I’ve been the not-so-proud owner of a PS5 Pro for almost a week now, and for the most part, it’s pretty good. The mid-gen console provides tangible performance gains and improvements in image quality in most of the games I’ve played, while the general swiftness of the console is night and day compared to my original launch model. But as I’ve written already, you likely don’t need one. It’s too expensive relative to the enhancements it provides for most people.
Sony’s initial pitch for the PS5 Pro was to eliminate the obnoxious choice of picking between fidelity and performance modes in triple-A games. Fidelity offers 4K resolution, but means it will stick you with a less than ideal 30 frames per second performance cap unless you have a variable refresh rate display. Performance, meanwhile, lowers the resolution alongside the visual quality, but squeezes out double the frames. Or less, depending on the games being played. It’s not a nice choice, with the majority of consumers choosing performance as they would rather games run well than look good. PS5 Pro, in a nutshell, gives you both.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Shows What The PS5 Pro Is Capable Of
While I’ve been impressed by the likes of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and Alan Wake 2 on the PS5 Pro, I don’t think a single game has bowled me over more than Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Don’t get me wrong, the game still looks great on the original PS5, but it was clearly nipping and tucking in every direction to make both the performance and fidelity modes play ball. Performance mode was especially criticised on release as it made characters and environments look like an unhealthy blur, turning what should be a visually spectacular experience into a half-baked 360p anime episode.
I used to watch anime on the PS3 web browser as a teenager, so I know exactly what I’m talking about here.
Rebirth on the PS5 Pro eliminates this problem entirely, although bizarrely, still offers a few performance mode toggles that are visually inferior to the new ‘Versatility’ option, which, to me, is the only way anyone should be playing Rebirth from now on. It runs at a smooth 60 frames per second while simultaneously using the Pro’s increased power and PSSR feature to output at a very impressive 4K resolution. I don’t know the exact numbers it is outputting, but the difference in graphical quality and image clarity is night and day.
It feels like the game Rebirth was meant to be similar to when Final Fantasy 7 Remake was ported to PS5 and suddenly wasn’t hamstrung by limited hardware and memes of doors that were forever doomed to put out blurry textures.
Despite its visual highs, there are moments in both of these games where you want to rush past ugly areas or ignore glaring issues just so the best sequences can shine all the brighter. The PS5 Pro makes this already great RPG even more enjoyable, but the biggest problem is that I’ve already played it for 80 hours.
But It’s Yet Another Game I’ve Already Finished On The Original Console
With the arrival of the PS5 Pro, I’ve started a hard playthrough and have every intention of spearheading towards the Platinum Trophy, but only because I now have an excuse. The PS4 Pro was a different story, arriving in the middle of a generation where Sony was still releasing a laundry list of original exclusives and third-party bangers for the base console, with most of the visual and performance upgrades coming from the Pro having a fundamental impact.
The console gaming landscape has changed massively since then, with live-service titles taking over, while traditional blockbusters take longer and cost more to make than ever. It makes the PS5 Pro a hard product to justify, and explains why its reveal was viewed with such derision. $700 for an upgraded version of a console a lot of people haven’t even had for very long thanks to scalpers and stock issues, while the first-party library is so minimal that Sony didn’t even have a new game to sell alongside it.
Heck, it decided to showcase The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, a souped-up version of PS4 game, to sell us PS5 Pro, focusing on it more than even Rebirth. That alone is a big problem, and explains why this new console is for hardcore enthusiasts only, and even that’s a bit of a stretch.
I have to imagine a lot of curious consumers have decided to hold their pennies until the PS6, especially when the PS5 is already getting the job done just fine.
I can scream about the benefits on the PS5 Pro until the cows come home, but when these improvements are centred around games we’ve already played or nebulous boosts across live-service titles meant for mainstream audiences, I doubt that is going to get any sensical person to throw $700 on a console that makes things look ‘a little bit’ better.
Even those who are jumping into this generation for the first time and are likely to do surface-level amounts of research or pick up a base PS5 because it’s cheaper. That is the decision that most people will make, doubly so when the PS5 Pro is being sold with no new games at its launch or on the horizon. Nothing has been announced right now, and the current roadmap for updates is non-existent.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a visual marvel on PS5 Pro, and makes my favourite game of this year even more enjoyable, but the asking price for this marginal improvement isn’t worth it.
