Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director defends the JRPG's overlong filler, but says he’s "striking a balance" with Part 3: "Players just have too much to do and too much to play"

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a massive game no matter how you slice it - dozens of side quests, mini-games I can't even recall right now, open-world activities aplenty, all on top of an already eventual main story. But director Naoki Hamaguchi has defended some of the game's most drawn out and divisive sections - ahem, ahem, Cait Sith - saying he doesn't think they were longer than they needed to be, thank you very much.

Most fans didn't have a huge problem with Rebirth's optional open-world content. It's optional, after all. What did inspire heated criticism were some of the mandatory sections that felt like dull filler at worst, the main culprit being an hour-long stretch where the game puts you in Cait Sith's lone boots for some box-throwing puzzles. You can imagine it's not the most riveting part of the mammoth romp.

Speaking to Screenrant, the remake trilogy's director said he really doesn't feel the same, however. In fact, he attributes the problem to players having too much to do outside of the game itself.

"Regarding time management in certain sections, especially in FF7 Rebirth, I honestly don't believe that they were longer than necessary," he said. "I feel like nowadays, players just have too much to do and too much to play; so they often feel the urge that something has to be concluded quickly."

Still, even though he doesn't fully agree with the complaints, the dev team are taking it to heart with the in-development Final Fantasy 7 Part 3, or whatever it ends up being called. "As we work on the conclusion to the trilogy, we are striking a balance on how story arcs are told and spread out so as to ensure that the game feels a bit more concise," Hamaguchi added.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake series devs knew JRPG fans wanted to know "what's gonna happen to Aerith," so they tried to make sure players "won't be able to tell… until the very end"