Just gonna have to disagree on this I think.
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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
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I finished it. I'm gonna need... a minute. That was a hell of a climax and pretty much everything I hoped for it. And now I can click on spoilers!
In my post-game cleanup I've run into two hurdles.
One is the final side quest, which opens up when you complete all the others, I completed the initial five challenges easily enough but now Mr. Ultimate Party Animal suddenly wants me to beat him at the 3D Brawler, something I have not touched since that one obligatory battle when the party first arrived at the Gold Saucer, and I just can't hack it. The controls for this are so unintuitive. I might just leave this one unfinished.
The other hurdle is at the very end of the Protorelic quest. Greg has you fighting pairs of Summons to re-temper the relics, and the first two bouts aren't too bad, but the final one has you fighting Odin and Alexander and it's the same trouble I ran into with Odin previously but worse now. Alexander's attacks constantly throw off my dodging and I take way more hits from Odin than I otherwise would. Odin does vanish for a period in the middle of the fight, giving you time to focus down Alexander, but you still need to contend with Odin once that's done and the fight is so long that dying at that point is just demoralizing. I want to complete this but I dunno if I have the patience to pull it off.
One is the final side quest, which opens up when you complete all the others, I completed the initial five challenges easily enough but now Mr. Ultimate Party Animal suddenly wants me to beat him at the 3D Brawler, something I have not touched since that one obligatory battle when the party first arrived at the Gold Saucer, and I just can't hack it. The controls for this are so unintuitive. I might just leave this one unfinished.
The other hurdle is at the very end of the Protorelic quest. Greg has you fighting pairs of Summons to re-temper the relics, and the first two bouts aren't too bad, but the final one has you fighting Odin and Alexander and it's the same trouble I ran into with Odin previously but worse now. Alexander's attacks constantly throw off my dodging and I take way more hits from Odin than I otherwise would. Odin does vanish for a period in the middle of the fight, giving you time to focus down Alexander, but you still need to contend with Odin once that's done and the fight is so long that dying at that point is just demoralizing. I want to complete this but I dunno if I have the patience to pull it off.
Okay so... first story question. Did this game just straight up contradict that Cloud imprinted on Zack's life after Nibelheim? There was never an explicit scene when we got back to Nibelheim that revealed Cloud was a grunt and Zack was Sephiroth's partner, right? But then Tifa still knows that Cloud wasn't there? And also Cloud had that vision flash of Zack falling into the river?? What happened???
Short answer: Cloud is an unreliable narrator.
Long answer (whole game spoilers): Cloud is definitely the same anonymous grunt he has always been. Aside from outside the game, you even get this reinforced during the Nibelheim flashback, as Grunt Cloud is easily seen passed out outside Cloud's home. Cloud only (mis)remembers Grunt Zack because he is trying to rationalize knowing Zack at all. He remembers Zack at Nibelheim (present), but he is still convinced he "is" Zack, and he isn't ready to admit he's Grunt Cloud, so he repositions SOLDIER Zack as Grunt-Zack. This is more or less confirmed when Cloud explains this to Tifa, and her response is basically a very polite "Close, but no cigar." Cloud is still Grunt Cloud, just he's got some brain problems that are rationalizing everything. I have no doubt Final Fantast Remake 3 will make this explicit.
That said, bad-faith "writers be writing" reading of the whole situation (whole game spoilers, again): For Cloud's teamup with Zack during the final battle to work on any kind of narrative level, Cloud had to have an excuse to "know" who Zack was without fully admitting his own place in the story. It would have been awkward for everyone if we got this great, fanservice-y team up of Zack and Cloud fighting Sephiroth, but Cloud had no idea who he was even looking at. So Cloud more or less had to remember Zack in some way before the confrontation, but he could not learn his own "real" origins, as we have to save that revelation for the next game (as the finale of Rebirth wants to position Cloud in a very dark place mentally). So "Cloud has got new and different memory problems" was a cudgel to get everyone where they needed to be for some kickass dual techs.
Long answer (whole game spoilers): Cloud is definitely the same anonymous grunt he has always been. Aside from outside the game, you even get this reinforced during the Nibelheim flashback, as Grunt Cloud is easily seen passed out outside Cloud's home. Cloud only (mis)remembers Grunt Zack because he is trying to rationalize knowing Zack at all. He remembers Zack at Nibelheim (present), but he is still convinced he "is" Zack, and he isn't ready to admit he's Grunt Cloud, so he repositions SOLDIER Zack as Grunt-Zack. This is more or less confirmed when Cloud explains this to Tifa, and her response is basically a very polite "Close, but no cigar." Cloud is still Grunt Cloud, just he's got some brain problems that are rationalizing everything. I have no doubt Final Fantast Remake 3 will make this explicit.
That said, bad-faith "writers be writing" reading of the whole situation (whole game spoilers, again): For Cloud's teamup with Zack during the final battle to work on any kind of narrative level, Cloud had to have an excuse to "know" who Zack was without fully admitting his own place in the story. It would have been awkward for everyone if we got this great, fanservice-y team up of Zack and Cloud fighting Sephiroth, but Cloud had no idea who he was even looking at. So Cloud more or less had to remember Zack in some way before the confrontation, but he could not learn his own "real" origins, as we have to save that revelation for the next game (as the finale of Rebirth wants to position Cloud in a very dark place mentally). So "Cloud has got new and different memory problems" was a cudgel to get everyone where they needed to be for some kickass dual techs.
