Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review 2026: A Beautiful Road Trip Across a Dying Planet

My Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review begins with a confession: I walked in with sky-high expectations. Part of that was simply because Final Fantasy VII Remake had been so good; the other part was the suggestion that the fates of beloved characters like Zack and Aerith might change.

Released in 2024 by Square Enix and brought to PC in 2025, with Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S versions arriving in 2026, Rebirth is the second entry in the FFVII Remake trilogy, picking up right where Remake left off as Cloud and his companions leave Midgar behind for an expansive world made up of interconnected regions across the planet.

In some ways, the game vastly surpassed those expectations: its careful adaptation of key story elements, deepening party relationships, and incredibly beautiful revamped soundtrack stunned me. In others, I’ll admit, it let me down, and those are the cracks we’ll dig into as this Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review goes on.

TL;DR Version of My Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review

Before diving into the full Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review, here’s a quick summary of everything you need to know about the game, including platform availability and length.

A Journey Far Beyond Midgar

Rebirth is a direct sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake, and it wastes no time reminding you why you cared. The story begins after the escape from Midgar and follows Cloud’s party as they set out across the planet in pursuit of Sephiroth.

What struck me first in my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review is how quickly the scope explodes outward. The adventure carries you through iconic locations like Kalm, Junon, Cosmo Canyon, and the Forgotten Capital, each one lovingly rebuilt with a level of detail the original could only dream of.

If you never played the original 1997 title, one of the best RPGs ever made, don’t worry; the game includes a recap that summarizes the events of Remake for newcomers. From there, Rebirth leans far more into character development and relationships than into constant plot twists.

Long stretches are simply the party traveling, talking, and bonding, and those quieter moments are where the writing shines brightest. The cadence is closer to a road movie than a thriller, where you’re given time to sit with these people between the big set pieces. That patience pays off enormously by the finale.

I’ll quickly point out here in my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review that some new story elements and changes to the original narrative will divide longtime fans. The game plays with fate, memory, and, most frustratingly for me, expectation in ways that will reward some players and frustrate others.

The ending in particular is emotionally complex and intentionally mysterious, the kind of finale you’ll want to discuss for hours. It frustrated me in some ways, but left me with just enough hope to believe the next game will tie it all together perfectly. Aside from that, I’ll leave the spoilers where they belong: untouched.

Combat That Refuses To Sit Still

The combat in Rebirth has become one of my favorite RPG systems in years. It runs on real-time action combined with classic ATB mechanics, where your ATB gauge fills during battle and can be spent on abilities, spells, and items.

It feels fast and physical, but pausing to pick the right command still rewards you like in turn-based RPGs. You can switch between party members at any time, so battles become less about controlling a single hero and more about directing the entire team.

On top of that foundation sit the systems that give Rebirth its depth. Every character has a distinct combat style, making it worth rotating between them as the situation changes. Cloud is a balanced frontline fighter, Tifa specializes in maximizing stagger windows, Barret controls the battlefield from range, and the rest of the cast brings their own strengths.

Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities build on those distinct identities with powerful team-up moves between two characters, rewarding smart party combinations. The returning Materia system lets you customize spells, abilities, and elemental effects to shape each character however you like. Limit Breaks reward patience with devastating special attacks, while Summons crash into major battles as cinematic, larger-than-life allies.

Supporting all of it is the pressure-and-stagger loop: exploit an enemy’s weaknesses to pressure it, then stagger it for a window of massive damage. Enemy Intel and Chadley’s Combat Simulator encourage you to learn each enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. The adjustable difficulty also means you can lean into that strategy or dial it back and simply enjoy the spectacle.

It’s a combat system with remarkable depth that kept surprising me right up to the credits and earned the game high marks in my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review.

A Planet Worth Saving

Similar to open-world PS5 games, the world is enormous. Rebirth is built from multiple large regions across the planet, including the Grasslands, Junon, Corel, Cosmo Canyon, Gongaga, and Nibel. Each region opens with a linear story section before gradually blooming into a large semi-open area, giving you the freedom to explore.

A common complaint in other Final Fantasy VII Rebirth reviews is that exploration is stuffed with optional activities, perhaps to a fault: Remnawave Towers, Summon Shrines, combat challenges, caches, Chocobo ranches, and longer quest chains like the Protorelic Phenomenon.

Chocobos serve as your mounts, and different regions introduce their own traversal twists, like gliding, climbing, or leaping across environmental obstacles, so getting around never feels identical. The World Intel system ties it all together, rewarding curiosity with summon upgrades, Materia, Party EXP, and more.

My biggest complaint in this Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review is that the sheer volume of content can tip into repetition. Clearing every tower and shrine in every region is the fastest way to blunt the game’s magic. My advice is to treat the map as a buffet rather than a to-do list, and the world stays wondrous.

A Party That Steals Every Scene

If the combat is the head of Rebirth, the party is unquestionably its heart, which is a big factor in my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth rating at the end. Cloud anchors the story as the reluctant, guarded protagonist, but it’s the ensemble around him that I fell for.

