Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

[WisteriaHysteria]

The modding community is hard at work doing stuff for this game. One of the neatest things I've seen so far, is that modders have gotten all seven characters playable in battle at the same time. So no more of the normal 3 party, but everyone else hangs back - you can get the entire gang in there issuing commands and going ham. Which is kinda mind blowing that the game can even support that, but it makes sense that it's possible considering it's rendering them all to begin with.

Spoiler: So if that's something the game can support: speculation for Pt 3

Given how the final fight against Genova is in the original game where you can throw multiple parties at her, I'd be willing to bet that the final boss gauntlet of Part 3 will have at least one part where the whole party is fighting and can be playable at the same time. If they don't do that, it'll kinda be a lost opportunity, or something that the base PS5 hardware just can't manage.

At the very least though, I'd be willing to bet that we'll still get a multi-party battle in some form. Rebirth kind of already did that, but the numbers line up perfectly to have 3 separate parties of 3 each. (Since, sans Aerith, there are 8 party members, plus Zack now.)

Also also wik, considering the abstract of expanded combat parties, imagine an FFIX or VI remake where you're using a similar combat system but you can roll around with 4 dudes on the regular.

 

[4-So]

The modding community is hard at work doing stuff for this game. One of the neatest things I've seen so far, is that modders have gotten all seven characters playable in battle at the same time. So no more of the normal 3 party, but everyone else hangs back - you can get the entire gang in there issuing commands and going ham.

 

[spines]

having too many characters at once in an action battle system can cause lots of problems (see: star ocean 5) so i really want to see that. sounds awesome

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

It's obviously too much going on at the same time for 7 party members to be something that would be useful/fun for extended periods of time/a whole game. Which is obviously why the game is designed the way it is. But it sure would be neat under limited or specific constraints IMO.

 

[Kazin]

Did everything I could in the Corel/Costa del Sol region (no idea why I have to wait until, apparently, chapter 12 to be able to finish the protorelic quest there, I am annoyed I can't 100% that area before moving on) and everything in the Gongaga region (sure was a pain to navigate, the map could be more detailed). The battle where you have to kill the Mindflayer before the two self-destructing mooks is the only combat simulator fight I haven't beaten yet - I can put them to sleep so many times, but I can't kill the Mindflayer in time. It's level synced, as well, so I can't seem to just level up to do more damage. I suppose I could eventually beat it with better abilities or something, but it's another unchecked box I'm still annoyed with.

Utterly baffled - in a good way - as to where they're going with the story. Are those really (chapter 9 spoilers) Weapons in the destroyed reactors? Will Tifa suffer from Mako poisoning now? Why doesn't Cissnei recognize Cloud - or, if she does, why doesn't she say anything? Why does Cid seem so much younger than in original FF7? Mysteries abound. About 52 hours in so far, still having a very good time.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Cid was only 32 in the original, he was just extremely bitter and they called him a geezer. He seems more in line with his actual age now, not less. Honestly like his new portrayal more than the old one, which was more "abusive drunk" than "roguish free spirit."

Cissnei, iirc, does recognize Cloud, but he doesn't recognize her. Why she doesn't bring it up is a mystery.

 

[Kazin]

Yeah, for Cid, I'm wondering how they'll handle his bits in Rocket Town with Shera. All I've seen of him thus far is his ferrying us to Cosmo Canyon.

Regarding Cissnei... I may have missed that, or it may have been very subtle. I just played through Crisis Core (on PSP, though I did play Reunion when that came out), so given we were in Gongaga and she was there, I was paying very close attention to her, and she really didn't seem to clock Cloud. I chalked it up to her being more interested in Zack, anyway, and maybe not seeing mako-comatose Cloud very much, although I can't remember how much she did see him in Crisis Core....

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

There's a side quest you can go on with Cissnei where she talks a bit more, but still remains very elusive. I wonder if she's suspicious of Cloud on account of him carrying around Zack's sword, but acting like he doesn't know Zack.

 

[Kazin]

I did everything I could in that town, including sidequests/protorelic, and yeah... She's pretty evasive. Good theory, though.

 

[jpfriction]

I needed to drop the difficulty for the mindflayer simulator. No regrets.

Barrett helps in that one, so you can keep your distance from the splode bros.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I needed to drop the difficulty for the mindflayer simulator. No regrets.

Barrett helps in that one, so you can keep your distance from the splode bros.

If I remember that fight correctly, sleep + magnify will be your friend to keep the minions away from the battle

 

[gogglebob]

Regarding questions on Cissnei's motivations, please note that literally every playable character so far is lying to Cloud at various points in their own journeys, and for separate reasons that have not been wholly explained. Except Barrett. Barrett is a straightforward dude.