That all makes sense to me. Admittedly I think part of my confusion was because I don't remember exactly when all this information gets revealed in the OG story.
So yesterday I ended up reading like 5 articles that were mostly critical of this game's ending. I'm wondering if anyone has some links to pieces that aren't like that?
In case you're interested, it was these:
In case you're interested, it was these:
https://www.polygon.com/24106260/ff7-rebirth-ending-explained-does-aerith-die-who-knows
https://www.pastemagazine.com/games...rly-answers-a-question-it-never-needed-to-ask
https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-ending-aerith-black-materia-1851310221
https://bulletpointsmonthly.com/2024/03/06/death-again-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth
https://remapradio.com/articles/let-the-dead-snake-lie-diminished-drama-final-fantasy-vii/
https://www.pastemagazine.com/games...rly-answers-a-question-it-never-needed-to-ask
https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-ending-aerith-black-materia-1851310221
https://bulletpointsmonthly.com/2024/03/06/death-again-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth
https://remapradio.com/articles/let-the-dead-snake-lie-diminished-drama-final-fantasy-vii/
Yeah, I don't really trust the enthusiast press to have good takes on anything, let alone any story with even the slightest modicum of thematic complexity. The number of times I've seen people bleat about how "confusing" something is because it has more than two factions to keep track of really makes me question the reading comprehension of most people in society in general.
I'm in Chapter 9 right now. Just made it to Gongaga. I really don't have much to add to the conversation except that I really love this game and everything that it does. I was very upset however that during Chapter 8 the game made me go on a date with Tifa was not my preferred story route.
I'm in Chapter 9 right now. Just made it to Gongaga. I really don't have much to add to the conversation except that I really love this game and everything that it does. I was very upset however that during Chapter 8 the game made me go on a date with Tifa was not my preferred story route.
OK, so a tip for the dates I didn't figure out until after I was locked into one: check out the sidequests you get once they're activated. Don't do the ones with a portrait of characters you want to date, and DO do the ones WITH a portrait of the character you DO want to date.
Or, alternately, once you beat the game you gain access to a menu that lets you pick your preference for chapter select.
Or, alternately, once you beat the game you gain access to a menu that lets you pick your preference for chapter select.
Maybe true in general, but this game's ending isn't exactly straightforward. I would be surprised if someone finished it and didn't have questions.
I came out of it with a much different takeaway than some, which I guess I was wrong about some things, but I'm not convinced about all of it.
I just assumed it would work like Remake. Where if you do everything positive for all members involved, there's one or two specific events that will be an effective tie-breaker. At least when it comes to Tifa/Aerith. I think the difference this time around is I might have accidentally done too many unite attacks with Tifa just by coincidence, which I guess ends up being a bigger tie breaker at the very least? I dunno. I get the point of that, but it's also kinda lame. So now I have to basically exile certain party members and force combos with Aerith which is a much less fun way to play the game.
The game pretty much pulls back the curtain on how that all works after beating it. But if you want to know ahead of time:
Every time there's a minor conversation you can have with a character, there's 3 responses to choose from and they range from 1 to 3 stars, with 3 stars giving the most bond. Executing each unique synergy skill and synergy ability one time with every character also grants bond (only the one time). And then there's some specific events you can do that influence bond like which pair you assist in Costa del Sol or which minecart track in Mt. Corel. And of course, completing sidequests always gives bond to someone.
Every time there's a minor conversation you can have with a character, there's 3 responses to choose from and they range from 1 to 3 stars, with 3 stars giving the most bond. Executing each unique synergy skill and synergy ability one time with every character also grants bond (only the one time). And then there's some specific events you can do that influence bond like which pair you assist in Costa del Sol or which minecart track in Mt. Corel. And of course, completing sidequests always gives bond to someone.
I read something else that completing side quests that are important to a character will also increase bond (importance denoted by their portrait on the quest). But maybe that's just a function of the conversations during those quests.
jpfriction
(He, Him)
I’ve managed to play cloud as an absolute dipshit who can’t say anything nice to Aerith so far. The dog likes him.
Ironic when Aerith is probably the dog's best friend.
I've been playing Cloud like he subconsciously remembers his past life in FF7, and thus has immense amounts of innate affection for all of his party members. Which is very out of character for Cloud, but feels right for this Cloud.
Of course, Cloud is still objectively a massive dipshit because he can't help but completely ruin everybody's things by clumsily bumping into everything and sending all objects in the environment to the four corners of Gaia. He can't help it!
The synergies only improve your relationship once each. There's a lot of other stuff that goes into it (one of the postgame unlocks is a relationship screen that shows what has affected your relationships and by how much). Minor details: The parade is a big deal for both Aerith and Tifa and I didn't do super at that, and had done more sidequests with Red and I guess chosen better dialogue choices despite trying to be nice to everyone.
What I ended up doing was watching the date I had expected on YouTube before doing the skywheel with Red.
