Final Fantsay VII Rebirth Review Spoilers

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth gripes and talk that would be considered spoilers.
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- The ending is needlessly confusing but it's manageable to grasp. The clue that there are more than one timeline running at once being attached to some really brief glimpses of Stamp's artwork is really bad in hindsight. I didn't even realize that the dogs were different until someone else pointed it out, and while I think that reveal could have been neat, it just didn't work the way it was incorporated here. They just didn't spend enough time highlighting the differences and it just seemed like there were only two timelines, especially since Zack's cutscenes are very few and far between. I had to look at a visual guide to understand what exactly happened and it was like trying to watch Westworld again. I am still like 50% on the fence that this trilogy is gonna fumble the ending so hard. Of course we can't just have a 1:1 remake of the original game's plot, it has to get weird.

- Aerith's death is kind of done at a disservice here and it's a bit of a shame. It honestly would have been a lot better had Sephiroth just murdered her like he would have normally, but no, it's plagued with weird fake outs and un-fake outs to make it seem like the game is playing 5-D Chess to confuse you. We all knew she was going to die so of course they had to try to pull the rug out from under you, just to come to the same result in the end anyways. The problem with the ending too is that Cloud seems to be able to see some sort of Aerith ghost while no one else can, which probably means that the next game will have Aerith ghost constantly. Please do not make Aerith the Hannah Baker of Final Fantasy VII Regurgitate, or whatever you're going to name it.

- The final boss gauntlet wasn't that difficult until the very end. It was way better than the Express Highway gauntlet in Remake, but it still had some problems. Had I not trusted my gut and given every character Materia, I would have been in such a world of hurt with how the game shuffles the party up for each phase. I'm a pog gamer though and that did not happen so it went relatively smooth. What I do have a problem with is how awful Sephiroth's final phase is. I love that it was Aerith and Cloud in a last stand together, but Aerith blows in combat. It's a completely manageable fight up until his final omega move where he just blasts Whispers at you like an endless freight train. Aerith literally cannot dodge them and therefore it took way longer to defeat this one phase more than anything else. It was like the game's last insult before finally finishing it.

- Them keeping Wedge alive just to kill him in the most unceremonious way possible was stupid at first, but makes sense after realizing the timeline is just correcting itself in some delayed Chaos Theory plot. Still, it's annoying that Wedge's fate is hidden behind Gears and Gambits. F off.

- For whatever reason I thought the Protorelic quests would lead into Knights of the Round Table and I ended up hurting my own feelings because of it. Knights of the Round Table is the summon I'm most excited to see in remake form, and I don't know why I thought they'd be in this game when they're a pretty late addition to OG, but anyways... Gilgamesh isn't in OG and I didn't notice his extra arms at first so I hyped myself up after the first Relic, just to be sorely disappointed. I guess I'll finally see them next time. Speaking of protorelics, I never even finished it. My well-being finally shattered right before Chapter 13 when I was wrapping up the stuff I had left. Of course it's not enough to just do the annoying protorelic missions, you have to also do this gauntlet of boss fights that you've already done just to get a summon for the last chapter of the game. WHY? At this point I was 85 hours into the game and just so done with it's crap, I finally threw my hands up and went straight to the last chapter. I never did the chocobo racing either. You could have threatened my life and I would have still refused to do the 20+ races they just throw at you right at the end of the game. Sorry Billy, but I do not care that much about your parents.

- The last match of Queen's Blood only being difficult because the boss literally cheats is like the most Square-Enix thing ever, and again, the reward is something you'll likely never use so it's meaningless. I don't want to hear about NG+, I'm never replaying this game ever again.

- I already mentioned shipping culture for this game and not caring, but I do think that Tifa and Cloud make the most sense and that's who I went on the date with. It seems to be the most canon relationship too because it's the only one that leads to smoochin'. It's just weird that even though this happened, Aerith still proclaims her feelings for Cloud near the end and he's just like "oh yeah, okay. I'm into this." Why lol? I'm interested in seeing how this carries over into the next game too. Like are the people who spent the most time with Aerith just going to be shafted or will none of this matter anyways? It's not like the date is ever brought up again after it happens.

- It's really weird that as Cloud becomes more of an unhinged lunatic, everyone else seems to care even less. He literally almost kills Tifa and it's never brought up again. He's losing his mind during the entire final chapter and the other character's recognize it, but they don't ever mention it or try to stop him in anyway. They don't even try to talk to him about it and it's wild. Barrett for some reason forgets how important the Black Materia is and carelessly tosses it to the side to jab at Cloud, which allows Sephiroth to take it. It's so fucking stupid.