massive critical and commercial success; despite missing the mark for Square Enix's sales targets, it was undeniably one of the most popular games of 2024, and received near-universal acclaim from players and professional critics alike. Like the original FF7, the Remake trilogy is well on its way to becoming a timeless classic. But I really hope Square Enix never comes out with anything else even remotely like it.

It's only good business sense: when you have a hit product, you keep making it, and make more things like it, in the hopes that they'll be hits too. But I've already got a bad case of remake fatigue, and the FF7 trilogy's approach to it isn't going to make that any better.

FF7 Rebirth Is A Good Game, But Not Without Problems

Rebirth Is A Hit For A Reason

FF7 Rebirth is far from perfect, but I have to it that it's been so successful for a reason. It's an excellent retelling of the most emotionally resonant part of a genre-defining video game story. It's a faithful adaptation, with its memorable characters rendered in full HD and with all-encoming voice acting for the very first time. Its combat is snappy and responsive, representing a generational evolution of all the systems FF7 Remake introduced, but still incorporating the flexibility and customization of Materia.

But it also has its flaws. For me, the biggest standout is FF7 Rebirth's open world, which felt far too big and bloated for its own good. And don't get me wrong - I actually liked all the mini-games. But it's the fact that there are multiple levels to each one that bugs me. I don't want to have to beat them three times to get all the rewards - let me master each one once and move on, with optional higher levels just for fun if you must.

And besides that, the overworld is dotted with largely pointless and unexciting side activities. Some of them were fine, but I found the need to activate towers especially grating. Exploration started to mean checking items off a list to complete each region instead of actually discovering a new world, and that's never a good sign.

While I enjoyed my time with FF7 Rebirth, it ended up feeling like a chore to complete, something I had to do in order to see the conclusion of this chapter and be ready for the sequel. Final Fantasy's never felt that way to me before, and I hope it never feels that way again - and unless Square Enix pivots its approach to the series soon, I'm worried it will happen all over again.

Dividing Games Into Parts Can Be A Drain On Resources

No Game Justifies A Three-Part Remake

First and foremost, turning any single game into a three-part remake is a bad idea for developers and players both. All the open-world bloat could've easily been avoided by making FF7 Rebirth a single open-world RPG. It'd probably have to take a different approach to mapping, maybe using a more traditional overworld map instead of a persistent, fully scaled open world - but the open-world bloat of Rebirth wouldn't be missed.

For one thing, making three triple-A games is three times as expensive as making one - perhaps even more so. Making games in general is costly, and costs tend to increase as the map gets bigger, and the amount of available content grows. That can only be bad for Square Enix, which has surely poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the series by this point. I'm not confident that releasing one game instead of three would completely solve its sales number problem, either, but it would certainly decrease the risk of player dropoff between games.

And speaking of player dropoff, that's another problem: each entry in the FF7 Remake trilogy is inevitably followed by a long hiatus, which runs the risk of players losing interest in the interim. We know that FF7 Rebirth sold a lot worse in its opening months than Remake did. That's in part because anyone who didn't play the first game would be reluctant to buy the second one.

But in addition, each entry in the series runs the risk of alienating a larger portion of its player base - if one game is weaker than the last, more people are likely to fizzle out on the series, and ultimately decide to skip the next one. And with game prices likely rising to a new standard of $80 USD, it's becoming a bigger ask to get players invested in a three-game series.

Final Fantasy Exclusivity Is Hurting The Franchise

FF7 Has A History With PlayStation, But It's Gained A Bigger Audience

In addition, Final Fantasy needs to put the tradition of PS5 exclusivity to rest. I get that the series and the console line have a long history together (and yes, I know that not every game in the series has been a PlayStation exclusive), but it's time to give up the ghost. Final Fantasy has a significant audience on PC - every game in the series tops the Steam charts when it finally comes to PC. I believe future Final Fantasy games could capture a similar audience on Xbox if they tried.

And why not Switch, too, while they're at it? FF7 Remake is already coming to Switch 2, and Rebirth is likely to follow. I hope part three of the remake trilogy is next, perhaps launching simultaneously on the Switch 2 alongside home consoles and PC.

I'm not just talking about FF7 here, either. Final Fantasy 16 is guilty of the same insistence on exclusivity, and that undeniably hurt its sales numbers in those crucial early days. What I'm proposing is a more sweeping change to the way Square conceives of and puts out Final Fantasy games.

Square Enix Needs To Change Its Current Final Fantasy Model

The Future Of Final Fantasy Could Be Brighter

At the end of the day, I'm still a sucker for all things Final Fantasy. I'll still play part three of the remake, no matter how complicated my feelings about Rebirth. I'll cry real grown-up tears if the rumors of a FF9 remake turn out to be true - it was my first Final Fantasy, and I still have a lot of sentimentality around it. But at the same time, I don't want another Final Fantasy remake. I want new, original Final Fantasy games, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

If we have to have another remake, though, I'd like to see it released as a single, cohesive game, instead of three disparate parts with a bloated development budget and an overstuffed world. And would it be too much to ask for it to be turn-based? record-setting high reviews in a matter of just a couple of weeks.

Final Fantasy isn't in dire straits just yet, but if it keeps going the way it has been, it's liable to lose chunks of its player base over the next few years. I want the best for the series. Although it's occasionally stumbled, it's earned its keep and remained relevant for decades by innovating, not by remaking the same game over and over again. Therefore, I have to hope Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth doesn't become the new norm for the series, and that the remake trilogy is just a one-off.