Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Why it deserves the Game of the Year (& Why it Doesn't)

The Game Awards are approaching. The biggest gaming awards ceremony of the year will take place on December 12th and will feature the best titles released in 2024, soundtracks, acting, and other industry's highlights this year.

The most anticipated and coveted award of the event is the Game of the Year, or the best game released in 2024. This year's candidates include Sony's standout Astro Bot, the action title Black Myth Wukong, the indie card game Balatro, Elden Ring's expansion Shadow of the Erdtree, Atlus' new RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio, and the second episode of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

FFVII Rebirth is one of the favorites to win the award according to RPG and JRPG fans, but the path is proving to be a challenge: the Golden Joystick Awards named Black Myth Wukong as Game of the Year, and the other titles in the running, except for the surprise Balatro, have higher review metrics from critics than the Square Enix title.

But after all, does it deserve to be Game of the Year? What qualities and issues does Rebirth have that could, in fact, make it the best title of 2024 or take away from it the honor of being the first game in the franchise, which has already been nominated before, to receive this award with its most ambitious project?

Check out this article for reasons why Final Fantasy VII Rebirth deserves to be Game of the Year 2024, and what reasons could ultimately make it lose the award!

Revitalizing a classic for new generations

If you played Final Fantasy VII, you know what this is about: seeing those square 3D blocks come to life in Final Fantasy VII Remake was one of the most exciting experiences for any fan of the original game, and Rebirth extends that feeling beyond the characters: the maps, cities and dungeons have been recreated on a gigantic scale.

Where once there were only large open spaces where Cloud walked to get from Point A to Point B, there are now rivers, mountains, hidden caves and other things to explore with or without a Chocobo.

Characters that were once just generic NPCs are now people with their own identity and charisma, and the cities, which used to be used for conveniences like buying items and equipment, are now full of people talking and doing activities that range from giving the group a side quest to seeing a band playing or a group of people dancing in a row in a garden.

FFVII Rebirth delivered an extremely vivid world for the player to explore, and despite the stumbles in its open-world design (we'll talk about them below), it doesn't fall into many of the typical traps of RPGs and games of this genre, establishing an almost ideal recreation of Final Fantasy as we imagined it in the PlayStation One era for modern consoles.

One of the best level designs in recent times

The map design also stands out in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Many open-world games rely on visual aspects to create distinctions between one region and another: one has snow, another is full of forests, and - a classic - another is a huge desert. While we see these traits in different maps of the game's world, this one goes a little further in creating distinctions.

Each region in Rebirth has its own Chocobo and its own rules of exploration. These are most evident in Gongaga, where giant mushrooms and flowers transport Cloud from one region to another. While some hate the difficulty of navigation that the maps of Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon provide, it is undeniable that this type of diversity and level design is something missing in current-generation RPGs, even in the Final Fantasy franchise.

This creativity in design is also noticeable in the dungeons, where each one explores an inherent ability of a character to the point of making them all matter in some way. In some cases, they are also combined to overcome the challenges of that area. Yuffie, for example, can reach objects from long distances and Red XIII can climb walls to reach hard-to-reach places, giving each one their moment to shine.

The Combat

The system adopted by Final Fantasy VII Remake is the most universally praised point of the project. Its mix of real-time combat with efficient use of ATB for spells, abilities and items ensures a balance between real-time combat and the strategic need to calculate your resources, especially against bosses.

Rebirth, as in other aspects, improves the Remake's combat with an increase in quality of life, aerial attacks and, of course, an increase in diversity in party members and new spells and abilities for each of them. Of course, this creates some imbalances because some characters will be better than others in certain categories, but the game manages to keep all of them relevant in the main story and makes the player learn to play with all of them and understand their mechanics to progress, even in the final battle.

Named by many fans of the franchise as “the ideal system for modern Final Fantasy”, the combat in the Remake project balances all aspects well between being an RPG and having real-time action elements, without being too easy or stuck in mechanics that make it repetitive and/or easy to spam, mistakes that the franchise made in some of its other recent games.

Character progression and party customization are also another highlight of Rebirth's improvements in comparison to its predecessor. Synergy attacks have breathed new life into a popular element from another Square Enix classic - Chrono Trigger - and make the characters' relationships feel more organic on the battlefield as well.

Exciting narrative with almost impeccable depth

In modern times, where games flirt and/or fully integrate with the cinematic perspective, delivering a good story is just as important as delivering a product that's fun to interact with. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has some stumbles when it comes to its pacing, but its performance in delivering an exciting plot is undeniable.

The key to its success was, in part, the fact that it focused almost entirely on the interpersonal relationships between the characters to turn an already well-known story into an engaging one for a solid fan base. The interactions between Cloud and the others are perhaps the biggest highlight of Rebirth's plot, which even makes its side quests important to deepen the connection between them and, mainly, that of the player with the characters.