 

[Kazin]

If I remember that fight correctly, sleep + magnify will be your friend to keep the minions away from the battle

Yeah, that's what I was using, but eventually they become immune to it. I'm probably not good enough/don't have a good enough strategy to do enough damage in time. I'll come back to it eventually, I'm sure it's beatable. I haven't lowered the difficulty yet, but if it's all that remains at the end... I may have to lol

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Regarding questions on Cissnei's motivations, please note that literally every playable character so far is lying to Cloud at various points in their own journeys, and for separate reasons that have not been wholly explained. Except Barrett. Barrett is a straightforward dude.

I object, Yuffie and Aerith haven’t lied so far.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

I object, Yuffie and Aerith haven’t lied so far.

Spoiler

Being bad at lying doesn't mean she wasn't lying (Yuffie). Also we don't really know what this Aerith knows so saying she hasn't lied is not really accurate. She is certainly hiding a lot from him (and everyone).

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Spoiler

Being bad at lying doesn't mean she wasn't lying (Yuffie). Also we don't really know what this Aerith knows so saying she hasn't lied is not really accurate. She is certainly hiding a lot from him (and everyone).

Spoiler

Yuffie has been shockingly honest this time around. Telling people exactly what her motivations are, what's going on in Wutai, etc. It's a pretty stark departure from the first game IIRC where she doesn't let anyone know what's going on until the big Wutai side quest.
Aerith has kept things to herself, so I get why you'd come down on her that way. But IIRC she's never lied to anyone -- even through omission -- at all during the game. The only real exception I can think of is during the Ferris Wheel date where she tells Cloud that Tifa hadn't told her anything about Zack yet. Which - how that conversation goes down - I wouldn't take so much as a lie, and more not letting something that's not relevant to the current moment spoil the mood by feigning ignorance to Cloud's vauge question. It's also worth noting that during Rebirth, she's lost all her memories of what's supposed to happen in future/past events so she's not got anything to hide anymore really.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

Spoiler

Yuffie has been shockingly honest this time around. Telling people exactly what her motivations are, what's going on in Wutai, etc. It's a pretty stark departure from the first game IIRC where she doesn't let anyone know what's going on until the big Wutai side quest.
Aerith has kept things to herself, so I get why you'd come down on her that way. But IIRC she's never lied to anyone -- even through omission -- at all during the game. The only real exception I can think of is during the Ferris Wheel date where she tells Cloud that Tifa hadn't told her anything about Zack yet. Which - how that conversation goes down - I wouldn't take so much as a lie, and more not letting something that's not relevant to the current moment spoil the mood by feigning ignorance to Cloud's vauge question. It's also worth noting that during Rebirth, she's lost all her memories of what's supposed to happen in future/past events so she's not got anything to hide anymore really.

Look if it's not shipping Cloud/Tifa I'm only half paying attention.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Look if it's not shipping Cloud/Tifa I'm only half paying attention.

Spoiler

Aerith and Cloud's relationship are quintessential foundations for Cloud eventually growing up and becoming a person who can actually reciprocate and be in a functional relationship with Tifa. Without it, Cloud is just a stunted child. Pitting the two ships against each other is missing the forest for the trees.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

It was a joke -_-
I'm all for Aerith existing.

Tifa x Aerith amirite

 

[Kazin]

Rolled credits just now, 90:13 on the in-game clock when I made my final save, with what appears to be tons of sidequest content still available if I want to do it. And I just may! The game was very fun. Shoutout to Gogglebob's writeup of the story ending, and several replies to his entry here.

I have a couple of questions for anyone who may or may not know: in the Trace of Two Pasts book, Tifa was operated on and saved by a female doctor in Midgar, not whoever that doctor was in Corel who also, if I'm understanding correctly, crafted Barret's gun arm. This is a much better reality than what happened to Tifa in the book (and ties her to Barret more even though neither of them were aware of their mutual encounters with the same doctor), but I was curious if I missed something or if the book just glossed over the Corel portion and Tifa's rehab was in Midgar.

Seeing some of the events from the book (Aerith's mom dying, and child Aerith asking people in the slums for help but not getting any was heartbreaking), was neat, though. Odd they put Tifa's teacher in Nibelheim right there at the beginning of the game but unless there's a sidequest or something I missed somewhere, you never see him again.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth ending questions: So, besides the obvious "wtf happened" - where the heck were they when Cid was fixing up the Tiny Bronco to fly again? It looked like just some big nondescript empty plain, kinda unlike anywhere else in Rebirth or Remake.

Anybody have any idea why someone said the Black Materia was fake? When Barret knocks it out of Cloud's hands and it rolls over to Sephiroth, I thought for a split second "omg Barret gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth, not Cloud" lol.

What are the Gi? Are they aliens? Is that why they can't be absorbed into the lifestream, same with Jenova?

