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Sony's recently-announced State of Play just wrapped up a few minutes ago, with Square Enix serving as the penultimate spectacle. After a brief bit of Foamstars (open beta coming in two weeks, release early 2024 if you're here for that news), the stream jumped straight into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Before I break down the trailer, though, you can get the release date: Leap Day 2024. That's a bit later than I'd hoped, but at least it gives me more time to catch up on games before it releases.

Based on these three minutes, there is going to be a lot packed into this game, and this is going to be completely spoilery if you haven't gotten around to playing Remake and Intermission. The trailer starts with Zack carrying Cloud through a wrecked Midgar, showing yet again that there are some sort of timeline or universe shenanigans at play. It then cuts straight to Rufus ordering the Junon cannon to fire, and some brief snippets of combat, including some with Red XIII in the primary battle party. Cait Sith returns from his brief cameo in the prior game, complete with accent and giant Moogle, and the first confirmation that he will indeed be available for combat too.

The buggy appears, as well as some of our favorite colors of chocobo; REUNION gets some focus, as well as Midgardsormr and the Bottomswell boss under Junon. Yuffie shows off a partner technique with Barret, and Aerith does one with Cait Sith, and then we get a little bit of Cloud and Sephiroth fighting... as teammates. A couple quick cuts show us new summons, namely Alexander and Odin, and then we get a longer sequence of Gold Saucer, with everyone's favorite minigames.

We then get another brief shot of Zack, this time dropping off the still-unconscious Cloud with, of all people, apparently Kyrie? The strange shenanigans continue anon. Finally, a couple more big reveals - Emerald Weapon, Vincent, and at last, Sephiroth speaking of REUNION... "When worlds merge."

Sorry if this sounds a little breathless, but frankly, it is a bit. There was a lot packed into three short minutes, a lot more than I expected to see today. And preorders are open now.

I've had my head in the sand lately ("the sand" being FFXIV) so completely missed that there was a State of Play happening. Thanks for watching and posting!

I see a lot of things that will excite fans of the original game. Me, not so much. I didn't like Cait Sith in the original and barely used them, probably because I couldn't tell they were a cat on top of a whatever the white blob thing was on my TV screen. I just saw the white blob and found the way it danced from foot to foot annoying. Here's hoping Rebirth wins me over on Cait Sith.

I also find the music of The Gold Saucer grating (I cringe every time I have to go there in FFXIV to pick up cactpot winnings) so am not excited about that content.

This said: I still think I might get Rebirth at launch, if I can afford it. I really liked what they did with Remake; it made me appreciate FFVII a heck of a lot more than I did the original game. I had fun playing it on stream, and it'd be cool to stream Rebirth while everyone else is playing it.

I do wonder if they are going to make Vincent a required character now, though... wasn't he optional in the original game?

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Schedule:
Mondays: Forspoken
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans