If we learned one thing from The Last of Us Part II, it’s that when you give gamers a functional musical instrument, they are going to deliver some wonderful renditions of popular tunes. So, when players discovered that the recently released demo for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth included a piano that you could sit down at and play, it was only a matter of time before some truly impressive videos of Cloud Strife tickling the ivories started to surface.
Early in the demo, while exploring all the sites that Nibelheim has to offer, players can find the piano sitting inside of Tifa’s room (amongst other things that Cloud may or may not look for, much to Tifa’s chagrin). This is actually a returning feature from the 1997 original, in which playing the piano in Tifa’s room would unlock her final Limit Break. But like the rest of Rebirth, the piano has been upgraded and expanded upon.
The game challenges you to do your best rendition of “Tifa’s Theme,” but that hasn’t stopped players from getting creative with the keyboard. Many have looked to recreate iconic tunes from other media. That includes classic TV:
Movies:
Other video games:
And efforts from those who just want to try their hand at recreating the rest of Final Fantasy VII’s iconic soundtrack:
Finally, we have those adventurous players putting real-world music back into the game and making more than a handful of earworms now emanating out of Tifa’s room.
Of course, the demo has much more to offer than the piano. Ahead of the game’s February 29 launch on PlayStation 5, this little slice lets players experience a large swath of the Nibelheim flashback that will be familiar to fans of the original FF7. The demo will get even bigger ahead of the final game’s release with an update on February 21 that adds the Junon region, but you’ll have to complete the Nibelheim demo first, so don’t spend all your time playing piano.
