After witnessing the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth trailer 6 days ago, it’s only natural that the press and visitors of Tokyo Game Show 2023 will get a chance to see how much has changed and improved in the Japanese role-playing game remake of a beloved series entry.

Here is what’s new about the sequel, and why next February is going to be a long wait for fans of the series and JRPGs in general.

Bigger & Definitely Better

Scope-wise, you will be doing a lot in this sequel. The one hour we had with the Tokyo Game Show 2023 build is but a taste of what to expect from the second part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project (out of three).

We had two scenarios of the game to play: the fateful day at Mount Nibel featuring Sephiroth and Cloud tag-teaming against monsters along the mountain and the Materia Keeper boss at the end, and the trip to military city Junon where you meet Priscilla, Mr Dolphin, and an unwanted underwater intruder named Terror of the Deep (formerly known as Bottomswell). Mount Nibel is a linear dungeon, but it has a lot of climbable areas (ala Uncharted series) and a puzzle or two involving untangling generator cables to make an elevator work.

The path to Junon is a lot more open-ended, with more sprawling fields to explore, fight bad guys on, and ride on with chocobos. In fact, you can repair the chocobo signs on the world map to gain both a fast travel point and Golden Plume Choco currency, which you can exchange for powerful weapons, armour, and items. You could just beeline straight to the giant fish fight at Junon, but you can hunt for marks on the giant pathway to pass the time.

Sephiroth Is A Blast To Play As

Speaking of new characters, you get to play as the big bad of the series in the Mt. Nibel section. He has good reach with his regular Slash attack and can reflect attacks with his Retaliation special command. For no cost, he goes in a counterattack pose that can be cancelled to other attacks to deal the hurt. Needless to say, we were always switching control over to Sephiroth when combat always starts, and he really lives up to his SOLDIER reputation.

Synergizing For Fun & Profit

The Materia Keeper boss fight was epic, to say the least, and helped with the fact that Sephiroth’s moves and long-reaching attacks (and spells) are just too good not to use. This is because of the new Chain Attacks/Synergy Attacks where you can get your party members to attack in sync against a target. In the Mt. Nibel section,  I made Cloud automatically sync his attacks with Sephiroth’s, dealing a lot of damage to enemies while also changing focus on current targets.

You can also unleash even more powerful two-person combos through this method; you’ll do a tag-team sword move when you see Materia Keeper charging up its Triangle attack which will hit really hard if you let it charge.

Chain Attacks aren’t just for this segment: in Junon, you can have Red XIII tag team enemies using Cloud, or have Aerith shoot down projectiles to down flying enemies for you to mop the floor with. In fact, this technique is crucial when fighting the Terror of the Deep, which required a good combination of Cloud’s attacks, Aerith’s projectiles and healing, and Red XIII’s skills.  These don’t use resources and are the best solution for party management on-the-fly that was a hassle in the first game.

Plus, you get to see character personalities gel with one another, to the point where it might be homoerotic. Such as the case with Sephiroth and Cloud, who thinks he’s like a puppy while he’s trying to keep up with the tag-teaming.

Chocobo Riding & Customization Is Going To Be A Thing

The Junon section had our party riding chocobos along the pathway. Yes, seeing Red XIII the dog/cat riding on one is funny and all, but the detail of the birds and how you can customize them in the final game is definitely a highlight. You can gear them up to have them be better at either running, climbing, or swimming. We didn’t see the chocobo breeding simulator , but we did see the Chocobo Farm which offered customization for these birds. Will we need to complete this sidequest to its upper limits and eventually find hard-to-reach power weapons and Summons?

In any case, these birds are a helluva lot better to control than in parts XV and XVI.

The Game’s Plot…

Rebirth will push the story up until the City of the Ancients section, and may most likely end on a cliffhanger since the series’ target market knows this. Yes, we may actually see a plot character buy the farm, but given the addition of the game’s timeline-changing Whispers, we might be thrown a curveball. This isn’t a spoiler article, so we’ll just save our premonitions and theories in a future article.

In any case, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s story is a “something old, something new” situation, which will give huge incentives for its 1997 JRPG fans to come back to Gaia.

Vincent Valentine and Cid Highwind will be guest characters

Much like Red XIII in Final Fantasy VII Remake, the vampire and cigar-chomping foul-mouthed engineer will appear in Rebirth but will not be playable according to creative director Tetsuya Nomura. However, they will have their own skills and attacks to help the party as AI-controlled assist characters, which is A-OK in our books. Vincent Valentine will be the best thing to happen in a real-time action RPG game, since his kit and moves all beg to be seen in character action fashion. And the less said about that time he was in Dirge of Cerberus, the better!

With all of these amazing improvements and updates in tow, not to mention the 60fps performance mode and little-to-no-loading and seamless transitions when walking around and traversing, the 5 months counting down to this second instalment is going to be a tortuous one. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be out on 29th February 2024 for PlayStation 5.