Hands On: Is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's Switch 2 Port The Most Ambitious Yet?
Grin and Barret
by Jim Norman · Nintendo LifeI'm in a slightly strange camp when it comes to Final Fantasy VII, though I'd wager it's one that at least some of you will be part of too. You see, Remake's Switch 2 port was my first time playing this story — remade or otherwise.
I know everything there is to know about the original FFVII (yes, even that bit), but at no point have I got around to playing it. That's something I should probably remedy someday and I promise it's on my list, but I only have time to play so many games, and a late '90s PS1 RPG rarely seems the most important, no matter how many people tell me it's one of the best games ever made.
So, you can imagine my joy when I finally got around to playing Remake Intergrade on Switch 2 earlier this year, only to find that it rules. Sure, the performance is better elsewhere and some of the textures were a little harsh on the eye, but I was playing this big, bold RPG on the go, and my Switch 2 was holding up remarkably well as I did so.
It was with some trepidation that I went into a recent Switch 2 hands-on demo with its follow-up, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. True, I might have missed this one back in 2024, but I remember discussions of the massive open world, the super quick combat, and the massive amount of side content. That sounds awfully grand, but would it be too grand for Switch 2?
The answer is no. The Switch 2 can keep up with Rebirth's more intensive sequences (at least, the early ones I've seen), though the visual trade-off feels a little more disparate this time around. If, like me, this will be your first time diving in and you know the Remake port, this'll hopefully be a wonderful way to experience 'Part 2' in full — but manage those expectations if you're expecting it to look or play as good as it does on other consoles.
Images: Square Enix
I had two saves to choose between for this 30-minute preview: starting things at the very beginning of the game with Chapter 1's flashback in Nibelheim, or jumping forward a little to the beginning of 'Chapter 2 - A New Journey Begins' and the start of the main story. Keen to see how that famed open world holds up on Switch 2, I opted for the latter and set about speeding through the invasion of Kalm to get to the Grasslands as quickly as possible.
If you played through Remake on Switch 2, Kalm is more of the glorious same. Cloud's hair lacks the strand-by-strand detail found on PS5, and closely examining some of the surrounding textures reveal things to be slightly lower-res than you might have hoped, but in motion, it all plays very well. Frame rate caps out at 30fps again, and it keeps things running smoothly, even in busier areas. All of this still gets excited at the mere prospect of playing this trilogy on a Switch system — back in 2024, I never would have thought we'd be here!
But the Grasslands were my main objective, and after evading Shinra forces and reuniting with my party through a series of gorgeous cutscenes, I finally stepped out into them.
For those who don't know, this area is bigger than anything the series has thrown at us so far, loaded with roaming enemies, hidden items, minigames, and NPCs — if Remake's Midgar is The Great Plateau, this is the rest of Hyrule. And to think there's more beyond this!
I am pleased to report that things held up well enough here, for the most part. I noticed some small frame rate drops in busy combat scenarios, and, again, the close-up textures look a little blurred while waypoints further afield lack a lot of detail, but at no point did things feel severely compromised.
Images: Square Enix
I will note that I was only able to play handheld, so textures and resolution drops may be different on a bigger screen. That said, the smaller display couldn't hide the locale's pop-in as I dashed across the planes. Having played through big titles like Cyberpunk and Star Wars Outlaws on the system, I'm used to seeing textures load in the middle distance, but it felt a lot more noticeable in the Grasslands. I can forgive a shrub spawning 100m away, but seeing grass sprout out of the nearby ground whenever the party comes to a standstill is a little distracting.
As I say, I only got to see this in handheld, and I'll gladly take pop-in over frequent performance drops, but it did get me thinking about how these bigger spaces are going to hold up as I find new ways to traverse them. Will a Chocobo send things into overdrive? Will entering a taxing fight weaken the performance elsewhere? How will things fare in later regions like Corel and Gongaga? We'll have to wait and see, because after just a few minutes of exploration, my hands-on time came to an end.
Even with these worries, I was impressed with what I saw of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Switch 2. The Remake trilogy remains in safe hands on the hybrid console, and as long as those larger areas hold up, it should still be a perfectly pleasant way to experience the trio for the first time. Like Remake, there are some cutbacks here, but nothing remotely drastic enough to affect the overall experience. Let's just hope that the open world doesn't prove too taxing in the long run.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth arrives on Switch 2 on 3rd June 2026. Are you excited to check this one out? Have you beaten Remake? Let us know in the comments.