Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Is Pulling Inspiration from PS5, PS4 Greats

FF7 remake greatly benefited from being linear

FF7 remake was excellent

As a longtime fan of open-world games and a relatively noob-ish Final Fantasy fan… I like this direction for the franchise (though I’m sure that I’m in the minority on that).

I hope it brings more of that FF magic than Remake and XVI did. Especially XVI left me totally unhooked as a long FF fan. If it improves on Remake as XIII-2 did on XIII I’m more than happy.

Can't wait for this (see my avatar). 7Remake is an insane update on the original and with XIV: Endwalker and XVI, Final Fantasy has been on incredible hot streak that looks likely to continue.

The first one was great, really enjoyed it overall and this one looks absolutely incredible to boot. So excited

"While the release has its fair share of critics, we actually really enjoyed the road trip vibes of that particular title a lot."

probably because you have no idea how much of a drag that brought down on the rest of the experience and failed in just about every other category that mattered. Vibes be damned, if the rest of the game isn't good, then what's the point.

This better be definitively as FF7 as Remake was. I love Horizon, but if I wanted to play Horizon, I'd play Horizon. Every time they start injecting open world into things it turns to trash. Killzone Shadow Fall wasn't a better game, because it had open spaces. I'd go as far as to say that it hurt the experience compared to KZ2 and KZ3. I don't see anyone talking about these things in MW3 as being the thing that saved its SP or new Zombies mode. It certainly didn't help FF15. FF16 just blows it out of hte water, which is a shame because the core story and lore of FF15 is so huge that it's versus roots in place could have been a much better game. They screwed up with FF15 hard.

Now I don't feel like Rebirth will have hte narrative problem Forbiden West Suffers from to its own detriment right down to its DLC. They need to focus on FF7 more than anything. I don't play FF7 because I'm clamoring for modern game design fallacy. I come to see the magic of a Masterpiece reborn as a modern classic that doesn't forget it's self. If Rebirth just becomes a collection of regrets over Remake, it will be a bad game. Because there was nothing wrong with Remake. To add insult to injury doing so will just introduce the Mass Effect Andromeda problem into the mix, a game no one asked for, with an attempt to return to the original game doc, when the world wanted more trilogy, not a dead design doc.

@trev666 agreed hands down. Most played game in the last 5 years has been remake for me.

@colonelkilgore Yes. You are the minority. Open World is janky lazy procedurally generated game design. A fluff piece that offers nothing, most of the time. It just doesn't have the framework to support a game like Final Fantasy. I have a friend who swears FF16 should have been open world, but still can't get him to finish FF15 even though he played and finished FF16 and Stranger of Paradise. Big open world guy too. Open World just doesn't lend its self well to story driven games. It's good for things designed with exploration in mind, not narrative driven story telling. Not without redefining what open world is in game design.

Remake was disappointing in places but I always preferred the wider world of VII to Midgar anyway. XV’s open world was fantastic, it was just the linear back half that was rubbish so I’d be up for that being used as inspiration. Just don’t ruin the story!

Should have looked at Breath of the Wild an Tears of the Kingdom instead if they want inspiration for an open world

@mariomaster96 That just wouldn’t be compatible with FF7. It has a linear narrative, just uses a wide world that you traverse. Trying to turn everything into BotW would make lots of series sh*t.

@nessisonett True but thb I think open world in general doesn't make sense for a game with linear story

I mean open and linear kinda contradict each other

Really 2 great influences. Love the Horizon games and TW3!!! Top pedigree open world games!!!

@NotSoCryptic I loved XV and XVI… but would’ve appreciated more freedom in both (yeah XV still didn’t seem totally open world to me).

As for being in the minority… it’s fine and nothing new to me. Also, I’m incredibly anti-social, so the minority is a good fit.

@mariomaster96 Please tell me you’ve played a single JRPG. Final Fantasy did it back in the 80s, you can go basically anywhere you want at any time but there’s a path to follow. Open world with a linear story is absolutely a thing. Then you get wide linear games like the newer God of War.

15 is a good place to look, they nailed that feeling of comradery and being on the road together, even if the story was disjointed in areas.
16 however is so damn shallow. I'm not in the camp that argues FF has to be turn based. I love action RPGs, I just hate shallow games, especially when they overstay their welcome with a 30-40h runtime and a knock-off GoT tale.
FF7 remake did the right thing to subvert fan expectations and should continue to do so, even if you got the purists complaining. They'll always be able to play the original if that's all they want.

Only 20 comments and there's already 10 different opinions on what a FF should or shouldn't be. The only consistent thing about FF is the inconsistency of its fanbase 😄

One major complaint I have about the newer FF games is that there is little if any memorable music featured in the earlier games. They need to work on fixing that for future FF entries.

Hopefully it completely ignores XVI. In that as well as it reviewed it wasn't a Final Fantasy game

I cannot wait to stretch my legs Kupo