Rebirth beaten!
So let's get what I didn't like out of the way first.
Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon weren't well designed at all. Both are difficult to navigate, especially if you want to complete the world intel missions. I realize it's probably to encourage exploration, but I feel like other areas pointed you in the right direction much better than Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga.
Some of the mini games were really bad. Moogle House was boring and toward the end a bit frustrating. I never felt compelled to try it again. Except for the ending, which moogle cloud was adorable. Cactuar Crush was also frustrating and not very fun. It's just normal battling with special rules. I got the bare minimum, then never bothered with it again. Gears and Gambits on the other hand just has no strategy to it. You're better off creating a really cheap unit you can spam than even think about affinities. Which is a real shame. The game had potential.
The Cait Sith portion of Nibelheim was also really bad. Throwing boxes. How fun. I understand each character needed a section of their own. But Cait's could have been a little shorter without losing anything. Also some of those enemies were kind of bullshit.
The Zach sections were kind of dull too. We could've had a couple battles with Zach. Just sayin'. Then we might not have gotten a tutorial in the final battle!
With all that out of the way... 10/10 game. Not sure how they can surpass it with the third one. I mean it won't have the Tifa/Aerith interactions. Unless we get another timeline I guess. But Tifa/Aerith might be the best friendship in the series. Yuffie got some major upgrades to her character by being promoted to non-optional, and I love it. It lets her bond with the rest of the teammates. I feel like having an optional character was cool in the 90's, but today in a cast this size, they sacrifice development for optional characters, and I'll take the development any day. Her reaction to Aerith's death might be the most heartbreaking (its her or Tifa). And her reaction to Cait's betrayal is just perfect. The music in this game is phenomenal. They expanded on the story in all the right ways. I don't even mind Nicer Cid.
The ending was kind of crazy, but I think it's obvious Aerith is part of the lifestream now. And I think the cetra are the white whispers and maybe the Gi are the black whispers or something corrupted by Jenova. I feel like we'll have playable Aerith for at least portions of the next game. And possibly the Final Boss.
Predicitons for part 3:
-Aerith will have playable moments, but remain dead.
-Yuffie will steal only the big materia, and the big materia will have more of a connection to the weapons.
-Cloud will go into an alternate timeline when he goes catatonic. We might even get Tifa traveling into the other timeline when she goes to save Cloud.
-Ruby and Emerald Weapon will 100% be bonus bosses.
-KOTR will be the most grueling Materia to get
-Cissnei will be playable at some point.
The user formerly known as Ashethan