Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Impressions w/ Hayes Madsen

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
You are listening to Video Games tothe Max. Hello, and welcome to
a special edition of Video Games tothe Max and joining me here today.
Glad to have you back. HayesMadison, freelance writer, game gaming transwriter
Inverse. How you been, man, I'm doing good, doing good.

(00:33):
Busy, like I said, youknow, trying to get through what games
I can with everything coming out.Yeah, and it's it's not stopping.
There's more stuff coming. It's likefrom here to April. They just decided
to pack in everything they could.Yeah, it's crazy first four months of

(00:54):
the year for sure. Yeah.And I'm a big RPG guy, so
you know having six hundred hour RPGsin four months is not an easy task.
Yeah. Same here. I knowyou reviewed Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth.
We have you on here because youreviewed Final Fantasy seven Red for Inverse.

(01:14):
The review is up on the sideif you want to go there.
It's in the description as well forpeople that are watching live or watching later
or listening later. First of all, thank you so much for being on
the show today. And I wantto ask you a question, I guess
before we get into the fi husand stuff. What do you think about

(01:36):
like what's been going on in thein the industry like just this year,
Like where do you think that that'sall going? And I saw your tweet
like I don't remember exactly when itwas, but you said you were worried
for the first time about being afreelance writer in for games if you're going
to be able to continue doing thatbased on what's you know, been going

(01:57):
on, what you're seeing, Likewhy did you say? And I guess
what do you think about what's goingon in the game. Yeah, that's
a that's a big question. It'syou know, I think it's become pretty
clear to a lot of people.The last year has been one of the
toughest video game industry. It's onthe development side and on the media side.

(02:17):
Both sides have had had a roughgo of things. In terms of
the industry development side. You know, we've had six over six thousand layoffs
last year on another six thousand layoffsin the first two months. It's a
complex situation that has a lot ofreasons behind it, but it's it's awful

(02:38):
to see thousands upon thousands of developers, qa testers and everyone else kind of
out on their out on their buttsnow from my side. On the media
side, I think it's you know, the reason I said something like that
is, you know, you getinto journalism and it you never expect to
make a lot of money. Andthat's not the point, right, yeah,

(03:00):
I never but doing this fourteen years, I was always able to like
kind of scape get by on theskin of my teeth, working other odd
jobs, doing food deliveries, whateverit might be on the side, freelancing
on the side, I've always beenable to make it through. That hasn't
been true in the last to eightmonths. And part of that is,
you know, for the first timein my life, I've had real health

(03:22):
problems that I never had before kindof hit me at thirty two years old,
and it's opened my eyes to thefact that even though I've done this
for fourteen years, I'm in aplace where it's not it's not a job
that I'm able to like really supportmysel let alone, you know, wanting
to have a family or provide fora partner or whatever it might be.

(03:44):
And I have dozens of mutuals andfriends in the industry who've been laid off
from their writing job last year andare now freelance. And there's more people
freelance than ever, and there's lesswork to give to those people than ever
because everyone's having their budgets cut.Our entire outlets are closing down, like
Sports Illustrated isn't closing down, orWaypoint got shut down, Fan Bite when

(04:05):
they got shut down a few yearsago. So I try to not be
so doom and gloom about things alot of times. Basically that's been it's
been harder than ever. To staypositive is the hard thing because when you
see what you do on the mediaside getting gutted and then you see the
industry that you cover getting gutted,it's just it's a hard reality. Yeah,

(04:30):
for sure, it's it's one ofthose things I feel so bad for.
I mean, it's it's like there'sno other than you know, games
releasing, right, It's like everythingelse around the games is not as great
as it seems, right, Andand that's the sad part is like it's
the same thing as last year.It's like, man, what a great

(04:51):
year for games, but then it'slike, what a terrible year for everybody
around games as well? And it'slike it seems like this year is it's
just basically echoing the same thing,and it's hard sometimes to like be happy
about oh Man, one of themost anticipated games for the last four years
is out and like on Wednesday,and there's other things going on, right

(05:15):
I mean, obviously most gamers don'tcare about any of that. They just
want the game to come out.I want to play it, move on
to the next thing, or makethat be my thing I love for however
long, and that's it. AndI'm hoping that people start realizing with the
things that are going that people likepeople do make games, people right about
games, and it sucks that itseems like less and less people were able

(05:38):
to make a career out of bothof those we used to. Even if
you only care about video games onthe most superficial level, I think it's
still important to be cognizant of what'shappening because there's so many layoffs, so
many teams getting shut down or foldedinto other companies, and it's going to
have a major effect on the videogame and you know, we're already starting

(05:59):
to the effect that it has.But even if you're just looking for like
the new releases coming out two orthree years down the road, we may
not have as many video games comingout, there's not as many people making
them where the teams are smaller,so it's taking a longer time things like
that. It's just we're gonna startseeing the effects more and more until we
figure out some way to rebound fromit. Yeah, I'm hoping that it

(06:24):
doesn't take like a monumental catastrophe forthat to happen. Hopefully all the whether
it's the big console makers or thebig publishers and everybody can kind of figure
out something that makes it sustain.And it's sad to like hear almost not

(06:45):
just talking to like seeing dev's talk, but like hearing people's conversation with devs,
and like the entire thing is,we got to just make it through
twenty twenty, and like that's sosad to hear, you know, just
again. It's like it's just oneof those things like I wanted to just
talk to you as somebody that's donethis so long and then just again to

(07:08):
like give that preface of yeah,we're here to talk about pass and rebirth
and be excited about it, butthere is other things, you know,
in the industry around it, youknow. So I guess getting to the
game and I think last time Ihad you on it was around because you
did the review for sixteen, thelast one Fantasy. What is what is

