Somebody stop this man
And with that the ribbon is cut, we have our date for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth- the second part in what is allegedly a three part saga and I for the life of me can't figure out why. How was it that back in 1997 we figured out how to tell a complete sweeping narrative starting in the streets of Midgar and expanding out to a globe trotting adventure around the world but today that same story needs three parts of increasing length in order to 'do it justice'? I'll tell you how; Tetsuya Nomura is how. Because that man brings us chapters like the ghost trainyard scene from FF7, whatever that contributed in the grand scheme. (Spoilers: Nothing!) Oh, and because his insanity means that the very serviceable world map of the original needs to be replaced by to-scale wandering. Who in gods name thought that was a good idea to let the man do what he wants? He's trying to bring back multiple disk games before Metal Gear Solid Delta can beat him to it, isn't he? The absolute menace!
I don't even know what the final act could possibly contain unless Nomura is going the way I have a slight suspicion he is going and Rebirth will veer off dramatically at the point of Aerith's... destiny... leading to a final game that totally rewrites the ending of the narrative to a fitting conclusion to everything, maybe even cutting out the need for Advent Children too... wrap up those new story threads they introduced for no reason. (I do begrudge stories that prolong themselves for no good reason.) My prediction? Final Fantasy 7 Restart- a definitively marked deviation from the story we know and love presented in direct parallel to that universe as it's replacement- similar to how Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire took place in alternative universes from the original Ruby and Sapphire. And I suspect we'll get as gigantic of a interaction between the two universes, which is why Nomura is trying so hard at the same time to provide us decently faithful retellings of the original story through games like 'Ever Crisis'. (I recommend just playing the original. Gacha don't belong in Final Fantasy.)
But enough gazing into the middle distance trying to make out the next island through the smoke, lets explore this fresh one which is heading the way of most players in a handful of months, and for me in a year or so. (With a port so painfully bad I'll have to wait another six months for Modders to fix it. Thanks Square, I hope the money you lost on Final Fantasy XVI exclusivity haunts you in your sleep.) Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth seems intent on ensuring us that everything we love from the original is being kept exactly intact, from the giant snake boss in the swaps to the awkward as heck Soilder marching minigame in the Junon Parade. (I already know they're going to make it stupidly difficult this time around.) We're also getting Chocobo racing, another Cloud bike section- somehow- and I can only assume the legendary 'date' moment in the Golden Saucer will be brought back to life. Although I do wonder if they'll keep Barrett as an option for a date, and ensure it's every bit as awkward as it was in the original. (Will Yuffie still be an option? She was always my favourite.)
Of course in the almost over exaggerated assurance that everything is how you remember it, seems that the team won't be shuffling around companies here and there like we originally believed in order to pad out the trilogy! We will be teaming up Cait Sith and Vincent throughout Rebirth, and though they didn't show off Cid it would be an absolute crime if FF7Rebirth cuts off before we get to fly the Highwind. (I will actually rage right there and then if I see those credits the second the Highwind is revealed.) Which leaves... who exactly for the final part? Cait Sith II? No, that happens pre-Aerith. Are we really getting no one new for the final part? Or... is my prediction right on the money and the final part is going to go wild! We'll be teaming up with Aerith and freakin' Reno and Kyrie or something stupid to slap down Zombie Tifa and Sephiroth from performing a fusion dance and seizing the One Piece in order to stab themselves with it and acquire Gold Experience Requiem. Or something like that, I haven't hashed out the finer details yet.
Those who remember the original Final Fantasy 7 might recall this as the act in which the narrative of the game untethers itself from the grim Cyberpunk city of Midgar and their comparatively terrestrial and small worries, and expands out into much grander concepts such as international strife, natural superweapons becoming awoken and oncoming ecological disaster. With the rewriting of the Remake, Act 1 has already touched on a lot of these points already, although I imagine we'll see actual expansions on these in Rebirth. The war with the Wutai might actually get an expansion on this time around, aside from what I going to come out and call a terrible tower defence minigame. (I would love to actually know what the war is about this time around, that'd be cool.)
I'm also quite intrigued by the way that Summons are going to get involved this time around for no other reason than if this stretch of the story really does reach as far as I suspect it will, that means we should be getting 'Knights of the Round' and 'Bahamut Zero'. Now summons have become decidedly more visually impressive in modern Final Fantasy, whilst becoming more narratively grounded and conceptually more realistic in the doing so. As in, whereas these summons were once treated as almost fantastical dream-sequences dealing out huge swathes of damage, now we're expected to believe that the power to summon these powerful godly creatures is canonically viable and the way we see them interact with the world is feasible according to the fiction of the world. You might think I'm being condescending to break things down so much, but let me elucidate you on why I think that's needed for these two summons in particular.
The Knights of the Round Summon, in the original game, summoned an entire army of spectral interdimensional giant knights to slap your enemy into their astral realm and ping pong them across the universe with various destructive powers. It was pretty much an 'ultimate destruction' move which, if replicated in FF7R, would kind of undermine literally anything else in your arsenal. And then there's Bahamut Zero. Those that saw would never forget Bahamut Zero. A step up from boring old Neo Bahamut who only rips a chunk out of the world and throws it into the clouds to burn the rock, and the enemy on it, to a crisp- Zero just appears in outer space and fires a beam into the planet, destroying it utterly, to damage your chosen foe. That... would be quite hard to translate into a game about saving the world from ecological disaster methinks.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake remains on of my favourite Final Fantasy games for the way it created an action adventure gameplay style that felt engaging and directed by the player whilst still looking impossibly cool and cinematic in your best moments. I hear that FF XVI does the action side of the franchise proud too (I look forward to trying it out myself, hopefully next year...) and I'm certain that Rebirth will keep up the good work. It's really cool to see this new side of Final Fantasy really pay off in a stylistic way, and I wonder how that will carry on when Final Fantasy returns to turn based as I hear they wish to do next full-line entry. (I wonder what they'll do to stand out in a post Persona 5 world!) I just wonder if we'll live to see the end of Tetsuya's revival franchise, you know- after the reveal of the third coincides with the surprise revelation of a fourth finale game which turns the game into a space faring adventure against Walnut-headed Aliens who represent the distant ancestors to 'The Ancients'. That may sound outlandish, but let's see how many random speculations I just pulled out my rump and still got spot on when the time comes, because I'm betting it's at least one!
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