I wrote a whole stupid post about the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth ending. If you want to read an interpretation of the whole thing by someone who liked it a whole lot, I have got you covered.
So much talking about ending, spoilers very much.
So much talking about ending, spoilers very much.
That's a good write-up, Bob. I'm still chewing on the ending myself. I admit I missed and/or misinterpreted some things the first time I saw it (it was late and I was tired and as you note, the whole final chapter is exhausting and disorienting in a good and intentional manner). I mostly agree with what you're saying here, but given how we have at least one reality where contradictory events were both true, I wonder if that might end up being the case in part 3, because the Aerith that Cloud sees does not seem to be entirely in his own head.
This was great! Similar to Sarc, my only question to you is are you saying Aerith is dead dead dead for good? I don't think the ending supports that reading. She is still "alive" in the sense that her "will" exists in the planet's Lifestream (as the White Whispers I believe), but she is definitely physically dead in the Rebirth timeline. I do like your perspective that Cloud is not willing to believe she's dead. I hadn't really considered that. The game definitely does not give you much direct insight into what Cloud is feeling/thinking, like, at all in the entire game. Which is pretty interesting considering we see the story play out almost entirely from his viewpoint.
I suppose I can write out my Grand Theory on what's going on heading into FF7: Reunion...
Sephiroth's goal is still much the same as OG FF7: he wants to use the Black Materia to "destroy" the planet. Only this time, destroy is in scare quotes because I think what he's trying to do now is actually to annihilate the very concept of the Lifestream itself. This is why Rebirth went to great lengths to explore the Gi society at the end of Red's journey in the Gi Cave; the Gi formed the Black Materia because they wanted to end the planet's "endless existence" that prevents them from finally dying by not allowing them into the Lifestream.
This version of Sephiroth is practically omniscient and knows seemingly everything there ever is to know about the planet, so he knows there's versions of him that used the Black Materia to summon Meteor and ultimately failed. This is why he's changing tactics now and going after the planet in a more "direct" way: attacking it through the Lifestream itself. This is why the Gongaga section where Tifa falls into the Lifestream is important. I believe it represents the ongoing conflict between Aerith and Sephiroth at its most primal form: White and Black Whispers in battle against each other and using the Lifestream to conduct this battle.
My takeaway is that the Lifestream supports a nature of existence such that everything on the planet exists all the time together in a sort of quantum superposition state, but only Aerith and Sephiroth had the ability to be aware of this until the events of the ending of Rebirth. Even after the ending, they are still the only ones that can "easily" move between timelines; Cloud and Zack are both aware of this reality now, but neither seem to understand how to (or are just not metaphysically capable of) actually move through it; but gosh darnit, Zack is gonna try his best to figure it out!
Anyway, what all this means is that Aerith is "dead" at the end of Rebirth, but she's not dead forever and is still floating around in the Lifestream fighting against Sephiroth. Compared to OG FF7, the stakes are raised an order of magnitude higher by Sephiroth, however, because if he succeeds with his Reunion then it would mean the end of the Lifestream entirely, and then everything on the planet would truly be doomed because no more reincarnation (I'm kind of anticipating his "destruction" of the planet in this case to be more metaphorical and not like, physically bringing a big rock down onto it). I can't quite square all of this with the shimmering ring in the sky that represents the end of the world, but there's aspects of it that certainly support my theory too; Aerith and the other "dream people" have accepted their fate and are now shifting to a "joi de vivre" mindset: sure the Lifestream is going to end as we know it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy the life we have right now.
There's a spiritual comfort in the teachings of Cosmo Canyon and the Lifestream: your life will end, but it will still exist beyond that as it returns to the planet and forms new life. Sephiroth wants to get rid of that comfort. What would the people of this world feel if the Lifestream no longer provided that comfort? Pointedly, Yuffie is the only one at Cosmo Canyon who flat out doesn't believe in this cycle of life.
This version of Sephiroth is practically omniscient and knows seemingly everything there ever is to know about the planet, so he knows there's versions of him that used the Black Materia to summon Meteor and ultimately failed. This is why he's changing tactics now and going after the planet in a more "direct" way: attacking it through the Lifestream itself. This is why the Gongaga section where Tifa falls into the Lifestream is important. I believe it represents the ongoing conflict between Aerith and Sephiroth at its most primal form: White and Black Whispers in battle against each other and using the Lifestream to conduct this battle.
My takeaway is that the Lifestream supports a nature of existence such that everything on the planet exists all the time together in a sort of quantum superposition state, but only Aerith and Sephiroth had the ability to be aware of this until the events of the ending of Rebirth. Even after the ending, they are still the only ones that can "easily" move between timelines; Cloud and Zack are both aware of this reality now, but neither seem to understand how to (or are just not metaphysically capable of) actually move through it; but gosh darnit, Zack is gonna try his best to figure it out!
Anyway, what all this means is that Aerith is "dead" at the end of Rebirth, but she's not dead forever and is still floating around in the Lifestream fighting against Sephiroth. Compared to OG FF7, the stakes are raised an order of magnitude higher by Sephiroth, however, because if he succeeds with his Reunion then it would mean the end of the Lifestream entirely, and then everything on the planet would truly be doomed because no more reincarnation (I'm kind of anticipating his "destruction" of the planet in this case to be more metaphorical and not like, physically bringing a big rock down onto it). I can't quite square all of this with the shimmering ring in the sky that represents the end of the world, but there's aspects of it that certainly support my theory too; Aerith and the other "dream people" have accepted their fate and are now shifting to a "joi de vivre" mindset: sure the Lifestream is going to end as we know it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy the life we have right now.
