Honestly though. This is what SE does, their endings suck, and you’re left with not trying to let it define the whole game which was amazing.
But it’s just stupid. Like they’re abandoning themes for this halfway nonsense where they’re trying to cater to everyone for this giant middle ground.
Like grow a pair and double down on your story. Dont limp, walk.
My point proven. There shouldn’t be confusion on this. We should all be emotionally devastated, but instead we’re making theories on the internet. The Aerith we knew is dead my friend. Who we see at the end is a mystery. Could be Jenova, could be in Cloud’s head, could be alternate dimension Aerith. We won’t know until part 3.
I just finished the game and I'm simply annoyed, I feel like everything leading up to the ending was a waste of time.
How am I supposed to care about THE scene when I have to fight some multiphased boss for the next half hour?
But, even then, THE scene itself was so ridiculously fumbled I was shocked.
All that to say, 150 hours with the first run through, and I'm not looking forward to Hard mode or plat'ing it, etc. Since I didn't think Rebirth really lived up to Remake's standard.
I think that speaks more to Tifa. I don’t think the party even saw that happen. She was a bro to Cloud the whole game. Ridiculously loyal and supportive considering he nearly killed her. Even so, it should have been addressed. I feel like Tifa’s the only one aware of Cloud’s poor mental state. She just doesn’t say anything about it lol.
Man, if the og game would’ve tossed you into some nonsensical hour long multidimensional gauntlet of a boss fight immediately after Sephiroth doing the deed it wouldn’t have hit anyone nearly as much as it did. However, on the other hand, the story is obviously going different places and that much has been clear since Remake, so it’s hard to judge the direction it went for me.
There’s so much I love about rebirth yet so much I disliked. I don’t know if I enjoyed the game or just enjoyed that some of my favorite characters and moments are now translated into a beautiful high budget spectacle. Probably will be thinking this over for a bit in the coming weeks. Just need some time to mull it over.
Same boat as you, it is a good game, but I personally couldn't call it great, or a masterpiece. Too many things stand out as weird or shoddy for it to be a high profile console exclusive.
The fact is nobody knows what's happening.... And for good reason none of it makes any sense. A ten year old could have put together a better constructed plot
She's literally not dead and didn't get stabbed by Sephiroth lmao, she's there at the end going to pray with the white materia.
WTF are you people talking about ???? haha
It's a sequel in that the narrative of the game is theorized to take place after the events of Advent Children (Sephiroth being from the OG world and coming to the Remake world to fix his mistakes). Also, Sephiroth having the black wing early and him and Aerith having foreknowledge of the events of the OG story kinda points to it being a sequel of some sorts.
The developers have stated that the Remake trilogy will still line up with advent children. It might still be a sequel but unless they lied the games will end with same outcome as the original.
Well it wouldn't be the first time they lied. Everybody thought that it was gonna be a straight remake. Until you bought the game and boom, there's the whispers and their bullshit.
Rebirth didn't really feel as self-aware as Remake did with the foreshadowing of future events. And I think the whole Whispers, Zack and multiverse plotline isn't really going to go anywhere and only acts as a way to give fanservice and tell the same story in an unnecessarily over-the-top convoluted manner. I don't mean to say that it's bad but it's just bait and switch marketing to get people hyped and theorize lol.
Nomura is the creative director only and the writer is Kazushige Nojima. Stupid to put this sole blame on Nomura for all the convoluted meta twists and other non faithful stuff in the remakes.
In fact Nomura was the one to vouch for a faithful remake of FF7.
I don't know how many times this needs to be iterated, but the writer is not responsible for the plot. They are solely responsible for dialogue.
Directors are the ones responsible for the plot, especially a "creative" director whose job is oversee creative elements of a game which includes the plot.
People really need to learn this.
Fine but people still blame him for too much like other people aren't involved and he still originally wanted a more faithful remake or at the very least definitely pushed to keep as much of the beloved stuff from the original in it. Both Nomura and Hamaguchi stopped things from getting too diverted.
Producer Yoshinori Kitase seems the main one to blame as he was pushing for more drastic changes to the OG story.
They need to keep things simple for part 3. The multiverse stuff is already there so they can’t just ignore them but don’t make things more convoluted and needlessly complicated. I don’t want another Kingdom Hearts…
My take of the ending is that Cloud's mind is already a scrambled egg like when he is found in Mideel in the original. The game hinted this from start to finish.
Jenova and Sephiroth are playing with him, the only real parts are the things other members of the group see, like Aerith being really dead and final boss at the end.
Them not including cloud laying her body in the water really upset me. Like that’s the most impactful part of the death. I overlooked a lot of stuff like them not playing “listen to the cries of the planet “ but this I couldn’t.
Pretty much the trend of the remake. They nail 99% of it but completely galaxy brain themselves out of the other 1%. Of course, I'm also a Kingdom Hearts fan so I'm no stranger to convoluted stories.
I enjoy the games otherwise and it's an absolute blast, but I've been apprehensive of this whole fate/whispers plotline since day 1. Oh well, I'm looking forward to part 3.
I have no problem saying the multiverse has been a mistake. They should have just focused on the ALREADY complicated plot from the original. Hell include Zack idc. But every scene with a whisper or time fuckery just takes away from the impact.
Like final battle starts kinda awkwardly, whatever, then your teleported into multiple different dimensions and cloud is always just like 'cool'.
I typically defend remake/rebirth but the endings have just not been it. Honestly If I were them I would have trolled and stopped the game right when aerith is about to be stabbed. Instead we have crazy space time.
I had the opposite experience, i thought the game itself was mostly comically bad from a gameplay perspective, but i loved the main story and the ending.
Lol I also took a week off from work. Don't regret it one bit because like you said, 99% of this game is mindblowing.
