Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the best combat system Square Enix has shipped in any Final Fantasy entry, packaged inside an open-world map that nobody asked for and built on a story structure that demands you have already played the 2020 Remake. The result is one of the most uneven prestige RPGs of the PS5 generation, and also one of the most rewarding.
The game launched February 29, 2024 as a PS5 exclusive. A PC release followed in early 2025. Square Enix has confirmed the third entry in the trilogy is in production but has not given a launch window.
The combat is the headline
The action-RPG combat system from Remake returns refined in three meaningful ways. First, character synergy attacks let two characters trigger combination moves that scale with built-up bonds. Second, the parry mechanic is more forgiving and more rewarding, with several boss encounters explicitly designed around parry-based dance phases. Third, the seven playable characters all have meaningfully different combat feel — Yuffie’s mobility, Cait Sith’s chaos summons, Cloud’s tank-DPS hybrid, Aerith’s ranged casting, all distinct in a way that the original Remake roster wasn’t.
Boss design is genuinely excellent. The mid-game Galian Beast fight, the Junon parade sequence, and the final-act Sephiroth encounter all rank among the best Square Enix has shipped. The Punisher Mode counter-style on Cloud has matured into a complete combat language.
For players who liked Remake’s combat, Rebirth’s combat is straightforward “more and better.” For players who didn’t, the underlying system hasn’t fundamentally changed.
The open world is the problem
Rebirth’s open-world map structure is its most-criticized element, and the criticism is mostly fair. The seven open regions (Grasslands, Junon, Corel, Gongaga, Cosmo, Nibel, Meridian) each have a checklist of activities — chocobo herding, Moogle medal collection, Lifesprings, world intel towers, fiend intel hunts, summon shrines, treasure caches. The structure is competent but exhaustingly repetitive across the 70-100 hours required to complete it.
The activities themselves are individually fine. Several of the chocobo movement variants are genuinely fun. The Lifesprings story beats are surprisingly affecting. But there are too many of them, and the game’s pacing collapses every time the main quest pauses for another open-world region.
A streamlined Rebirth that cut 30% of the open-world content would be a stronger game. The version that shipped is the version Square Enix wanted, with all the content included for the players who want all the content. The cost is that everyone else has to skip aggressively to maintain narrative momentum.
The mini-game catalog
Rebirth contains roughly 30 distinct mini-games, including the deck-building Queen’s Blood card game (which has its own multi-region tournament arc), the Costa del Sol piano performance system, multiple chocobo racing tracks, several arena combat sequences, the Loveless theater performance, the Gold Saucer attractions, and various one-off vehicle and arcade-style sections.
Queen’s Blood is the standout — a complete, satisfying card game that could ship as its own product. The piano performance system is mechanically interesting but optional. The Loveless sequence is an extended cutscene-meets-rhythm hybrid that some players love and others actively skip.
The mini-game density is one of Rebirth’s most divisive design choices. JRPG players who came up on Final Fantasy VII through XIII recognize this as a Square Enix tradition. Action-RPG players who came in through the Remake may find it bewildering.
The story
Rebirth covers the original FFVII’s events from the Kalm flashback through to the Forgotten Capital — roughly the middle third of the original game. The expansion of these events to fill 70-100 hours required substantial new material, much of which is good (the deepening of Cosmo Canyon, the Cait Sith reveal sequence, Yuffie’s expanded role) and some of which is filler.
The Whispers / Sephiroth multiverse threads from Remake continue and intensify. The ending sequence reframes the original game’s most famous narrative beat in ways that have produced lengthy fan debate. Whether you see this as bold reinterpretation or as Square Enix hedging on the original’s commitments will depend largely on your relationship to FFVII (1997).
For new players coming in cold, the Rebirth narrative is comprehensible but loses significant emotional weight without the original or Remake context. This is not a stand-alone game.
Performance
The PS5 base version targets either 60 fps Performance Mode (1440p output, with visible texture streaming) or 30 fps Quality Mode (4K output, more stable assets). Both modes have visible weaknesses — Performance Mode’s texture pop-in is noticeable in open regions, Quality Mode’s frame-pacing is uneven during heavy combat. The PS5 Pro release in late 2024 added a third “Pro” mode that ran 60 fps at near-Quality-mode resolution, which is the version most players will prefer.
The PC release in early 2025 corrected most of the PS5’s performance compromises but introduced a separate set of stutter and hardware-detection bugs that took several patches to address.
Score
Rebirth is the most ambitious Final Fantasy release of the PS5 generation, and it succeeds at most of what it sets out to do. The combat is best-in-series. The character work is strong. The story choices are bold. The Queen’s Blood card game alone justifies the install for some players.
The map structure and the mini-game density mean this is not a game everyone will love uniformly. It is a game that rewards a specific kind of investment and frustrates other kinds. Going in knowing what you’re signing up for matters.
9 / 10 for players who want the maximalist Final Fantasy experience and have the time. 7 / 10 for players who wanted a tighter Remake follow-up. The score depends entirely on what you wanted from Square Enix this generation.
Reviewed on PS5 Pro at launch. Reviewer purchased the standard retail copy.