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Uploaded yesterday, the latest episode of Inside Square Enix delves into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, with key members of the development team reflecting on what they paid attention to when developing the game, as well as enthusiastically talking about the upcoming final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

At the end of the hour and a half long episode, each member hinted at what we can expect from the final installment. First, battle director Teruki Endo spoke about how the whole team focused on expanding battles and the wider gameplay cycle for Rebirth. For the third game, he says that he is currently thinking about how “to give the player even more freedom.”

Art director Shintaro Takai comments that he is already working on the third game in his head. He references all the little playful touches in both Remake and Rebirth (such as Red XIII’s Shinra uniform disguise and dance during the cruise boat section) that FF7’s expansive universe and lore make possible. However, Takai explains that the design team is still not 100% satisfied and plans to put everything into making the final part of Final Fantasy 7 remake even more detailed.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth prototype.

Director Naoki Hamaguchi comments that he hopes Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s expansive world will give players a sense of how Final Fantasy can evolve in the future. As for the final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, Hamaguchi explains that, “We very much want to give the fans a different kind of gameplay experience to what they had in Remake and Rebirth.” Regarding the fans that are waiting eagerly for the next game, he adds, “I will strive to finish it as soon as possible, while also ensuring that it is of high quality.”

The first part of the remake trilogy, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, was released 5 years after it was initially announced. Fans then waited another three years for the second part, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, to come out. However, we can probably expect the third and final part to come out sooner, considering that many of the fundamental elements are already in place, including the development team, systems and assets. Rebirth had a powerful ending, with many fans looking forward to the final part of the beloved game’s remake.



This episode of Inside Square Enix contains a lot of behind-the-scenes insight, such prototype footage and in-depth discussions about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s development process. Those who are interested should definitely check out the full episode.

Source - Automaton West

 

[Dazraell]

I feel one of the last chapters may have offer us a good, although very brief taste how the exploration in the third part may look like. If I would have to guess, they will most likely offer some elements of non-linearity with being able to pick the order where to head to certain regions kinda like KotOR, Dragon Age 1 or Mass Effect did with giving a few places to pick and order of them was determined by the player. But yeah, definitely looking forward to see what they will came up

 

[LordCBH]

Hopefully less mini games. The mini games were the only part of Rebirth I didn’t like.

 

[FoxMcChief]

New gameplay? Like 150 more mandatory minigames?

 

[AJUMP23]

Get rid of the Chadley talking about stuff checklist garbage.

 

[mpgeist]

Hopefully less mini games. The mini games were the only part of Rebirth I didn’t like.

As someone who likes mini games even I felt it was way too much in Rebirth, they need to dial it back bigly.

 

[LordCBH]

New gameplay? Like 150 more mandatory minigames?

If the mini games in rebirth weren’t mandatory I’d have had zero complaints lol

 

[lh032]

As someone who likes mini games even I felt it was way too much in Rebirth, they need to dial it back bigly.

the problem is not the quantity of the minigames, is the quality.
Most minigames are not fun to play

 

[kiphalfton]

Jump, double jump, and gliding features.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Loved Rebirth. A bunch of the minigames were awesome too (Queen's Blood, Galactic Survivors, Chocobo Racing, Run Wild ) but there were also a bunch of stinkers (situps, Cactuar-Crush, Glide de Chocobo).

I can only hope the team is allowed to complete their vision for the finale, and have plenty of time and money to do whatever they want to do.

 

[Shin-Ra]

They need to work more on the feel of terrain traversal.

While traversal with the pre-rendered backgrounds was kind of janky in 1997 FFVII, there was a lot less of it.

That doesn’t mean extravagant animation-priority like Ass Creed but a more analog and responsive feel.

 

[RagnarokIV]

No thanks. I want a more focused game.
It's too late for me anyway, I've checked out after Rebirth so this remake trilogy isn't for me.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

And then, they will remake all the remakes to get a similar experience across all parts. Seriously, I personally think this multi remake is a ridiculous non sense and I lost any interest in it: the entire game should have been remade for once at the same time.

 

[wvnative]

As someone who likes mini games even I felt it was way too much in Rebirth, they need to dial it back bigly.

The number of mini-games didn't inherently bother me, but disliked how many important rewards were locked behind them plus they were over engineered. Keep them but only as brief fun distractions and don't lock high end rewards behind hard mode versions/high scores of the mini-games.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

I feel for the final part the only real new minigame will probably be the snowboarding, which is ingrained into the story anyway. They might as well reuse the ones from Rebirth and throw them in the Gold Saucer.

