Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthhas as many minigames as a piano has keys. TheDualSensecontroller doesnothave a similar amount of buttons, which makes the game’s piano minigame as challenging as it is fun. The minigame finds a workable solution to the problem, mapping piano keys to the left and right thumbsticks, and asking you to push them in one of eight directions as corresponding notes appear on screen.
At first, this is tough. When I needed to play Tifa’s Theme at Costa Del Sol to unlock a swimsuit, I did a practice round before the actual event and barely scraped through. I scored a C and figured that if a C is a passing grade in academia, it’s probably good enough to pass this minigame. I went into the actual challenge expecting to provide a similarly mediocre performance, but was surprised to see I had significantly improved, bumping my grade up to a B. It turns out practice does make better, if not perfect.
We’re living through a bit of a renaissance of music games right now, even if they are popping up in unexpected places. WhileGuitar HeroandRock Bandwere some of the biggest games in the world for a few years, the age of plastic instruments has passed. Now, music games live on in the margins. Instead of getting their own triple-A releases, music games are hidden inside of other triple-A titles.Fortnitehas Fortnite Festival from Harmonix,The Last of Us Part 2 Remasteredhas a Guitar Free Play mode that lets you tool around with the game’s acoustic ax, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has its piano recitals.
Could plastic instruments be making a comeback? IfPDP’s Riffmaster guitar controllerhas anything to say about it, absolutely.
As withQueen’s Blood, though, FF7R’s piano minigame is good enough to stand on its own. Mapping some notes to the right stick and some to the left effectively recreates the feeling of playing a piano. As someone who isnotgood at playing the piano, my experience in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth recreated it perfectly, as I stumbled to make my hands do distinct and not-quite-coordinated things. It feels a little inelegant. Not because the minigame is designed inelegantly, but because playing the piano demands inelegance until you learn how to do it. The controls feel like a perfect match for the IRL activity.
I enjoy these piano recitals whenever I stumble upon them in game, but they’re fewer and further between than Queen’s Blood matches. I would love to see Rebirth, at the very least, add a mode where us piano freaks could tickle the ivories without interruption. That could be a free play mode, a la The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, but I would love to see all the tunes in the game collected in one place, too, so you can play any of the sheet music you find in-game from the main menu.
If I let myself dream, it would be great if Square Enix put out a standalone rhythm game built around the piano mechanics. Given that Square Enix has released severalTheatrhythmgames, which rhythm game-ified Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to imagine the publisher doing the same for a minigame featured in its big 2024 release. Heck, I’d even buy a plastic instrument for the first time in 13 years if it meant I could play along to iconic Final Fantasy tunes on a little Materia-themed keyboard.
