Recent reviews by Linus

yumia and chill

Rebirth is an incredible journey through the various locations of the world of FF7. The section of the original that Rebirth covers - it covers it from end to end, with zero compromises. More than that, much like Remake, Rebirth does a lot of flesh things out, adding more stories, more locations, more lore, more of everything, everywhere.

And the world of FF7 is just phenomenal. There's so much diversity in the locations in terms of aesthetics and vibes that it feels like a proper adventure when moving from one location to the next. A cozy little town built around a medieval castle? A seaside resort inspired by southern Spanish beach towns? A lush, dense jungle with a Chernobyl-esque reactor in the middle? A tourist trap town with Colorado vibes? Yeah, it's all here, and more.

For me, the heart of almost any JRPG is the party itself. How much I'm enjoying the characters, their chemistry. And I'm happy to say that Rebirth could very well be my favorite game ever in this regard. The game is fully packed with party bonding opportunities - there is a very surprising amount of non-combat gameplay to be found in Rebirth. It's just an extremely vibes based game, and the vibes are near immaculate. There are myriad awesome little moments with your party members that aren't tied to the main story or combat.

But, when it comes to combat, the game also shines. A straight upgrade from the already excellent Remake system. A superb blend of classic ATB mechanics and modern action, presented in an extremely slick, flashy manner similiar to Advent Children. Compared to the Remake, everything is faster. You have ways to negate damage completely now, as long as you have the mechanical skill for it. But even if you don't, the game still has great amounts of tactical depth. With more party members, more materias, more options, the combat feels more open ended than ever, while still presenting a decent challenge.

All of this glued together with probably the most impressive game soundtracks ever. Over 300 tracks, even individual side quests have their own themes... a great mix of reimagined classics and brand new tracks from various incredibly skilled composers.

My only real complaint is how the game implements open world busywork - all the narrative based side activities like side quests, protorelics, queens blood are great, but some of the open world activities like towers, mako springs are way too repetative and universally filtered through Chadley. I hope for part 3, we can have more freedom in discovering these things on our own.

However, that's really my only complaint. I'm happy to say the PC port is pretty good, a massive upgrade from the PS5 in terms of image quality and the game runs well on my Ryzen 7700 + RTX 4070 at 1440p. On max settings, with 66% minimum resolution using DLSS, I'm getting between 80 and 120 fps basically everywhere. It feels and looks great.

I highly recommend Rebirth to anyone that likes party based RPG's. It's a top tier one, and the game contains an absurd amount of heart and soul.

Chitose

Fernando Alonso

Alpine commited war crimes against the country of Spain

I can whole heartedly recommend this game. I have already 100%d it on PS5, but I love being able to finally play it on Steam, at higher fidelity + fps and also supporting Sega's efforts to port all of RGGS' games to PC.

This is easily my favorite combat system that RGGS has ever made and in my opinion one of the best combat systems ever as far as melee is concerned. Most of the dragon engine issues have been either fixed or massively improved - everything feels slick, smooth and polished. Yagami's move set is amazing, with multiple stances, loads of heat (EX) actions and gameplay possibilities.

Lost Judgment also offers a fascinating storyline that may not be as good as Judgment's, it's still very well written and the game builds tension in a brilliant way. What definitely improved compared to Judgment though, is the side content. The quality of the side cases is higher and the school clubs, while may seem like a bit of an overwhelming grind at first, are actually a genius way to integrate minigames into a secondary over arching plot.

My only nitpicks would be that the game has a couple of odd behaviours at over 60 fps, but they're mostly small things that will likely get patched.

Fernando Alonso deserves a 3rd title

A slow burn western masterpiece. Based on the console version, the story and presentation is close to flawless, if you enjoy this sort of pacing. Thankfully I haven't run into any technical issues so far. The game is demanding, but looks incredible even on modest settings.

One of the best remakes ever.

The presentation is absolutely brilliant, and that's not the only thing that was modernized. The new gameplay system manages to stay true to the original despite the new perspective and more up-to-date mechanics. The tension is near constant, the difficulty is just right and the game is immensely satisfying

More focus on puzzles, exploration and traversal. Exotic locations. Combat encounters are rare, but the stealth mechanics are greatly improved compared to the predecessors. The density and visuals of the jungle are some of the best I've seen. Challenge tombs are longer, and more monumental than before as well.

The story and writing is still not exactly top level, but it's also a vast improvement compared to its predecessor, especially in terms of dialogue and characterization.

The game's performance is good and based on the first 8 hours I haven't run into any bugs aside from a few janky animations. The music also deserves a shoutout, especially during the more tense encounters.