues than a crap dungeon with a robot cat. Probably the biggest issue with the game is the glacial pacing, a flaw it has inherited from Remake and doubled down on. The entirety of the original FF7, without PS1 loading times is about 35 hours long assuming you don’t want to do the chocobo breeding. This middle portion of the game, covering about 15 hours of the original, is going to take the average player around 70 hours and can easy stretch to 100. Rebirth has gone for a semi-open world structure with lots of side content, and I actually don’t mind this – I think it’s a reasonable modernisation of the world map from the original, and by having story gated discrete areas, this should (in theory) stop the inevitable pacing problems of a true open world. Unfortunately, If you mainline the story you’ll find yourself woefully underlevelled and underequipped, so you’re going to have to at least do some of the side stuff. Much of this takes the form of many, many minigames, which range from tolerable to agonising. I don’t have a problem with optional content – I do have a problem with optional content that sucks ass, especially when that content comprises about 80% of the game. Unfortunately, there isn’t really much extra in terms of actual story, at least not story you’ll care about, as the additional kingdom hearts rejects are every bit the charisma vacuums they were in Remake. Oh sure, you can help Whatshisface rebuild a hotel, and you can have a rematch with…that motorbike guy, but the key, big ticket moments you’re here for are drip fed in a way that robs them of their impact. They’re nearly all done very well, but then you’re back to spending the next six hours climbing towers, fighting monsters and doing crap minigames, desperately waiting for something narratively interesting to happen. While I’ve done my best to avoid specific spoilers, I do have to mention the ending, as it’s absolutely terrible. Not only do they completely botch a key moment, but the final boss is one of the worst I’ve ever fought. I started the fight at 11am. I finished it at 14:45. There were no savepoints at any point during this 11 phase boss (this is not hyperbole – there were actually 11 phases), though there were mercifully checkpoints. This is an obscene amount of time to expect someone to put aside for a boss, made all the worse by the final phase being a brick wall with an instakill attack 80% of the way in. It’s completely exhausting, and the terrible ending following it really capped off the game on a sour note. Overall then…I can’t really recommend it to any but the most ardent fans of FF7, and ironically those are the ones who are most likely to be put off by the strange direction and unnecessary changes. I honestly don’t know who these games are for – anyone new to FF7 will be lost by all the multiverse nonsense, and ancient grognards like me just wanted a faithful remake. I’ll likely pick up the third, as much out of obligation as anything, but I really think Square have gone at this in completely the wrong way.
• Recommended Posted November 17, 2025 on Steam Its a good game but Jeezus!!! The mini games, forced or otherwise are just too much! It interferes with the pacing to be having a deep moment one second then having to play 45 minute of queens blood or some random thing to progress the story. And everyone talks way too much. Why does rando npc have more dialogue than the main party? I've lost interest in this game over and over after long bouts of mini game after mini game. I'm honestly just playing it to complete the story at this point. When it comes to the main story, I'm so happy with the direction its going but my god the padding is a slog. Be patient I guess. The good parts are in there.
• Recommended Posted June 22, 2025 on Steam Less is more. If I have one thing to say about this game, it's this. Seriously, this game is bloated with trash. Look no further for reasons why REMAKE is better reviewed than this one. If you've never played FF7, at this point of the trilogy, I have to say, forget it. Go play the original game. It's way better. And in any case, playing the original game allows to enjoy this remake trilogy way more. Still, if you enjoyed part 1, if you're not the kind of idiot like me which physically needs to 100% a game even when it pains me, and if you're able to only focus on the main story of the game and then be done with it: go for it. The combat system of this game is an improvement of the one of REMAKE, which was already top tier. So this game's combat is even more top tier. The game has an overall goofy tone (even more so than the original) which is enjoyable. Main story is still overall good. Characters are fun. Soundtrack is overall good. It's beautiful. The card game is fun (yet it introduces way more depth that's needed, you'll end up ignoring most of the mechanics). The game IS fun. Honestly, if you just go for the story and ignore the rest (I did it in NG+), it's an awesome game. [b][u]And for this (and because I'm a fanboy) I'll give it a positive review.