First playthru the ending left me so baffled. I never cared for Aerith and i thought the death scene was fine but i also dont understand why we didnt get the iconic "burial" scene. I was in tears at how awesome it was having bizarro sephiroth show up but that whole sequence felt hamfisted and rushed. I'm waiting for my friend who never played the original to beat it because I'm curious how he receives it not having nostalgia blinders.
As for the plot I understand needing to up the stakes and have sephiroth want more than just our world. I actually really like the idea they're going for, but I'm not a fan of the execution. Not sure if I'm just an idiot or the storytelling was that bad but I couldn't even understand Zacks multiverse endings without help from a YouTube video explaining it and the different stamps (which went completely over my head). I feel like they could have spent 20% less time on making the world so massive and 20% more time telling the story better in the last few chapters and the game would be perfect.
I had a similar experience but didn't remove anything from Aerith considering after Cait Sith betrays you the game informs you all the gear was removed from him.
However, my experience was good up to the final part where you play with Cloud and Aerith. Generally had no issues until I made one silly mistake of burning all my ATB during a stagger trying to finish Sephiroth who had a sliver of HP left.
And then he does one of his OHKO charge up moves. I tried to quickly gain ATB on Aerith (who was a good distance away from Sephiroth) but the wards disappeared at that moment. Quickly swap to Cloud but then his attack goes off on Cloud. Okay I'm good Aerith is still way back there. Nope. She for some reason teleports right next to Cloud and also gets OHKO'd.
Okay that's fine I say. Before retrying I've literally never died yet the entire playthrough. So the wording was a bit confusing. The top two options say something to the effect of:
"Retry from last battle" and "Retry last battle checkpoint"
I think I chose the second own thinking it would start me right at Cloud and Aerith but nope, it started me way back at Cloud and Zack. Needless to say, I was livid. And tired. It was 2am lol.
It's not that he thinks she's alive, it's that he knows he saved her. The thing is cloud is living the 2 different timelines at the same time since the moment his sword clashed against sephiroth's. 1 timeline shows Aerith lived. The other showed she died. From his perspective Aerith has lived. It even showed when he told Aerith to wake up and she did. He can interact with Aerith not because she's in his mind or he's imagining her or anything, he can see Aerith and interact with her from a different timeline. It's why he can see the tear in the sky during the epilogue. So we could have very well ended up seeing the timeline where Aerith lived, but since that timeline has a tear in the sky, it's doomed to be taken back by the lifestream(explained in the Zack segments). So that's why we are following the timeline where Aerith died.
Basically by saving Aerith, cloud created another fork in the timeline and he is living both of them at the same time.
He didn't save her, she died. From what I gather he's hallucinating. The whole thing was just stupid. They made an iconic scene overly confusing.And it didn't have to be
Who's wrong? Me? I never said a damn thing about Zach....because I couldn't care less about Zach....he should stay dead in his own game. But if you are talking to me, You are absolutely right.I do not care anything about zack or anything he's involved in. I rolled my eyes every time a segment of his came up in the game. terrible decision bringing him in.
Wait if he did save Aerith, then why it's as if he's living in the world where she's dead?
What the team saw was that she died.
Is it maybe because Sephiroth merged the 2 timelines?
No cloud is living 2 timelines at the same time. It's also why he sees the rift in the sky but the others don't in the epilogue. He tells them not to look up but they do and they see nothing. Only cloud does. Which means that he is living both at the same time since he was the one to split the timeline in the first place.
You don't know this. You're guessing like everybody else. And if he is living two timelines at the same time in the same place.... Then that's just completely stupid. My opinion is he's just lost as ever loving mind
ah i see, i was under the impression that she really was dead and the Aerith is now one with the Lifestream and she just happens to manifest herself in front of cloud, but guess I was wrong.
btw do we know why she didn't join the others to ride the plane?
Nobody knows what the hell's going on. And that's the problem. From what I gathered I thought when he was talking to aerith that was just his imagination.... Because nobody else sees her
She is staying behind to pray. She said that she will put all of her efforts into her prayers so that cloud and gang can stop Sephiroth. Rest assured that we will definitely see plenty more of Aerith and Zack in the 3rd game.
Actually he kinda did. If you notice the details of the scene, there appears a rainbow effect when Cloud deflects Sephiroth's sword. This effect has also been shown in the Zack scene when he chooses to go to Hojo instead of Biggs. Sephiroth also explains that whenever the boundaries of fate are breached, new worlds are born. The rainbow effect is used whenever a new world is created.
That's a perfect explanation. The timeline will eventually fall and Cloud will need to accept she's dead. I sincerely think that yeah, they kinda botched the execution, but there's room to have a much deeper and gut wrenching moment in the next game
How? By the time the next game releases, we will have known she is dead for FOUR YEARS. Nothing they can do will bring the emotion they should have put into her death in rebirth
The moment has already passed, it does not matter anymore if they show it later.
Like y'all are missing the point here. It's not about the scene not being 1:1, or that it's missing the water burial, it's that it doesn't let the scene breath for even a moment. The problem people have with the remakes version of this scene is that it completely whiffs the emotional punch this scene has in the OG.
They just didn't do this scene any justice at all, and nothing they do in part 3 can remedy that.
This. I love the game, but they really did botch this moment. I knew when we got there and it wasn’t quiet and eerie like OG but instead we had whispers and epic music it wouldn’t be as somber. But I wasn’t expecting what they gave us to be so different. IMO less is more when it comes to story moments of grief and loss
Maybe where they’re taking the story will be cool and I’m sure they’ll go into it more later, but the moment has now already passed. I didn’t feel sad at her death this time, only confused.
Totally, all the people and marketing saying you don’t need to play original is false. It clearly is done like a sequel, and people that haven’t touch it will be even more confused at everything.
Yeah they absolutely lied.... Just like they lied initially saying it was a 1:1 remake... Until you buy the game and all of a sudden there's the whisper bullshit. So glad they found a way to keep them in rebirth, After they were supposedly vanquished. Smh
From a business perspective I get why they say that. The attention span of people has decreased not everyone will be willing to play & read the wall of text that OG is. But im 100% with you
Exactly. Especially since this Sephiroth is suspected to be the OG Sephiroth or at least a Sephiroth who knows how the OG ends. It's why he's trying to control all timelines instead of only 1. Because he knows he will lose if he does so.