I'm guessing by freedom they are referring to having the Highwind, sumbarine and full world traversal unlocked at some point. That will be pretty crazy being able to visit all regions, including the northern continents and Mideel.

I expect the narrative to be a bit more focused then Rebirth as the final half of the story is very epic.

Also Critical Gamer just released his review for Rebirth and he loved it. (major spoilers including ending stuff)

 

[adamsapple]

There really did not need to be that many open zones with the collectible vomit in the game. Yes, it helped increase the game time, but not every game needs to be 100+ hours.

 

[Katajx]

Loved Rebirth. A bunch of the minigames were awesome too (Queen's Blood, Galactic Survivors, Chocobo Racing, Run Wild ) but there were also a bunch of stinkers (situps, Cactuar-Crush, Glide de Chocobo).

I can only hope the team is allowed to complete their vision for the finale, and have plenty of time and money to do whatever they want to do.

I don’t think I ever ran into the sit ups. Where were they?

 

[Shin-Ra]

Nibelheim area water chocobo traversal was the only open world stuff that really felt good and fresh to do.

I don’t think I ever ran into the sit ups. Where were they?

Costa del Sol, near all the zip lines, on top of a hill.

 

[Koenigssee]

Nah bro not gonna fall for this again.

 

[Dazraell]

I don’t think I ever ran into the sit ups. Where were they?

Near Costa del Sol, part of Tifa's side quest

 

[Kssio_Aug]

There really did not need to be that many open zones with the collectible vomit in the game. Yes, it helped increase the game time, but not every game needs to be 100+ hours.

That's the secret sauce nowadays apparently. Add a bunch of trash bloat, so you can say the game offers "hundreds of hours of fun".

 

[adamsapple]

That's the secret sauce nowadays apparently. Add a bunch of trash bloat, so you can say the game offers "hundreds of hours of fun".

It would be less-worse if spaced out better, but the game doesn't do it well in most cases.

Going from the Coral Desert region straight into Gongaga region with another huge map almost had me put the controller down.

 

[wvnative]

I don’t think I ever ran into the sit ups. Where were they?

oh god that was the worst one, you have to do it entirely with the shoulder buttons, and tap the triggers.

 

[West Texas CEO]

I'm all for it.

I can't wait to fly the airship.

 

[simpatico]

This release could be so good. If they cut all the fat and fit all the good stuff into one lean episode.

 

[stickkidsam]

Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll refine the mini games that suck. I’m pretty stoked to see what they come up with for muh FREEDOM!

I wonder if they’ll do multiple endings based on your choices… hmmm…

 

[ByWatterson]

Rebirth was a miracle of a game. Can't wait for more.

 

[Katajx]

Nibelheim area water chocobo traversal was the only open world stuff that really felt good and fresh to do.


Costa del Sol, near all the zip lines, on top of a hill.

Ah, thank you. Surprised I never ran into it.

 

[mayham2199]

the problem is not the quantity of the minigames, is the quality.
Most minigames are not fun to play

Nah it's the quantity as well. These could have been fire mini games and even then I would still say it's to much. I wanted to play FF7 Rebirth not mini games within Rebirth. At the very least don't make them mandatory. They want to have a million optional mini games? Cool do that. Don't make me participate in so many of them though.

 

[LordCBH]

There really did not need to be that many open zones with the collectible vomit in the game. Yes, it helped increase the game time, but not every game needs to be 100+ hours.

The zones themselves were cool, but my god they should have evolved how the open world worked over the course of the game. Early on I was compelled to explore to abilities or equipment, but by the time I hit gold saucer I had no reason to do them

 

[proandrad]

Hope it’s smaller with half the mini games and a double jump button. Still haven’t finished rebirth, got bored after the gold saucer.

 

[adamsapple]

The zones themselves were cool, but my god they should have evolved how the open world worked over the course of the game. Early on I was compelled to explore to abilities or equipment, but by the time I hit gold saucer I had no reason to do them

Oh yeah, the first stretch of the game is fucking fantastic. Then you do the same shit 7~8 more times and it becomes tiresome real fast.

 

[Raven117]

Hopefully less mini games. The mini games were the only part of Rebirth I didn’t like.

