Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was provided by Square Enix for review. Thank you!
The day I have been waiting for is finally here. After almost a year of patient and anxious waiting, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is finally here on PC. Since February of last year, PS5 has been the only way we could experience the second entry in the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy, but that is no longer the case. The PC release gives us a chance to enjoy one of the most critically acclaimed JRPGs released last year, and after playing it myself, I can confidently say it is one of the best JRPGs I have ever played.
Initially, I had my worries about the entire remake trilogy. Final Fantasy 7 is a classic, and while it was released long enough ago to justify a remake, it means so much to many people and defines JRPGs in general. Square Enix ended up taking on this monumental task, and there's no doubt in my mind that they succeeded. I appreciate that instead of a straight remake, they decided to take their time, not cut content, and flesh out the entirety of the game. It creates a beautiful, engaging, deep, and enticing experience where nothing feels out of place.
Before I go into my review, I want to note that you don't necessarily need to play the first game, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, to play this one, but I recommend it. There is an option to watch a quick video explaining what happened in the prior title. However, the video doesn't explain the more crucial details I would have wanted. If you played the original game, you might understand enough, but the remake trilogy fleshes a lot out, and it will be better after playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
The story of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth picks up right after the previous game, where Cloud and his crew are now outside of Midgar and venturing out into the open world. They are still chasing Sephiroth, and they find new leads to hopefully catch up and defeat him once and for all. However, the evil conglomerate Shinra is still after them while also cooking up new schemes to grow their empire, with the new company president, Rufus Shinra, taking the lead.
The game follows Cloud and his gang as they go around the globe to different continents, and it’s intriguing to see how it all plays out. The way Square Enix continues the story captivated me while also doing a great job fleshing out side characters from the original that usually weren’t prominent. That’s a huge part of the charm of the Remake trilogy as a whole. Square Enix took the game and split it up into three parts so they could epically tell the story with little compromise on what stories they wanted to tell. It makes the game feel whole while still being a part of a larger tale.
However, some parts confused me. Some of it made sense later on, but at the moment, I could only stare and try to comprehend as the scenes played out before me. A lot of Zack’s scenes did confuse me, showing them without giving clues as to what could have happened, and the ending of the game does feel a little underwhelming. I also have a love-hate relationship with Cloud’s personality. There are some moments where his emotions come through, and I found it wonderful, but then there are more times he’s just closed off and seems like he isn’t a fun person to be around. The rest of the main cast is fantastic, though, and I have no complaints. They all have unique traits, and it’s a joy to see how they interact with each other and the side characters you meet throughout the story and side quests.
The fantastic storytelling is aided by the incredible visuals. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game look this amazing throughout and keep it up during cutscenes and conversations. The characters all look like they could have been CGI in a multi-million dollar movie, and they always look this way, even when just roaming around. I also love your weapon's effects, the magic you use, and the synergy attacks. Everything blends to create this eye-candy splendor that’s hard to avoid.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has the odd low-resolution texture here and there, and it’s more prominent at the beginning of the game versus the middle and end, but it was never so in-your-face to take me out of the zone. The towns and open areas feel unique and beautifully crafted, making it enjoyable to run around and see what else is featured. The enemy and monster designs have all had this same care, and it’s obvious that no expense was spared to make it as gorgeous to look at as possible.
Then we have the gameplay, which matches the beauty already on display and excels at creating an engaging experience both in and out of the core gameplay loop.
The combat is probably the biggest focal point, and it finds a way to be simple and deep with its mechanics. On the surface, it could be seen as emphasizing button-mashing, but there is so much more. Each character has two abilities you can use at will that are vastly different from each other. For example, Cloud can use his first main ability to just swing his sword, and his second changes his stance and makes his sword hit harder but has less mobility. In contrast, Aerith can shoot magic from a far distance and then use her second ability to teleport.
