P97

FFVII Remake is one of my favorites in the series right behind X that is the very best in my opinion. Remake though it was mostly corridors and very straight forward, it was tightly paced and very entertaining throughout it's 30h runtime while Rebirth is triple the size and a lot more open, it's ultimately a case of bigger isn't always necessarily better.

I myself had a lot of fun with this game as the characters are so well written and excellent specially Yuffie which was a huge standout for me, she brings much needed energy to the group and is incredibly funny. The voice actors do a great job at once again bringing these iconic characters to life.

Though i enjoyed the game i can't disagree with people saying the game is overwhelming because there are so many open areas throughout the game and each one have you doing mostly the same activity and Chadley calling you over and over, i was like boy if you don't get out of my screen... it's almost as bad as a Ubisoft open world game and that very much hurts the pacing of the game where the Remake had no such issues, also the game is like 150 gigs and the environmental textures a lot of time are worse than a ps3 game, it's really distracting. The same problem i have with Like a Dragon games but even worse here and the bright as hell UE4 lighting doesn't help it either. The game would benefit a lot more if there was a day and night cycle to hide it's graphical flaws, now compare to FFXVI from last year, a gorgeous game with far better graphics that has very little open world fatigue even though it had worse side activity than this game. It's just a shame that they couldn't nail the open areas even though they did so much good.

Another annoyance is the affinity system which effects who you romance later in the game and unlike games like Persona where you can actually choose who to spend time with, here it can happen at random with who ever that has the highest point, like come on bro if you wanna do a romance system, at least do it right or just don't do it at all.

As it stands, Rebirth has alot to like, game is huge, the cast is great, Tifa herself is another plus and the music is fantastic as always. It will become a big contender for game of the year but unfortunately it's not a flawless experience. My advice is that focus on the story and do side quests here and there, maybe do some of the mini games (queen's blood is pretty addictive) but ignore the open world activity as much as possible so you don't have to suffer through Chadley calling and boring you to death. He's the real villain of the story not Sephiroth.

8.6/10. While the bloated section of the game can become tiresome, the devs cooked a lot in less than 4 years which is really impressive and time will tell if they can stick the landing with the 3rd and final game.

For me i wasn't even hyped for this game, i knew it was in early access for years but i wasn't a fan of d&d or crpg's in general so it didn't grab my attention up until they showed the bear scene lol and i saw how cinematic the game looks it reminded me a lot of bioware and dragon age origins which i adore then i remembered that game was the spiritual successor to baldur's gate so i was like what the hell let's see if it's as good, fast-forward to today and my god this game is incredible, it has consumed my life for 55 hours (character creator itself took me 3h) and i've only scratched the surface, it's baby numbers because the game is huge and very detailed, npc's are so well written with each having their own personality and thoughts, a lot of decisions that can have so much impact without you even realizing and on top of all your companions, some of the most layered and interesting that i've seen (a crime that you can only choose 3 out of camp) that makes the game such an immersive and addicting experience that somehow became my game for the year and i didn't think anything could top RE4R and TOTK for me but this game and larian studios deserve all the praise that they can get.

10/10 masterful, enchanting and peak rpg experience.

Easily one of the best games of the year for me as i adored the first one, thought the story was beautifully told and the relationship between the brother and sister was very heartfelt.

This game's story while it's similar to the first one, it's a lot more vicious, brutal at the same time heartwarming but sad, the title from the first game "innocence" pretty much dies if there was any left. The voice actress for amicia kills it in her role pun intended, this is how you make a strong female protagonist, she goes above and beyond for her little brother and you can clearly see how emotionally draining it is on her but she always kept going which was really captivating.

The one minor issue i have with game is that it needs some patching for the frame rate as it can get pretty intense whenever rats are around and on the consoles the game could definitely benefit a 60fps performance mode.

As a whole to me this is how games should be, a strong narrative, great music, beautiful voice acting, intense stealth gameplay and memorable characters.

10/10 an emotional rollercoaster and one of the best games of 2022.