I loveFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and having seen my timeline flooded with comments and content from the game over the past three weeks, I know I’m not alone. Three months into a year in which we have already been spoiled with fantastic games, it’s top of my pile and I can’t see anything that’s going to change that. Especially since I am nowhere near done with Rebirth and my love for it only grows fonder.
Despite how different Rebirth is from its predecessor, I also lovedRemake. Rebirth builds on the first entry in so many ways, though. Not just in its story, but the open world elements, character building, and mini-games. Yes, I’ve been sidetracked challenging everyone to a match of Queen’s Blood much as the rest of you have. However, the biggest improvement between Remake and Rebirth is how much the latter requires me to plan ahead and actually think about what I’m doing in battle.
In Remake, I was there for the story and not much else. I hacked my way through that game with a Buster Sword and loved every second of it. I paid very little attention to the materia equipped and the only time my tactical prowess was called upon was when I battled a Tonberry. I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about that powerful little monster.
I’m all too aware there’s a Tonberry King waiting for me somewhere in Rebirth, and when I find him,I’ll be using our guide to help bring him down.
Being a continuation of Remake’s story, I figured my experience with Rebirth would be much the same. Even when I started to explore the Grasslands and realized this is a very different game from the one that came before it, I still assumed my battle technique of just throwing everything available at my enemies would be fine, and it was, to begin with.
That was until I engaged in Rebirth’s first big boss fight, Midgardsormr. A serpent awaiting you in the swamplands that doesn’t care if you’re on Chocoback or not despite what you’ve been told. No problem, Cloud and the team will quickly dispose of this beast and my journey will continue. Or, maybe not. My Buster Sword did next to nothing, single digits pinging off the Midgardsormr. Even Bravers and magic weren’t doing much to whittle away the beast’s HP.
It took a few attempts, but I finally managed to get the job done through a combination of brute force and stubbornness. Even then, it didn’t click that Rebirth would require a savvier approach, mainly because it wasn’t until after that grueling battle that I realized SP could be spent at automatas dotted about the save point benches and not just in Maghnata bookstores. ‘Ah, that’s why I struggled, my characters are all underpowered,’ I figured.
I was only half right, and again, it took a boss fight for me to realize that, this time when you clash with Tseng and Elena in the Mythril Mines. Again, despite the might of my Buster Sword, it was barely leaving a scratch on the Turks. Rather than jump right back in after suffering defeat over and over like I did with the Midgardsormr, I decided on a different approach to switch things up and swing the battle in my favor before it had even begun.
I studied the materia, giving it to the characters it suited best, and more importantly, slotting them into the weapons and items where they’d have the biggest impact. I also switched around those items, giving everyone on the team a buff before battling again. Perhaps most important of all, and this will be where I really annoy those of you for whom this has been obvious since the originalFinal Fantasy 7, let alone Remake, I equipped the Assess materia and actually used it.
That’s right, not once during Remake did I use Assess, the yellow orb nothing more than a paperweight in my pocket weighing me down as Midgar crumbled. I told you, I’d swing my sword, cast some spells, and move on once the dust had settled. I didn’t need to know what my enemies' weaknesses were, but oh, now I’ve seen what I’m capable of when I do, I really wish I had. Tseng and Elena didn’t know what hit them. Brushed aside with ease and sent running out of the mines and onto Junon so they could tattle on me to the new president.
It’s not just a thought-out build and assessed enemies that have made my battles shorter and more satisfying. Learning each team member’s strengths and using them to my advantage on the battlefield has been a huge benefit. It’s only now I realize how silly Cloud looked swinging away at creatures 15-feet above him, and that I should have been switching to Barrett or Tifa to bring them down with their long-range attacks.
When it first dawned on me that it was going to take a more measured approach to battle my way through Rebirth, I feared the game would wear thin before I reached the end. I don’t want to be endlessly scrolling through menus, I want to find Sephiroth. However, just like everything else that delays me from progressing with the main quest line, preparing for battle and curating a new build isn’t a chore, it’s a core part of the game I enjoy almost as much as finding out what’s going to happen next.
I was also fearful that after sweeping aside Tseng and Elena, my more measured approach would make battles too easy. That hasn’t been the case. Dealing with creatures you find out and about is a walk in the Sector 6 park, but even with a build and a team assembled for a specific enemy, the bigger fights still feel measured and challenging. Plus, if there’s ever a time when that’s not the case, since I’ve been playing on normal, I can always up the difficulty.
I know a lot of people will read this and immediately paint me as a filthy casual, baffled at how I could make it all the way through Remake and three chapters into Rebirth before realizing I should change my ways and actually think about what I’m doing. I’m sure even now, if you were to look in on me playing Rebirth, the way I approach boss fights would have you rooting for Shinra. To those people I say, watch me play Queen’s Blood.