However, this starts to change the more you play. You can hold buttons down to execute new attacks and utilize a range of spells, which requires MP and special abilities that can give you access to ultimate attacks called Limits and synergy attacks. Each of these special abilities has different effects, like causing the enemy's stagger bar to go up more so you can stun it and deal extra damage or striking multiple foes at a time, so it adds a layer of strategy to decide which one to use since you have to take time to build up the bar to use them.
To take full advantage of each battle, you will also be encouraged to swap between your party of three. You can do this any time during the fight, and access and command the rest of your team to execute special abilities and spells at will. This will build up the resources needed for synergy attacks, which can give some fantastic benefits like infinite MP for spells and an increased limit level so you can execute even more powerful ultimate attacks.
All of these elements end up making each fight, even the smaller ones, extremely fun. I found myself running after the enemies in the overworld to keep going into more fights, and I wasn't thinking about leveling up or grinding. It was due to the joy I found when fighting and the spectacle from the visual effects and cinematic camera angles. I also enjoyed trying to figure out enemy elemental weaknesses and take advantage of them, but strategies for fights can change as you figure out what is working and what isn't.
The progression and equipment systems are also quite in-depth and fun to play around with. After each battle, you get EXP to level up, increasing your stats, and AP to level up your equipped Materia. Leveling up also provides SP, which can unlock new Synergy Attacks and abilities and upgrade core stats like MP and Health.
As for Materia, these little balls can be slotted into equipment and give access to different spells, like Fire and Blizzard, provide more bonuses to stats like an extra 10% health, or give new abilities like stealing items from enemies. The amount of Materia you can equip is reliant on the equipment you have on, and you can get both new equipment and Materia at shops or find them out in the world. While you can't level up equipment, you can level up your weapon and equip specific buffs.
Then, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has a ton of side content and mini-games, which felt equally rewarding and enjoyable. Each location you come across has side missions you can complete that could introduce different characters or flesh out already established ones while also giving some great rewards like extra EXP, books to increase the character’s SP, Materia, and more. At first, I tried to focus on the main story and come back to the side missions later, but I decided to just try a side mission quickly, and I was so intrigued that I ended up going back to old areas just to complete them. The rewards are worthwhile, but I particularly enjoyed how they were structured and how organic they felt to the rest of the tale.
And I can’t forget Queen’s Blood, the card game you can play. It’s a great way to break up the action and sit down for a quick battle of wits. I often found myself looking around for opponents so I could get new cards and outfit my deck accordingly. It’s like Rebirth’s combat: simple on the surface but increasingly complex once you get cards with abilities.
Apart from Queen’s Blood, Chadley returns to give extra quests throughout the open world. These include activating towers, fighting tougher beasts, scanning excavation sites, and studying relics of the past. These give you special currency to acquire new Materia and unlock more challenges in Charley’s combat simulator, which also gives more Materia, EXP, and even new summons. You will even gather ingredients to create items for yourself.
My only issue is minor clipping on terrain that can happen when running around. It can feel awkward when Cloud and his posse reach some ledge that they can jump to, and they may stop quickly before actually jumping up. This can also happen when riding a Chocobo, with some getting stuck on minor ledges or a rock. It doesn't feel fluid, but luckily, it doesn't happen often.
There’s so much more to check out, and I could go on and on about it, but I feel it’s best to try for yourself. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth feels so filled to the brim with content, yet none of it feels forced or obnoxious. It’s a good time with some surprising ways to break up the main gameplay loop. This makes Rebirth feel like a true, complete experience, which I feel most large-scale JRPGs can have trouble hitting.
While Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is playable on the Steam Deck, some major compromises must be aware of.
Before I go into the performance on the Steam Deck, I want to put this release in perspective. This is a massive open JRPG with very high fidelity. The minimum system requirements require 16GB of RAM and a more powerful GPU than what the Deck can handle (AMD Radeon RX 6600 / NVIDIA RTX 2060). This is not a game I expected to be playable at anything above 30 FPS, if at all. However, Square Enix did mention they were optimizing for the Steam Deck, so I had hope.
