Oh No, I Want To Play The Piano In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Forever

Summary

The author is a fan of mini games and gets easily sidetracked by them, as they find them well-crafted and absorbing.
They have a weakness for mini games and have spent hours fishing in Red Dead Redemption 2 and playing the mini game in the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo.
The piano mini game in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is deceptively difficult but highly satisfying, and the author, despite having no musical talent, is determined to master it and enjoy the game's beloved soundtrack.

I love a good mini game. I can get sidetracked by them for hours, if it scratches my brain just right. , a game stacked to bursting with mini games that you can retreat to if you want a break from the main story, is occupying all my spare tim🍎e right now, partly because its mini games are so well-crafted and absorbing. When I played , every time I came across a river, I’d abandon whatever I was doing to fish for half an hour. I always end up feeling a little guilty about it, like I’m wasting precious hours on menial tasks when I could be finishing the main story, but mini games might be one of my biggest gaming weaknesses.

And god forbid, as I was playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s demo, I found a mini game that I already know will occupy way too much of my time. The demo follows Cloud and Sephiroth as they climb Mount Nibel to reach a nuclear reactor at the top, and explores how their relationship began. The day before you go on that trek, though, you can explore the villageᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ and talk to the people who live there. A little wandering led me to Cloud’s childhood home, where I was treated to a very evocative montage of Cloud’s mother welcoming him in.

Right next door to Cloud’s home is Tifa Lockhart’s, which is how I learned they were next-door neighbours as children, but not always friends. Just based on the things I got Cloud to do, I can u💧nderstand why – he’s a little bit of a creep. I made Cloud enter her house, go up to her bedroom, and even rifle through her closet, which made the older Tifa hearing him recount this in real time understandably upset. Also in her room is a piano with some sheet music of Tifa’s Theme, and I made Cloud sit down and play it.🌌 And then I fell in love.

Playing the piano in the game is deceptively difficult. It’s essentially a rhythm game, which doesn’t sound hard, but the fact that you have to use both sticks on the controller makes it a little harder to juggle all the notes. Your screen has two wheels, each separated into differe🌠nt segments. Each segment represents a note. It’s kind of like the guitar freeplay in The Last of Us 2, except without the strumming.

As you play the song, lines move outwards from the centre of the wheels, and you have to push the stick in the right direction at the right time to successfully hit it. Trying to hit every note of the melody on the right wheel while playing the chords on the left at the same time can be frazzl💟ing and throw you totally off your rhy💝thm, but it’s so satisfying to hear the song sounding bigger and grander as you reach higher combos.

I have no musical talent, but I’m a sucker for a rhythm game, and FF7 Rebirth’s piano game is exactly difficult enough to make me want to master it. Not only that, but as a newbie to Final Fantasy, it’s a wonderful way to experience the game’s beloཧved soundtrack for the first time. I never learned to play the piano in real life, but that’s not going to stop me from banging on every piano I come across in-game.