Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s open world is freeing, intimidating and gorgeous

07 February 2024 , 00:01

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Midgardsormr is an imposing presence that I wasn't able to take down in my preview. (Image: Square Enix)

After almost three hours exploring Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s initial chapter and wide-open grasslands, the second part of this remake trilogy looks like an even bolder revolution of the PS1 original.

You’d think the hard work on Square Enix’s part was done. And it probably would be, if the game it was remaking was ordinary. However, Final Fantasy 7 is no ordinary game, still being held up by many as one of the first JRPGs ever to properly punch through and connect to a Western audience – hence its importance. 2020’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake proved that this new iteration isn’t the exact same story those who played 1997’s original game are familiar with. Now, with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth set to release this February 29, 2024, the race is on to see whether Square Enix has done equal justice to the trilogy’s second part, featuring worlds and characters that lay outside of Midgar.

This is the kind of mentality with which I went into my second hands-on preview. Previously having loved the small taste of a wider, more open landscape to explore during my first preview, this time I got to have full reign over the biggest area made playable to me yet in the Grasslands. As its name suggests this is a location full of farms, rivers, and other lush scenery to seek out, perfect for exploring on the back of a Chocobo. It’s still unclear just how many of these open zone areas Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will feature in total, but if the Grasslands are anything to go by, we’re in for a sizeable RPG adventure.

Areas of interest populate the open world to let Cloud and the crew complete combat challenges. (Square Enix)

In between side quests and areas of interest, orcs and wolves still populate large sections of the world despite the Grasslands being a far more peaceful place than Midgar. So sure, I spent much of my time bumping into these groups of foes, all of whom offered a good excuse to let me get back into the swing of Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s mix of real-time and turn-based combat. In Rebirth, however, new synergy abilities bring about a deeper level of strategy, especially since I had Red 13 in my party, a character whose nimble move set – which includes the likes of Sidewinder and Wildfire – is a perfect compliment to Cloud’s more boisterous buster sword swings.

The inclusion of optional feats to complete during these bouts, such as preventing enemies from using a certain move or completing a certain number of staggers, meant I always had other things to focus on while managing my party’s attacks. In the full game, this will hopefully ensure that constantly running into the local wildlife never gets stale. Less impressive was the rather rote style of optional missions I picked up in my brief time exploring, one of which was to bring a specific type of flower back to the Chocobo farm’s resident produce seller.

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Touch grass

The Grasslands are also what I would call ‘sticky’ in the sense that I was never afforded total freedom about where to go and how to get there. The flower quest from Chloe is the perfect example of this, where I rode my Chocobo across half the span of the map, only to find that the route was blocked, perhaps until I progressed further along the main story. Even still, I felt flickers of Final Fantasy 15’s restricted traversal, where a simple ravine couldn’t be jumped across as I would be able to in almost any other AAA open-world game like, say, Horizon Forbidden West. Most of the time I was always following paths; a shame considering how Final Fantasy 16 often let you off the leash.

Something else that also gave me pause was the inclusion of Remnant Towers which, disappointingly, are exactly what they sound like. Once activated they reveal more things to do across the map by way of cursors and objective markers, although I got the sense they’ll be less prevalent than they are in a Ubisoft game. At least there was no challenge from the one in the Grasslands I was able to find, so it was easy to press on and engage with the fun stuff.

Speaking of which, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth introduces a fun in-universe card game called Queen’s Blood, which I already got the sense it’d be easy to spend hours in. It’s a lane-based setup where you must play different powered cards, claiming each lane as your own so you can build up the most power possible. Each card has what’s called a ‘Pawn Rating’ and it’s this that when a lane is complete collectively adds up to determine who wins the game. The tutorial I was thrown into made Queen’s Blood seem more complex than it ended up being. It was a classic case of learning by doing.

The Grassland is populated by plenty of NPCs that are primed to ask you for a favour or two. (Square Enix)

My time exploring the Grasslands was capped off with a boss fight that I was vastly underpowered for. Knowing this wasn’t enough to dissuade me from trying to defeat the mighty, snake-like Midgardsormr though. It proceeded to promptly slap me and the rest of my party around when we encountered the giant basilisk, which was impressive in terms of scale, and felt like a true set piece moment. I’m sure if I had the time to grind out my character’s levels or input better Materia I’d have stood a better chance at surviving, but being dropped into the preview in this way still showed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth hasn’t lost a step when it comes to ginormous boss battles.

Finally, in addition to the Grasslands, a small slice of my preview focused on Sephiroth and Cloud’s origin story, during an early job in Nibelheim when the two fellow SOLDIERs were still friends. Anyone familiar with the original Final Fantasy 7 will have a good idea of how these events scaling up Mt. Nibel play out. Seeing as this serves as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s opening, I won’t spoil much else; just know that Sephiroth’s terror and power were instilled into me right from the very start – and that watching such legendary pre-rendered cutscenes brought up-to-date was a true thrill.

So then, while I have some slight concerns about the breadth of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s more open world, small niggles like Ubisoft-style towers and lack of full character mobility weren’t enough to detract me from what is otherwise shaping up to be a gorgeous landscape to be in. Admittedly, anything would feel refreshing after having spent some 20 hours in the same murky blues of Midgar, but the Grasslands and Nibelheim are jam-packed with rich detail, fun things to do, and cool characters to meet. The last piece of the puzzle is how Square Enix plans to further warp and adapt the existing Final Fantasy 7 narrative, which I’ve no doubt will be a fun journey to experience, regardless of the direction it takes.

Aaron Potter