Who the fuck is Glenn, anyway?

Are they going to release some sort of Intergrade DLC for Rebirth? I assume not since the game is packed already, but just curious if they're going to give us a small section of game to play as Vincent, or something.

 

[Vaeran]

Anybody have any idea why someone said the Black Materia was fake?

It's been a minute but my impression was that that was just a lie Aerith came up with on the spot to try to get Barret and Cloud to stop fighting over it.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I have a couple of questions for anyone who may or may not know: in the Trace of Two Pasts book

Spoiler

Re: Tifa's doctors -- I'm 95% sure that Remake/Rebirth/Traces of Two Pasts are all on the same page here. It's a very brief part of the book, because the story is from Tifa's POV and she's basically unconscious the entire time. But they do mention that she was operated on and treated by the Corel Dr first, who saved her life and stabilized her. Then Zangan relocated her to Midgar for rehab as soon as they could move her because he didn't want to keep Tifa anywhere near the vicinity of Nibelheim where Shinra might discover her.

Re: I got about as close as I could to 100%-ing Rebirth without testing the limits of my own sanity, and Zangan never showed up again. Which honestly follows the original game pretty well, since he only really shows up in flashback sequences IIRC. I'm sure he'll show up at some point in Part 3. Tifa needs to give him an ear-full.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth ending questions

Spoiler

Re: Game location -- in the OG game, the Temple of the Ancients is on an island south of Midgar/Junon. In this game, they relocated it to the North in the general vicinity of the Forgotten Capital. The game is on-rails directly from landing at the Northwood --> Temple of the Ancients --> Forgotten Capital. So there's no exploration of the Northern Area at all to see what the geography is like, or seeing locations like the Bone Village. But if you'll recall, the area just outside the Bone Village/entrance to the Forgotten Capital looked like this:

Re: The Gi -- It's never directly stated, but reading between the lines, it's heavily implied that the Gi are aliens from outer space, just like Genova. The implication being that if you aren't born of this world, then you can't return to the Lifestream when you die, which might offer some insights into why Genova does what she does. It's just my fan-theory, but I think the Gi Tribe are the progenitors of regular humans. Their descendants were born on Gaia, so their life force therefore came from the Lifestream and became part of the planet's lifecycle. But the Gi themselves couldn't. This would explain why regular humans are distinct from the Ancients, why they somehow show up late to the party despite the Ancients already being the dominant species on the planet, and also ties into the FFX idea of the people of Gaia being descendant from the people of Spira.

Re: Glenn -- is from Final Fantasy VII: First Soldier, the now defunct mobile-only, f2p, FF7 battle royale game. A thin excuse to have an FF7 skinned BR game, staring all of the players as experimental First Soldiers (pre-Sephiroth). When that game went belly up, its character and story elements got folded into Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis -- the ongoing mobile/PC gacha RPG that is retelling all of the stories of all of the different FF7 games. They are slowly adding story chapters from the OG FF7, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, the novels, etc. But they're also adding First Soldier content, which has evolved into a Sephiroth origin story. Glenn is one of that chapter's POV characters. He's an unenhanced Type-0, original SOLDIER sent out on missions to find suitable Mako Reactor locations (thanks to Aerith lol), and gets teamed up with Sephiroth. Eventually, the two of them are party to a little bit of light genocide. Glenn leaves Shinra and is essentially the founding member of Avalanche/staged a coup in Wutai. The implication being that he was working with Rufus to undermine Shinra but then was stabbed in the back by Rufus since Rufus wanted to create Avalanche to assassinate his father (this is Before Crisis lore), not take the whole company down.

Re: Post-release content -- FF7: Intergrade was essentially a beta-test for changes to the combat system, and PS5 development for Rebirth. There's no need for that this time, and focusing on DLC would slow down production of FF7R3. They started working on FF7R3 before Rebirth was released, because they ambitiously want to release this game within a 3 year window. I'm willing to bet they're targeting a 2027 release to coincide with the 30th Anniversary of FF7, and they risk missing that if they do another similar DLC package.

 

[Kazin]

Right, okay, the explanation for Tifa makes sense. I was expecting her to mention her experience in Midgar after the Corel doctor in-game, but she never did. I also had no idea Zangan showed up in the original FF7 at all outside just a passing mention when you get Tifa's ultimate Limit Break or weapon or whatever from her piano, right? Is he physically present in PSX FF7?

Wait why do you keep spelling it "Genova?" Is that a Japanese spelling or am I missing some multiverse nonsense? lol

Why is the planet such a racist to aliens? Just let em join the lifestream, it would solve so many issues. Stupid planet.

It figures Glenn is some mobile only character, whose only exposure I will have is via the remake trilogy, because there is no scenario where I play a mobile game, at least not unless it is ported to a system with physical buttons (and no, I will not be connecting a controller to my phone). Which is kinda a shame, because the people sent out to find suitable Mako Reactor locations via Aerith's drawings from Tales of Two Pasts is an interesting angle!

