Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Vibrant colours, insane movement, relentless pacing. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is exactly the kind of spectacle the PS5 was built to run. The combat system layers action and strategy in a way that keeps evolving across the entire runtime, which for a game this long is no small achievement. It sits at nine because it asks more of you than most entries above it, both in time commitment and franchise familiarity, and the open zones have filler that the tighter games on this list avoid. But the production values are genuinely extraordinary and the party writing is some of the best character work in any RPG I have played this generation. Lots of fun.

I came into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth as someone who had never finished the original. Did not matter. The game contextualises its world clearly enough that you can follow the story without having lived through 1997, though long-term fans will obviously get more out of the callbacks. What surprised me was the combat. I expected a cinematic JRPG with serviceable action and got something with genuine mechanical depth that rewards learning the party's synergies. It is sprawling, occasionally to a fault. Some of the open-region side content runs long. But the main story and the combat system carry enough momentum that the overbusy sections are more forgivable than they would be elsewhere.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has the side content density of a full open-world game and the production values of a film franchise. The regional structure is more segmented than the genre leaders above it, which is the honest reason it landed here rather than in the top ten. Each region is large and worth exploring, but you move between them in a way that feels guided rather than free. If you are an FF7 fan or simply want a spectacular modern JRPG with a lot of world to cover, the recommendation is easy. Just go in knowing it plays more like a collection of expansive zones than a single unified open world.