Size matters

We’ve all seen the meme: “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding”. It’s one that’s cropped up a little more frequently of late, what with the sharp end of videogame development seeming ever more unsustainable. Given the ongoing state of the industry, with 2024’s layoffs certain to top last year’s shockingly high tally, it’s hard to disagree with the sentiment. But there’s no avoiding the fact that the two best games of this issue are also among the most lavish productions, each afforded an uncommon amount of time and money to bring to fruition.

The case of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is a particularly unusual one, since it manages to be considerably more expansive than its predecessor and yet it doesn’t suffer from such glaring pacing issues, nor do its additions feel so much like filler. Sure, there’s plenty of stuff that might seem extraneous here, but the sheer variety – in locations, in quests, in side activities – makes it feel like the full-throated celebration of Final Fantasy this new trilogy was always intended to be. Where Remake seemed to drag sections out artificially, stretching parts of the original story as if to justify its status as a full game, Rebirth feels like a fully featured open-world RPG in its own right – with all of the expected trimmings.

Vanillaware’s Unicorn Overlord, meanwhile, has been ten years in the making – yet this luxurious tactical RPG justifies that investment. If its visual quality is no surprise, its scope is unexpected, and the game benefits hugely from it. The canvas of its central conflict feels that much grander with so many unique units to recruit and so many individual stories to discover. We’ve bemoaned the growing blight of videogame bloat enough times (on this page in particular) that it’s only right and proper that we acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that sometimes bigger really can be better.