Post Script

You can never tell the same story twice (contains spoilers)

Should you run into the Midgar Zolom when you first venture outside in Final Fantasy VII, you’re as good as dead. Only by riding a chocobo can you cross its territory in pursuit of Sephiroth. But when you do traverse the marshes, a shocking sight awaits – the giant serpent impaled on a split tree, apparently slain by your nemesis, a sign of his incredible power. Message received and understood.

There’s no getting around that in Rebirth this episode is fumbled, taking you through the process of securing a chocobo and navigating the marsh only to have the serpent ambush you anyway, forcing you to defeat it. Only after you win the battle does Sephiroth manifest and skewer the unfortunate creature, which fails to communicate the same gulf in strength between your gang and this living legend. All because Rebirth can’t resist an opportunity for a boss fight.

At moments like this it’s easy to accuse Square Enix’s remake project of clumsy revisionism. The first episode already had its detractors thanks to a metanarrative suggesting that the plot really was repeating previous events, with fate trying to ensure everyone fulfilled their prescribed roles. As fate was eventually sent packing, we were left in a ‘what if’ parallel reality in which Zack Fair, whose death preceded events of the original, had survived after all, and anything could happen from there on in.

While this turn disappointed those seeking a faithful retelling, though, is such a thing ever really plausible? After all, a story is never the same when you already know it, and a remake of a game as celebrated as Final Fantasy VII has a lot more to juggle than the source material – from spinoffs to fandoms to changes in how games are made these days and what we expect them to deliver. As producer Yoshinori Kitase pointed out in E395, Sephiroth has now featured in Super Smash Bros. The wider cultural context around Final Fantasy VII is impossible to ignore.

And in fairness, Rebirth’s developers’ judgement on when to adopt, adapt, add or discard is generally sound. For starters, you could hardly claim that Square Enix doesn’t capitalise on nostalgia and reverence for its treasured property, as it pulls memory strings at every turn. Junon, for example, with its enormous phallic cannon, is a faultless upscale of its standard-definition predecessor, while your team are immaculately dressed in keeping with their blocky older cousins.

Yet they don’t stop at higher fidelity, and appear to have decided to have fun with the limitations of 1997. A couple of minigames reduce our heroes to low-poly versions of themselves, for instance, while any residual questions about the old game’s logic, such as ‘How does oversized feline Red XIII ride a chocobo?’ are answered head-on. You’ll see that Red XIII manages a chocobo just fine, thank you very much, albeit looking quite ridiculous. At such points, nostalgia almost fades into parody, but why not? Final Fantasy VII is hardly short on unintentional humour.

Elsewhere, changes come from the scope of this roomy retelling, as places and people that once were fairly sketchy are fleshed out to fit. And as brash as the writing can be, there’s also greater sensitivity and detail, which often works because of what we know from before. In Kalm, for example, Shinra soldiers arrive searching for your fugitive gang (something they failed to do 27 years ago), and you begin to understand how many people despise the corporation as they aid your escape. Cosmo Canyon, meanwhile, once a site of fetishised tribal mysticism, has now been invaded by a pseudo-spiritualist sect called Planetology, turning it into a tacky tourist trap. As for your crew, they gain bags of extra screen time and incidental dialogue that develop each individual and the dynamics between them. Sub-clusters of friendship emerge as they would in any group – Aerith and Tifa fast become besties, for example, while Barret and Yuffie gravitate towards father-daughter co-dependence.

As much as all this makes the gang live and breathe, however, the existence of these characters as cultural icons beyond this one story also alters who they are and how they may be made to perform. In short, they are celebrities as well as merchandise to be exploited. Thus, a sequence in Costa Del Sol where everyone has to dress in beach gear sees us picking out bikinis for Tifa and Aerith as if they were Barbie dolls, sidelining the characters themselves, presumably to gratify a different kind of fantasy. And do we really need a VR performance of the musical Loveless starring Cloud and the rest, especially since it turns out that the highly promoted smash-hit show is actually a bit crap?

Perhaps the best way to judge Square Enix’s efforts here, though, is to view Rebirth as a whole. Does this expanded, deepened game have the ‘essence’ of Final Fantasy VII, whatever that may be? Well, our overwhelming sense is that Rebirth feels like a 1990s or early-2000s Final Fantasy game in a way that nothing else quite has since. Its story of alternate timelines could be said to take on a new dimension, in fact, in that Rebirth itself seems to have come from one; a dimension in which Square Enix kept its signature series on its existing trajectory rather than altering course. Whether you prefer that timeline or not is a matter to decide for yourself. But when it comes to what constitutes a successful remake, that sense of continuation may be most telling of all.

Rebirth feels like a 1990s or early-2000s Final Fantasy game in a way that nothing else quite has since