Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out last year on PS5 and has finally made its way to PC via Steam and Epic. Being the second game in the FFVII remake trilogy, it’s actually quite hard to believe that the first one was released all the way back in 2020. So what has Square Enix done this time around and is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth worth picking up on PC ?
FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH | PC FEATURES TRAILER
After the tumultuous events of Final Fantasy VII Remake, fans have been waiting with multiple questions that need answering. What’s happening with Cloud, Tifa and Aerith our protagonists? What happened to the antagonistic villain Sephiroth? Is everyone still ok? Is Midgar going to be ok? So many questions!
Thankfully, even if you didn’t play Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has a handy story recap feature right on the game’s main menu which treats you to a very condensed cinematic retelling of the game’s major plot points. Since it’s been a few years since Final Fantasy VII Remake was released, I’d suggest all players just watch the video.
It doesn’t take too long and will jog your memory in case you forget what happened. Newcomers should probably play Final Fantasy VII Remake first before diving into Rebirth for a more complete experience and thankfully Square Enix does offer bundles with both games on digital storefronts.
Circling back to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth itself, the story kicks off with an introductory sequence showcasing Zack Fair carrying Cloud towards a ruined city. The game then onboards you into it’s systems and actual mechanics very smoothly via a story segment that explores some of the protagonist’s history. This is essential in building up the lore and overall background necessary for players to understand the more nuanced aspects of the character’s personalities and why they are the way they are now in the story.
Without spoiling the story at all, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is quite a hefty game coming in at around 50 to 70 hours to complete depending on your playstyle and whether you want to complete side quests or not. The game is paced incredibly well this time around with 14 chapters.
Each chapter is filled with content and the game has a much deeper focus on the characters and their relationships with each other. As you play through the game’s story, you’ll get to bond with each of the playable characters in your party and it’s written in such a captivating way that you’ll want to keep playing to learn more and more about them. The game’s world and the overarching plot to save the world from utter devastation is enthralling.
From the get-go, you can see that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a proper “next-gen” game. While the first game had numerous issues and hiccups from textures that looked like they belonged back in the PlayStation 2 era to some very lacklustre environments in some areas, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is packed with detail. Each and every single area in the game looks flat-out gorgeous. On PC, the game runs flawlessly on my PC with a 13th Generation Intel CPU, 32 GB DDR5 RAM and an Nvidia RTX 3070TI.
I have however seen some reports of the game crashing, some stuttering and frame drops during more intense battles on the Steam discussion forum so your own performance may vary when playing the game based on your PC hardware.
Having played the PS5 standard console version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth previously, the major benefit of the PC version lies in the fact that on PC, there’s significantly less texture pop-in. When compared to the PS5 version of the game when moving fast through the game’s more open environments, you’ll see far fewer rocks and plants suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
The level of detail that you can see in the far distance in open areas is also slightly better but these are such minor changes that most gamers won’t even notice them much. If you have the PS5 version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the PC version is pretty much almost exactly the same from a visual standpoint and you’ll have to really look for differences up close. The one thing in particular that really stood out though was the hair. Every character’s hair just looks a cut above on PC with all settings maxed out and it’s absolutely beautiful.
The game world is downright gorgeous too and thankfully Square Enix has included a photo mode in the game which will keep gamers busy for hours and hours on end. Especially if they choose to make full use of it by taking screenshots of the beautiful world and characters in the game.
When it comes to gameplay, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PC should be played with a controller. Yes, you can play the game with a mouse and keyboard but I really do not recommend doing this. It’s quite a lot harder trying to manage your party and pull off flashy attacks while trying not to die with a mouse and keyboard.
The game features an Active Time Battle system which is implemented extremely well and this time around features an emphasis on Synergy in combat. Using your playable party members together with their Synergy abilities is essential to victory in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and it’s also a key method in increasing your relationship status.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth features a lot of mini-games, just like its predecessor, and some of these are going to hook you while others will infuriate you in your pursuit of 100%-ing the game (Just like its predecessor did too!). Queen’s Blood however is amazing and everyone should get hooked on this in-game.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, being a Final Fantasy game of course, features Summons and these are truly a spectacle to behold. The game has significantly ramped up its flashy effects over Final Fantasy VII Remake and battles play out with visual flair that only Square Enix firing on all cylinders can deliver. It is fantastic to say the least. Cutscenes are also works of art and the visual fidelity on offer here is pure eye candy.
The soundtrack of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is excellent with so many tracks that really enhance the storytelling of the game as well as the combat itself too. The voice acting, is once again extremely well done throughout and the sound effects complement the combat and more perfectly.
Overall, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an extremely good PC port. It’s not without its problems as evidenced by some user complaints on Steam but it ran perfectly fine for me personally. If you haven’t picked up the game on console yet, you should definitely consider picking it up on PC, especially if you have a powerful enough PC to run the game with all settings maxed out. Be sure to check the game’s requirements below to see if you can. Oh and do take note of the game’s really large storage requirement.
Square Enix have really done a great job with this game and if you enjoyed Final Fantasy VII Remake, you’ll certainly enjoy this title too. Some more hardcore Final Fantasy 7 (1997) purists might dislike certain story elements but newcomers or those that only know the Remake will enjoy the tale told here for sure. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth comes highly recommended from me on PC (Or PS5). Give it a try if you can!
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The code was provided by the distributor.
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