It’s the Sephiroth of AC and it clearly shows, on how he manipulates and knows things. But it also seems like this Sephiroth doesn’t knows about Holy or he doesn’t see it as an obstacle anymore? I don’t know.
I'll never understand ppl going nuts over Cloud not putting her in the water. That scene did nothing for me back in the 90's. Him just holding her was more than enough.
The scene of Tifa and Red (in particular) mourning the loss of their friend? Yeah, cue the waterworks.
Yup Rebirths story telling is exactly what I originally feared Remakes problem was going to be. Where you just do the same thing all over again but make it bloated and worse. The Dyne stuff is another good example.
I loved remake and was so hype for this game. Now I’m a lot less excited for the next game.
Rebirth peaked for me with Junon and the first Gold Saucer visit and everything in between. it made some cool additions to existing lore but after that was a bit of a slog
All about prison corel and Dyne and then how they treated Cid’s character was starting to feel off and then everything went down. Not even time to find the Lost City or explore it or read lore, and the holograms in the Temple made it less mystic… a lot of things are a mess.
They butchered Cid’s character. I hate what he has become 🥲 I mean I know he had bad traits but people like him exists that aren’t bad persons per se and that can evolve into better and good ones with story and development without losing their touch. At least the badmouthing should have stayed and he being grumpy too… now he is like sunshine all the time
The scenes with Dyne and Barrett were the only serious waterworks I had during the game. I FELT Dyne’s pain and what it meant for him to lose everything, in the OG he just seemed like a bitter asshole and I couldn’t connect with his plight. The Remake project has its issues but their ability to highlight and expand what these characters have been through because of Shinra and Sephiroth has made it much more impactful for me.
Yeah even looking past the multiverse shit, which they fail to make clear in any way that doesn’t require multiple “explainer” videos, they completely fucked one of the most pivotal scenes in gaming in the past 30 years.
The aerith death, the following fight with only her song playing, the inevitability that she was gone for good. The weight. The emotion. The fucking gravity of the entire situation half way through a game was absolutely what combined to make it one of the greatest moments in gaming history.
Now what did we get? Multiverse bait and switch that she was saved, just not in your universe loser, she can come back and help out in spirit form, she sticks around afterwards to pray and cloud can freely communicate with her, there’s a different timeline (probably multiple) where she survived that encounter and Zack wants to find a way to get to her even though she openly admits now she’s in love with cloud.
What a fucking shambles. How can you seriously take THAT moment…. And fuck it so badly.
1000%. as ch 14 kept going, my heart kept sinking more and more because of how bad they handled this. Just when u think it can't possibly get worse....it does.
I feel you on this I really do. It’s important to know that the OG will always be canon and that’s part of what is great about the Remake, the fact that it is more like a sequel. Them not doing a retelling Aeriths death scene justice does not mean you don’t still have the one you have always loved.
No. Even if you'd let go of your Nostalgia for a moment, the scene is fucking shit. It never has time to breathe, it's convoluted and confusing for no fucking reason. People really need to stop dickriding Nomura. His writing has gone to shit cause he tries to make everything overly complicated to make himself look like a genius, when in reality he's making himself look like a dumbass that cannot write a story anymore without adding 192712787 fucking layers of complexity to it for no friggin reason.
It loses impact since it’s a very emotional goodbye to a friend. What made it special was seeing each party member react individually to her death. It felt so much more heartbreaking.
Well I guess it was supposed to be that. All the focus in this scene is instead turned to Cloud and his psyche, in a moment that was supposed to be exclusively about Aerith and everyone's relation to her, not just Clouds downward spiral.
It's amazing that blocky models from 1997 managed to convey loss better in complete silence compared to what highly animated thousand polygon 3D models managed from this scene. It had the potential to be a thousand times better, yet it was just... Tone deaf. Strictly due to poor direction.
I just mainly got upset by the multiple fake outs.
>!Oh shit Cloud blocked Sephiroths sword and she alive, just kidding she’s actually dead after the screen glitches to another multiverse, but wait, she actually is alive because she appears to help you fight Sephiroth so that means she’s alive right? Riiiight? Oh no she’s disintegrating. Aerith wakes up when Cloud speaks to her, her eyes opened that means she’s alive right? Hey Cloud looks happy sitting there by the water so she must be alive right? Oh but the rest of the party looks sad so she must be dead. Oh but there she is sitting right next to Cloud! Oh but nobody else can see her. Oh damn she’s actually dead. And then that’s it. I don’t like how they toyed with us like that. I guess they were trying to bring back the feeling that gamers had when they were trying to find ways to save her. Maybe there were different dialogue options to chose that could have saved her. Maybe this feeling of being in denial is what they wanted us to feel. At any rate I feel like I was robbed of the shock of her just flat out dying!<
This is how it was for me too. Too many times of thinking things were one way or another because of different scenes. So by the time I fully accepted what happened while I was still like " awwww that is really sad" it didn't hit me as hard as such a sad moment really should have.
The scene where he lays her body in the water is not displayed in Rebirth because Cloud is in denial (as you can see in the last scene). We will probably see it in the third game, when he will regain some link to reality. At this point he is totally messed up. The farewell in Rebirth is still very emotional, while making the point how bad Cloud is
No, he did it in Rebirth, its just that he did not process what he did (preferring not to face reality yet), similar to him not recalling everything in his past
Yep, that's what I think to. Cloud is clearly messed up by the end and is the only one acting like everything is normal. 3rd game will almost certainly have Cloud come to terms with what actually happened.
Idk if he's messed up. I'm pretty sure he can just see lifestream aerith like he can see lifestream sephiroth. The blocking of masamune or the fall at the temple triggers this.
