Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2 Might Finally Turn Me Into a Fan
Once Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth releases on Nintendo Switch 2 on June 3rd, the game will officially be available to play across all current gen platforms. For fans of the series who haven’t had a chance to pick it up since its release in 2024, this is surely very exciting news. For me, a person who has somehow managed to mostly avoid the series over the years, this was relatively neutral news – until I actually got a chance to go hands on with it. I played a preview build of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 port for less than half an hour, and that was all it took for me to realise that maybe I really shouldn’t have been ignoring Final Fantasy all this time. Perhaps, in fact, this game actually is for me – and now that it’s coming to the Switch 2, maybe this is the perfect chance to give it a go.
If you’re looking for a review of the game itself, we’ve already covered it extensively on Player 2. You can check out Stephen’s review of the Playstation 5 version, where he praises it for being an excellent sequel. If you’re hungry for a review of a full port of the game, you can see how Matt felt about it when it was ported to PC. He felt it didn’t necessarily take advantage of the greater power being on PC offered it – so how will it fare when ported again to a less powerful console? From my short time with the upcoming version, I feel comfortable saying it runs better than expected.
Despite being a graphically heavy game, I didn’t feel much of a loss when watching the game’s opening cutscenes, or embodying the big-haired protagonist at the game’s beginning as he makes his way through the town of Kalm. There’s some extra dithering around the hair, and some of the textures look a little flatter than I imagine they do on higher-powered consoles, but these are minor concerns. Playing the game in handheld mode, I honestly barely noticed.
Going into this sequel with little to no context from the first game made watching the provided ‘previously on’ video the game offers kind of a necessity, and honestly, it did a lot of the heavy lifting for making me enthusiastic about this game. The last game ended dramatically, and when this one gets started the group are grappling with the aftermath of what seems to have been a somewhat devastating battle – so it really does emotionally throw you in the deep end. But damn, for someone going in blind, it sure was an intriguing start.
I know this game and its story are not new to most people. It’s hardly groundbreaking to say that Final Fantasy VII is a good game – we all know that (I know that, and I’ve barely touched it). But I was shocked by just how quickly it drew me in, even in such a short time. Do I recommend you do what I did, and start randomly from the sequel while skipping the first game? No. I’m not going to be doing that, now that I’ve seen Tifa and Aerith and that bunch of guys they’re with in action, I’m going to go back and experience their story from the beginning. But this port has me convinced that it might be a good idea to do it on the Switch 2, knowing that I’ll be able to play it in handheld mode without having a poor experience.
So, I guess I have about two months to play through the first game, so that I can be ready when Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth releases. Wish me luck, everyone.
