Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a game of staggering scope. The size of its world, and even of its individual regions, is hugely impressive, to say the very least, and that world is overflowing with an incredible amount of things to do. Quite often, open world games that make those same claims fail to encourage players enough to actually engage with its optional content and side activities as much as it may want them to, but in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, where everything feels rewarding in its own unique way, that’s very much not the case.
Given just how much there is to do though, you might have trouble – at least in your initial hours with the game – figuring out what are the things that perhaps deserve your attention more than the others. Here, we’re going to talk about a few of those things, and why we feel they’re well worth your time.
REMNAWAVE TOWERS
Some open world tropes are never going to go out of use, and towers are surely one among them. Here, they appear in the form of Remnawave Towers- though in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s defence, they’re actually quite well implemented, and keeping an eye out for them is definitely recommended. On top of awarding you with World Intel with which to purchase Materia from Chadley, Remnawave Towers also mark nearby points of interest on your map, while also giving you one hell of a view of your surroundings from a vantage point.
LIFESPRINGS
In each region of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s open world, you’ll find several Lifesprings scattered through the environments, and they’re easily among the most rewarding side activities in the game. For starters, each Lifespring is surrounded by a treasure trove of crafting material with which to make items using your transmuter. On top of that, analyzing a Lifespring will also uncover new information and backstory about the region that you’re in, while at times, also uncovering locations of buries transmuter chips to track down.
ITEM TRANSMUTATION
Speaking of the item transmuter, on the gameplay front, it’s one of the most useful new additions in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, allowing you to use all the crafting material you’ve gathered to make not only your own consumable items like potions, hi-potions, ethers, phoenix downs, status healing curatives, and what have you, but also your own gear to deck your party out with. On top of that, the more you use the transmuter to craft new things, the more it will level up, in turn unlocking more (and better) new things to craft. It goes without saying, then, that this is a tool that you should be making use of every opportunity you get.
TRANSMUTER CHIPS
Those transmuter chips that we mentioned earlier are also well worth seeking out, more often than not. Every so often, analyzing a Lifespring will uncover information about a buried transmuter chip that you can choose to retrieve, and though entirely optional, we would suggest tracking them down. The craftable items these buried chips unlock in the transmuter are often incredibly useful, and especially in the first couple of regions, tend to be better than whatever gear your party has equipped at that time.
SUMMON CRYSTALS
Every region of the game’s world is tied to a specific Summon, with fan-favourites like Phoenix, Ifrit, Titan, Shiva, Alexander, Odin, and many others available in the game, and though you can head into Chadley’s combat simulator to take on a new summon to try and add it to your arsenal as soon as you enter a new region, we would suggest holding off. In every region, you’ll find three Summon crystals, and analyzing each of them unlocks progressively easier difficulty options for the fight with the Summon. Analyze all three, and adding that Summon to your ranks becomes that much easier.
MOGSTOOLS
Another recurring side activity that you’ll encounter time and again throughout the regions of Rebirth’s open world are Mogstools, which are essentially moogle emporiums that you’re tasked with bringing back into activity. That, in turn, is done through a minigame that sees you trying to bring a set of mooglets back into a pen, all while they try to dissuade your attempts in unique mischievous ways. Not only is it a surprisingly fun minigame, once an emporium is reopened, you can also trade in your moogle medals for a variety of items and gear, which is always useful, as you might imagine.
MOOGLE MEDALS
Speaking of moogle medals, they make a return in pretty much the same form they took on in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Exploring environments, smashing boxes, and more will net you with moogle medals to spend at mogstools on a variety of unique items, gear, and what have you, so building up your collection of medals is something that you should ideally keep in the back of your head while you play the game and explore its world. It shouldn’t take too much effort- even just smashing all boxes you see will allow you to build up a healthy amount in no time.