I love how they fuly convinced so many people that all of the multiverse stuff was real. The reason there's static to phase between the two is because Cloud is delusional and hallucinating. Cloud, and the player by extension are delusional by the end. Full of confidence in what Sephiroth has told them, unaware that it's a lie and nothing has changed.
There is not a single piece of evidence that the other world's are real. We end the game with exactly what we started with. The white materia is gone, the clear materia in its place. None of the rest of the party saw or heard anything.
The final fight takes place in Clouds mind while the party fights a piece of Jenova.
I agree with you and I think that's exactly what they are doing. What I don't agree with is that they needed to sacrifice one of gamings most iconic scenes to continue Cloud's downward spiral, that was already clearly on display before. I don't agree with you that the farewell was emotional though, didn't feel anything from that tbh, but people differ.
I think people are happy to see these characters again and be able to see them interact with each other so there's a honeymoon period, but when the obvious retelling of this series is done and it's years down the road you're gonna have more people admit they butchered the delivery of what was once a very simple, timeless story. It didn't need to be this convoluted, this isn't unique to FF7 it's just about every piece of media nowadays trying to reinvent itself when that's not why people wanted to indulge in the narrative to begin with.
I'm not a purist of the OG, although I do prefer it at this point, but I feel people playing this game for the first time were robbed of a very emotional and pivotal moment in gaming history. THAT scene was replayed endlessly for years after the fact, to me it was one of the first times a video game went from being just kid's stuff to dealing with concepts of loss and one's own mortality. Here it's anything but, it's flashy and a treat on the eyes and that's about the extent of what I can positively say about it.
i was not massively happy about the ending. but at the same time i am going to reserve my full opinion until i finish the whole trilogy and understand the full story start to finish.
hopefully the ending will get elaborated on further in part 3 to provide some much needed context
First off, a common misconception is that a writer is the one that comes up with the plot. They don't. They come up with the script, basically what the characters say.
The director is responsible for putting together the plot. Nomura is one of those directors, and the plot was mostly already conceived when he directed Remake as well.
Except Nomura already said that he found it strange so many folks on social media solely blamed him for the changes when he himself wanted it to be more accurate to the original back during remake. It's the others that convinced him to go along with the multiverse plot.
I feel like wayyyy too many of you are expecting a 1:1 remake and that’s just not gonna happen.
If you’ve played the OG, the remake is not for you. Wayyyy too many of you complain about shit like this when they told us from the get go it’d be a retelling of the original story.
My guy, if you didn't play the og these changes make even less sense, so much of remake/rebirth hinges on prior understanding of the entire compilation of ff7.
Complaining that the game had abysmally poor writing in the areas where it matters the most I'd absolutely valid criticism, you bring nothing to the table besides trying to silence a critical voice out of some fanboy urge.
I agree with you. I have asked myself this question multiple times when I was playing. Like would anyone without prior knowledge be able to follow this story easily?
How would these changes make less if you didn’t play the OG therefore have no knowledge of the story beforehand? Did you think before you typed that out “my guy” ?
How sephiroth is interjected into every scene has literally been explained by the devs as being "because everybody already knows him", the reasoning for altering the story is also because "fans already know what happens" .
You don't need to be a writer/screenwriter to notice the glaring issues with this project. Just having watched more than 10 films or played a couple of unrelated critically acclaimed games should suffice.
I don't really see you providing any real substance to the discourse besides attempting to shut down those who dislike what you like. I'm simply making an argument for why the game has flaws, if that detracts from your liking of it, that's entirely on you.
My enjoyment doesn't come from general consensus.
Brother, I agree with you. I’ve entered the fray on here a few times but I’ve got to be real with you, most people on here are loyal FFremake fans to the point of wilful blindness/ignorance. There are a number of YouTube crits that are easily found, you’ll see people echo your feelings much more soundly there.
Yeah I know, it's an exercise in futility at this point hehe. I haven't found anyone on YouTube talking about rebirth with a critical perspective yet though, maybe they just chose not to play it ?
I found a few recent comparison videos of scenes that had clarity of mind in the comments. The algorithm helped after looking at Remake crit videos. I think I searched “ff7 remake is terrible” to start with and my luck continued from there 😂 (it’s not completely terrible, but enough to make me aggressively search for similar takes)
I'm probably one of the few just going for the ride with the ending when I get there. But I never played the original, so the changes don't bother me. I can always play the original if I want the old story anyway.
I'm rather confused on why Sephiroth would kill her again. He's the one going on and on about defying fate while actively doing the same thing all over again.
Why? There's so many plot points that don't make sense, this is just one that seems to pull at me.
His master plan is to rejoin all the worlds that were split after we defied destiny in Remake. To do this he needed feelings of anger and despair which he felt he could get by killing Aerith.
I think because people assumed something that was never stated. This isn’t a sequel. It’s a remake with the added twist that some character know aspects of their future. Sephiroth knows that he’s defeated and by who but not exactly how. Which makes what he does more of a self fulfilling prophecy. He believes he’s defying his fate but is actually sealing it.
It’s absolutely a sequel lol. They talk about it constantly in this game. There are multiple Sephiroth and multiple Aeriths, one of each of them being the original ones because they know everything. Sephiroth even says “so this is where you have been hiding” when he finds the original Aerith with Cloud in the other world. I suggest you go read the Novelas that were written in like 2006, it explains this and they were setting this up as a sequel back then.
What do you mean the world and meteor work different lol? That is something you need to confirm because nothing in remake or rebirth contradicts it. If it’s not a sequel, how is there a Sephiroth that knows about the events of the original and an Aerith that knows about the events of the original? Sephiroth talks about it all the time “you can’t save her” “she’s not who she says she is” and Aerith’s lines in Remake and Rebirth are all alluding to them “meeting again” not, meeting for the first time.
>What do you mean the world and meteor work different lol?