(07:28):
your history with Final Fantasy seven?I guess in general, like how did
you? Is it like your favoriteone of all? And where where is
that with you? Before you setthis Final Fantasy seven. I don't say
it it's my favorite. Final Fantasynine is my personal favorite, but I
often say Final Fantasy seven is themost important video game I ever played in

(07:48):
my way, because before I hadplayed Final Fantasy seven, when I was
came out in ninety seven, Iwas sick. I had very very little
experience with video games. There wasalmost nothing I'd played and been kind of
opened my eyes to what a videogame could be. Is the kind of
engrossing story and world that it kindof expanse of RPG and incredible characters,

(08:09):
and it started me on the FinalFantasy series and then into RPGs and video
games at large. So it reallywas it was the game that got me
interested in playing games, and throughoutmy life it's kind of served as this
big piece, you know, mostnot most, but a big part of

(08:30):
my career has been covering Final Fantasygame. Playing this and playing remake before
it a few years ago were interestingexperience, and like, you know,
going from remake to this, youknow, obviously the big hook is that,
Okay, we're going out of midgarb, We're going open world.
How is that? How does it? Does it feel like other open world

(08:52):
games or is it different than openyou know a lot of the Yeah.
So the best thing I've thought tocompare it too is like something like Dragon
Age Inquisition, where it's not strictlyone seamless open world, not like a
Fallout game or The Witcher or something. You know, it's it's these open
world zones that you go to.So basically, as the story progresses,

(09:16):
you go to each of these differentzones you start in like the Grasslands by
Calm just outside of Midgard, andthen you go to the Junon area,
then you go to the Coral andGold Saucer area, and then Cosmo Canyon,
et cetera. So it definitely ismore open world than pretty much any

(09:37):
Final Fantasy game in the past,even more than fifteen, because it's adopting
more of those open world elements whereyou're you know, you kind of have
you have these towers, you haveto act show you all the icons for
the different activities, but it doesn'tfeel it feels very different from remake,
but it doesn't feel like a jump, like to far of a jump.

(10:00):
Thematically, it works because you're movinginto the larger world outside of Midgard,
so it thematically fits the game veryYeah. I mean, like, is
there is there something that stood outto you as like the biggest improvement from
remake that makes you go, oh, this is a way better game.
I enjoyed this way more than aremake because of this. It's it's hard

(10:22):
to say. I think it's justthe scope of everything in general. It's
just like all of the pieces thatwere there and remake have been improved.
So the battle system has been tweakedand improved a lot, the characters feel
more dynamic, and everyone has moreof a fleshed out plotline, you know,
the side activities. There's an ungodlyamount of minigames in this game,

(10:46):
almost a Yakuza game's equivalent of minigames. So it's just like every little
piece of remake has been improved upon. On top of having these major new
additions like new party members like youseek hat sits there and read their teen
and having these open world exploration elements, a more complex story that kind of

(11:07):
interweaves with all of the open worldAnd I think another big improvement is the
side content and how that directly tiesinto the story. So that was a
big criticism of remake is you havethese side quests that feel kind of like
filler, you're just wasting time.But in this side quest side quests are
all attached to a party member.So every single side quest in the game

(11:30):
Cloud does with a party mem soyou're seeing their relationship, you know,
deepen and grow while you're doing theseside quests that also have various other benefits.
Do you feel like the so youknow, they added a lot of
different things to the combat, isthere something that like you really liked that
they added. Yeah, the bigthing is the synergy system, So you

(11:56):
have that's like the big new additionhere. Where As you fight and you
use your at B abilities, eachcharacter builds up a synergy and when that
gauge is full, you can usethese synergy attacks, which is two characters
teaming up for like an extra explosiveattack. And they have different benefits too,

(12:18):
so like sometimes they'll raise your limitlevel or you might be able to
split your ATV gauge into three gauges, or you can extend the stagger time
on an enemy. It's a reallydynamic system that is kind of separate from
your ATV charges, So it givesyou more options in combat, you know,

(12:39):
tactically, and it also makes youthink more about the party compositions that
you have because you have different movesfor different characters teaming up, so you
kind of want to think about howthose work on top of your material load
outs and everything. So it reallyjust kind of makes it makes the combat
system and Rebirth even more dynamic andcustom a misable. I feel like it's

(13:01):
really a tremendous edition and I wassurprised by how much it changes the speaking
of you know, changes that youmentioned the characters that they play a much
bigger part. Do they like limityour you know a lot of the big
part of a remake was that youkuy didn't get to pick your party much.

(13:22):
There was always told, okay,this is your plan as right now,
they'll let you switch, but it'snot like you get to choose.
That is that more freeing as wellas is do they still do that where
they make you play with certain peopleor is it always kind of just open,
beautiful life it yes and no.So Rebirth is very segmented. Like

(13:43):
what I mean by that is youhave these these very story focused moments that
are kind of like remaking that they'remostly linear, and then you get to
a new region and you have hugeopportunity to explore and do whatever you want.
When you move to the next storybe it's usually going to be that
story focus sake until you get tothe next open So these story segments a

(14:03):
lot of times will separate your partyor give you certain parties that you need
to play with. So like laterin the game, there's a section where
you play is just Barrett and Rentthirtwo, But when you're exploring these open
areas, you can mix and matchyour party as much as you want because
there's there's six characters. Seven charactersnow yeah, because they add Red their

(14:24):
team, u Fie and Kate Sys, you have Basically what the game does
is it lets you create three predeterminedparties. So if you want to we
want to be Cloud, Barrett andTifa, and then you can have Cloud
read their teen, U Fee whoeveryou want to the last one, and
you can swap between these instantly wheneveryou want, so kind of those segments