Every fan has their favorite member of the Final Fantasy VII team, whether they started with the Remake in 2020 or have known the plot since 1997. Rebirth helps maintain and/or reinforce this bond with its quests, in addition to the almost impeccable performance of several of its voice actors to give life and personality to the heroes: Barret, voiced by John Eric Bentley, was widely praised for the way he illustrated the character's development in Rebirth/Remake, while Briana White and Cody Christian, voice actors for Aerith and Cloud, won awards at the Golden JoyStick Awards for their work on the title.

FFVII Rebirth also stands out for another narrative element that popularized games like The Last of Us and God of War: Ragnarok, its potential to immerse the player in that universe through the characters' actions, points of view and controller commands.

Game-Interlocutor Integration

Not only does Rebirth bring the grandeur of the original work's most memorable moments to the graphics and standards of modern consoles, but it also expands its universe and deepens its characters, and does so in a way that integrates the player's immersion into the experience.

There are some notable moments in this regard: when Cloud has to run to his house in a burning Nibelheim and then drag himself across the ground to Sephiroth, it is the first time that Rebirth puts the player in a role of feeling, through gameplay, emotions like Cloud's anguish at that moment. But there is one sequence that stands out so much in this regard that, in itself, it deserves a dozen awards: Chapter 13, “Where Angels Fear to Tread”.

If we follow a linear structure, Chapter 13 is one of the longest in Rebirth (others can last over 12 hours if a player is compelled to do all the side content) and follows the party on their way to the Temple of the Ancients to recover the Black Materia. However, the Shinra are one step ahead of them and there are several obstacles and puzzles along the way - as well as a few bosses - until Cloud and the others finally reach their goal.

During the journey, we see Cloud give other signs of Sephiroth's control over his psyche, and Aerith's connection to the Cetra becomes more evident at this point. The level design of what is technically the last dungeon in the game is incredible and the diversity of characters we can control is greater at this point than in any other main quest, making this the culmination of all the gameplay elements and the narrative we follow throughout the plot.

In the final stages of the chapter, Rebirth gives us one of the greatest integrations of immersive experience that the franchise has ever had. Each character - except Cloud - must go through an ordeal in which they face the moments that marked their lives and culminated in the journey to that point.

The interlocutor accompanies this moment, in a sequence that lasts around 30 minutes, one by one. The first is Nanaki, where we must help him escape from the Shinra troops trying to capture him - in vain: seconds later, we see him in Hojo's laboratory in Midgar, being chained by soldiers and forcibly dragged to the scientist, and the player must execute commands for Nanaki to hold on. Again, the efforts are in vain, and we see Hojo begin his experiments on the young creature.

With Barret, the player is transported to Corel, which is the first time we see an interaction between him and Myrna. Initially, he is fooled by the illusion of being back in his city and the people he loves, but when he opens the door to his house, he returns to the moment when Shinra destroyed his city - the same day Myrna died, and he lost his arm.

Once again, the game uses the character's weakness as a narrative element when moving him: Barret walks slowly through the ruins of the city, full of bodies, until he finds Myrna, dead once again in his memories. A striking detail in this scene is how Myrna's body is, at all times, with her hand on her belly, which could indicate that she was pregnant - Barret may not only have lost his beloved that day, but also a child.

And then… we have Aerith.

Aerith returns to the moment of Ifalna's death, and we take control of the character in her childhood. We search for help in the streets of Midgar, only for no one to hear the pleas of a child trying to save her mother. Again, and again, once more until she gives up and returns, in tears, to Ifalna and witnesses her death.

Aerith, however, does not try to intervene in any way. On the contrary, she encourages her childhood version to move on and, consequently, fulfill her destiny. But even her acceptance of the past crumbles when little Aerith leaves with Elmyra and the ShinRa scientists find and take her mother's body - a heartbreaking ending to the most heartbreaking sequence in the entire game.

The entire sequence can be seen below.

This is one of the saddest moments in the Final Fantasy franchise, and it's not far from other moments that have made history in the industry. The amount of emotions it makes the player feel while immersing them, through gameplay, in each of the dilemmas makes this a memorable episode in FFVII Rebirth - and as painful as they are, the spectacle alone deserves a Game of the Year award.

Dated open world design

FFVII Rebirth's world is incredible, visually pleasing, with fascinating map and level design... but it leaves a lot to be desired in presenting an exciting open world by centralizing its exploration in a system that is over a decade old.

The formula used is the same one that became known in Ubisoft games. The most famous example is the Eagle Vision from the Assassin’s Creed franchise: the character moves to a high point where they have a panoramic view of the region, opening an enlarged view of the map with markers that indicate points of interest, such as treasures to collect and side quests.