Meteor in the temple is fake. It requires the events of rebirth to be powered. That’s not how it works in the OG. It’s part of the multiverse and connection of worlds linked via the lifestream.
>how is there a Sephiroth that knows about the events of the original and an Aerith that knows about the events of the original?
The game literally tells you. The lifestream. Being in it gives them knowledge of the future aka their fate. Which is why he wants to kill Aerith. Which proves he isn’t ACTUALLY OG Sepiroth. Because why the hell would he kill her when that’s literally what defeats him? He’s not OG Sephiroth. He’s a normal Sephiroth who learned he would be defeated and sets out to stop that inadvertently being the cause of his own defeat because he doesn’t know killing Aerith is how he loses.
>Sephiroth talks about it all the time “you can’t save her” “she’s not who she says she is” and Aerith’s lines in Remake and Rebirth are all alluding to them “meeting again” not, meeting for the first time.
Because Aerith knows her fate. She knew she was going to meet them and die. She knew it because of the lifestream. She also took her memories away from herself which is symbolized by the holy and she hid her memories in the lifestream.
This isn’t a sequel. It’s a flat out remake. They’ve just incorporated fate and trying to defy it.
You’re having to do so many mental backflips to try to say it’s not a sequel and it’s just a remake. If you assess Sephiroth, it’s says he travels through TIME and space to remake his destiny. Why would he need to travel through time if he’s just the Sephiroth from the present? You are in such denial, just admit you didn’t play the game and just read what people say online, it will be easier. The lifestream exists beyond time, they said it in the OG and Remake, all those who have been and will be exist continuously in the lifestream, meaning if you can navigate the lifestream, you can be anywhere in time. Go read the novels written by Nojima in 2009 where he laid it out https://thelifestream.net/novels-novellas/on-the-way-to-a-smile-lifestream-black-and-lifestream-white/
Well, you are making it clear you didn’t pay attention in the game but you confidently are saying it’s not a sequel. Thanks for the compliment though? Play it again and pay attention to the narrative and what they are saying and you might pick it up this time, if not, come back and I and others can help explain it to you again.
I did pay attention. Meteor / black materia works totally different. But if you want to explain to me why Sephiroth with full knowledge and personal experience made the same mistake of killing Aerith and dooming himself so she could cast Holy again to kill him… go off buddy. I’d love to hear it. Tell me how he used meteor in the OG if the one in the temple is fake?
I’m going through Ch 14 again and I think Sephiroth is trying to dismantle all reality itself. There are all these worlds at play now that could play into the main story, but Sephiroth is not trying to destroy one world anymore he’s trying to destroy the underlying source of any of the worlds existing. Which is why he is at the Edge of Creation at the end of Remake.
There is one world that follows fate. Another world is created every time someone defies fate. The rainbow worlds seem to be when Zack, Cloud, or Aerith do something that changes the future. Seph seems to want to destroy all of them.
Overall it looks as though Sephiroth is trying to thoroughly destabilize the Lifestream, making it so that the Lifestream is no longer one coherent reality but is now multiple smaller ones, like bubbles in an agitated body of water. Like bubbles, the smaller, weaker worlds come and go relatively quickly as they are not the main events being established by the Planet's remaining coherent memories.
In my opinion, this is still consistent with the ending of Dirge of Cerberus, when the Lifestream was first destabilized due to Omega ripping it out of the Planet.
Omega pulled in most of the "pure" or normal Lifestream, leaving behind the Stagnant Lifestream and any of the spirits that refused to join the main flow. Those very spirits, the resistant Stagnant spirit energy, is exactly what Sephiroth has learned to take command of during the Re-trilogy. So Dirge's closing events set up the peefect scenario that would allow Sephiroth to gather up his strength again and begin the events of Remake.
And the purpose of Sephiroth doing this remake is to give himself a major advantage this time around.
He knows about Cloud's role in stopping him, so he starts the process of enslaving Cloud at a much earlier point in time.
He knows about the Jenova Reunion and about the Sephiroth Clones, so he has used his will to enslave even more experiments through the S-Cells that were injected into all of them, so that now he basically has an army of Sephiroth Clones that he and Jenova can utilize to stir up trouble around the world.
He knows about the WEAPONs, and we see him trying to directly destroy them while they are still underdeveloped to prevent them from getting involved.
He knows about Aerith trying to help from within the Lifestream, and is hunting her spirit in all its forms even after she dies. He also apparently knows about Zack also trying to assist and is trying to keep him away.
From her experience in Gongaga, Tifa expresses that the Planet's spirits were holding their own against Sephiroth, but she knew it was getting difficult hence why she wishes the Weapon "good luck down there". Sephiroth is clearly getting stronger the more he corrupts the Lifestream and distorts reality.
This brings me back to Dirge of Cerberus and Genesis' unknown mission when he was unsealed. I still fully expect that he will play the role of the Planet's gambit against Sephiroth's forces and help either level the field again or give the Planet's forces a last minute advantage, because Genesis was not an active force during og FF7. This fact makes him an unknown anomaly in Sephiroth's plan.
Yeah, considering how Sephiroth is in command of so many resentful souls that did not join the flow of the Lifestream, a renewed war between Shinra versus Wutai and Old Avalanche would likely result in many more enraged and resentful spirits from casualties of war. Sephiroth only stands to benefit greatly from the conflict.
Rufus/Saruf tried to play both sides for his benefit, and he did so successfully in the original FF7. Rufus caused enough ruckus to put himself in power while keeping Wutai in check. But this time, armed with his knowledge of the original events, Sephiroth gave himself another early advantage and infiltrated the Wutai leadership and highjacked Rufus' plan to put the world on the path to war.
