Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is too ambitious for Nintendo Switch 2 - here's why

Square Enix knows a thing or two about how to port its games to Nintendo Switch 2 so they run as they should.

I've said it before and I'll happily say it again - taking into account purely how the game runs on the platform, Final Fantasy VII Remake is the best Switch 2 port yet.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a much bigger and more ambitious game in pretty much every way over its predecessor, with vast open areas and much denser towns and cities with higher NPC counts.

So can Square Enix follow up its success with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2? Sadly, the answer is no - it's too ambitious for the Switch 2 at launch.

To be clear, this is not a full review of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth but a review of how well the game runs and performs on Nintendo Switch 2.

I've tried out Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2 / Jake Brigstock, Indy100 & The Independent

As detailed by developers, DLSS (the AI upscaler used in Nintendo Switch 2 consoles) does a lot of heavy lifting.

In docked, a 1080p resolution is targeted with a minimum of 960x540 and handheld mode can reach up to 1344×756 with a minimum of 672×380. Both modes target 30fps (frames per second).

These are the same specs as Remake but on paper, this is much more impressive because of just how much bigger in scope Rebirth is.

However in practice, Rebirth has a few more issues than Remake. Quite a few.

Some textures do not look good at all in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2 /

The cutscenes look good but there are cases of dips to black or white between some cuts, looking like jump cuts, taking you out of the immersion.

Character models look similar to Remake but some textures are not that great up close. I'd even go as far as saying some even look terrible, especially early on when the sea can look like jelly as an example (see the picture above). Rebirth has the classic Switch 2 port problem of hair textures looking very fuzzy too.

Texture pop-ins are very frequent, as is rendering when out in the open world, but stuttering isn't too bad across both handheld and docked. Frame rate drops are quite frequent in dense areas though.

In handheld, the resolution can dip quite noticeably and the draw distance is quite poor. It's better in docked though.

And to top it all off - I had a number of crashes too, with an error message saying 'this software needed to close due to an error' each time.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2 is a bit of a mess at launch / Square Enix

On the whole, it's commendable Square Enix has got a port of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth running on Nintendo Switch 2 at all.

This is easily the most ambitious port we've seen on the console yet - but it does show as Rebirth is plagued by performance issues on the console at launch.

And I hate to say this, but some parts of the game just look downright bad. At present, the game is a bit of a mess in terms of performance on Switch 2. That pains me to say being such a big Final Fantasy fan.

If this is the only way you can play Rebirth, or you want to take it with you on the go, it's still enjoyable because the game itself is fantastic.

But you'll have to put up with a number of performance issues that will frustrate you throughout. And that's a shame given the high bar Square Enix set with Remake. It feels as though Rebirth is simply too ambitious for the Switch 2.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releases on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S on 3 June. The game is already available on PS5 and PC.

Elsewhere from Indy100:

• Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is the best Nintendo Switch 2 port yet - here's why
• New Nintendo Direct details 'leaked' by insider

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