I need to go back and play Remake to remind myself of the differences, because the combat in Rebirth felt easier to wrap my head around - I thought it was because I played through Remake and Intergrade about a year ago and just remembered how to do it, but it did feel somewhat easier overall, as I died and had to spam potions and whatnot far less (though I did use Cure spells a lot, so I guess that just replaced potions).

 

[Peklo]

Zangan is present in the Nibelheim flashback in the original. First when arrived at the inn, where he introduces and establishes himself as Tifa's teacher, then standing guard at the Shinra Mansion entrance when Sephiroth is going on his academia binge (and suspecting things are about to go belly up), and finally when the town is aflame and he rushes into one of the houses to search for survivors.

 

[Kazin]

God I just played through FF7 on PSX and don't remember him being there at all, or at least not realizing it was him. Weird!

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Wait why do you keep spelling it "Genova?" Is that a Japanese spelling or am I missing some multiverse nonsense? lol

Nah, my brain is bad. Whoops.

It figures Glenn is some mobile only character, whose only exposure I will have is via the remake trilogy, because there is no scenario where I play a mobile game, at least not unless it is ported to a system with physical buttons (and no, I will not be connecting a controller to my phone). Which is kinda a shame, because the people sent out to find suitable Mako Reactor locations via Aerith's drawings from Tales of Two Pasts is an interesting angle!

You can play it on Steam IIRC. However, I would not. It's a bad game. Even if the stuff they're doing with Sephiroth is interesting, the gameplay is the epitome of bad Japanese gacha mobile games. Where the combat plays itself, and you're just there to grind 1000 different currencies in perpetuity all so you can have Tifa in 20 different bathing suits. If you really must, I'm sure there are youtube recap videos of the story parts.

I need to go back and play Remake to remind myself of the differences, because the combat in Rebirth felt easier to wrap my head around - I thought it was because I played through Remake and Intergrade about a year ago and just remembered how to do it, but it did feel somewhat easier overall, as I died and had to spam potions and whatnot far less (though I did use Cure spells a lot, so I guess that just replaced potions).

I'm replaying Remake right now. The combat is pretty much the same, just missing a bunch of extra stuff and QoL improvements added on top in Rebirth. I'm finding myself able to do a lot more this time around, and I think the difference is just getting a lot more time/opportunities in Rebirth to really practice and get good. Remake actually has shockingly few opportunities for combat. It will go entire chapters with barely any combat, and the game is a fraction of the size/length of Rebirth. IMO a new player is still learning how to play the game by the time it ends in Remake. But given how much more combat opportunities there are in Rebirth it feels natural that players would more likely feel like experts by the end. At least, that's my take on things.

 

[YangusKhan]

The combat is pretty much the same, just missing a bunch of extra stuff and QoL improvements added on top in Rebirth. I'm finding myself able to do a lot more this time around, and I think the difference is just getting a lot more time/opportunities in Rebirth to really practice and get good. Remake actually has shockingly few opportunities for combat. It will go entire chapters with barely any combat, and the game is a fraction of the size/length of Rebirth. IMO a new player is still learning how to play the game by the time it ends in Remake. But given how much more combat opportunities there are in Rebirth it feels natural that players would more likely feel like experts by the end. At least, that's my take on things.

I think I agree with this and it makes a lot of sense.

 

[Kazin]

Hmm. Well, probably before the 3rd game comes out, maybe I'll replay Remake and Rebirth, then (skipping a lot of the side content in Rebirth because holy crap is there a lot of it lol)...

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Nah, my brain is bad. Whoops.

Spaghetti Jenovese

 

[Bongo]

Well, it's a little embarrassing that some of my friends finished this game on PC before I finished it on PS5, but the credits are rolling. Let me see if I understand the implications of the ending here.

Spoiler: The ending of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

• Cloud is hallucinating and/or haunted and thinks that Aerith is still alive. (This will be a source of emotional strife, and explain why he's so eager to go snowboarding, in FF7R3.)
• He also has, or thinks he has, the Black Materia.
• And he's seeing the pre-Meteor fucked up sky that was in the other, doomed world.
• Due to all the interdimensional bullshit that Sephiroth has been causing, the status of the White Materia is currently ambiguous.
• The Zack of the other world, having learned about alternate dimensions, figures there's no reason he can't try to return to the non-doomed main world of the game instead.
• Glenn, being a former SOLDIER, was a Sephiroth Copy being puppeteered by Jenova the whole time, and the war he incited will ensure that the sequel has plenty of activities and complications.

And everything else is pretty much as it was in the original game. Is that consistent with everyone else's understanding?