(14:46):
is it gives you more freedom thanremake did, but there are still times
when it wants you to have aset party. Do you feel like that
whole thing with the characters is earnyou know, they introduced the the whole
thing with the yet everybody has likea relationship kind of number with Cloud.
Does that kind of is it?Is it like just kind of one of

(15:07):
those things to tack on or doesit really feel like it matters with the
curates? Yeah, it's not.It's a little hard, I think because
it doesn't. I guess it doesn'tfeel like it really matters all that much,
but it kind of changes your perceptionof the story a little. So,
like the big thing that it determinesis who you go on the Gold

(15:31):
Saucer date like in the original,and so you get a big story moment
with whoever that might be. Inmy case, it was Tifa. So
I don't think that system really mattersoverall, but it does do a good
job of kind of highlighting the relationshipthat Cloud has with it. And the

(15:52):
big thing that I noticed in thisthat I had never really even thought of
a flaws the original Frontal Fantasy vinuntil I played this is that in the
original the party members don't really havea relationship with each other every all of
their development, all of what youlearn about them is how they are in
relation to Cloud. The only exceptionto that is, you know, Tifa
and Barrett kind of have a historyof the midyard section. In this that's

(16:17):
very much not the case. Youconstantly see party members, you know,
having little interactions or you know,they talk to each other a lot,
and cut scenes even out in theworld, so you really get a sense.
The big thing that this game isabout is the bonds between the party.
Like you have these bits, youhave all the big story moments and

(16:38):
the big moment that it ends onand all that, but the story is
really about seeing how the relationships betweenall of these grow and change. It's
good. It makes it feel likeyou're really going on a journey with them.
This is awesome. How how closeyou know? A lot of the
big part of Remake, obviously,especially at the end, was oh it's

(17:00):
it's not you know a lot.The whole punt of remake is that you
kind of have the two things fightingwith each other about the whistlers are trying
to return things to keep things howthey were, and then there's other things
going around that that change the story. Right, does this continue that trend
of like changing the story or doesit kind of stick more closely to what

(17:22):
happens in the original seven during thisperiod that you play. Yeah, so
I won't I won't say too much, but this game loosely follows the events
of the originals. You know,from an overhead view, you're kind of
going on the same path. Oryou go to Calm and then you go
under June On and you go onthe cargo ship and then gold Saucer.

(17:45):
So the events are loosely following thesame order, but much more than remake,
everything has been significantly fleshed out oraltered or enhanced in some way,
so much so that I mean,honestly, this feels like a brand new
game. There is that sense offamiliarity in nostalgia because you are seeing the

(18:10):
same places and largely doing the samethings, but it it just feels,
for all intents and purposes, itreally is a brand new Final Fan And
you know that's That's about as muchas I can say without giving anything awak
all Right, I mean that's fair. Definitely don't want to be not spoilning

(18:30):
to people. But like when youwhen this kind of started, when this
whole where you somebody that was like, oh, don't touch my pole Fantasy
seven, I don't want to.I don't you know. Were you a
purist or were you always open tolike, let me see something different with
this. How did you feel whenthose moments that are having a remake of
it changing. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not one of those people at

(18:52):
all. I've always been one ofthose that like, if you're going to
remake something, it's it's not worthjust doing the same thing. I would
always, absolutely, always prefer tosee a remake that reimagines the original,
even if it doesn't end up asyou know, even if it fails in
the end, I would much rastersee it do something new than just make

(19:15):
the old thing look better. Soremakes ending I love, especially because thematically
it feels like remake is a gameabout being a remake, Like that's literally
it's meta textual theme is like it'sall about the pressures of remaking something that's
so beloved and has so many expectationsbehind it. And that's a theme that

(19:38):
very much carries forward into Rebirth.It's still about kind of you know,
fans having this expectation and wanting tosubvert those affectations. So that's kind of
the core narrative theme that carries througheverything. But you're still getting a lot
of the other themes the original FinalFantasies haven't played with, so, like
the big one is the environment,Those are even stronger here. You know,

(20:03):
a lot of the story details areeven more about kind of the environmental
issues facing the planet. And interestingly, one thing that surprised me is it
feels like there's some commentary in thisabout the fact that you know, this
is games coming out twenty six whateveryears later, and it feels like no
one cares about the issues with ourenvironment, and it feels like this game

(20:26):
comments on that, like no onestill no one cares about it, and
still no one's doing about it.So it's a it's really interesting to see
how a lot of the big themesof Final Fantasy seven have been played up
or or you know, enhanced inRebirth, and so, you know,
like you just said, like somany of them are kind of still true
to this day right now, youknow, speak there's obviously since that time,

(20:52):
since seven came out, there's beenthis lethora of things that have have
come out that are seven related.Avage Children just showed up in theater a
few days ago, you know,again for the first time, and who
knows how long I've been kind ofgoing through and and you know, reading
up on uh, you know,some of the books, watching Avan Childman,

(21:12):
and doing all that. There's I'msure there's a lot of people that
are doing that. You wrote anarticle that kind of goes through some of
the things, like now as youplay the game, is there a lot?
Is there? Does it feel worthit for the people that have really
gone and through and experienced a lotof the other things that I hi,
seven related. Yeah, I've alwaysbeen into you know, I I don't

(21:36):
know why, but I kind ofhave an obsession with like extended universe stuff.
So I love when there's just ridiculousamount of extra content to consume with
with things. It's a weird,weird obsession that I have. So seven
has been perfect because I, youknow, I always I read the books
and I watched you know, obviouslyI haven't children back in the day,

(21:56):
and I I watched an entire playthrough of the Boofore Crisis mobile game fifteen
years ago, and so I knoweverything there is to know about Final Fantasy
seven, and the more you knowabout the spinoffs, the more payoff there
is. There are very obvious detailsthat they are weaving in, including some

