When I was playing Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and saw Lizzy Wizzy’s performance, I thought, 'Nothing’s ever gonna top this.' But then Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth dropped an actual opera scene in the theater and I just sat there, completely mesmerized. The music, the atmosphere, the sheer artistry of it all—it gave me chills. In that moment, I knew I was witnessing pure magic. Square Enix, you absolute legends—bravo!

What I did: everything except hard mode related content.

I have to be honest with myself but also with you: I very much enjoyed most of my time with Rebirth and I think it's a much, much better game compared to Remake, but it's definitely not a game for everyone.
Remake takes only place in Midgar while in Rebirth you can visit several cities/villages in a quite vast open world.
Remake was tightly trapped by the chains of its story and felt suffocating at times for the amount of liberty it doesn't actually give you. Rebirth, while still following the cinematic style the devs want to give to this trilogy, goes in the opposite direction and encourages the player to try all different kind of things. This is where the line is drawn, some players will like this variety and some not, because maybe they wanted a game more focused on being a RPG where you go around and slash monsters/ beat down an evil organization, instead of suddenly playing a Fall Guys minigame while being turned into a frog. Rebirth almost overdoes it with the sheer amount of activities it offers the player, some forced and some not, but you can't refuse the fact it's a game made with passion.

The open world map, one of the main appeals of Rebirth, is visually stunning but soon you realize it's not made to be explored much, because the tower scan system (used in many other games this last decade) lets you find almost every important spot on it, rendering exploration almost futile and even dull for some. It would have been nice to have some hidden spots found only through exploration.

The combat, while having basically the same system, is much better here than Remake. We have more variety, as in more abilities and materia, and many more enemies too since we visit many different areas of the planet.

Side-quest or how the game calls them, Odd Jobs are mostly ok. Maybe some of them overstay their welcome and make you go around a bit too much. As for themes, they went for a light hearted approach for most and they're also used to develop the relationship between Cloud and the rest of the cast.

Most of the dreaded minigames are... actually solid. Queen's Blood, the card game, obviously comes to mind first, although it doesn't have much thrill to it since you can just retry every defeat and you have nothing on the line (FFVIII Triple Triad was much better in that aspects, since you would actually lose cards with every defeat and sometime taking back a rare card would take ages... infuriating as a mechanic 25 years ago but actually nostalgic in a good way now). The other minigames are less deep and can be mastered easily for some good rewards or not, you can choose what to do and you'll not miss much. Personally I liked the 3D Brawler one!

I don't want to talk much about the story, they're reimagining the story of the original and that's perfectly fine with me. What it's not ok it's the contorted direction the story is taking. The last two chapters were really something in that regard. Knowing that one person at the top I doubt Part 3 will wrap things up clearly and nicely but we'll see.

Finally, the soundtrack of this game is breathtaking. It has so much production value it's insane. Granted the original OST may be easy to work with because of how iconic and good is, but the sheer amount of skill and dedication they put on display here is really something to praise and admire.

Rebirth is certainly taking the story and also the general feeling of the game in a different direction, ultimately crafting a distinct experience compared to the original FFVII. While I prefer the original, I think the devs are doing a fairly good job are reinventing this classic. Just please, give the key of the story to another person.

Tedious. Perfect word to describe this game. If you don't like tedious games, you won't like this. For me this is a 1-run and done situation, because I mentally DO NOT want to play this game again, even with mods. The open world feels big, but SO empty. Every new area is just SLIGHTLY different from the others with the same open world BS Tower feature that I think makes the game worse and is more of a chore than anything. ALMOST EVERYTHING (90%) is a MINIGAME or tied to a MINIGAME. "Let's take the elevator to the top of Junon." Dolphin MINIGAME. "Want to 100% the area?" Play all the MINIGAMES! Walk 10ft. MINIGAME!!!!! I literally only play them to get the highest score so I don't have to replay it. Minigames should be fun and optional, not FORCED on you in order to progress the story. Queen's Blood is the only minigame that is genuinely fun to play. I don't know what they were thinking with all of these other minigames, but more time should have been focused on the openworld, because that ♥♥♥♥ is so dead and uninspiring to explore. REMAKE is still the better game imo, it stuck to it's story with little interruption, didn't go over the top with minigames, and though it was very linear; it was streamlined and had a direction. REBIRTH on the other hand feels all over the place and messy. I really hope part 3 is better than whatever this was.

Play it if you're a fan of FF7
Skip it if you want to save your sanity.