Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - PS5
Completed September 8th
Many Remakes
There are just so many remakes being released in the videogame industry right now and I have to admit I am getting quite tiered of this trend. That is not to say I will never play new remakes in the future, but it seems like every game is getting a remake these days and some of those games are not even that old which makes me feel like some remakes are just redundant.
Many games that I have played in the past and enjoyed are having remakes released but I am just not that excited to play many of them - even if they seem enjoyable enough.
Games that I have enjoyed but I am not that interested in playing the remakes include:
Dead Space - I feel that the PS3 game does not seem that old to justify a remake.
Metal Gear Solid 3 - Not my favourite in the franchise, but I can just play the PS2 version if I feel like playing it.
Silent Hill 2 - While it looks like it plays well enough, the soul of what made the game so special looks like it has been ripped away from what I have seen. I have looked at some side by sides of key moments in the game between the original and remake and it just feels that the remake is lacking the intent that the original developers had.
Silent Hill 1 - Maybe this could be good as it is originally a PS1 game and updated graphics could help - but similar to Silent Hill 2 it could lose its personality and uniqueness. At the time of writing the remake has just been announced and I have not seen any footage. Currently, I just do not feel excited about this even though I am a big fan of the first Silent Hill. I played the reimaging of Silent Hill (Shattered Memories) back in the day when it was released on the Nintendo Wii.
Sometimes it is just best to leave the originals alone and let them speak for themselves and the time period they were created in. And with the Silent Hill games I would rather new entries happen - as I think the vision of the originals could be compromised with remakes.
In many instances I would rather the original games to have remasters than remakes - in that way the essence of the originals could still stay and the games would be preserved for new generations to enjoy.
Remasters can keep old games alive on new systems BUT there has been a problem of some remasters being censored because 5 people on Twitter are offended on some person's behalf that they have never met. I am sure ESG scores are also involved in decision for the censorship - they do not actually care about being politically correct, but they sure want to have a good ESG credit score.
Remasters are great to preserve an old game with updated visuals, but when developers censor or replace so called 'problematic' parts with their own 'modern' interpretations - this can ruin the experience. Games such as Dead Rising Remaster and Tony Hawk 3 and 4 remasters are examples of remasters that are disrespectful to the original creators and ultimately sanitise the experience - they end up feeling like soulless corporate replacements that take away from the personality of the originals.
Remasters like Tomb Raider 1 - 6 are examples of remasters done right - they leave the original structure of the game intact and update the visuals - although they did have a disclaimer at the start of the game (that you thankfully only see one) where they apologise for so called 'harmful' content of the time.
Although, I am not against remakes - I enjoyed Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 remakes (3 a little less so) and would be happy to see a remake of RE Code Veronica. BUT at the same time I thought the remakes of 2 and 3 were overall inferior to the originals - I wish they could have all been as good as the RE 1 remake that was released way back in 2005.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
With all that out of the way the most recent game I have played is the 2nd part of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Not too long ago I played the remaster of Final Fantasy VII prequel Crisis Core, which was originally only released on the handheld PSP. I had always planned to play FF VII Rebirth, but was going to wait a while for a price drop. After playing Crisis Core I was excited to play Rebirth sooner and I decided to buy the game (with a discount voucher - so I did buy it for cheaper).
I enjoyed Rebirth much more than Remake and I did enjoy Remake, but Rebirth feels a lot more open than what I would expect from a remake of a classic Final Fantasy game.
In brief the positives include:
- Chocobos with different abilities in each region
- Exploration was much more interesting in Rebirth compared to Remake
- Vehicles included - I really thought that this would not be faithful to the original
- Mini games included were mostly an interesting inclusion
- There is A LOT of side content to do (maybe too much at times!)