(22:17):
again I can't say what, butthere's some very big details from spinoffs that
I'm surprised that they put in,and even little things like there's a novel
that came out last year called Tracesof Two Pasts, and in it you
learn about a cat that Tifa hadgrowing up, and one of the side
quests is about meeting that cat.So it's big and small. There's a

(22:37):
lot of things put in. AdventChildren is very interesting. In particular,
when I played Rebirth, I didn'treally make the connections. But then I
saw Advent Children again when it wasin theaters last week, and after playing
Rebirth, it suddenly was like,oh, now I see the connections with
that fresh in my mind, Likesuddenly I could pick out a half to

(23:00):
and little things is like, thatmakes sense. Now I get what they're
doing. That's awesome. I lovethat they like were able to accomplish part
of that dream of they wanted totry to include a lot of as many
things as possible. I imagine thatmight not be a great that might not
be a great thing to hear forsome people. You know, there's a

(23:21):
lot of talk about TETs you andthe Moura and his nomura is and how
he makes all these stories. Everybodywants for everything. Man, it's not
always as fault. Yeah, butif you if you like kind of extended
stuff and little details and little nods, there's there's so much of that,
and I mean, it's it's itwas delightful, honestly as someone you know,

(23:44):
I wrote that article, and I'vewritten other articles in the past and
about theories I had, and someof them came true. That's all that
I mean, That's the thing thatI always I just don't understand how screens
is trying to sell this as astandalone game when it's obviously not stand alone.

(24:06):
I would absolutely, you know,it's hard to recommend that anyone plays
Remake and Rebirth without knowing the original. At least maybe you didn't have to
play the original, but I feellike you at least need to be familiar
with certain things that happened. Solike the big thing. You need to
go into this knowing that Earth dies, you know in the original game,

(24:27):
That's something that you need to know. Whatever whatever happens at the end of
the rebirth doesn't matter, that's somethingyou still need to know happens. Or
you need to know about President Shiinradying or something like that. You know,
but at least going into rebirth.I would never recommend anyone plays this
with like, you absolutely need thatcontext. I mean and literally from the

(24:49):
moment that it ended starts there,So yeah, I mean, yeah,
you really have to. Like oneof the biggest I think issue that I
think a lot of us have withremake and me replaying it, especially some
of those middle sections really felt like, oh man, this is kind of
it feels like it's singing a lotlonger to get through than it did when

(25:11):
you have that initial excitement and allthat stuff when you're first getting to the
game. Is the pacing better inRebirth or is it kind of similar to
remake where you still have those partswhere yeah, so funny enough, that's
that's like literally the one problem Ihad with this game is the pacing.
The pacing of the main story Ithink is fine overall, if you're doing

(25:34):
the story. So to me,it feels like this game is very intentionally
designed for you to follow the mainstory for the most and come back and
do side stuff later. But thegame does not do a good job of
telling you that you can that youcan come back and do side stuff.
So you know, when you getto a new area, you have this

(25:55):
huge area to explain, and youhave you know, five different optional combat
things shrines to find and Sumone's tofind, and side quests to do,
and you have twenty different things todo, so it can really hurt the
pacing of the story when you getto a new area and you know you're
spending fifteen hours doing side stuff.So what I would recommend is, if

(26:17):
you know, if people really wantto see the story play out, want
that pacing to be intact, Iwould just recommend you mostly mainline the story,
maybe do a couple side quests,but you can come back at any
point throughout the game and do anyof the side content, so nothing is
missible. So I would recommend you, know, you do a tiny bit

(26:38):
of the side content and keep thestory. That's really the one flaw that
I see with it at all.Okay, So you don't necessarily you don't
have to do the side content tobe able to get through the game,
Like it doesn't feel like, ohman, I'm not going to be level
enough. The one the one exceptionis the first area, the grasslands.

(27:03):
You want to do a little bitmore there because you know, if you
played the original, the mid GuardSommers like the boss at the end of
that area, and it's a littletough. So that's the one place where
I think, do a few sidequests to boost your level or get some
items and then then fight that boss. But everything else, like just get
through the story. That that reallyis the best recommendation I have. So,

(27:26):
I mean, it feels like alot of the side quests are i
guess not much different than what youwould see in a those these kind of
open world games. But it feelslike what they did was they filled it
with mini games instead. Do youlike this idea more of this is how

(27:47):
you do it a big old openworld. Well it's not open world,
but like mostly open world game betterthan say, like the way Ubisoft does
it, where you just give youa lot of the same stuff over and
over. Yeah. Actually, ironically, the last big open world game I
played before this was Assassin's creat Valhalla, and I had a really hard time
getting because about fifty hours in,it's just felt so monotonous and it's just

(28:12):
absolute checklist of things to do andtotally overwhelming. With mans, there's a
little bit of that in Remake orRebirth, but I think what Rebirth does
really well is have has this senseof variety to everything that you do.
So you know, there's there's theseeach area kind of has these mini games
and they're all they all are verydifferent, so like you know, one

(28:34):
in one area you played the forkCondor mini game from a remake, or
you might get turned into a toadand have to do this like obstaclecle course
kind of thing, or you havethe chocobo racing at the Gold Saucer.
They all feel extremely varied. Andit also takes a little bit of inspiration
from like The Witcher three in termsof its side quests, with tying the

(28:56):
stories of the side quest into themain story or to the party member.
So there's one thing the side questthat really stands out to me is in
Cosmo Canyon, you have these sidequests that are called proto relic quests where
each area has a proto relic questseries where you're trying to get these relics

(29:17):
that'll open up a secret foss basically, but the one in Cosmo Canyon is
actually surprisingly important to the story andsome characters from remake, so all it
feels like something that's almost necessary todo in order to get the full picture
of the story. So that's whyI think the side content here and Rebirth

