Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

The Long Road Through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth — And Why We’re All Still Catching Up

By Zaki Qayoumi (SUPERFRENCHBIGZ AKA FRENCHBIGZ (PAST) AKA IAMZAKI_DJ (BACK IN THE DAYS AND INTO THE FUTURE)) on Twitter and LEFRENZY on PLAYSTATION 5

The Journey Is the Point

Booting up Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for the first time is a little like stepping onto a train you know is going to cross continents. The station is bright, your seat is comfortable, and there’s an almost giddy feeling in the air. But you also know you’re not getting off anytime soon.

The trip will be long. The scenery will shift in dramatic, sometimes unexpected ways. You’ll have time to settle into a rhythm, to notice details, to fall in love with small moments that have nothing to do with the “main objective.”

That’s what Rebirth offers: a genuine journey. Not the kind that marketing blurbs promise with phrases like “epic adventure” — but a journey in the truest sense. You live alongside the characters. You share in their victories and their setbacks. You spend so much time in this world that it starts to feel like a place you can almost step into if you lean far enough toward the screen.

The sheer scope means you can’t just “knock it out” in a weekend. This is a game you live with. It’s the kind of title that quietly sits in the back of your mind while you’re at work or making dinner, pulling you back in when you finally have a spare hour.

And that’s the beauty of it.

The Expansive Promise of Rebirth

Some games are long because they fill your to-do list with repetitive errands. Others are long because their worlds feel genuinely vast and full of life. Rebirth belongs in the latter category.

You notice it right away — the game gives you room to breathe. You’re not hemmed in by constant corridors or “point A to point B” design. There’s space to wander, to investigate that curious landmark off in the distance, to talk to NPCs who may never appear in your quest log but somehow add a texture to the world you didn’t know you needed.

The pacing invites you to linger. You might intend to head toward your next story objective, only to find yourself distracted by a hidden path or a piece of music drifting from a nearby location. Hours slip away like that, and you don’t feel guilty about it.

That’s part of what makes the journey feel so long — and so worth it. You’re not just advancing a plot; you’re inhabiting a place.

Looking Back: The Magic of Remake

To appreciate Rebirth, you have to remember Final Fantasy VII Remake.

When it launched in 2020, Remake was more than just another RPG release. It was a cultural checkpoint — a moment where longtime fans returned to a piece of their youth, and newcomers discovered why this game had lived rent-free in the collective memory for over two decades.

What Remake accomplished was remarkable. It took a small fraction of the original game — the Midgar section — and expanded it into a full, sprawling experience that felt both faithful and bold. The streets of Midgar pulsed with life. Every alley had personality, every NPC a voice. Combat blended real-time action with strategic depth, creating battles that felt cinematic without losing tactical nuance.

Most importantly, Remake dared to be its own thing. It didn’t simply replicate; it reimagined. For many of us, it rekindled something we didn’t realize we’d lost — that sense of sitting down with a new Final Fantasy and feeling like you were about to witness something unforgettable.

Living in the Shadow of the Trilogy’s End

Here’s the double-edged sword of Rebirth: as much as it’s a self-contained experience, it’s also the second act of a trilogy.

That means you’re both savoring the now and bracing for the future. You know there’s more to come — one more chapter to close the book on this retelling. You can almost feel it hovering out there in the distance, like a mountain peak you’ll climb one day.

This kind of storytelling creates a unique tension. You’re in the thick of an incredible journey, but a part of your mind can’t stop imagining the finale. It’s the same feeling as reading the second book of a trilogy and constantly wondering how it will all end.

For fans, that’s both exhilarating and agonizing. We’re loving every moment, but we’re also counting down to a day that might still be years away.

The Backlog: Gaming’s Shared Guilty Secret

Let’s be honest — Rebirth isn’t the only game competing for your attention. Your backlog is probably already large enough to qualify as a small personal library.

In a time before digital storefronts, backlogs were stacks of discs or cartridges. Now they’re icons on dashboards, rows of titles in Steam libraries, or wishlist items waiting for the next sale. And for many of us, buried somewhere in that backlog is Final Fantasy XV.

Final Fantasy XV — The Road Trip We Haven’t Taken

If you’ve played XV, you know it’s special. If you haven’t, you’ve probably meant to. It’s not just another RPG — it’s a game about friendship, travel, and the small moments between the big ones. It has a rhythm and personality that’s entirely its own.

But here’s the problem: XV, like Rebirth, demands time. You can’t just dip in for a weekend and expect to absorb its essence. It asks for the same commitment that all the great Final Fantasy games ask for — not just your attention, but your willingness to let it take priority in your leisure time.

And these days, that’s a tall order.

Life vs. the Long Game

It’s not just jobs, families, and obligations that eat into our gaming time. It’s the relentless pace of modern entertainment.

Entire seasons of shows drop on streaming platforms overnight. Movies are available to rent within weeks of their theatrical release. Your phone buzzes with notifications from social media before you’ve even had breakfast.

In this kind of environment, the idea of dedicating 80+ hours to a single game can feel almost rebellious. It means turning away from the constant churn of content and saying, “No, I’m going to live here for a while.”

That’s a commitment fewer and fewer people make — but those who do often find it’s exactly what they needed.

The Waiting Game: Delays and Anticipation

And then there’s the waiting. Final Fantasy XVII — yes, the next big numbered entry — has already been delayed. It’s not surprising; modern game development is a monumental task, and delays have become more the rule than the exception.

In one sense, the delay is a blessing. It gives the team time to polish, refine, and ensure the final product is worthy of the Final Fantasy name. But it also stretches the space between releases, turning anticipation into something closer to endurance.

For players already behind on past entries, the delay might seem like a chance to catch up. But let’s be real: new games will keep arriving, and that backlog will continue to grow.

Why Final Fantasy Still Pulls Us Back

Despite all this — the time commitment, the backlog, the delays — Final Fantasy has a pull that’s hard to explain to outsiders.

Every numbered entry is a self-contained world, with its own cast, conflicts, and emotional beats. One game might lean into operatic political drama, another into intimate personal storytelling, another into strange blends of sci-fi and magic.

But they all share a certain DNA — the sweeping music, the memorable characters, the moments that hit you harder than you expect. They’re games you remember years later, not just because of what happened in them, but because of where you were in life when you played them.

That’s why we carve out the time, even when it feels impossible. And it’s why, when the third part of the VII trilogy finally arrives, we’ll be ready — or at least, we’ll tell ourselves we are.

The Long Game — And Why It’s Worth It

Yes, Rebirth is long. Yes, it will take weeks or months for many players to finish. And yes, your other games will gather dust in the meantime.

But that’s not a downside — that’s part of the point. Some games are meant to be consumed quickly; others are meant to be lived with. Rebirth belongs firmly in the latter category.

When the trilogy ends, we’ll look back on this stretch of time not as a chore, but as an era — a period when we had the privilege to immerse ourselves in one of gaming’s most ambitious retellings.

Because in the end, the magic of Final Fantasy isn’t in crossing the finish line. It’s in the miles we travel to get there.