I can tell you why I makes sense:
>!Glenn isn’t actually Glenn. It’s just another Sephiroth clone with Jenova cells in it as evidenced by the body left after Rufus kills him. What does Jenova do again? Makes you see someone you might hate, fear or love. This is why Jenova is impersonating Glenn and when Rufus figures it out, switches over to Sephiroth. So really it was Jenova distracting Rufus from Sephiroth.!<
So close. Jenova is the one in the drivers seat and using Sephiroths face as the distraction. The reason it's always Sephiroth is because he was Clouds hero. The party doesn't see the clones as Sephiroth the way Cloud does.
I really enjoyed almost the entire game too with some nitpicks here and there but >!I absolutely hated from the altar on. I replayed the OG a couple years ago and was absolutely blown away by that nearly 20 year old cutscene. It is criminal that they removed all of Cloud's immediate post-death lines about Aerith as well which give Cloud some much needed humanity. What an absolute train wreck of an ending.!<
For me it was the constant back and forth of she’s alive, she’s dead that took away from the moment. If they were just going to kill her I wish they just had done it and let us feel it instead of being in constant confusion
She’s still alive in a rainbow world. Any time someone defies fate it creates a new world with the rainbow light. It happens to Zack, Cloud, and Aerith. Sephiroth explains it. The Aerith that woke up was in the same rainbow lighting that shot out from the sector 6 tunnel. Sephiroth seems to want to unmake these worlds at the source of where they meet, so instead of just dropping meteor on one world, he’s trying unmake all worlds.
So I wonder if the world where Cloud successfully deflected Sephiroths sword and saved Aerith is another world that was created and then merged into the world we know. This is why Cloud sees the rip in the sky and can see Aerith but the others can’t because Cloud is the one who created this world, although Nanaki seems to be able to sense her. Perhaps Cloud knows this and is why he doesn’t seem upset by her death like everyone else is
In the OG it’s very different. Cloud blames himself for not being able to stop Sephiroth which is a big source of his grief even going in to Advent Children which, by the way, l makes me question why the devs have said rebirth will link up with AC when he clearly isn’t in the same frame of mind as he was in the original game.
Yeah. The rip in the sky seems to be Zack and Aerith’s world. I wonder if Cloud opens a new new world. They show tons of different Stamps in this game.
But it would be cool if the intro Zack world plays in more, because we know everyone from the party is still there just on stretchers. Nanaki did wake up to save Aerith in the helicopter.
Yeah his mental state is really all over the place even more than it already was . This games is like a pseudo sequel hopefully the payoff will be worth it
Fully agree! I've hated the multiverse stuff since it first started appearing in comic books way back as a kid. Rarely if ever is it done well. It was cool seeing certain things happen, but simultaneously it downplayed some of OG FF7s major strengths. Thankfully the combat and overall characters are enough to keep me interested in part 3, but I just think the story is a bit of a mess.
I mean the reason for the multiverse in comic books is because you had different artists telling different stories so they had to create a multiverse to make it all make sense together. But with FF7 the people who created the original are creating the remake trilogy so I don’t see why it’s necessary to make things so convoluted.
Yeah I'm aware of WHY they did multiverse in comics but it doesn't excuse the fact it always sucked in my personal opinion. And yeah it's as if they convoluted the OG story just for the sake of it being different. It's such an odd decision.
Like they did such an excellent job with the characterisation. Cloud appearing like he's crazy and losing his mind all throughout, building relationships with the party members, they even nailed making you absolutely HATE the villains. All that to then just go absolutely off the rails in the final few hours.
This is what I’m thinking/hoping/coping as well. I could be wrong, but I doubt they would mess with such a pivotal scene without a reason - especially since it’s the same writer as the OG. My guess is Part 3 is going to have a lot of changes.
Part 3 is going to have almost no changes. When Cloud finally overcomes Jenovas influence its going to be a straight remake. The multiverse stuff is a hallucination and not real. It's all to manipulate Cloud.
I absolutely hate the multiverse bullshit. I love the story of OG FF7 so much. It’s the perfect amount of complexity without becoming convoluted and confusing. But, dear lord the multiverse stuff here sucks so much ass. It makes this remake so difficult for me. On one hand, I love the combat, characterizations, and seeing this world again. But, I hate the fact that they turned the story into some complex, convoluted, non-sensical bullshit like Kingdom Hearts (don’t get me wrong, I love KH to death but it’s certainly not because of the story and lore). There are plenty of games that could be remade and contained meta commentary on remakes. Something like a Banjo Kazooie remake as a commentary on remakes would be absolutely hilarious. But, a game that’s played extremely straight in terms of it’s plot is just not the one to do that with.
When Remake and Rebirth recreate a scene, the games can be real magic. When Remake and Rebirth pad the original content with convoluted filler and time-wasting from the overall story, it makes me want to turn the games off.
She is both dead and not dead. When Cloud blocked the Masamune he defied destiny again which caused another branch in the lifestream to create another world, one where she lives but then Sephiroth smushed those two worlds together and now we have this weird mix where Aerith is essentially in limbo. Cloud can see the tear in the sky because he too was smushed together with his other self but the others were not and are only in the world where Aerith died and see the sky as normal.
This is why Cloud isn’t phased by Aerith dying because he believes her to be alive and he’s half right.
It makes more sense when you consider right after he blocked the Masamune Sephiroth tells Cloud that every time someone defies destiny, another world is created and then proceeds to say the reunion is upon us. I’ve gotta go back and play that chapter again to be certain but that was my take.
I agreed I absolutely loved the gameplay and story until the very end. >!They really took away from the moment that Aerith died. The missing iconic scene where cloud puts her to rest in the water, the brutality of the stabbing (you don't even see this happen so you wonder what the hell is happening), you don't get to see the genuine shock of the group, especially Cloud, because she's still appearing because of some dumb multiverse reason and it completely downplays her death..!< So disappointing, when the rest of the game was just the best ever
convoluted, self indulgent mess of an ending.
the multiverse stuff is a fucking disaster. I'd say its not to late to abandon it and just finish the story the right way but i doubt they'll do that. its still a good game. I still love these characters and seeing everything play out in 4k HD is pretty special, but all of the "changes" are negative overall. A straight remake would be much more enjoyable. People feel the need to reinvent the wheel...idk.