(29:41):
is better than what you typically seein an open world game, because one
it often ties to the main storyor to character development, and two it's
all extremely varied and different, soit doesn't feel monotonous like other things do
a lot of times. It feelslike you're doing something new, something exciting
that's awesome to hear, because that'sthat's my number one, like worry when

(30:03):
they said, oh, it's kindof going open world is and you know
when I mean to say with youabout sixteen, I love sixteen. But
obviously the side quests were not alwaysthe most fun thing to do, right.
It felt like a means to anend, like we need to get
through all these so we can getto the ones that actually have story parts

(30:23):
that are cool. Yeah, it'syeah, it's good. It feels like
the polar opposite is sick and ina lot of ways because sixteen was really
about that core action experience, youknow, and that's that's all that was
to it, and that's fine forthis kind of game it was, but
Rebirth is very much about providing asmuch variety as possible, and I I'm

(30:48):
blown away by how much variety theywere able to put into this game.
It's incredibly impressive. Well, Imean, speaking of some of those mini
games, there's a ton of them, I know, But do you have
any favorites that like you're like,oh man, I love this one.
I want to play it again.I like the choke about racing a lot.
It's very Mario Kart esque, whichis good. If you make any

(31:11):
kind of racing mini game, itshould really just be Mario Kart. Yeah,
they perfected it. Don't do anythingelse. The other one that's really
good is Queen's Blood the card game, which is it. At first,
when I started the card game,it was I was like, I'm not
sure about this, but it reallygrows into something really fun and really like

(31:32):
tactic tactical and has a lot ofdepth to it, and I like it
even more of the Triple tryad fromFinal Fantasy and I might even like it,
but went from Whicher three. Solike, it's honestly one of the
best card games I've seen in anyvideo game, particularly because like it starts
out simple, but it really growsin its complexity across the game. And

(31:55):
there's some surprising again, there's somesurprising twists related to this this card game
that you think is just a minigame, but it ends up having a
story to it. It feels likethey really thought of everything like this,
do you really want to go get? You know, you told me at
the beginning, but I do feellike, you know, lack of dragons

(32:16):
right there, and they really definitelytook a big inspiration from that of how
do we make the mini games somethingthat somebody's going to enjoy just as much
as the main game. It feelslike is I guess what I was trying
to say is did you did youever feel a point where I know you
said you didn't, you know,go through the checklists or whatever, but

(32:38):
did you did you? Overall?You gave this a ten out of ten
in your review. You know,ten out of ten. That's not that's
not something you take lightly to givesomething that you know, if you look
back at it now, what whatwould you have given? I guess remake
looking back at it now, andwhy why give it a ten out of

(32:59):
ten? Yeah? I think remakein my mind was probably like a nine.
I loved Remake, But this,I think the most important thing I
tried to get across when I've talkedabout this game is that it feels so
fresh and new. It feels likeit pushes Final Fantasy into a new direction.

(33:21):
It feels cutting edge for the franchise, which is something that hasn't happened
for a long time. But atthe same time, it really captures the
spirit of the original Final Fantasy Final. When the first Final Fantasy seven came
out, it was it's a weirdgame. It's got really weird stuff in
there. It's got a little catthat rides a giant google and has a

(33:43):
Scottish accent. You know, ithas all these mini games. You got
to ride a dolphin to get inthe June on and it's got all this
weird stuff. Excuse me, andrebirth is that to a te it it
gets super super weird and that that'sperfect. You know, it has this
kind of just it wants to beweird, and it wants to be exciting,

(34:07):
and it wants to be unlike anythingyou've ever seen. And I think
that's what really makes it succeed isthat they're able to capture that spirit of
the original game, the essence ofthe original game, but also make it
feel like something new for the franchise. That's that's good. I mean you

(34:28):
you're saying that. I mean,obviously, it feels like the majority of
everybody's thought is I could be coolwith doing this combat system and File Fantasy
games for a long time to comeright, But what makes like if we're
going to do a Final Fantasy seventeenright now right? Because sixteen is very
divisive. Some people loved it,a lot of people hated it for various

(34:50):
reasons. What is it that youtake out of this game and say,
Okay, this needs to be likethe basis of a File Fantasy seventeen.
Yeah, you know, there's alot a lot of talk about that.
Really, it feels like every otherinterview you see on anything Final Fantasy,
someone asks the creator what makes aFinal Fantasy? And you know, I
think they obviously know better than Ido. But The thing to me that

(35:14):
really has made Final Fantasy so specialover the years is just the sense that
it always wants to be something different. You know, it's not content to
just do the same thing over andover. You know. I wrote an
article about Final Fantasy eight for itsanniversary recently, and I think that game
is almost the perfect example because youhave seven that came out, it was
this mega hit, this RPG thatsold better than any RPG ever had,

(35:37):
and then you have eight come outand it didn't do anything that seven did.
You know, it changed everything.It changed the combat with the junction
system, changed the equipment system Ihad triple tryad, it changed the story,
it's setting it, it changed everything. So relating that to rebirth,
I think that's really what it's importantFinal Fantasy going forward, is that you're

(35:59):
just being experimental and trying new things. And I think sixteen fit that as
well. You know, it didn'tland with everyone, and I think that's
fine. Sixteen had a vision andit stuck to it and it did something
that the franchise has never done.I think that's the only way that Final
Fantasy is going to keep growing andkeep staying relevant is by trying new things

(36:22):
and just wanting to create new experiences. Yeah, definitely. Hopefully. If
anything, this just show them keepdoing what you do. You have Remake
here, You're doing new things withRebirth now. I mean, who knows
what they could do with the whateveryou know, this third part of the
trilogy. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they do with

