Remake is objectively more bloated and more poorly paced than Rebirth. You're talking about 20 hours of OG FF7 ballooned into 60 on Rebirth (with maybe 30 minutes of mandatory mini-games) vs. 4 hours ballooned into 30 on Remake.

It's still a linear adventure with shit to do along the way. Stopping to look for some Chadley Points instead of looking for Sephiroth puts the story on hold as much as Tidus deciding to dodge a thousand lightning bolts. At least the black-robed guys don't destroy cities like Sin.

In any case, too bad they lock some sweet materia (fire & ice, comet, lightning & wind, etc.) behind Chadley Points. I'd rather have that stuff on the map as a reward for mini-dungeons, maybe something like Elden Ring's catacombs. You could even have added the special monsters there.

I like what the Remake series brings to Final Fantasy 7's story. I don't like not being able to experience it in a cohesive manner. Lets go chase Sephiroth.. later! because we have to do hit or miss sidequest, play piano, turn on towers, scan crystals, play cards, go get beach outfits ext. Do you have to do these things? Mostly No, but are you getting your monies worth? No. At the very least we spent $70 on this game, and it is obvious that the developers really what you to take part in all of things that is why they lock so much good stuff behind the distractions. Check this out; If you don't buckle down and do the pirate mini game you wont get Time Materia until CHP12!!!!. You lowkey are forced to do everything if you are going for Johnny hotel trophies. FFX and OG 7 have mini games, but they can be skipped and you still get a full experience. Rebirth? No your getting about 30% of the experience if you just play main shit. That is why I prefer Remake, it has pacing problems to with all stretching or adding things in between plot points not in the original game but when played front to back while skipping everything except the main stuff it still feels like I'm getting full experience. Your not missing half the 70% of the game.

But you aren't, really. Just because the side content takes up a lot of time to complete doesn't mean anything since it isn't relevant to the plot. You can just skip it.

Same thing with Breath of the Wild for instance, you can do the main story and enough shrines for the MS in 30 hours but you can play another 70 in side content. This would be like complaing about it because there are too many koroks or that you need like 999 wood resources to build the new village.

Beat the game took about 65 hours. Did a bunch of the side quest but not all of them. Completely finished the grass lands. I was kind of surprised how hard this game was. I thought after FF16 they would make the games easier (remake was pretty hard as well).

I still prefer Remake, and 16 over this game but I still really liked this game as well. I just think 16 and Remake are very good.

That statement certainly isn't indicative of my own experience. With the inclusion of the side content (which as you probably saw from my prior post, was the primary source of my troubles with regards to the pacing) I spent half of my time jollydudgering around in Rebirth - at least until I dropped the side content. Meanwhile, what I really wanted to do was engage with the combat, particularly as a result of the other pacing issue I brought up in my first impressions post on the 10th March about the combat mechanics.

I accept the point made with regards to the portion of the OG game that was balloned for both games. I suspect this will translate into the content of the main story specifically being better paced in Rebirth compared to Remake, if you were to watch them both as a movie or whatever.

I don't blame Square for making Rebirth open world, given that Rebirth is the point in the OG game when the map opens up, but the side content really did become too much for me by chapter 6 or so - especially given my lack of free time. I think I would have preferred an approach more similar to FFXVI early on, but I suppose that wasn't going to happen.

I guess it's a difficult task to make an open world engaging nowadays. In the OG game, the map was chibified, and you had optional towns to visit and what not, but nowadays that's all main story content, which leaves less left for the content on the side.

It's odd, usually I would like the content I'm being presented with. I'm doing everything I can to try to enjoy the game more, and despite my gripes I still do mostly enjoy it. Sometimes I think it's me that's the problem and not the game, but then the game asks me to do something like find Cait Sith in the Gold Saucer as part of the main story, which I spend 5/10 minutes doing before giving up and resorting to looking up a guide, then I start thinking it's definitely the game that's the problem once again.

I can certainly understand peoples issue with Rebirth. Especially when it comes to the open world ubisoft like content. I personally enjoyed it but even with that said it was still my leave favorite out of Remake, and 16. I enjoyed Remakes linear story telling. IMO we just don't get many linear AAA games that are actually good these days and I really enjoyed that about Remake. The side quest were dull but at least they were quick and easy to do.

On top of that while I see a lot of people praising the arial combat in this game I honestly think it's hot garbage. Adding in so many flying enemies hurt my experience with it. Now in the end I just added Barrett to my group and used him and it was fine so not a huge issue since I do enjoy using Barret.

So I still loved the game but I put Remake and 16 above it. The side quest were at least much better (minus the chicken quest).

I'm sorry that is the case for you since you're in the minority on that one. Rebirth has fared way better with the usually very bitchy FF fanbase in Meta user scores than FF16 or Remake and the fact that it's at 9.0 right now is almost a miracle.

Remake and 16 were almost even with 15 in that regard, even, and both were considered worse than the Royal Edition. (I suspect though Rebirth will drop closer to the RE once more people get to the ending, depending on how many bother to change their reviews/review after beating it).

Having the character tutorials be Chadley sims was a strange choice. I was in the middle of the game before I realized Cloud has normal aerials, though by some merciful chance I found out Yuffie's from the get-a-go.

Are you talking about when cloud dodges and then can jump up towards the enemy? If so that wasn't bad but not good enough. Same with Tifa's boost from other people. It was all ok but in the end not sufficient enough for me. Now if you're talking about something else I would like to know. I skipped all the chadley sim stuff. I couldn't even beat the first summon after weakening him all the way. Pretty embarrassing how bad I am at this game. I also did the first summon much later in the game so I wasn't to low level.

There are a few other attacks that hit but you've got pretty much the bulk of it covered already then. Yeah, flying enemies can be annoying but mercifully they are rarer later in the game.

Have you tried classic mode?

Yea I started off with classic mode. I didn't notice the flying monsters as much during the main game in general. It was more when I was exploring the world. Once I put Barrett on my team it was a non issue really. I just tried to do it with other characters and it was a PIA. Especially because I originally started off my team with Tifa, Cloud, and Aerith which just wasn't working for me in general. Once I removed Aerith and added Barrett things got much easier for me.