The Unknown Journey Continues: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

On January 23^rd 2025, the FFVII remake trilogy continues on PC with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

The original PlayStation 1 Final Fantasy VII may have come out in 1997, but we are heckin’ excited for part two of the remake trilogy. (What we won’t do is look at how I never made it passed the Materia Keeper…) With updated visuals, travel by Chocobo, and the next chapter of cinematic story to experience, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is just what a gloomy January needs! We’ve got a breakdown of the game, platforms, specifications, and a selection of PCs perfect to play FFVII.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is part two of Square Enix’s FFVII epic remake and was developed under the guidance key devs from the original game. Continuing your journey as Cloud Strife, you have escaped the dystopian city, Midgar, and stepped into the unknown. With your iconic companions, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII, you must travel to unfamiliar places in pursuit of Cloud’s sworn enemy, Sephiroth.

Gameplay

This bold re-imagining of the beloved FFVII game features a mix of traditional turn-based combat with real-time action. Each character has their own weaponry, which can be tailored using materia that grants access to a wide range of classic JRPG abilities and magic. Materia can also contain powerful summons that unleash devastating moves on your enemies. What’s more, each character has a limit gauge and their own unique Limit Break move to help turn the tide in boss battles. In addition to this, you can make two characters team up with synergy abilities, which you unlock as your team gets stronger.

FFVII Rebirth is fully voice acted with Cody Christian, Briana White, and Britt Baron all returning as Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa, respectively. Plus, it features updated orchestrations of the original soundtrack to really give you goosebumps during the cinematic cut scenes and explosive combat.

With this being a PC port, you can take advantage of enhanced textures, improved lighting, and GPU tech like DLSS to experience Final Fantasy VII rebirth in phenomenal detail it deserves.

FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH game still from Steam

Simon’s Review of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Oh boy, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, ever since finishing Remake. I couldn’t wait to continue following Cloud and crew as they made their way to Kalm and beyond now that they’d left Midgar. Especially as the changes to the story Square Enix made to the game mean anything could happen. Like, for example, moving Materia Keeper, now called Materia Guardian, to being the first boss you face – sorry Em!

Simon’s Gaming Specs

I continued my journey, chasing after Sephiroth on my custom gaming PC with the following specs:

Component	Details
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
GPU	AMD Radeon RX 6800
RAM	32GB DDR4 3600MHz
Storage	NVMe and SATA storage

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Levelling Up a Classic

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you’ll know that FF7 Rebirth is the second part of a trilogy of remakes of the 1997 classic JPRG. These games massively flesh out the original’s story. The first game, FF7 Remake, perfectly exemplifies this, taking a short section of the original game and fleshing it out to a full game. Seriously, if you knew what you were doing, you could get through Midgar in a couple of hours originally. My playthrough of Remake took over a hundred hours to fully complete.

Meanwhile, Rebirth takes this one step further, with a fourteen-chapter long story that I haven’t gotten to the end of yet. I’m a hundred hours in and on chapter twelve still! What may have been a blink and you’d miss it section of Final Fantasy 7, now offers hours of excellent story, character interactions, battles, minigames, and so much more.

The Mythril Mines are a perfect example of this. In the OG game, this location consisted of about six screens, which did offer some juicy loot. Somehow, they managed to spin this off into a massive dungeon, with the group splitting up into two teams, who face different challenges along the way. Including specialised puzzles, exploration tailored to their skill sets, and two unique bosses at the end.

Tweaked the Combat

The remake trilogy took a big step away from how the original handled combat. Back in 1997, the Active Time Battle (ATB) system was the solid foundation of how you’d play a Final Fantasy game. This persisted in pretty much the same form up until FF9, after which Square moved to new systems. With the remakes however, it’s much more fluid. Combat takes place in real time and actions fill an ATB gauge for each party member.

Even so, the combat between Remake and Rebirth has been tweaked a bit, which felt a little off putting at first. Things you could do in the first game you can’t do this time. For example, Aerith has had her combat mechanics changed. In Remake, Aerith was basically a turret, you’d set her up and use her to unleash powerful magic, but if the enemies focused her, good luck getting a Firaga out. With her new Ward Shift mechanic in Rebirth, she can warp away when enemies get close, giving her time to unleash the hard-hitting spells. Even better, this ability can take her straight to her Arcane Ward, for those sweet double casts.

But as I said these are just small tweaks. If you loved the combat of Remake, you’ll adore the combat of Rebirth. It’s just as frantic and cinematic as it was the first time around. Give it a while and it’ll all feel completely natural again.

So Much Content

One of the main reasons I have so much time clocked up, but still haven’t finished Rebirth, is because it’s an absolute unit when it comes to extra content. For the most part, each chapter is dedicated to a zone of the world. Chapter 1 is in the Grasslands around Kalm, Chapter 3 the ruins of the Junon Republic, and so forth.