There's a spiritual comfort in the teachings of Cosmo Canyon and the Lifestream: your life will end, but it will still exist beyond that as it returns to the planet and forms new life. Sephiroth wants to get rid of that comfort. What would the people of this world feel if the Lifestream no longer provided that comfort? Pointedly, Yuffie is the only one at Cosmo Canyon who flat out doesn't believe in this cycle of life.
Ugh. I'm in Ch 9 right now, just finished the Gongaga Reactor part of the story. Love this game so much but I really want to be able to click on those spoiler tags haha. Story is going crazy rn and finally drastically deviating from the original, and I'm here for all of it.
Some miscellaneous criticism about stuff around the final boss and ending sequence. Mostly not plot concerns:
I feel like they almost completely wasted the Forgotten Capital as a memorable setting for this leg of the journey. In the original, it's in the running for my favourite locale in the game in all aspects of its presentation: the coral reef aesthetic and conch structures, abandoned by their once-inhabitants; one of Uematsu's foreboding and unsettling best in "You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet"; and more abstractly... the quiet of it all, despite the climactic events therein. Rebirth shuffles these present elements to an extent that they might as well not exist anymore: you do not get to explore the city in any meaningful fashion and so do not develop a sense of it as a place; the music played is not comparable because they place the relevant leitmotif in the slow-walk sections and boss preambles in the preceding Temple of the Ancients bits; and no sense of loneliness can exist when the events depicted are remixed into a Whisper-propelled apocalypse scenario that's insistent and loud through every leg of it. You can conjecture that maybe the third game will do more with the location, but its placement in the narrative of these games frame it as a site of trauma that's not easily returned to--the party only does when they must probe for answers in what Aerith was trying to do in her final moments--and so I wish the ominous anticipation of the location was conveyed instead of the loud spectacle we got.
the eight+ phase final boss sequence is too much for anyone's good; excess in its purest form. I don't particularly desire to fight Sephiroth in a boring duel framing every time they make one of these and for him to smirk it off. Scaling a giant Bizarro/Sephiroth Reborn was vaguely embarrassing in a Shadow of the Colossus clone kind of way, but at least it's a brief diversion. I'm guessing they moved that particular design and rough encounter structure here from the original finale to make room for something else, but again the particulars of the source material are lost or ignored: "Birth of a God" is nowhere to be heard, and I can't say whatever stood in for it stuck... I guess some rendition of "One-Winged Angel" was playing, at some point, again. Fighting just Jenova wasn't deemed suitably climactic, I guess, even though for all of this material, the sequences that comprise the battle against her are the ones that work the best presentationally and in the atmosphere conceived.
Cloud and the player struggling against Jenova/Sephiroth's influence as he approaches a praying Aerith really fell flat for me in how it sits relative to the rest of the game's design language. In the original, you are wrested of traditional control of the character and have to start pressing buttons to try break free of your newfound constraints--the results of such prodding are awkward shakes and spasms, but every input that doesn't strictly stall inexorably draws toward Cloud readying and priming his sword for a killing blow on Aerith. In Rebirth, you are playing the game you've played for the last hundred hours or however long: pressing triggers in sequence to have Cloud perform a mundane action, here first struggling against a storm of Whispers to reach Aerith, and then making those same inputs for an analogue of the original sequence... except for relying on the standard format for player input the all the rest of the game has, nothing about the scene stands apart as an uncommonly dire situation of Cloud being rendered the puppet his adversaries insist he is. I understand the writing intention for much of this reframed material is to thrive on ambiguity--is Cloud struggling to resist striking at Aerith, or is he so lost in himself that he's actively attempting it through the player's inputs--but it ideally shouldn't come at a cost of diluting memorable storytelling through mechanics and presentation in favour of an uniform design model.
the eight+ phase final boss sequence is too much for anyone's good; excess in its purest form. I don't particularly desire to fight Sephiroth in a boring duel framing every time they make one of these and for him to smirk it off. Scaling a giant Bizarro/Sephiroth Reborn was vaguely embarrassing in a Shadow of the Colossus clone kind of way, but at least it's a brief diversion. I'm guessing they moved that particular design and rough encounter structure here from the original finale to make room for something else, but again the particulars of the source material are lost or ignored: "Birth of a God" is nowhere to be heard, and I can't say whatever stood in for it stuck... I guess some rendition of "One-Winged Angel" was playing, at some point, again. Fighting just Jenova wasn't deemed suitably climactic, I guess, even though for all of this material, the sequences that comprise the battle against her are the ones that work the best presentationally and in the atmosphere conceived.
