Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Director Defends the Sprawl, Promises a Tighter Part 3 as Players Face Content Overload
Naoki Hamaguchi shrugs off pacing gripes—those long stretches were exactly as long as they needed to be.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a giant meal of a game: dozens of side quests, a pile of mini-games, open-world distractions for days, and a main story that is already packed. Some players loved drowning in it; others hit a wall. Now the trilogy’s director, Naoki Hamaguchi, is responding to the pacing complaints and, well, he’s not exactly apologizing.
The part that set people off: Cait Sith
Most folks were fine with Rebirth’s optional open-world stuff because you can ignore it. The real friction came from a few mandatory slow bits that felt like, at best, speed bumps. The most notorious example: roughly an hour where you’re stuck as Cait Sith doing box-throwing puzzles. It’s not the game’s sizzle reel moment.
Hamaguchi’s take: it’s not too long, you’re just busy
Speaking to Screen Rant, Hamaguchi defended those drawn-out sections and pinned the frustration on how we all play games now, not on Rebirth’s design.
"Regarding time management in certain sections, especially in FF7 Rebirth, I honestly don’t believe that they were longer than necessary. 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."
That’s a blunt read: the game takes its time on purpose, and the director stands by it.
But the finale will be tighter
Even if he disagrees with the criticism, the team is adjusting for the last entry in the remake trilogy — the still-untitled Part 3, whatever Square Enix ends up calling it. The plan is to space out story arcs with a lighter touch so the overall package feels more concise.
"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."
And yes, the Aerith question hangs over everything
The developers knew JRPG fans were laser-focused on Aerith’s fate and structured the saga to keep people guessing right up to the end.
They expected players to ask "what’s gonna happen to Aerith," and set things up so you "won’t be able to tell... until the very end."
Bottom line: Hamaguchi is unapologetic about Rebirth’s length and deliberate pacing, even in the controversial bits (looking at you, Cait Sith). But he also says the finale will aim for the same scope with a tighter grip on how the story unfolds. If you bounced off the crate-shuffling, that might be the compromise you were hoping for.