How long we continue to think about ‘miracle’ ports or mull over day-and-date releases for the Switch 2 remains to be seen, but for now, here’s another one. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second of Square Enix’s lavish reimagining of the series most iconic entry, and after appearing on PS5 and PC, it’s now making its way to Xbox Series consoles and Nintendo’s Switch 2. Where Final Fantasy VII Remake was a constrained and contained portion of the world of Midgar, Rebirth opens that world up in any number of ways, from its expansive open world sections through to a cavalcade of side quests, mini-games and optional activities, but how does it hold up on Switch 2?

The big question is whether the Switch 2 can cope with the sheer size and visual fidelity of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It remains a visual high point for the franchise, including the most recent mainline entry Final Fantasy XIV, and it looks absolutely stunning on PS5 and PS5 Pro. On Switch 2? Things are more subdued, and there’s some obvious visual cutbacks and downsides to playing here compared to the other platforms. That said, this is still a remarkably good-looking game, and for Nintendo owners or those looking for a portable Final Fantasy experience, what Square Enix have managed to squeeze onto the console remains deeply impressive.

Firstly, Rebirth runs at 30fps on Switch 2, as you would expect. It is mostly stable, and while it doesn’t feel as fluid as it does on more powerful hardware, for the type of game it is, there are few reasons to be too upset about it. There will be drops. It can’t stick to 30fps if you’ve got an intense battle going on, or if you’re trying to race through a larger or more detailed area, and there’s the odd hitch going into cutscenes too.

These are wobbles though, compared to the whole thing tanking, and it tends to be feel solid and smooth. Most Switch 2 owners have come to terms with the fact that 60fps is largely beyond the portable’s hardware with these cross-platform releases, especially in challenging 3D open world areas, but the fact that it can pull it off sufficiently is reason to celebrate.

There is, however, a lot of pop-in, especially when you’re in outdoor or open world areas. That was present in the PS5 version, but it’s much more obvious here, perhaps because of the reduced level of detail and foliage. There is a clear delineation around your player character, where shadows, level detail and enemies and NPCs expand and pop into existence. It’s obvious right from the outset during your initial mission with Tifa and Sephiroth, and if you’re sensitive to it, it is going to break your sense of immersion and the world’s solidity.

The Switch 2’s main party trick here is DLSS. The temporal super-sampling tech allows for a much lower base resolution to be juiced up to something much higher than what is actually being rendered, and that means that games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth look much better than they might on roughly equivalent hardware. It’s still a softer looking image and with those compromises, but it’s far better than without DLSS upscaling.

If we consider the PC version’s minimum specs, they target a GTX 2060, which is slightly higher than the Switch 2’s fundamental power, but with the advantage of a set spec, and more modern architecture, the Switch 2 can output a higher resolution thanks to DLSS. That said, the PC’s low-graphics option bears many of the same hallmarks in terms of pop-in and reduced level detail, aiming for the same 30fps.

The character models still look fantastic, and the cutscenes maintain all of the drama and emotion they did before, with the one remaining caveat: hair. Switch 2 versions of other games simply can’t handle the same level of hair detail and fidelity, and whether it’s Cloud’s trademark spikes or Sephiroth’s luscious grey mane, there’s a big reduction in how they look, DLSS adding frizz and dithering to maintain some of the natural effect. In reality, it’s fine, and thankfully, it’s not all that obvious in moment-to-moment gameplay, only really becoming obvious during cutscenes or interstitial moments.

While the graphics are clearly lower quality, what helps to sell the experience is the fantastic voice acting and music. From an auditory point of view, this is an immensely high-quality production, and those production values are still clear to see in the Switch 2 release. Whether it’s the reimagined tracks or interactions between Cloud, Tifa, and the wider cast, it’s grandiose, cinematic and dramatic, and you’ll find yourself thoroughly wrapped up in the world, characters and story thanks to the audio.