Cloud and the player struggling against Jenova/Sephiroth's influence as he approaches a praying Aerith really fell flat for me in how it sits relative to the rest of the game's design language. In the original, you are wrested of traditional control of the character and have to start pressing buttons to try break free of your newfound constraints--the results of such prodding are awkward shakes and spasms, but every input that doesn't strictly stall inexorably draws toward Cloud readying and priming his sword for a killing blow on Aerith. In Rebirth, you are playing the game you've played for the last hundred hours or however long: pressing triggers in sequence to have Cloud perform a mundane action, here first struggling against a storm of Whispers to reach Aerith, and then making those same inputs for an analogue of the original sequence... except for relying on the standard format for player input the all the rest of the game has, nothing about the scene stands apart as an uncommonly dire situation of Cloud being rendered the puppet his adversaries insist he is. I understand the writing intention for much of this reframed material is to thrive on ambiguity--is Cloud struggling to resist striking at Aerith, or is he so lost in himself that he's actively attempting it through the player's inputs--but it ideally shouldn't come at a cost of diluting memorable storytelling through mechanics and presentation in favour of an uniform design model.
Regarding questions regarding my interpretation of the ending (ending spoilers, of course).
Imagery of Aerith being "alive" in the Lifestream has been persistent since the original, and her "heaven" with Zack was practically made explicit in Advent Children. One way or another, I believe Aerith is "as" dead as she ever was in FF7, which was always implied to be "her spirit endures beyond the flesh". I am generally assuming we will have Holy and Aerith work together in tandem in some fashion that is similar to OG FF7.
All that said, I think Alterna-Aerith that Cloud can see is as "real" as Alterna-Zack or Alterna-Biggs. She is not a figment of Cloud's psyche in the same way that Cloud has mentally constructed Grunt-Zack. She also likely has some general understanding of the fact that she is now in a damned limbo like Aerith seemed to immediately understand when she and Cloud visited Midgar earlier in the chapter. Aerith surviving is a timeline deviation like Zack or Biggs surviving, and they thus get to live out some level of free will/redemption that helps them accept their fate/reentry into the Lifestream (which is a personal theory on all the alternate dimensions that may be influenced by my watching Donnie Darko a lot twenty years ago). Unfortunately, Cloud is so damned screwed up (and in possession of demonic materia), he managed to shunt his alive ass into a damned world to be with an alive Aerith, and that is not going to be good for anyone. Cloud is going to have to get over it to (literally) live without Aerith. And I 100% believe Alterna-Aerith is aware of her place in all of this, with full knowledge that she should not still be breathing, and extra Cloud time has a price.
Anywho, all conjecture on what is happening here. Say what you will about "Kingdom Hearts plotting", but I appreciate when metaphors become literal in these games.
Imagery of Aerith being "alive" in the Lifestream has been persistent since the original, and her "heaven" with Zack was practically made explicit in Advent Children. One way or another, I believe Aerith is "as" dead as she ever was in FF7, which was always implied to be "her spirit endures beyond the flesh". I am generally assuming we will have Holy and Aerith work together in tandem in some fashion that is similar to OG FF7.
All that said, I think Alterna-Aerith that Cloud can see is as "real" as Alterna-Zack or Alterna-Biggs. She is not a figment of Cloud's psyche in the same way that Cloud has mentally constructed Grunt-Zack. She also likely has some general understanding of the fact that she is now in a damned limbo like Aerith seemed to immediately understand when she and Cloud visited Midgar earlier in the chapter. Aerith surviving is a timeline deviation like Zack or Biggs surviving, and they thus get to live out some level of free will/redemption that helps them accept their fate/reentry into the Lifestream (which is a personal theory on all the alternate dimensions that may be influenced by my watching Donnie Darko a lot twenty years ago). Unfortunately, Cloud is so damned screwed up (and in possession of demonic materia), he managed to shunt his alive ass into a damned world to be with an alive Aerith, and that is not going to be good for anyone. Cloud is going to have to get over it to (literally) live without Aerith. And I 100% believe Alterna-Aerith is aware of her place in all of this, with full knowledge that she should not still be breathing, and extra Cloud time has a price.
Anywho, all conjecture on what is happening here. Say what you will about "Kingdom Hearts plotting", but I appreciate when metaphors become literal in these games.
My thoughts about the ending , click at your own risk.
My initial thought / hope was that they were carrying on the canon events but also tweaking the fans a bit. My interpretation of Sephiroth's actions was he engineered Cloud and friends to kill 'fate' at the end Remake so that he could defy destiny. But why set up a plot where you're defying destiny and then do everything exactly the same?
Well, because it's what needs to happen. And we see proof of this pretty clearly in Zack's timeline - which we first see come into existence the moment we defy Fate. Zack's alive! The fans rejoice! Won't this be the coolest thing EVER?
Except it's not cool. Zack's survival accidentally fucks over the entire FF7 universe. Because Cloud never joined Avalanche, Barret and Tifa die and the plot of the game never happens. Aerith is put into a coma - neither in the lifestream to oppose Sephiroth or awake to summon Holy. Without Tifa, Cloud presumably delivers the black materia as scheduled and becomes Sephiroth's new eternal BFF-with-benefits. We see several possible choices Zack could make in Midgar, but none of them matter - Zack is a nice guy but he's not the hero of FF7. He was never gonna save the world. Zack's timeline is doomed. Zack's world is one where everything came up Sephiroth. It's a world where Sephiroth *wins.*
In other words, this is the world he's been looking for where he can defy his destiny. This is what he wanted. Sorry fans, Zack has to be dead.