Well, each of these zones has around thirty tasks to accomplish. These can be a bit repetitive, like unlocking towers a la Assassin’s Creed. Others, however, can be interesting little side quests, like the search for the Protorelics. You’ll find one of these in each zone, with four minigames to work through, such as playing Fort Condor or bashing a bunch of Cactuars.

If you enjoy those minigames, FF7 Rebirth really has you covered. To name but a few, there are Chocobo Racing, G-Bike, 3-D Brawler, and Galactic Saviours -and those are all in just Golden Saucer!. There are more out in the world, such as the ever-present card game that is a requirement for a Final Fantasy game, this time called Queen’s Blood, or QB as some people call it.

On top of the zone exploration, and the endless array of mini games, each region offers plenty of side quests to distract you from the main story. I mean Sephiroth can wait, I need to help the Johnnys set up his hotel. Yes, I did mean to use plural and singular there, it’s a fun storyline thing involving Yuffie and Hojo. Anway, they’re not all as interesting as that one, but with dozens on offer, you’re sure to end up distracted for a while.

A Feast for the Senses

The art teams at Squenix have always been able to produce some breathtaking content when it comes to Final Fantasy. Just look at the Spirits Within, it may have bombed hard enough to have the studio shut down, but you can’t say it wasn’t a spectacular looking film and a trail blazer for CGI animation.

Back to the game though, it is a visually stunning example of what developers can create in the modern AAA market. Each of the main characters is packed with small details that make them look much closer to real life but still retain the core designs of the original game. Cloud for example, you can see veins running under the skin of his arms, when the camera zooms in you can see pores on his face, but he still has that impossible hair style. It’s perfect.

The voice acting is also excellent. I’m playing with the English dub, which may annoy some purists out there, but each to their own. There is a Japanese dub with English subtitles available, for those who want a more authentic experience. You can tell the voice actors are having fun with the material, as it comes across in their performances.

Then there’s the music. It’s no wonder the game took the gong for best Soundtrack at the Game Awards. It is full of spectacular tracks, with new renditions of classics from the original game and brand-new ones composed just for this title. This music perfectly captures the emotions you’ll be feeling, from oppressive music that accompanies exploring an area with a dark secret, to upbeat bops that play along with light-hearted moments. There are half a dozen different renditions of Chocobo music for the Races alone, including a heavy metal cover. It’s amazing. Then there’s the music that just makes you stop and listen to it because it’s so good. Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon had me doing this, check them out below and tell me you don’t just want to play them on repeat.

Video courtesy of Tifa Gaming

Video courtesy of Markula

Video courtesy of LAiB_Gaming

My Thoughts on FF7 Rebirth

Let’s get down to brass tacks shall we, what do I feel about FF7 Rebirth? Well, that’s easy enough to answer, it’s fantastic. It takes part of one of my top five all-time favourite RPGs and takes it to a whole new level.

Everything about Rebirth is just a well-polished example of how things should be. Beautiful graphics, wonderful audio, fantastic combat, and so much content you can get lost for days. It’s a top tier game that I think would be a great addition to anyone’s collection.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Platforms

You can play Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PlayStation 5, with the official PC port available from January 23^rd 2025.

Is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Multiplayer?

Final Fantasy VII is a single-player adventure with no multiplayer support. If you’re looking for a JRPG multiplayer experience, then we suggest Final Fantasy XIV Online.

Overclockers UK's Ultimate Collection of Streaming Guides

Otherwise, you can still share the cinematic glory of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with your friends via stream! Check out all our guides on live streaming if your production values need a boost.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Official Specifications

What does it take to explore Midgar on your gaming PC? Here are the official specifications for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth:

Component	Minimum Specs	Recommended Specs
Operating System	Windows 10 64-bit	Windows 11 64-bit
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 1400 Intel Core i3-8100	AMD Ryzen 5 5600 or Ryzen 7 3700X Intel Core i7-8700 or Core i5-10400
Memory	16GB RAM	16GB RAM
Graphics	AMD Radeon RX 6600 (RX 6600 or above required) Intel Arc A580 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (RTX series required)	AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
DirectX	Version 12	Version 12
Storage	155GB available space	155GB available space
Additional Notes	1080P / 30FPS (Graphics Quality Preset “Low”) SSD Required. Graphics Cards with Shader Model 6.6 support and OS with DirectX 12 Ultimate support required. 12GB VRAM or above recommended to play on 4K resolution.	1080p / 60FPS (Graphics Quality Preset “Medium”) SSD Required. 12GB VRAM or above recommended to play on 4K resolution.

Best PCs to Play Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

While the recommended specs aren’t too demanding, stunning visuals deserve the hardware to render them in high definition. At Overclockers UK, we have an outstanding range of gaming PCs and laptops that are well equipped to bring this cinematic masterpiece to life. We’ve picked out our favourites here, but you can explore our entire collection if these don’t fit your vibes.

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