The logic behind splitting a game like Final Fantasy 7 Remake always made sense. Fans may not have loved it, but it always tracked. The original FF7 is absolutely massive. It burns through areas at a rate of knots. In a faithful remake, some zones that would take artists months to build would only be seen by the player for a handful of minutes.
Artistic intent be damned, this meant that the decision had been made for Square Enix. Any remake of FF7 would have to be split into multiple parts. The company wouldn’t be drawn on how many parts it’d be (for a while), but in the run up to the recent release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the project’s bosses confirmed that the whole experience will consist of a trilogy of games. The newly-released Rebirth is the middle part.
Rebirth is truly excellent. As I say in my review, even with a few frustrating design flaws and questionable narrative decisions it’s sure to be on many game of the year lists – including my own. Its greatest triumph is arguably in recreating a significant chunk of the vast-feeling world of the original Final Fantasy 7 and actually somehow managing to maintain – and sometimes even enhance – that vastness.