At the end of Remake, we see another timeline come into existence - one where Aerith is not killed. The fans rejoice!(?) Won't this be the coolest thing EVER?
Except if you played the original game, you know that...uh... this might actually be a bad thing. At the end of the original game, lifestream Aerith is essential to saving the planet. Without Aerith in the lifestream, this timeline, too, may very well be doomed.
if Zack and Aerith lived, the heroes would lose, all your Clerith fanfics be damned. If they both showed up at the end of Part 3, help out in the final battle, but then say 'thanks for everything Cloud, but things went the way they did for a reason. We don't belong here' and then leave, I'd actually think that's a pretty satisfying ending. The OG was the way it was supposed to go. We thought we could defy fate, but If things had gone differently, Sephiroth would have won. This was the only way.
But now that I typed it out, I realize there's no way they'll do anything that smart. This ending was vague for a reason, so that whatever theory you want to present could be true. Given the rather infamously vague nature of OG FF7's ending, I can't see them doing anything but *even more* vague nonsense. Did Aerith and Zack come back to life or did they stay dead? Did humanity live or die? Did the worlds converge or didn't they? Do Cloud and Sephiroth ever *kiss?* The ending of Part 3 will Reply All 'yes' and will not actually answer anything. Kingdom Hearts has been doing this for twenty years and the fans fall for it every time.
Now that we're past *that scene* I also suspect Part 3 will likely not sell as well.
One thing I will give credit for is Sephiroth looking direclty into the camera and saying 'At this moment I can feel the hate of countless worlds.' That is one of the most amazing 'fuck you's I've ever seen a game do.
Well, because it's what needs to happen. And we see proof of this pretty clearly in Zack's timeline - which we first see come into existence the moment we defy Fate. Zack's alive! The fans rejoice! Won't this be the coolest thing EVER?
Except it's not cool. Zack's survival accidentally fucks over the entire FF7 universe. Because Cloud never joined Avalanche, Barret and Tifa die and the plot of the game never happens. Aerith is put into a coma - neither in the lifestream to oppose Sephiroth or awake to summon Holy. Without Tifa, Cloud presumably delivers the black materia as scheduled and becomes Sephiroth's new eternal BFF-with-benefits. We see several possible choices Zack could make in Midgar, but none of them matter - Zack is a nice guy but he's not the hero of FF7. He was never gonna save the world. Zack's timeline is doomed. Zack's world is one where everything came up Sephiroth. It's a world where Sephiroth *wins.*
In other words, this is the world he's been looking for where he can defy his destiny. This is what he wanted. Sorry fans, Zack has to be dead.
At the end of Remake, we see another timeline come into existence - one where Aerith is not killed. The fans rejoice!(?) Won't this be the coolest thing EVER?
Except if you played the original game, you know that...uh... this might actually be a bad thing. At the end of the original game, lifestream Aerith is essential to saving the planet. Without Aerith in the lifestream, this timeline, too, may very well be doomed.
if Zack and Aerith lived, the heroes would lose, all your Clerith fanfics be damned. If they both showed up at the end of Part 3, help out in the final battle, but then say 'thanks for everything Cloud, but things went the way they did for a reason. We don't belong here' and then leave, I'd actually think that's a pretty satisfying ending. The OG was the way it was supposed to go. We thought we could defy fate, but If things had gone differently, Sephiroth would have won. This was the only way.
But now that I typed it out, I realize there's no way they'll do anything that smart. This ending was vague for a reason, so that whatever theory you want to present could be true. Given the rather infamously vague nature of OG FF7's ending, I can't see them doing anything but *even more* vague nonsense. Did Aerith and Zack come back to life or did they stay dead? Did humanity live or die? Did the worlds converge or didn't they? Do Cloud and Sephiroth ever *kiss?* The ending of Part 3 will Reply All 'yes' and will not actually answer anything. Kingdom Hearts has been doing this for twenty years and the fans fall for it every time.
Now that we're past *that scene* I also suspect Part 3 will likely not sell as well.
One thing I will give credit for is Sephiroth looking direclty into the camera and saying 'At this moment I can feel the hate of countless worlds.' That is one of the most amazing 'fuck you's I've ever seen a game do.
Finished this today. I had a great time with it overall, but the events of the ending leave me somewhat less excited for Revengeance than I was at the end of Remake.
I was extremely high on the entirety of Remake, and found myself wondering how Rebirth could possibly instill its locations with the same amount of character and atmosphere that Midgar (arguably the most interesting and rich in storytelling possibilities location in FF7's world) had in Remake. Well, they did it. Every environment feels unique, lived-in and real, and I spent a lot of time just meandering around places like inns, checking out the decor. There's a corner of the Kalm inn's balcony where you can hear a jazz band playing from somewhere downstairs, but only for a second unless you stand still and listen to it, which I did for a while. Advent Children is dumb, but I love it for the chance it gives me to look around a world that had previously only been glimpsed through the lens of 1997 video game technology, and I love these games for the same reason. They're so rich, perhaps to the point of excess, but I'm eating it all up with a spoon.
