If you haven't please watch Advent Children, or at least the intro summary, and the TFS Mechanabridged parody. Brush up on Crisis Core.

(You'll get spoilers a bit, but with the knowledge I think you can appreciate what they are trying to do rather than WTF is this?. There's still that. Devs will break the 4th wall at times if you pay attention.)

Things hit different when they happen. Like and .

I loved it. The series is very self aware. Understand it's the 2nd act of a 3 act story. Rebirth goes pretty heavy into lifestream theory. FF7 in general goes into a lot of deep topics. Rebirh leans very much into theory crafting. Shinra, Rufus, and the Turks are still there. You're going to learn to hate dommy mommy Scarlet.

Chadley is annoying - on purpose, the game is very aware of it. I think he's kind of innocent and charming. Very clearly neurodiverse. The story does take it's time, but the pacing is ok. These are master story tellers and they play with emotions. Plus HOJO is a creep that makes you want to kill him even more.

The emotional ride is very much worth it. From the serious to campy 1silliness, to the frustration, and sadnesss. Going through the experience of the game is part of the story in itself. It is a beautiful work of art, but that's my bias ass opinion. I have been deeply in love with this game, characters, and story for 30 years. The game will make you feel. It isn't something mindless.

There will be questions in Rebirth whose answers will come in Revelations. So know you are going to have a bit of a cliffhanger ending.