[/u][/b] BUT, there's a LOT of negative things I have to say about this game: [list] [*] The open world is absolutely terrible. Chadley was the most annoying part about part 1, and they give us even more of this annoying little sh**. All the open world quests is absolute trash-tier, how in this day and age can we still get this level of abysmal open-world in a game. LESS IS MORE. [*] Hard mode challenges are terribly designed. Give us one or several superbosses. Don't give us challenges which consist in doing 10 fights in a row and losing the last one requires to restart everything. Nobody got time for this. This is bottom-tier design. Again, how in this day and age can we have such "challenges"? [*] (Spoilery~) [spoiler]The end of REMAKE was kinda weird but okay. The end of REBIRTH is... what? You effectively have to play the game twice to get all the hints and explanation for what's going on in the end. And even when you get it.... what? It uses the lamest trope in storytelling which complety ruins any story it's used in. What a disappointment. Maybe part 3 can redeem this somehow, but honestly, I doubt it. I'll still buy it since as I said, I'm a fanboy. Hoping it won't take me this many hour to 100% it -_-[/spoiler] [*] Have I said that the open world is terrible? No, it really is, believe me. Oh and it gets even worse in the midgame since verticality is added to the open world which makes it even messier. [*] When you start the game, the minigames are fun. Then it gets to a point where everything is a minigame. If you're the kind of player who enjoys this, well it can please you, but I thought it became very annoying very quick. And it's required to 100% the game... my brain need to be trained to stop chasing 100%s over and over damn it. [*] Why does this game contain components and crafting? It brings nothing of value to the game, way to add an additional tier of useless content. [*] Also the open-world is some hot garbage, and so are most of the quests (I was a quest apologizer in remake since there was like 7 quests in total. There's way more here... way too much). [*] King Zu is one of the most frustrating enemy ever. It deserves a mention in my negative remarks about this game. [*] Sometimes I wonder.. why do I have to keep a button pressed for a long time to press a switch, to open some doors? Why not only one quick button press and be done with it? Is this supposed to be immersive? No. It's just a useless waste of time. [/list] So yeah, this game could have easily been improved tenfolds by replacing all the open world with an empty overworld, by removing 80% of the minigames, and by removing the transmuter. And reworking the hard mode challenges to be less annoying. [b][u]If you strive to 100% a game, unless you're an absolute fan of FF7, FLEE THIS GAME.[/u][/b]
• Recommended Posted October 30, 2025 on Steam Phew, this game took me a long time to finish. It wasn't because it's really long or because I had no time to play; it was just a combination of things that made me stop playing for two months. I'm mostly talking about the optimization and the open-world. Don't get me wrong, I really like this game, but I can't ignore those issues. Rebirth runs decently, but honestly, I couldn't deal with the constant stutters and freezes. No matter how many tweaks and mods I used, it was still almost the same. That was my first complaint. My second complaint is the open-world activities, which feel kind of repetitive, to be honest. I'm not talking about the Protorelic quest line — it's the only interesting and diverse activity — but the others feel so monotonous in every region. I know I could skip all these things and not torture myself, but my inner perfectionist won't let me. I agree that's somewhat my problem, but I can't deny that the activities are uninteresting. Sometimes it's really annoying. For example, I've completed 100% of the optional activities in a region, and after 30–60 minutes of story gameplay, the game gives me the next region with the same activities. These two complaints bother me the most. FF7 is amazing: an interesting story and characters with hilarious and sad moments; cool, varied mini-games, especially in the story; an outstanding OST, even in optional quests; deep gameplay that forces you to think rather than just smash buttons like in any other action-slasher; stunning landscapes (with max graphics settings, of course); and other little things that make the game even better. Overall, I loved this game, but a few things stopped me from enjoying it to the fullest. Subjectively, it was my desire to complete all locations 100%. Objectively, it was due to optimization issues and repetitive activities in the open world. Otherwise, the game is wonderful and I love everything about it, especially the characters and their relationships with each other. I would describe it as a cool road movie with the colourful characters we fell in love with in the first part. It's the only game in which I've taken more than 1000 screenshots, by the way.
• Recommended Posted February 16, 2026 on Steam Cloud's growth from Crisis Core (a naive trooper with a dream) to Remake (a traumatized cold self-serving mercenary who lost purpose) to Rebirth (a guy learning to trust himself and wanting to show his happiness in front of others) is the best character arc I've ever experienced in my entire life. Also the penultimate Aerith x Cloud scene reached emotions I didn't even think I was capable of. Thank you, Nomura. The only way this game could be made any better is if Chadley gets permanently thrown into a black hole within the first 15 minutes of the next game. EDIT: 100%'d the entire game at 224 hours of playtime. Absolute cinema. Nothing else to add.