The overarching plot is almost conspicuously threadbare at times, which is something that was also true of the original Final Fantasy VII, but perhaps something they could have shored up a bit here. The party's motivations seem based purely on guesswork and innuendo at times: "those men in black robes probably have something to do with Sephiroth! Let's follow them!" "The black materia? That sounds like something Sephiroth would be after! We've gotta stop him!" In both cases they turn out to be right, of course, but it seems more like luck on their part than actual deduction. (By the way, in OG FF7, I always sort of assumed the black-cloaked men were just draping themselves in whatever discarded materials they could find, and the reason they looked identical was down to technical limitations. Nope, turns out someone made them all bespoke robes, with special insignia on them and everything. Okey dokey.)
At one point Barret says to Cloud "If you say Sephiroth was there, then I believe you!" Dude, I appreciate the support, but he's been seeing Sephiroth around every corner and behind every rock and tree for the entire game. Trust, but verify.
In the late game I was starting to get a little uncomfortable regarding the party's treatment of Cloud's increasingly evident psychological issues. The dude is clearly not well, but for the most part he either gets admonished to "get it together" or outright ignored. I realize there probably isn't a lot in terms of quality psychiatric care available in this world, particularly for fugitives on a globetrotting quest to save the planet, but the extent to which everyone seems more or less fine with letting Cloud's mind continue to unravel as long as he keeps killing stuff real good for them made for some unpleasant tension. Finally Tifa tells him that she wants him to be able to talk to someone about what's going on with him, even if it isn't her, and that's good stuff, but it's very small and comes very late in the story.
I do think it's interesting that both times Tifa shows Cloud her scar, we don't actually get to see what's there, or even what he thinks he sees (as he seems satisfied the first time, but not the second.) At no point did I believe Tifa was a John Carpenter's The Thing, but the ambiguity was well done. So did no one else in the party see him take a swing at her and knock her into the mako in Chapter 9? I guess she just told everyone she fell.
I was incredibly surprised and appreciative of the fact that the individual "Trials" in the Temple of the Ancients had nothing to do with combat.
Zack's story was humongously affecting to me, and had me hanging on every word. There's a moment early on, in his first conversation with Elmyra, where he says something like "Don't worry, I'm taking care of Aerith just like I am with Cloud!" and she snaps "No you're not! You didn't even wipe her face!" in this tone of utter raw grief. I don't know why that line stuck with me so, but it did.
The overarching plot is almost conspicuously threadbare at times, which is something that was also true of the original Final Fantasy VII, but perhaps something they could have shored up a bit here. The party's motivations seem based purely on guesswork and innuendo at times: "those men in black robes probably have something to do with Sephiroth! Let's follow them!" "The black materia? That sounds like something Sephiroth would be after! We've gotta stop him!" In both cases they turn out to be right, of course, but it seems more like luck on their part than actual deduction. (By the way, in OG FF7, I always sort of assumed the black-cloaked men were just draping themselves in whatever discarded materials they could find, and the reason they looked identical was down to technical limitations. Nope, turns out someone made them all bespoke robes, with special insignia on them and everything. Okey dokey.)
At one point Barret says to Cloud "If you say Sephiroth was there, then I believe you!" Dude, I appreciate the support, but he's been seeing Sephiroth around every corner and behind every rock and tree for the entire game. Trust, but verify.
In the late game I was starting to get a little uncomfortable regarding the party's treatment of Cloud's increasingly evident psychological issues. The dude is clearly not well, but for the most part he either gets admonished to "get it together" or outright ignored. I realize there probably isn't a lot in terms of quality psychiatric care available in this world, particularly for fugitives on a globetrotting quest to save the planet, but the extent to which everyone seems more or less fine with letting Cloud's mind continue to unravel as long as he keeps killing stuff real good for them made for some unpleasant tension. Finally Tifa tells him that she wants him to be able to talk to someone about what's going on with him, even if it isn't her, and that's good stuff, but it's very small and comes very late in the story.
I do think it's interesting that both times Tifa shows Cloud her scar, we don't actually get to see what's there, or even what he thinks he sees (as he seems satisfied the first time, but not the second.) At no point did I believe Tifa was a John Carpenter's The Thing, but the ambiguity was well done. So did no one else in the party see him take a swing at her and knock her into the mako in Chapter 9? I guess she just told everyone she fell.
I was incredibly surprised and appreciative of the fact that the individual "Trials" in the Temple of the Ancients had nothing to do with combat.
Zack's story was humongously affecting to me, and had me hanging on every word. There's a moment early on, in his first conversation with Elmyra, where he says something like "Don't worry, I'm taking care of Aerith just like I am with Cloud!" and she snaps "No you're not! You didn't even wipe her face!" in this tone of utter raw grief. I don't know why that line stuck with me so, but it did.
Maybe I'm a little thick, but when you have multiple timelines converging and diverging and rewriting each other on the fly it's kind of hard to latch onto any particular moment or event emotionally. I was ping-ponging back and forth between "oh we saved Aerith" and "oh wait she's dead" so many times that it kind of felt like a coin endlessly spinning and never landing on either side. I get that she's dead now (for certain values of "dead," anyway), but it took so long for that realization to cement itself that it kind of blunted my emotional reaction to it.