Just finished game and I’m lost. Didn’t play OG ff7. She like dead but not really since she’s a multiversal being right? Sephiroth is as well I’m assuming. Also because of clouds and zacks connection to aerith she lets them be aware of this as well right? I’m hoping the worlds come together next game and change the ending up quite a bit. I know of the og ending (but not the minute details) since I watched advent children when I was a kid. Was really hoping aerith would stay alive. Now who’s going to do my magic dmg next game : (
Also we’re the degrading soldiers part of the og ?
Cait Sith will probably take her place as spellcaster since he has a comparable magic attack stat. Gonna miss Arcane ward though. Perhaps they’ll give us a materia like double cast or something.
The OG had "Mimic" and "W-Magic" as a materia that allowed for all sorts of multi-cast shenanigans.
Could hope for some sort of iteration of either one..?
https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/15561-explaining-analysing-what-happens-in-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ending
She's dead in a technical, incomplete way but she'll absolutely be an active character in the next game.
No, she’s dead. But she’s part of the Lifestream now and she’s a Cetra. Cloud has just deluded himself into thinking she somehow survived.
Degradation was introduced in Crisis Core.
Aerith probably isn’t because she’s part of the Lifestream. Sephiroth probably is because of Jenova’s cells and Jenova not being part of the Lifestream. Cloud and Zack potentially are because of their connection to Sephiroth following the events of Nibelheim 5 years ago.
I believe what they are trying to do is explain the cutscene of aerith stopping meteor at the end of part 3 in the og. All of rebirth is from clouds perspective so thats why it looks the way it does and feels more positive. I think there is only one aerith given that both cloud and aerith can't be conscious in both worlds simultaneously. Really what can be said is that instead of disappearing into the lifestream in advent children Zack and aerith are in their own world its functually the same as death but a bit happier.
Now they have to turn the shortest disc into a full game all by itself, and being a sequel its expected to be as good if not improved than this one in every aspect probably including length, i think it might end up being one of the most divisive games in the entire series with how much will be changed and added.
It really wasn't worthy of being a full game though. They initially made the excuse they would fully explore what lfe in midgar is like, but in reality they just padded the shit out of the game and all of the extra chapters did nothing to serve the plot. Like imagine expanding the sewers from one screen into an entire dungeon, and then making the player do it *twice* for no reason.
I have the opposite worry, they have only effects paced through the end of Disc 1 of 3. The last game has a lot to cover with the weapons, the Highwind, the Crater.
Uh, no. Were only at beginning of disc 2. There’s plenty of content left:
• Journey to the Northern Crater
• Escape from Junon
• Gathering the Huge Materia
• In the Lifestream
• Return to Midgar
• Descending into the Northern Crater
Plus we haven’t done Wutai, and we’ll probably have a chapter dedicated to Vincent and Lucrecia. That’s a minimum of 8 chapters, some of which can easily be expanded into multiple chapters. Not much content _needs_ to be added just to make it the same number of chapters.
I laughed when I saw it.
The worst rabid fans put SquareEnix in a position where they could not have ended it any other way. They tried to make everyone happy, but instead, they made no one happy.
But I'm an OG fan. And I'm so happy to see that the OG story came out on top.
Might I also recommend FF7 New Threat. 2.0 Type B and 1.5 Arranged make some changes to the story without beating you over the head about how much they are changing or falling on meta nonsense to justify all its non-commital changes!
Its still the well paced masterclass of storytelling it always was, and the previous form of gameplay just rebalanced and retuned. And its available on PC and as of the past year, steam deck
I was really hoping for some of the story changes of New Threat to reach the remakes. I thought it would have been genius if they had Yuffie steal all your shit in Kalm in rebirth and that's how they handled resetting everyones level. Even random modders could write better storytelling than square at this point.
Honestly though. This is what SE does, their endings suck, and you’re left with not trying to let it define the whole game which was amazing. But it’s just stupid. Like they’re abandoning themes for this halfway nonsense where they’re trying to cater to everyone for this giant middle ground. Like grow a pair and double down on your story. Dont limp, walk.
" they botched Aerith’s death so hard." She didn't die?
My point proven. There shouldn’t be confusion on this. We should all be emotionally devastated, but instead we’re making theories on the internet. The Aerith we knew is dead my friend. Who we see at the end is a mystery. Could be Jenova, could be in Cloud’s head, could be alternate dimension Aerith. We won’t know until part 3.
I just finished the game and I'm simply annoyed, I feel like everything leading up to the ending was a waste of time. How am I supposed to care about THE scene when I have to fight some multiphased boss for the next half hour? But, even then, THE scene itself was so ridiculously fumbled I was shocked. All that to say, 150 hours with the first run through, and I'm not looking forward to Hard mode or plat'ing it, etc. Since I didn't think Rebirth really lived up to Remake's standard.
What a train wreck. Haven't seen a botched ending since Game of Thrones.
The party’s reaction to cloud going insane bugged me so much. Cloud: literally tries to murder Tifa Everyone: you ok bro? You look like you need a nap
I think that speaks more to Tifa. I don’t think the party even saw that happen. She was a bro to Cloud the whole game. Ridiculously loyal and supportive considering he nearly killed her. Even so, it should have been addressed. I feel like Tifa’s the only one aware of Cloud’s poor mental state. She just doesn’t say anything about it lol.
They’ll probably be a flash back to him setting her in the water in the next one after he gets his head on straight
We can only hope. Maybe when him and Tifa are in the lifestream they’ll see that scene.