(36:42):
the next game. The big thingis we've you know, we've been to
most everywhere in the original game.There's there's a few places that least you
know, there's icicle In and rocketTown, and they've talked about where this
game ends in interviews. They've beenvery open about that, so it's going
to be interesting to see. Ithink the next game is going to be

(37:05):
the most different. I think it'llbe a lot of very new stuff that
wasn't in the original story. Whetheryou're like that or not, the best
thing I can say about this trilogyis that they have a vision and they
are sticking to it. I wouldI much prefer that they are sticking to
their vision rather than trying to appeasewhat people you know, what people wanted

(37:28):
from what Remake did or what this. Yeah, I mean, obviously it's
just critic reviews, but it feelslike they kind of adviticated with that with
all of the you know, thebig high praise. Is there something that
it's different, you know, havingto play it? How early? Can
you say, like how early yougot that you were given the code and

(37:51):
how long you had to play?Yeah, I don't remember exactly, to
be honest, but I think itwas like about three weeks wow, which
is amazing, pretty pretty generous.Most of the time as a reviewer,
you don't get that kind of time. No, No, well that was
it was extremely nice, and Ithink that's you know, it shows a

(38:16):
confidence and what that team had created. But you know, I think it
shows that the lowest score for thisgame is an eight out of ten,
and that's Final Fantasy hasn't had agame like that since ten for twenty years,
that series hasn't had a game thathas been beloved like this. So

(38:37):
I'm really really interested to see whenpeople get their hands on this. There
are a lot of big moments thatI can't wait for people to experience and
talk about. And it's just it'sit's the kind of thing as a reviewer
where you you beat it and you'relike, I cannot wait to see what
other people think of this. That'sthat's awesome to hear too, Like it's

(38:58):
like I want to talk somebody elseabout it, but I can't, you
know. It's like I guess That'swhat I was going to ask you,
is like, what do you feellike, do you think that the the
gamer reception the fan reception is goingto be similar? Was is there anything
that worries you about? I guesswhere the discourse is going to go.
I think, by and large,people are really going to like it.

(39:21):
I think, just like Remake,I think the ending is going to be
the big I think just I think, just like Remake, it'll be a
case of people really love it orpeople really hate it. There's not going
to be an event that's going tobe what everyone is talking about. Is
the ending? The last two hoursor so? Does this feel like the

(39:45):
middle child the middle game, likeyou're just waiting for to get to the
next part, or do you feellike, yeah, you got enough here?
It very much like it's like it'sthe Empire strikes back, a final
fantasy like it is very much themiddle chapter, which I think is why
it can be a little more lighthearted. A lot of times or a little

(40:06):
more experimental or exploratory because it youknow, it doesn't have to pay everything
off. There's quite a bit ofsetup in this, and you know,
like they've shown in all the trailersand pre release everything. You know,
you meet Vincent and Sid, butthey don't join your party or anything.
So there's a lot of set upwith those characters too. So it very

(40:28):
much is the middle chapter and it'sgonna be it's a hard way to the
next one. Yeah, definitely.I hope that it comes out before twenty
twenty eight, basically, but we'llsee. I'm hoping too that just because
they have more assets to use andthere's more world there for them to use,

(40:50):
that they can somehow do it intwenty twenty seven or something. Yeah.
Well, I think it'd be interestingbecause the director, naw Kihamagucci.
One thing he talked about is howbeneficial it was to keep the same team,
so everyone that worked on Remake theycarry over to Rebirth, and he
said that worked wonders for their developmentprocess because suddenly if they had a problem,

(41:14):
they instantly knew who to go toand there was real like synergy that
built between the team. So Ihave to imagine, you know, doing
that seems to have paid off,So I have to imagine that they're going
to have that same exact team keepgoing and keep doing the Only thing I
wonder about is, you know thisis I think it's creative business unit one

(41:35):
that does this right. And Ithink that's also the same team that will
be primarily making Kingdom Hearts four.So I keep thinking about I don't know
if we'll see remake Part three orKingdom Hearts four. First. It's hard
to say, yeah, that one'san interesting one too, because like people
were so used to waiting long periodswith Kingdom Hearts that is like, yeah,

(41:57):
do they go ahead and get thisan a, get Dene with fIF
Fantasy seven and then okay, wellnow we can focus all of our attention
on Keenumarts. Yeah, that's gonnabe an interesting one out of that.
Is there anything like you know,sixteen had the very obvious It felt like,
oh, they keep talking about Leviathan, the loss to keep talking about

(42:17):
other's that's the one summon that's notin here and all that stuff. Is
there anything that you felt like isobvious? For like if they did do
a DLC like the UFY one thatcould be DLC or not quite. You
know, there's there's nothing super obviouslike that. I think the most obvious
would be to do a DLC aboutSid or Vincent make them playable. I

(42:40):
personally think Sid would be better servebecause I think you learn a little more
about Vincent than you do, soI think if anything is obvious, I
think SID is the obvious choice foryou. I wouldn't be surprised if they
do it. You know, intermissionwas fantastic. I love the intermission deals,
and I you know, the nextgame is going to have a lengthy

(43:04):
development skill There's no way around it. So I think if they can put
out a DLC in a year ora year and a half or something like
that, that can work as alittle bit of a stop gap to not
make the wait feel so long.But I think it's something they're really going
to want to do. They're goingto want to keep momentum and interest them
for this trilogy. Yeah. Imean obviously part of that was also because

(43:29):
they had the big move to,oh, we want to do like a
remaster sort of thing for the PSfive version, so why not give people
a reason? And then obviously we'regoing to show you what the what it
can look like with the PS fivewith intermission as well, So it's going
to be interesting, like now thatyou don't have that kind of thing to
make it easy for to say,Okay, this is the reason why we're