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An hour into Entropy, the new turn-based RPG from Dread Delusion studio Lovely Hellplace, I stumbled on three randos frenziedly interrogating a severed head. In theory, the head belonged to a demon, one of the hellspawn who had recently laid the realm to waste, but the bystanders seemed… ambiguous on this front. I wasn’t really in a position to judge: by this point in the demo, my party had already hacked a number of arms off, and in any case, many of Entropy’s demons are rogue body parts to begin with. One of the early enemies is a walking pair of lungs, for example. You can shoot it in the windpipe to stop it casting spells.

Entropy is sort of a classic Final Fantasy game – there’s an overworld with (thankfully infrequent) pop-up encounters, and the combat music puts me in mind of the spidermech boss from FF8, specifically – but it dunks that parallel into a bucket of rust, piss and fungus. The landscape is a mycelial web slowly devouring a few, bloody-minded tufts of PS1 masonry, where toadstools tower over castle walls. Everything here from the savegame shrines to the innkeepers seems toxic and untrustworthy and horribly short on sleep.

Not long after the business with the head, I visited a “soul garden”. Once upon a time, a deity tended that garden, creating an earthly sanctuary for the dead. But then the god either went mad or was corrupted, and the locals started burying people they loathed there as punishment, and now you have to navigate a forest full of anguished ghosts. Mere blades and arrows won’t harm these spectres; to defeat them, you must slaughter giant snails and scrape “soul moss” from their shells. The snails are worryingly humanoid. I’m quite glad Entropy doesn’t have much voicework in battle, because I’d sure hate to hear these things scream.

It perhaps goes without saying that your party members are not the usual band of heroes. They are a bunch of permakillable mercenaries and refugees – cowards and failures, propping up bars or heaped by the road. They all look like gargoyles carved from sewage, with stained eyes and teeth and hugely knotted hands clutching at salvaged hilts. I do love Entropy’s portrait art; there’s a fallen guard in the prologue with half his torso missing, one eye staring at you calmly over a palatial expanse of rib and muscle – an incredible investment of art for a character destined to expire a few sentences later, but it certainly sets the tone.

The battling, meanwhile, is a familiar brew: melee fighters in the front row; archers, gunners and wizards to the rear. There’s a turn order bar on the left, with more powerful special abilities delaying a character’s turn. There are status effects such as stun and poison, and the opportunity to target limbs to stop people moving about or hitting as hard. A few enemies wear armour that has to be Pierced or smashed asunder using Blunt weapons. I’m not blown away by any of it, so far, but it’s substantial enough to keep me occupied when I’m not boggling at the art direction.

I’m also enjoying the writing, which is steeped in theatre. Your character is a wandering troubadour with few prospects, bending the boards many leagues from home. The opening stat customisation is dramatised as an attempt to remember your lines, while recovering from a hangover. One of the initial demons – a persistent nemesis, I suspect – quotes Shakespeare at you in what I hope is a knowingly obnoxious way; they remind me of the Klingon general from Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. Later dialogue weaves in bits of context, but seldom goes beyond a few sentences of backstory; it whets the appetite rather than stuffing lore down your throat.

It’s all quite promising, basically! I need to go back and see if I can interact with that head. Assuming it can talk, the head probably has opinions on whether it used to belong to a demon. Try the demo for yourself via Steam, and look out for the early access release on August 18th.

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If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Jet Set Radio and a tactical RPG had a child, Canvas City might be the answer.

Announced during The MIX Summer Games Showcase, the upcoming title from Disc 2 Games drops you into a city where creativity has been suppressed. Public art is banned, music is restricted, and expression itself has become an act of rebellion.

You lead the Fire Starters, a group of skaters, artists, musicians, and dancers who fight back not through violence, but through style. Battles play out on tactical maps where movement is just as important as strategy.

Pulling off tricks, skating through urban environments, and tagging territory all contribute to building powerful abilities that can turn the tide of a mission.

The game promises more than 80 abilities, a roster of recruitable characters, crew customization, and a story centered around reclaiming a city that has lost its identity.

A demo is expected soon, while the full game is currently planned for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.

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