Final Fantasy VII Rebirth PC Review – The Definitive Version of a Masterpiece

It’s strange. It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PS5. Now, here I am, playing through it for the second year in a row, but on a new platform. While I appreciate the options to customize the gameplay performance, what stood out to me more was the significant number of quality-of-life updates that have been added since its initial launch. I’m one to hope a game releases at a playable and memorable state at launch, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth did that for me, but then it went in and got better. The PC version matches that evolution by including every console update and a nice set of gameplay options to suit a variety of builds. Regardless if you’re pushing the game’s graphics to the highest settings, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth remains a masterpiece across all platforms.

The Opening Hours

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth opens in Kalm as Cloud tells the story of when he and Sephiroth visited Nibelheim on a mission years before the opening events of the base game. This opening works well to ground the player in a tutorial-like setting to re-learn the ropes of combat and be re-introduced to environment navigation. While the forest scenery and open air are a nice change of venue, a lot from this opening would be gameplay elements that players would recognize from Remake. It’s not until after Shinra breaks up the party that this development team starts to reveal their hands of what’s in store for players.

A New Approach to Exploration and Gameplay

Once you step foot out into the field, everything changes. The way you explore, progress, fight, craft, and navigate this game is turned upside down. You may have heard people say Rebirth retaught gamers how to have fun in a JRPG, which stuck with me while I played. It makes sense, though. In a time when we assume gamers want the experience to be bite-sized and easy to digest, Rebirth uses the act of discovery to keep players on their toes to its advantage. If ever you’re supposed to go right, but you go left, you can more often than not expect a reward of some kind. This never lets up, even in the late hours when you’ve assumed you’ve seen everything and the act of exploring another semi-open world seems daunting; the next thing you know, you’re in the sea on Chocobo looking for treasure or taking a moment to play some mini-games in Costa del Sol.

Balancing Story and Gameplay Systems

It’s a playground of imagination and wonder under the looming shadow of what’s to come and what these characters are fighting for. There’s an argument to be made about what developers should focus on: telling a strong story or gameplay systems. Rebirth uses being a remake to its advantage in this instance as it relies on the gamer’s general knowledge of the events while expanding on plot threads that were never fully unpacked, such as spending more time on scenes depicting Barret and Dyne’s relationship. At the same time, the developers throw in Cissnei, a character from Crisis Core, to shake things up a bit. It’s this balance that solidifies the experience as a whole and makes each moment a thrill ride until the credits.

Mini-Games and Side Activities

So whether you’re spending time doing Chadley’s requests, playing Queen’s Blood, or progressing the main story, there’s always something to do and ways to get more out of the game. I wouldn’t even call this a shotgun approach to game design, where you just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. These mini-games are more involved than expected; even the Piano and Queen’s Blood mini-game gets its own scenario. It’s as if you’re on a road trip, and everything feels like a natural evolution of where you previously visited. You’re constantly reusing and evolving your skillset, and the game continually throws new systems in to test you. So, no matter where you spend your time in, you’ll eventually be rewarded.

Combat and Difficulty Options

I never had a problem being under-leveled, even during my casual playthrough of this PC release. Still, there are options to make the game easier or more challenging. I wouldn’t say Rebirth gets more or less challenging, but I will say understanding the Materia systems, dodging, blocking, and taking advantage of enemy weaknesses is needed to get through nearly every fight. Smashing attack works in the beginning, but soon, you’ll need to understand how to use magic, automize party member action, and use Skills to get through combat. Later in the game, it can be kind of mean when enemies paralyze you, but by then, you should be able to deal with that stuff.

Performance on PC

Again, this is all likely stuff you know about the game by this point, and if you need to know more about the base experience, our review of the console version goes into more detail. This is about the PC release, and to that, I say this is a must-play game, and anyone on any platform should play it. The PC version ran smoothly on my PC, using an i7-9700KF and RTX 4070 Ti. I could run the entire game on the highest settings without issue, which leads me to believe this is a well-optimized port. Now, there were some oddities, such as the fight with Roche dropping some frames, but this could be due to the 120fps setting and how that looks against large moving set pieces. I’m not the most technical by any means, but this is the best FFVII Rebirth has ever looked. I feel like a fool for falling for the PS5 Pro hype when this version completely blows that out of the water.

Visual Enhancements

For me, graphics are such a small part of a game’s enjoyment. However, in the initial release, you do have to look past some graphical errors from time to time, such as this weird load effect on some doors or low textures on Cloud’s face during battle animations. Well, this version fixes all that. I think I saw some textures loading during a few scenes, but this game is gorgeous. And that’s true no matter which platform you play on, even though the PC release is home to the definitive version. I did find it a little interesting to play using the Xbox controller layout, but I had to change it for the rhythm mini-game. Quality of life features like the fast-forward option and improved combat tweaks made my return to Rebirth a joy, and I can’t wait for a new group of gamers to experience this brilliant game.

Final Thoughts

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has always been great, but effort was put into this PC release to make it as optimized as possible to allow all PC gamers a chance to play. There are ways to push the graphics of the experience, but focusing on optimization and performance will enable more gamers the option to play this once PS5 exclusive. This is an adventure that encourages player imagination through spectacle and awe. The combat system is flashy and skill-based, and the narrative has depth, everything else is just icing on the cake for this must-play JRPG