On the one hand, this formula “guides” the player through the side quests, which helps not to get lost and/or end up losing items and other secrets because they didn’t find the indicated place. On the other hand, this removes any sense of discovery for the player: instead of exploring the world, they will look at the map searching for the next tower that will show the next objectives, technically making them go from “Point A” to “Point B” instead of investing time in exploring the region and learning its secrets.

This issue is also reflected in some secondary activities: by focusing too much on Chadley as your guide in the open world, Rebirth does not provide that sense of discovery when finding a Summon shrine, for example. Instead, it makes you repeat the same activities in each map to obtain the same results, being exciting the first time, but tedious in the third.

Pacing Issues

The story, as pointed out above, is one of the most exciting plots in current games and maintained all the narrative impact of the original game's plot in 1997, but it also runs into an almost chronic problem of JRPGs as a whole: pacing.

Whether it's because there's a sequence of events that seem designed to prolong the game and/or that feel like a huge filler, Final Fantasy is a franchise whose part of the story is capable of alienating players and making them run to the next chapter. It happens with FFVI, with FFVIII, and even recently with FFXVI. Rebirth would be no exception - but it has a bit too many of these moments.

Most of the time when FFVII Rebirth stops the player's progress with something that completely breaks the plot's rhythm, it does so with minigames. Not unlike the original, this title is not afraid to seem silly at times: need to climb a huge pillar? How about doing it while being thrown by a dolphin?

But it's not just these minigames that the game goes on too long: even in famous moments from the original's story, it sometimes expands the story more than it should to the point of creating a bad narrative. The entire Corel Prison sequence suffers from this excess, including removing almost all the narrative importance of that moment for Barret by including an unwanted boss right after his fateful reunion with Dyne.

The result is a mix between moments of excitement at playing one of the best games of all time and others where the interlocutor just wants that sequence to end and move on to the next one. Add some frustrating activities to complete for some to the equation, and you create a watershed between FFVII Rebirth being a good game and it being the Game of the Year.

It wasn't the Best RPG of 2024

If you asked me what was the best game of 2024, my answer would be Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. But if you asked me what was the best RPG, it would be Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Rebirth is a much more complete and aesthetically pleasing game, with a more exciting combat system and a story capable of making you laugh, cry, and make you feel many other feelings in a way that Atlus' title can't, but Metaphor is, in many ways, a better RPG - and there's nothing wrong with that: it's not that FFVII is a bad game, it's that Atlus is very good at producing RPGs.

For example, despite the wide variety of games available on the PlayStation 4, with titles such as The Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Cyberpunk 2077, Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Final Fantasy VII Remake, it is likely that the RPG community and especially the JRPG community would name Persona 5 / Persona 5 Royal as the best title of its kind on the platform. The product delivered by Atlus is very solid, exciting, with characters that left their mark and that players identify with, and with the right balance between challenge and enjoyment.

Metaphor follows a similar pattern, but with more rigid fantasy themes in a fictional world while taking a lot of inspiration from classic games of the genre: the archetype system is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy's Jobs, its rock-paper-scissors system is a classic of Atlus' works and its narrative, which discusses whether democracy is a utopian desire, sounds like a literary classic, making it a more solid RPG experience than Rebirth, even with all its qualities and being a better gaming experience.

The question is whether, with both competing for the title, the fact that Metaphor is a more solid product in its genre gives it more points as a potential game of the year than FFVII Rebirth, which embraces a wider demographic of players and with perhaps the most ambitious vision the franchise has ever had.

The answer depends on a dozen factors. There hasn't been another game in 2024 that's as ambitious as FFVII Rebirth, but that's also why it could lose that title to another game: out of all the contenders at this year's Game Awards, it's the only one that didn't positively surprise its audience - either it did as expected, or it disappointed in some way.

Another challenge for Rebirth is that three of the other contenders for the award are the best-reviewed games of the year: Astro Bot, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and the Elden Ring expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree (a controversial but applicable choice). At the beginning of 2024, it was considered the clear Game of the Year, but as other titles were released, it lost that hegemony, and it wasn't even because of some of the games that were expected to compete with it, but because the quality delivered by others was as good as it or even better.

However, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has all the qualities of a Game of the Year. No title that won the award pleased the entire audience, and even The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had its setbacks that were pointed out by fans of the series. So, despite the lower score in the metrics, we cannot ignore the complete and comprehensive experience that the game brings to the player and that, like its predecessor, made it one of the nominees for the most important video game award of the year.

Personally, it will be the game of the year for me. It doesn't matter if Metaphor: ReFantazio was a better RPG, if Astro Bot is a more fun and relaxing pastime, if Shadow of the Erdtree has as much of a cultural impact, and I don't even need to mention, as a card game enthusiast, how exciting it is to see Balatro as one of the candidates - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth had an emotional dedication that is hard to find in other games, and none of the other titles I played in 2024 came close to making me laugh, get emotional and enjoy the characters and story as I did with this title.

Thanks for reading!