At the end of Remake, the future seemed so open and full of possibility. Zack surviving was a huge game-changer, and the party's defeat of the entities that sought to ensure the events of OG FF7 played out again meant that anything could happen from here on out. The idea of using a familiar and nostalgic setting and characters to tell a new story was unbearably exciting to me. But it seems like what's really happening is just the same plot beats from OG FF7 again, but Bigger and Louder, with a layer of weird multiverse frosting on top. If Omni-Aerith is trying to stop Uber-Sephiroth from destroying every version of the Planet, it still amounts to the same thing as when there was only one of each of them, doesn't it? It's just adding an extra zero or two to the stakes. (I'm just waiting for Sephiroth to sneer at Cloud in Part 3: "Did you know there's even a world where you and I are just part of a game? ...I'm going to obliterate that world too!!")
I dunno. Maybe I'm being unfair and judging a game on what it's not, but to me it feels like Remake and Rebirth should have had their titles swapped. Part 1 seemingly ended with the promise of something entirely new, but Part 2 is mostly content to retread old ground. I'm still looking forward to spending more time in this world four years from now, but now I have my doubts as to whether any of this is going to have a satisfying conclusion.
At the end of Remake, the future seemed so open and full of possibility. Zack surviving was a huge game-changer, and the party's defeat of the entities that sought to ensure the events of OG FF7 played out again meant that anything could happen from here on out. The idea of using a familiar and nostalgic setting and characters to tell a new story was unbearably exciting to me. But it seems like what's really happening is just the same plot beats from OG FF7 again, but Bigger and Louder, with a layer of weird multiverse frosting on top. If Omni-Aerith is trying to stop Uber-Sephiroth from destroying every version of the Planet, it still amounts to the same thing as when there was only one of each of them, doesn't it? It's just adding an extra zero or two to the stakes. (I'm just waiting for Sephiroth to sneer at Cloud in Part 3: "Did you know there's even a world where you and I are just part of a game? ...I'm going to obliterate that world too!!")
I dunno. Maybe I'm being unfair and judging a game on what it's not, but to me it feels like Remake and Rebirth should have had their titles swapped. Part 1 seemingly ended with the promise of something entirely new, but Part 2 is mostly content to retread old ground. I'm still looking forward to spending more time in this world four years from now, but now I have my doubts as to whether any of this is going to have a satisfying conclusion.
I stayed up way too late last night and burned through ch 9, and did all of the side stuff in ch 10. Cosmo Canyon looks incredible. It's really a pretty incredible achievement some of the settings and setpieces for this game really. That vantage point at the top of the observatory that looks down on the rest of the canyon looks absolutely incredible. And they've done such a good job of taking what used to be just a handful of prerendered backgrounds and turning them into places that feel lived in. I know you can play these Remake games without having played the original, but I have to imagine you wouldn't have full appreciation for the work that's gone into this without some exposure to what the original used to be.
Man, when that Cosmo Canyon music kicks in for the first time. Just straight up chills. Cannot emphasize enough - the best way to play this game is with a really good pair of headphones and the sound cranked up (at least, cranked up during story parts and big events)
Regarding the ending and the state of things and where the story seems to be going:
(also, weirdly, Xenogears spoilers)
This is act 2 of 3. This is Empire, this is Thanos wiping out half the population, this is... Well... This is the death of Aerith. But! Unlike the first time that happened, everyone already "knows" there is no real tension in whether or not Sephiroth is going to win. If there was ever any tension in a videogame that you did not know what was going to happen next (Will Meteor destroy the planet!?), it is certainly gone in a remake where you know Cloud 'n pals will at least appear in Kingdom Hearts. Actually... I'm being a jackass here... there are games like Xenogears where the heroes ultimately win, but 95% of the planet gets wrecked. And Xenogears' obvious "Act 2" is Disc 2 where everything starts to go to pot (and Fei gets his ass glued to a chair). From that point on in the story, you have no idea how bad it is going to get, and you continue on to complete the game, but also to see what happens next.
So what I am saying is that having the exact opposite feeling of Remake at the end of Rebirth is intentional. Remake ended on the unbridled hope of "maybe this time this is going to be different", and Rebirth ends on the despair of "nothing is ever going to change". The most important thing that could have changed did not, and why would you expect anything better going forward?
One thing I did not focus on on my ending writeup is that Zack is still alive. We saw three different variations on Zack dying over the course of Rebirth (original flavor FF7 death, death by Shinra Building infiltration, death "with" Biggs), but dude is still chilling in church by the end. He lived! He is reborn! And the only authority out there telling us that these worlds are damned to obliteration is Sephiroth, spawn of Jenova, who, as it is emphasized over and over again in Rebirth, is a noted universal liar. Jenova's whole deal is not her physical power, but the ability to deceive people into being self-destructive. The "you cannot change fate" thing may be a complete lie. Aerith "must" die, but that doesn't mean every other bad thing has to happen again. There is a light in the darkness (and where have I seen a franchise rely on that trope before...).
Anywho, this all may be disproven by Final Fantasy 7 Trinity, but I am currently going to defend this choice. Things look hopeless in all sorts of ways by the end of Part 2, and I think that's intentional.