One of the main things that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth did much better in comparison to its predecessor was not only opening up the world itself, as the first game was set entirely in Midgar but offer a wide range of things to do in general. It wasn’t just about fighting Sephiroth, Shinra, and all manner of monsters you found along the way; there were numerous side quests you could do and plenty of mini-games to play. In fact, there were 21 mini-games within the title, and they helped break up the various events that you were experiencing. So, if you were a fan of that, the game’s director promises that the final part of the “Remake Saga” will have that and more!
While talking with VG247, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi noted that while gamers can expect there to be mini-games within the final part, the director is going to push the team to make them special so that things don’t just feel the same as before:
“So are we going to continue with this same balance going forward? Have we reached perfection? I think if we did just do the same thing again for the third game in the series, then it wouldn’t really be very new or exciting anymore. I want to add a different twist, rearrange things slightly for the next game, and have a slightly different look to things.”
Obviously, that can mean a lot of things. No matter what his “twists” are, though, we can appreciate him wanting to go the extra mile to ensure that every part of this saga plays differently in key ways. You might think it weird that there were so many mini-games in the second part, but according to Hamaguchi, he wants to make each region within the world feel special not just in the battles but what you can do in them mini-game-wise:
“I play a lot of games, a lot of open world games, and something I feel whilst playing a lot of these games is that you’ve got the core mechanics – or their fighting systems – and most of the content you’ll encounter, most of the places you can go, most of what you’ll be doing, can get repetitive. [These games] just use the same mechanics. There are no real changes, there’s nothing new to experience around the different regions of these worlds.”
We can attest to that indeed happening, which makes his efforts to make everything feel special a joy to hear about.