Same. Really annoyed me actually.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

The zones themselves were cool, but my god they should have evolved how the open world worked over the course of the game. Early on I was compelled to explore to abilities or equipment, but by the time I hit gold saucer I had no reason to do them

I think they wanted each of the worlds to be consistent.

 

[LordCBH]

Oh yeah, the first stretch of the game is fucking fantastic. Then you do the same shit 7~8 more times and it becomes tiresome real fast.

Like the story starts feeling a bit more grand and I’m here in gongaga doing grunt work lol. I ended up just skipping all the open world stuff in the second half.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Kind of doubt they will give us SO2R level of freedom. Freedom sounds like a buzzword they like to use. I wager that OG DQ3 and the upcoming DQ3 HD-2D Remake will have more freedom then they ever plan to give for FFVII-2 Part 3.

Also instead of locking fights behind Chadley maybe have these fights and unlockables out in the world itself?

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Kinda nice to see the Toriyama redemption arc after the FFXIII saga and the Lightning rose stage talk lol.

Rebirth was a miracle of a game. Can't wait for more.

My standout game of the gen and past few gens.

 

[poodaddy]

Can I have the freedom to remove bullshit filler from the game? How about the freedom to fix the god awful writing?

 

[MikeM]

Just make sure that perf mode isn’t the vaseline mess that Rebirth is.

 

[Madflavor]

The zones themselves were cool, but my god they should have evolved how the open world worked over the course of the game. Early on I was compelled to explore to abilities or equipment, but by the time I hit gold saucer I had no reason to do them

Evolve in what way? Because in terms of traversal, they absolutely did. Each zone had it's own gimmick with Chocobo travel. If you mean the types of chores you do in each zone, other than the mini games, then yes they were the same. But considering they took the same build from the previous linear entry, and translated it to Open World the next game, in the span of 4 years, I said they did a pretty good job with Rebirth's Open World design.

 

[Danjin44]

Evolve in what way? Because in terms of traversal, they absolutely did.

I think they need let your character jump, I loved Rebirth but that was my biggest up issue.

 

[CoreyFlawless]

Hopefully less mini games. The mini games were the only part of Rebirth I didn’t like.

Non. Give me more

 

[Loomy]

This may sound weird, but I would like a shorter game lol.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Reduce the minigames or at least don't make them mandatory. And it wouldn't hurt to reduce the checklist stuff, and heavily reduce Chadley.

I liked the game, but it suffered from repetition if you wanted to clear everything. Not every single zone needed this same checklist with the exact same amount of quests and moogle house (those can die) each. It wouldn't hurt to mix it up by making Junon and Gongaga more linear in exploration for example, so you would have an open Grasslands, open Corel and open Nibelheim. I think this would be more than enough.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

Reduce the minigames or at least don't make them mandatory.

I imagine that it is going to continue, mainly so people get exposed to the games. Like Snowboarding for sure and Fort Condor is likely to be back too.

The threshold for completing the actual mandatory minigames is not high though even in Rebirth.

 

[SlimySnake]

Yeah, thanks but no thanks.

This was supposed to be that game. To have an open world that had freedom, not a ubisoft style checklist to do. These devs looked at BOTW, Skyrim and Witcher 3 and decided they instead wanted to ape Ass Creed. GTFO.

 

[Griffon]

See you in 6 years.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

See you in 6 years.

It won't be anywhere near that long, mostly because I do think Square will cut the scope a bit. Probably 3 years.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

See you in 6 years.

Why? 4 years from Remake to Rebirth despite how huge, varied and content packed Rebirth is.

So I think they can do it in 3 years from this point. Not a hard conclusion to come to if you think about it.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Yeah, thanks but no thanks.

This was supposed to be that game. To have an open world that had freedom, not a ubisoft style checklist to do. These devs looked at BOTW, Skyrim and Witcher 3 and decided they instead wanted to ape Ass Creed. GTFO.

As Colin Moriarty says, this is a poor and lazy take as what Ubisoft has so many varied regions, gameplay styles and sub games as Rebirth? Some that can stand up as their own game.

Rebirth captures the feeling of traversing across a world with it's regional approach and executes it very well, just as the original game did. In the end it holds up as it's own thing even after taking inspiriation from other games because of the narrative progression and variety. It's the JRPG style that existed before these mythical Ubisoft games.

But I guess it's easier to be cynical than think about it in a nuanced way....