Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a lot of things — an expansive world to explore, an intensely emotional exploration of grief, and yes, a game where you turn into a frog and jump over platforms. The eclectic mix of tones and gameplay styles is a big part of what gives Rebirth so much personality, and the game layers in over a dozen minigames to distract players from their world-saving quest. But that avalanche of minigames didn’t hit for everyone, and the developers of Rebirth have heard the complaints, and seem to be taking them into account for the third entry in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy.
In a new interview with Daily Star, Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi tackles a range of topics, from why there aren’t any plans for DLC to the way Final Fantasy as a whole has evolved. Of course, one of the big topics that came up was the prevalence of minigames in Rebirth.
"A certain number of people said there were too many minigames in Rebirth, and ultimately I can see their point of view — but I do think we made the right decision in terms of the breadth and the volume of content for the minigames in Rebirth,” Hamaguchi says, “But certainly looking forward to the third game and to other games, if you asked me "would I do the same number of minigames?" I don't think I would.”
Some of Rebirth’s minigames were a huge hit with fans, namely the beloved card game Queen’s Blood — which had its own fascinating narrative on top of being just a good card game. But there are plenty of one-off instances that didn’t feel as fleshed out. Hamaguchi notes that they knew not every minigame would hit for every player, but the team felt it was necessary for Rebirth to have a diverse array of content to help complement its goals and themes. Looking forward to the future, however, Hamaguchi states: "We'll work out how maybe we can cut it down to a bit more manageable size for the group of players who quite rightly said that there was too much there for them."
Final Fantasy games have long been no stranger to minigames, from the beloved Triple Triad of Final Fantasy VIII to the time special event that added Fall Guys to Final Fantasy XIV. It’ll be interesting to see how that de-emphasis on minigames affects the next game, as there are still a couple from the original Final Fantasy 7 that we haven’t seen — namely snowboarding and the excavation at Bone Village. Of course, the emotional tone of the third game is likely going to be much more dour than the adventure in Rebirth, because of the tragic events leading into it.
There’s another interesting tidbit that Hamaguchi references, as a direct mistake made by him and the development team — the Platinum trophy. In Rebirth, platinum-ing the game involves beating all chapters on Hard mode, completing all side-quests, earning high marks on all piano songs, and more.
“There is one other thing actually, which I can say was a mistake on my part, something that I’ve already apologized for — and I definitely will not do again, which is how difficult I made it to get the Platinum Trophy,” Hamguchi says, “So rest assured I have learned from that and in the future I will not be making Platinum Trophies that difficult.”
We may not have to wait an incredibly long time to see how it all pans out, however, as Hamaguchi also tells Daily Star that the development team has no plans for DLC currently, because it wants to singularly focus on putting out the third game “as quickly as possible.”
Final Fantasy 7 Remake released in April 2020, which meant it was roughly four years until the release of Rebirth. Square Enix has been vocal about how retaining the same team helped it expedite development, and presumably that will be the same way for the third game. But Hamaguchi has also previously pointed out some big challenges awaiting, like figuring out how to make a fully functional airship. What is clear, however, is that Hamaguchi is taking fan feedback to heart, and it’ll be fascinating to see how that manifests in the final piece of Final Fantasy 7.