Tifa’s warmth, Barret’s bluster, Aerith’s mischief, Red XIII’s dignity, and Yuffie’s chaos. Every member gets room to breathe, with the constant banter turning a long journey into something that feels like real friendship.

The dialogue and small story moments deepen those relationships over time. Characters grow, clash, forgive, and change. By the end, I felt like I understood these characters far better than the original ever allowed. It’s storytelling done with patience and confidence, which is sometimes missing in other great open-world RPGs.

Those personalities carry over into battle, where each hero simply feels different. Cloud and Tifa bring close-quarters physical power; Barret excels as a durable long-range fighter; and Aerith is a magical glass cannon and healer. As often mentioned in any old Final Fantasy VII review, Cait Sith is the wildcard addition, a genuinely strange little gimmick character who somehow becomes a favorite. Swapping between them never feels like swapping stat sheets; it feels more like handing the controller to a different friend.

There’s even a subtle relationship system humming beneath the surface. How you talk to and treat your companions quietly shapes your bonds, culminating in one of the game’s most memorable set-piece moments at the Gold Saucer. It’s a small touch that made me pay closer attention to my dialogue choices, and it’s exactly the kind of storytelling that keeps me coming back to this series.

Spectacle for the Senses

I can’t overstate enough in this Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review: the game is right up there with the top fantasy RPGs in how good it looks and sounds.

It’s easily one of the best-looking games on PS5, with sweeping landscapes, staggering scale, and character models detailed enough to sell every raised eyebrow. The cinematic cutscenes and animation quality give the big story beats the weight they deserve. Even simply cresting a hill to see a new region open up in front of you is its own reward.

The soundtrack might be even better and pushed my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth rating higher. Rebirth delivers sweeping rearrangements of classic FFVII tracks alongside bold, experimental new compositions. Hearing Tifa’s Theme, Aerith’s Theme, JENOVA, and One-Winged Angel reimagined at this scale is the kind of thing that gives longtime fans goosebumps.

It stands proudly among the best video game soundtracks out there. Paired with strong voice acting performances, the whole production quality is outstanding and really made a significant impact here in my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review.

On PC, the port adds DLSS support, enhanced lighting and textures, and expanded graphics options, with support for up to 4K resolution and 120 FPS on capable hardware. It’s a real step up from the console experience if your rig can handle it.

Flood of Minigames

No Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review would be complete without mentioning the minigames, which are always present in some of the best Final Fantasy games. And there are a lot of them. The Queen’s Blood card game was fun to play, while the piano minigame challenged me in different ways and made me appreciate the soundtrack even more.

Beyond those two, the world is packed with optional challenges and unique activities tucked into every region for players who like to squeeze a map dry, including Fort Condor and the Gold Saucer’s many attractions.

All of them add real variety and keep the long adventure from ever settling into a rut. But as similarly noted in other Final Fantasy VII Rebirth reviews, not every minigame lands. A few are more chore than charm, but the sheer generosity of it is hard not to admire.

Still, I’d be doing this Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review a disservice if I didn’t admit that despite the generous amount of content, the sheer volume of minigames wore on me throughout my playthrough.

Take the Gold Saucer, for example. It’s one of the most iconic locations in both the original and Rebirth. Looking back at any Final Fantasy VII review from years ago, this giant amusement park was always stuffed with distractions like the Moogle minigame, basketball, Chocobo racing, and motorcycle racing.

Many of them return in Rebirth, yet much of the charm is gone. You’re already hopping from one minigame to the next throughout the main adventure, so arriving at an entire park built around them feels less like a treat and more like more of the same.

I used to lose hours in the Gold Saucer, resting from the battles and simply having fun. Now, every so often, I catch myself picking a few fights just to rest from the minigames.

My Overall Verdict: Is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Worth It?

Yes, it’s worth it. By the time the credits rolled, my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review had settled into a simple conclusion: this is one of the most ambitious and rewarding action RPGs of the modern era. It expands on Remake in almost every way, with a bigger world, deeper combat, and a cast I didn’t want to say goodbye to. Even if you feel like you’ve seen Final Fantasy VII before, Rebirth makes the journey feel new.

I played both the PS5 and PC versions. On the latter, DLSS, enhanced lighting and textures, and expanded graphics options let an already gorgeous game shine, though you’ll need capable hardware. The PC port runs well overall, with only occasional pop-in and the usual heavy demands of a game this size.

The content padding is the one recurring stumble, but it never comes close to undoing everything the game gets right and doesn’t significantly drag down my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review verdict.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is great for:

• Final Fantasy fans who want a bold, expanded take on the classic story.
• JRPG lovers looking for a huge adventure with a memorable cast.
• Action-RPG players who enjoy deep combat systems that reward mastery.
• Newcomers to FFVII who want to jump in, thanks to the built-in recap.

But less ideal for:

• Players who dislike open-world busywork and repetitive map activities.
• Players who prefer short, linear campaigns over sprawling adventures.
• Players expecting a straightforward retelling of the original FFVII story.

Ultimately, the game is at its best when you embrace its scale, its detours, and its willingness to reinvent a story you may already know, all of which are highlighted here in my Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review.