Summary
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthconsumed my life for about a month, serving as the grand, overwrought, and still incomplete finale to a dedicated run through the originalFF7andFF7 Remakethat I started in January this year. It’s an exceptionally long game, filled to the brim with both great bespoke content and a fair share of more generic tasks scattered throughout its world. Spending countless hours on a story’s middle chapter can feel like a major time sink, one that’s tiring in its worst moments but thrilling in its best ones.
Binging games has a way of making them worm deep into your head, a concept that might be best exemplified by the so-called “Tetris effect,” where an avid player starts to map the parameters of a game onto their mind or the world itself, even when the game is boxed up on the shelf. WithFF7 Rebirth, I wasn’t struck by any images of swinging oversized swords or casting materia in my day-to-day-life. But I did get something unexpected out of it, and that could very well last me a lot longer than even the game itself did.
How Many Chapters Are In FF7 Rebirth?
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth divides up its story into chapters, and it’s probably not the number that returning FF7 Remake fans would expect.
FF7 Rebirth’s Piano Minigame Sunk Its Claws Into Me
Among the many minigames featured inFF7 Rebirth, one of the most distinct — and divisive — has to be the piano.It’s a surprisingly robust rhythm game, at least as far as the kind that are stuck in as side content tend to go, assigning notes to directions on the analog sticks and delivering increasingly complex rhythms assheet music is unlocked throughout the story. It’s a joy for some players and frustrating for others, especially when it comes to getting high ranks. I count myself a fan, even if I struggled while nabbing an A on some tracks.
Every Costa Del Sol Minigame In FF7 Rebirth, Ranked Least To Most Fun
FF7 Rebirth offers a lot to do in Costa del Sol, but although all can be entertaining, some activities end up being a lot more memorable than others.
FF7 Rebirth’s piano minigame isn’t really anything like actually playing the piano, and although it’s a good bit simpler than the real thing, that can also make it harder. The rhythm is always arranged to fit properly with the beat, but the ways in which it’s sometimes streamlined from the notes actually being played occasionally threw me off. My experience with musical instruments is more thorough than my time spent with rhythm games, especially when it comes to the piano, which I played throughout most of my childhood and most of my adolescence.
Muting the piano minigame might actually end up making it easier for some players, although missing out on the music is definitely a shame.
The thing is,I hadn’t touched the piano in a long time, not out of any conscious effort but as the result of an indifferent lapse. I’ve always loved the instrument, but there was definitely a period where much of my experience with it was more in line with homework than personal initiative. By the end of high school, improving my skills had largely taken a backburner to other activities, and when I went off to college, it largely exited my life altogether.
I’d been wanting to pick it back up for years, and I’m fortunate enough to have a piano (technically, my sister’s, but she moved across the country, and the piano didn’t). It was just horribly, unimaginably out of tune, and the creep toward that state during my college years is what eventually took it from something I might only play when home for Christmas to something that I couldn’t reasonably play at all. Although the problem could be fixed in an afternoon by someone with the requisite skills, I just never got around to having it done.
FF7 Rebirth Helped Me Return To The Piano
Nobuo Uematsu’s Music Might Just Be That Good
Playing the piano inFF7 Rebirthmight be nothing like the actual thing, but it got it in my head again.Nobuo Uematsu’s classicFF7compositionsmake for some beautiful piano tracks, and even if I wasn’t sitting down to play them myself, I was sitting Cloud or Tifa down to do it.I was thinking about the piano more than I had been for a long time.
Aerith’s Theme can be a bit trickier than Tifa’s, even if the melody seems simple enough.
I can’t say definitively thatFF7 Rebirthis the one thing that incited me to get my piano tuned. It’s been itching at me more recently, and I think it would have happened eventually, regardless. But what I can say is that I got it tuned the same month that I was spending the rest of my time onFF7 Rebirth, andthe first new sheet music I picked up was aFinal Fantasysongbookwith some of the same tunes that show up in the game.
FF7 Rebirth Review: “A Beautiful Showcase Of A Timeless Story”
FF7 Rebirth is an exceptional return to the world of Gaia that leans heavily into its star-studded memorable cast and a classic-but-reimagined story,
The Piano Minigame Doesn’t Need To Exist, But It’s So Cool That It Does
Getting back into the swing of it has been hard, and I was never anything approaching a virtuoso. If you’re jumping back in after a long lapse,Aerith’s Theme can be a bit trickier than Tifa’s, even if the melody seems simple enough. I’ve been playing daily now for a couple months, though, and so much has come back to me. It’s more a process of reawakening lapsed skills than fully relearning them, and I’ve reached the point whereFF7 Rebirth’s piano aficionado Dorian would be impressed.
I do have to extend my apologies to Dorian regarding the piano minigame itself, as I don’t think I’ll be returning to raise all of my A ranks to stars. I’m happy enough with the one I got on “On Our Way,” and I’d much rather spend my time on the real piano in place of the rest. He’ll live, and I can still enjoy my shiny Piano Virtuoso trophy without rising to that level of perfection.
Easily Missed FF7 Rebirth Interaction Shows Square Enix Thought Of Everything
One background moment that you might never notice in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a testament to the game’s attention to detail as a whole.
I’m in the camp thatFF7 Rebirthmaking some challenges play out through minigames rather than combat is a cool thing overall, and I had a lot more fun securing top ranks in shooting galleries andtaking down the champions of Queen’s Bloodthan I did with some of the hardest optional fights. I do get that it’s not for everyone. But I’m especially glad thatFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirthincluded something that helped bring me back to the piano, and I’d love to think that the game rekindled lost passions for some other players as well.