PROTORELIC QUESTS
Each region in Rebirth’s world brings its own line of quests where Cloud and co try and hunt down mysterious artifacts known as Protorelics at Chadley’s behest, and the majority of these are some of the game’s highlights (especially in terms of side content), so you definitely shouldn’t be missing out on them. Each Protorelic questline tends to revolve around a specific minigame, mechanic, or gimmick that’s used in some really fun ways across multiple legs of the quest, while all questlines also connect to tell a larger story surrounding the Protorelics.
CHOCOBO REST STOPS
Scattered throughout Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s open world are chocobo rest stops that have broken down and lie in disrepair, but can be fixed- and they absolutely should be. Whether you happen to chance upon one yourself or are led to one by a chocobo chick trying to grab your attention, anytime you see a broken down chocobo rest stop, make sure to repair it. A repaired rest stop not only works as a fast travel point, you can also use its bench to fully restore your party’s HP and MP (though, unlike regular benches, with rest stops, you’ll have to use a cushion each time- so make sure you stock up on cushions).
CHOCOBO STABLES
Each region of the world also has its own chocobo stable, and our recommendation would be to head to it as soon as you enter that region (or at least as soon as the game lets you, because oftentimes progression can be gated by the story). In addition to opening up new side quests, chocobo stables also unlock that region’s chocobo for you, allowing you to ride it around and summon it whenever you want and make use of its unique traversal abilities. On top of that, chocobo stables also serve as the only spots where you can instantly jump between different regions of the world.
EXCAVATION POINTS
Chocobos are an incredibly useful tool in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Of course, their unique traversal abilities are primarily why, especially with their being certain parts of certain regions that cannot be accessed unless you’re on chocoback. In addition to that, however, chocobos will also frequently use their keen sense of smell to let you know if there’s anything of note buried under the ground around you. If you see a blue question mark popping up over your chocobo’s head, make sure to follow its nose, so that it can lead you right to a spot where you’ll be able to excavate something that may very well end up coming in handy.
CHADLEY’S COMBAT SIMULATOR
Like in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Chadley offers players the chance to hop into his augmented reality combat simulator any time you meet him, and our advice is to do that every time a new challenge becomes available. For starters, doing the Summon challenges should be a priority, given the fact that that’s how you add them to your arsenal. Beyond that, however, not only are Chadley’s other challenges a great way to learn the many intricacies of Rebirth’s excellent combat system, they also tend to give out great rewards, from XP to gear to crafting resources. More combat simulator challenges can be unlocked by beating specially designated combat encounters against tougher enemies out in the open world, so make sure to keep an eye on those as well.
SYNERGY ABILITIES AND SKILLS
This isn’t exactly something that you can ignore, since Synergy attacks aren’t an activity that you can miss, but rather a game-wide system that is fully integrated into the combat. You can, however, perhaps not use it to the extent that you can (and should), which would be an absolute shame, because Synergy Abilities can be incredibly useful. Building up Synergy for a character requires you to do specifically marked ATB skills, and only when both characters have built up enough of it can you unleash a Synergy Ability- but it’s worth building toward, because the abilities can contribute significantly toward changing the trajectory of a tough battle.
CHARACTER AFFINITIES
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth introduces a new character affinity system, which, in a nutshell, determines what Cloud’s relationship is like with each individual party members. For the most part, this is affected by the side quests that you do and the dialogue choices that you make from time and time, and your relationships with different party members will significantly change a certain sequence at the Gold Saucer later on in the game. Outside of combat, pressing R1 will let you see how Cloud’s relationship with each character is through small icons that will appear over their heads, to make sure to keep track of how much progress you’ve made with whichever characters you want to focus on more.
MINIGAMES
It’s almost hard to believe just how many minigames Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has, how varied and well-produced they are, and how fun almost every single one of them is. Quite often over the course of the main story, you’ll have to engage with a few of these minigames to make progress, but at the same time, there’s a ton of them that you can simply skip and miss entirely. Our advice? Don’t do that. There’s a smattering of excellent minigames to be experienced throughout the game, each one feeling rewarding and enjoyable in its own unique way, so make sure you at least get a sample taste of every single one you encounter.
Share Your Thoughts Below (Always follow our comments policy!)