Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth introduces an open-world system that takes advantage of the party’s exodus from Midgar at the end of its predecessor, FF7 remake. There is a concentrated focus on Chadley’s research, which leads the characters to discover new species and locations across the world. FF7 Renaissanceit is the expansive Gaia. Linear sections are smaller and more widely spaced, with Renaissance instead, it leaves players loose in various open regions.
While FF7 Rebirth is an open world with a wide variety of species, items and mysterious discoveries, there are some parts of this open world game that have frustrated players. This is puzzle-like navigation in some areas of the Renaissance world – Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon specifically – where players are forced to slow down a bitand instead of enjoying the stunning view, they have to figure out how to get from one location to another, following linear paths.
Gongaga isn’t so bad in the FF7 revival
A beautiful landscape followed by linear paths
For many Final Fantasy 7 players, new and old, Gongaga was not my favorite region to travel through. Visiting Gongaga was certainly exciting, considering the place is filled with stories about the reactors and characters that returning fans anticipated – Cissnei, for example – and it was definitely worth the visit. However, despite being able to explore this exciting area with updated graphics, many players found that Gongaga was surprisingly poor in terms of map design. It is not specifically about the village, but rather the dense region that surrounds it.
In the Gongaga jungle, the player is surrounded by bushes, trees, branches and rocks, among many other things. It’s one of the few places so full of vegetation, and it makes sense considering the landscape should be covered with vegetation. This is especially clear because Cissnei tells Cloud’s group that it’s been a while since a new person showed up. But when the player leaves the village of Gongaga to check out a possible weapon sighting and some mysterious whispers, players are released into the wild.
They are ambushed by a series of challenges, including invisible barriers and dead ends. Linear paths and climbing are also important parts of navigating the jungle region, and while this can be frustrating considering it has puzzle-like navigation, retracing steps or looping around to get back on track to get back on track. Chadley in FF7 RebirthGongaga isn’t necessarily that bad. Sure, the lack of proper exploration can be a little disappointing, but considering the landscape the player is exploring, it makes sense that Cloud and his party can’t fall straight into the bush.
It can be a little lackluster and a little disappointing not being able to openly explore this beautiful region, but sailing the Gongaga proved to be much more interesting than just wandering aimlessly the open expanse of pastureland. After all, having to find a way to the place the player is trying to get to is much better than covering every inch of the gigantic map that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has to offer.
FF7 Rebirth’s navigation puzzles could be interesting
Endless open terrain can be boring
As mentioned earlier, Navigation puzzles add a touch of fun to the open world exploration that so many games these days seem to include, even when it doesn’t seem necessary. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth It changes this up a bit with its navigation puzzles, trying to hook the player and make them focus on finding every possible walking or entry point. At some point, wandering around an open map has to get a little boring and repetitive. It’s clear that Square Enix wanted to avoid this, considering there are still many areas that the characters will need to explore in their latest installment.
Even Cosmo Canyon, despite initially being somewhat confusing, proved to be exciting. It is not compacted land; instead, it’s more open-ended, with several more interesting challenges that require players to fly a chocobo. If it hadn’t come right after the Gongaga section of the game, Cosmo Canyon probably would have been better received. Being able to time jumps from one area to another or restart provides a refreshing navigation system. In the same way, be able to think strategically about where to go in Gongaga it is refreshing also.
Open world challenges are difficult to create
FF7 Rebirth adds flair to the open world with challenges
When it comes to open-world challenges, many don’t fully realize how difficult it can be to create challenges in this type of environment. An open world allows for the exploration of a vast expanse, but when the regions are very large and barren, it is difficult to keep the gameplay interesting. Gongaga isn’t necessarily a perfect open-world puzzler – it might have been a little difficult to explore the terrain with chocobos – but it adds a special touch to what could otherwise be considered a walking simulator.
Likewise, the puzzle-like navigation could have been improved a bit to make the section more tolerable. But that’s the challenging part of creating open-world obstacles: it’s hard to figure out what works correctly and what fans and players can tolerate, even if they’re interested in learning different systems as they try to get through the story. Still, no matter how frustrated fans may have been with Gongaga in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthit’s at least an expertly designed area and a much-needed relief from the expansive, open regions.