(43:50):
doing DLC. I wonder how longthey if they do it, how long
they wait to do it, andyeah, what that's going to be obviously.
Is there anything that you felt likewas missing or you felt like,
man, I wish they would haveadded this to the game that would have
just put that one one cherry ontop, just like, Okay, this
is they can't top this, oryou just felt like, man, I

(44:12):
needed this in the game. Iwas pretty happy with pretty much everything overall.
I mean, the the you know, the ultimate wish I have is
I would love to play is Vincent'sI would have loved that. But I
understand why they couldn't do it orwhy they didn't want to do it,
so it makes sense. But otherthan not being able to play as them,
nothing that I can really think of, Honestly, I'm pretty I'm pretty

(44:35):
pleased with everything that they missed oreverything they include. Did you have a
part of the game that let's sayin the original there's a lot of stuff
that you know, they didn't spenda lot of time on, and then
they made bigger in this game.Is there something that like now stands out
of like, oh man, thisis my one of my favorite parts of
fam Fantasy seven now now that I'veexperienced it in bigger detail and rebirth to
think about that first, Sorry,No, that's okay. I think June

(45:00):
On. It's interesting for me toanswer that because Rucus's welcoming ceremony in June
On is one of my favorite partsof the original game, but it's even
more one of my favorite parts ofthe game now because I think that the
way that they've done it in Rebirthis just absolutely phenomenal. It's more than

(45:22):
I more than I thought they couldthey could do with it. It's a
blast, honestly. The other thingis that the cargo ship after you leave
Juneon is it's you know that wasthe original It's like a ten minute segment
where you fight a boss a mysticallyit, yeah, but now it's it's
a whole section. In this it'sa whole chapter. So you have a

(45:43):
whole thing on board the ship andit's pretty pretty neat, So I think
that's the big thing. Is justeverything that felt like such a small snippet
in the original game feels like it'sown. Do you feel like there's a
character in this then Rebirth now thatmaybe you didn't, maybe you didn't use
so much, but you didn't carethat much about that. You feel like,

(46:07):
Wow, I care about them moreafter playing this than say, yeah,
original it's absolutely cat fit. Ithink he was. I think most
people think would agree that he waskind of the least interesting party member of
the original, both in terms ofstory and using him in combat. I
mean he was, he was fine, but I just liked everyone else better.

(46:30):
But in this his combat stuff isreally fun. He's really different from
everyone else, and he really feelslike a more important part of the story
because I think in the original,you you know, you have he joins
your party, and then he betraysyou and that's his big moment and then
the story kind of forgets. It'sjust kind of there. But in this

(46:50):
he's a part of the group.You know, he interacts with everyone else,
and he's he's so funny. He'sjust this weird little gremlin just always
does weird stuff, and he youknow, when he runs around the field
like a cat. He's on allfours running like a cat all the time,
except for when he jumps on hisbig gogle and it's just he's just
the weirdest little dude and I lovehim so much. He is He's the

(47:15):
character that I think has been mostimportant. That's yeah, I agree with
you there. That's the first thing. Like as soon as you get him,
okay, cool, whatever. Iuse them a little bit at times
that they make you use them,and then it's like, you know,
goodbye case you know, but that'sthat's good. That That's what I feel
like, I guess most is earnedin this game is how much more of

(47:36):
the characters feel when they when theysay in that that final like say to
play where they talk about you're gonnafeel very close to the characters or that
feels like they definitely earned that tobe able to say that, did you
feel like did you did you havea favorite party that you used in combat
or did you kind of change itup a lot or I changed it up

(47:59):
a lot. But I found outpretty quickly that Red thirteen is like the
best character in this game. Hehas some of his abilities are really really
really good, and he has hisunique like trait is called Vengeance Mode,
So as he blocks, he raisesthis vengeance gauge, and when you go

(48:19):
into Vengeance mode, it raises yourtack power and changes your combos and lets
you use a special move called siphonFang where you can steal enemies health.
So he is he is easily oneof the best characters in the game in
terms of combat, but I alsothink he got a lot of very special
story. He is a big focusin terms of gameplay and story. Yeah,

(48:45):
that was one of the things,like, you know, you don't
get to use him and remake andI was like, man, how are
they going to do this with him? How is he going to how they
gonna use him in combat? Andit's it's awesome to hear that he's great
in this as well. Is thereanything with the combat like that they besides
the synergy stuff that is it?Do you feel I guess one of the

(49:08):
things that wasn't necessarily remake kind offelt like it wasn't as easy as say
sixteen was. But it also feltlike I didn't outside like the hell House.
I didn't necessarily feel like I hadtoo much of a challenge. I
guess in the normal mode. Doesthat feel more balanced in rebirth or is
it kind of the same or Ididn't play a lot on normal mode,

(49:29):
but I guess I will say ifyou want more of a challenge, they
it's good to pick. They havea new mode called Dynamic Mode, which
scales all the enemies to your level, whether it's bosses or enemies when you
go back to do side content.I found that very challenging because it's you
can't over level at any point becauseeverything is just scaled up to you.

(49:51):
So yeah, I think that thatmode hit. There were a couple of
times I actually to turn it downto normal. Looks too hard on a
couple of battles, and you know, I was under review deadlines, so
I know. But I think DynamicMode is gonna is a good happy medium,
you know, for people that reallywant to challenge. And yeah,
you can you and lock hard modeafter you beat the game, and that's

(50:14):
drastically harder. So I think asa first playthrough, I would I'd recommend
people try Dynamics to see if itkind of, you know, hits the
sweet spots that they want. Iguess one last thing. You know,
we talked about you giving a tenout of ten or whatever. But like
for people that are listening, watchof this and they're let's say they want

(50:34):
they they check this out of four, they get to play Rebirth, Like,
what's that thing that like gives alasting impression to you of I'm going
to remember Rebirth because of this.This is what stood out to me though,
that's that it's still gonna be thatmain story. You know. I
love a lot of the side content. I love a lot of mini games,
but it's really that main story.There's a lot of really special moment,

(50:58):
like really intimate character moments, reallybig boss battles, exciting boss battles,
you know, just kind of seeingthat journey it I guess, you
know, I'm one thing that reallystands out to me. I guess is
the town's in particular. It feelsgoing to each town feels like a big

(51:22):
event, like You've got this wholenew town to explore and all these things
to see and do, and itit really felt like what I remember we're
playing RPGs in the nineties, feltlike, you know, when you got
to a new town and it wasso exciting because you know, all these
discoveries and new characters and all thesethings to do, and it really recaptured

(51:43):
that sentiment for It's one of thefirst RPGs in a long time to really
recapture that idea of each new townfeeling like this big event. Did you
have a favorite town of the Imean they already showed all the regions or
whatever what they are, like,did you have a favorite region that you
got to go to? Or Ithink it's Cosmo Kanyon. You know,
I've always loved Cosmo Kanyon. Themusic, thematic setting, the lighting,

(52:07):
everything, and it's everything's just beenturned up to ten Cosmo Kanyon here.
It's just incredible. One of thethings that's you know, it's obviously because
they have the demo and everything,but it's been it's been talked about did
you play in quality or did youplay in I played in the quality mode

(52:28):
the whole time. Okay, soyou didn't notice the blurry stuff and all
that. There's there was a littlebit of that. That's part of why
I played in quality mode, honestly. But they just released a new patch
for the demo today, I believe, and that patch was also applied to
the full game, and it seemsto have pretty well fixed that issue.

(52:51):
Okay, but I think quality modeis also. I think quality mode is
just the way to play it.Honestly. There's so much to the environment
and having it in four K reallyjust makes everything pop. You didn't feel
like you oh, I mean,I don't know how much of a sticks
the fps thirty fps person you are, like how much that affects you?
But did you feel like you lostanything from playing in quality the whole time?

(53:15):
There are some games that I preferredsixty, like Spider Man games are
one of those that I've felt thatway sixteen and I felt was better in
sixty. But with this game,I really didn't feel like I lost anything
in quality mode. It you know, it sticks at thirty. I didn't
have I can't think of a singletime I had any slowdown honestly, So

(53:36):
I think the quality mode just itjust felt better for me after I tried
the two for a while. Yeah. I just wanted to get you that
because I've kind of like been thinkingabout, like, well, do I
playing performance for a while and thenwhich the quality went out? There's going
to be this like big story thing, like do I need to be like
saving it and then going back anddo it. But that's that's good that

(53:58):
it doesn't really feel like it changesmuch when you play in quality. I
guess you mentioned the music. Obviously, he's part of Final Fantasy in general,
the whole series and seven as well. How awesome is the music in
this game? You have a standouttracks anything, It's very good. The
one thing that's different. Remake hadsome tracks that are really memorable to me,

(54:23):
but I think interestingly with this there'snot as many that really stand out,
simply because there's so much music.It feels like almost everything in the
game has a separate music track,And they've said I think they made something
like four hundred songs for this,So I think the soundtrack is fantastic,

(54:43):
but I don't remember as much ofit, like I said, because everything
is so different. The one Iguess is still, you know, Ruth,
this is welcoming ceremony. That's that'salways going to be one favors,
all right, man, I thinkI've asked you about almost everything in this
game here that I you know,we can talk about. Thank you so

(55:04):
much for being on here. Idon't know unless you get think of something
that you felt like you need tomention that we didn't talk about, But
now I think we've covered most everything. I Like I said, I'm just
excited to see people talk about thosebig story moments. I think that's That's
what I'm really excited about when thegame comes out. All right, man?

(55:27):
Where can where can people find youryour work mostly and anything big Y
got coming up besides Rebirth that youwant to talk about or can talk about.
I guess no, I'll have someextra stuff coming out for Rebirth,
So you know, I mainly workfor Inverse, so Inverse dot com people
can find my stuff there. Ioccasionally do stuff for Kotaku or other sites,

(55:52):
and I have some rebirth stuff plannedfor a few different sites. So
other than that, the next biggame I'll be talking about is probably Dragon's
Dogma two, so keep an eyeout for that. Excited. Yeah,
I'm excited for that as well.I guess just just that was there was

(56:14):
there a lot of people when youwent to the I had to work both
those nights, so I couldn't go, but I wanted to. Was there
a lot of people at the avagchildren showing that you went to or yeah,
I'd say the auditory Night Went towas like a little over half full,
which I think is pretty good forlike a twenty Yeah. Do you
appreciate it more like now now thatthere's all this other stuff around it,

(56:35):
or does it feel like I do? Yeah, The Savior. I I
like Advent Children, but it's kindof a guilty pleasure because I know it's
I know, it's not a greatmovie, right yeah, simply from an
objective standpoint, but I appreciate whatit did and how it You know,
we wouldn't have these new games withoutAdvent Children. That that's the simple truth.

(56:57):
So I mean, yeah, Iappreciate what it movie, all right,
man, Hopefully all of you guysenjoyed. Uh, Hayes give you
know, talking for wow an hourhere about rebirth you know, you know,
let us know either in the commentson on YouTube, work on YouTube
or twitch or wherever you watch this, or if you listen later on the

(57:20):
podcast, you know, give usa review there. Go follow Hayes.
What's your Your Twitter Twitter is atsoul fleet s O L F L E.
Yeah, definitely go follow Hayes andand catch up on what you know
he's doing and writing about. Definitelyone of the best out there, freelance
writers, and thank you again forbeing on and well hopefully we can have

(57:45):
you on again pretty soon man.Thank you. Yeah, definitely

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Impressions w/ Hayes Madsen

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