To my surprise, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is quite playable on the Steam Deck, but there are some caveats. It is playable at 30 FPS throughout the game, and I find that insane, given the scale of this entry. Running around in the open areas and combat all held strong and stable, which I found amazing. You can play and enjoy if you only have a Steam Deck. However, some big sacrifices are made to keep the game stable.
There is dynamic resolution enabled to help keep the game at 30 FPS, which means it does look a little pixelated when running around fast, especially in crowded areas and cities, and there is some blurriness in faces here and there. Most cutscenes still look amazing and aren't as affected, but it is noticeable. There is also some bad ghosting, but you can't tell as much unless you look closely at Cloud or when in front of some objects. Changing settings did not alleviate either of these issues, and there was no change in the settings I could configure if I used the "SteamDeck=0 %command%" launch option to trick it into thinking I was playing on a regular desktop.
There is also no upscaling that we can use on the Steam Deck. This means no FSR or XeSS options are available, which may have made the game look better.
You should also expect some framerate drops within these towns. The lowest I saw while running around was a drop to 24-25 FPS, but it could be worse depending on the town you are in. Paired with the blurriness, I dreaded having to spend time in towns.
On top of that, some serious model pop-ins appear, which means that parts of the world, like rocks and plants, will randomly appear out of nowhere. This happens mostly in the open-world sections, and while it does happen in towns, it isn't as pronounced. I also noticed some models that would overextend and make their way onto the ground I was walking on, blocking me so I couldn't see where I was going. Restarting my game did fix this, but it did return later.
All of this is on the default settings without any TDP limit, so we are playing at the lowest possible settings with an extremely high battery drain of 23W-24W (with some areas going down to 18W drain). Increasing the settings makes the models look more detailed, but the battery drain goes up, and there are way more drops with more crashes due to the increased RAM usage. On the Deck's smaller screen, the low settings don't look as simple, and I didn't notice the differences until looking at the screenshots side by side on my PC:
Admittedly, all of this sounds bad, but I also found it amazing that it could run at all and still be enjoyable. I had a blast playing through Rebirth on the Steam Deck, even with the many compromises needed. I wish the blurriness wasn't so prominent and being in towns was less of a chore, but it is still playable, and I could experience it all the way through. Would it be a significantly better time on a more powerful handheld or desktop PC? Absolutely. But if you have to, I would say you can enjoy Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on the Steam Deck, given those compromises.
If you have a more powerful PC, I could see the Deck being a great way to grind in the open areas and complete side content when you are away from the desktop. It could also be a great companion. Since the cloud saves don't also save your settings, you can have higher settings on your desktop and not worry about them transferring over to your Steam Deck:
You can change a multitude of settings in Rebirth, including changing the difficulty, combat style, cursor position, combo targeting, how you issue commands, the minimap's display, subtitles, cutscene speed, chat log, camera distance, speed, and whether it is inverted, sound volume, language text and audio, and rebind controls.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions but has cloud save and controller support. It recognizes the HDR screen on the Steam Deck OLED, but the settings are not included in the cloud saves.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is an exceptional game through and through. The story excels in telling an engaging, suspenseful tale that expands on the main team and secondary people you come into contact with. The visuals and effects remind me of multi-million dollar films that put all of their budget into the CGI, and it holds up in both cutscenes and general gameplay. Combat is simple but has depth depending on how you utilize your abilities and the equipment/Materia you have. Rebirth also has a wealth of fantastic side content that is just as engaging as the core gameplay loop. Even with minor inconveniences like terrain collisions and the odd low-resolution texture here and there, Rebirth is one of the best JRPGs I have ever played.
It’s astounding that a game with this kind of fidelity can run on the Steam Deck, but it requires many compromises. It sticks to 30 FPS more than I expected, but it needs low settings and has high battery drain. There’s also some business due to the dynamic resolution, model pop-ins, and ghosting when moving around. But if you can deal with all of that, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is playable on the Steam Deck, and that is an achievement in itself.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is an incredible JRPG worthy of being in your library, but you should think twice about playing it on the Steam Deck.