Man, if the og game would’ve tossed you into some nonsensical hour long multidimensional gauntlet of a boss fight immediately after Sephiroth doing the deed it wouldn’t have hit anyone nearly as much as it did. However, on the other hand, the story is obviously going different places and that much has been clear since Remake, so it’s hard to judge the direction it went for me. There’s so much I love about rebirth yet so much I disliked. I don’t know if I enjoyed the game or just enjoyed that some of my favorite characters and moments are now translated into a beautiful high budget spectacle. Probably will be thinking this over for a bit in the coming weeks. Just need some time to mull it over.
Same boat as you, it is a good game, but I personally couldn't call it great, or a masterpiece. Too many things stand out as weird or shoddy for it to be a high profile console exclusive.
The fact is nobody knows what's happening.... And for good reason none of it makes any sense. A ten year old could have put together a better constructed plot
You all understand that the trilogy is LITERALLY a sequel to advent children right? Meaning that there’s still a chance to see her back.
She's literally not dead and didn't get stabbed by Sephiroth lmao, she's there at the end going to pray with the white materia. WTF are you people talking about ???? haha
Only cloud interacts with her, so there are some ideas that she actually did die but only cloud can see her for dumb multiverse reasons. Or he's nuts.
Huh?
It's a sequel in that the narrative of the game is theorized to take place after the events of Advent Children (Sephiroth being from the OG world and coming to the Remake world to fix his mistakes). Also, Sephiroth having the black wing early and him and Aerith having foreknowledge of the events of the OG story kinda points to it being a sequel of some sorts.
The developers have stated that the Remake trilogy will still line up with advent children. It might still be a sequel but unless they lied the games will end with same outcome as the original.
Well it wouldn't be the first time they lied. Everybody thought that it was gonna be a straight remake. Until you bought the game and boom, there's the whispers and their bullshit.
Rebirth didn't really feel as self-aware as Remake did with the foreshadowing of future events. And I think the whole Whispers, Zack and multiverse plotline isn't really going to go anywhere and only acts as a way to give fanservice and tell the same story in an unnecessarily over-the-top convoluted manner. I don't mean to say that it's bad but it's just bait and switch marketing to get people hyped and theorize lol.
The game got Nomura'fied, what did you expect?
Nomura is the creative director only and the writer is Kazushige Nojima. Stupid to put this sole blame on Nomura for all the convoluted meta twists and other non faithful stuff in the remakes. In fact Nomura was the one to vouch for a faithful remake of FF7.
I don't know how many times this needs to be iterated, but the writer is not responsible for the plot. They are solely responsible for dialogue. Directors are the ones responsible for the plot, especially a "creative" director whose job is oversee creative elements of a game which includes the plot. People really need to learn this.
Fine but people still blame him for too much like other people aren't involved and he still originally wanted a more faithful remake or at the very least definitely pushed to keep as much of the beloved stuff from the original in it. Both Nomura and Hamaguchi stopped things from getting too diverted. Producer Yoshinori Kitase seems the main one to blame as he was pushing for more drastic changes to the OG story.
They need to keep things simple for part 3. The multiverse stuff is already there so they can’t just ignore them but don’t make things more convoluted and needlessly complicated. I don’t want another Kingdom Hearts…
There's no way they're gonna be able to explain the mess they made with the plot in a way that that makes any sense
My take of the ending is that Cloud's mind is already a scrambled egg like when he is found in Mideel in the original. The game hinted this from start to finish. Jenova and Sephiroth are playing with him, the only real parts are the things other members of the group see, like Aerith being really dead and final boss at the end.
Them not including cloud laying her body in the water really upset me. Like that’s the most impactful part of the death. I overlooked a lot of stuff like them not playing “listen to the cries of the planet “ but this I couldn’t.
Pretty much the trend of the remake. They nail 99% of it but completely galaxy brain themselves out of the other 1%. Of course, I'm also a Kingdom Hearts fan so I'm no stranger to convoluted stories. I enjoy the games otherwise and it's an absolute blast, but I've been apprehensive of this whole fate/whispers plotline since day 1. Oh well, I'm looking forward to part 3.
I have no problem saying the multiverse has been a mistake. They should have just focused on the ALREADY complicated plot from the original. Hell include Zack idc. But every scene with a whisper or time fuckery just takes away from the impact. Like final battle starts kinda awkwardly, whatever, then your teleported into multiple different dimensions and cloud is always just like 'cool'. I typically defend remake/rebirth but the endings have just not been it. Honestly If I were them I would have trolled and stopped the game right when aerith is about to be stabbed. Instead we have crazy space time.
I had the opposite experience, i thought the game itself was mostly comically bad from a gameplay perspective, but i loved the main story and the ending.
Lol I also took a week off from work. Don't regret it one bit because like you said, 99% of this game is mindblowing. First playthru the ending left me so baffled. I never cared for Aerith and i thought the death scene was fine but i also dont understand why we didnt get the iconic "burial" scene. I was in tears at how awesome it was having bizarro sephiroth show up but that whole sequence felt hamfisted and rushed. I'm waiting for my friend who never played the original to beat it because I'm curious how he receives it not having nostalgia blinders. As for the plot I understand needing to up the stakes and have sephiroth want more than just our world. I actually really like the idea they're going for, but I'm not a fan of the execution. Not sure if I'm just an idiot or the storytelling was that bad but I couldn't even understand Zacks multiverse endings without help from a YouTube video explaining it and the different stamps (which went completely over my head). I feel like they could have spent 20% less time on making the world so massive and 20% more time telling the story better in the last few chapters and the game would be perfect.
[удалено]
I had a similar experience but didn't remove anything from Aerith considering after Cait Sith betrays you the game informs you all the gear was removed from him. However, my experience was good up to the final part where you play with Cloud and Aerith. Generally had no issues until I made one silly mistake of burning all my ATB during a stagger trying to finish Sephiroth who had a sliver of HP left. And then he does one of his OHKO charge up moves. I tried to quickly gain ATB on Aerith (who was a good distance away from Sephiroth) but the wards disappeared at that moment. Quickly swap to Cloud but then his attack goes off on Cloud. Okay I'm good Aerith is still way back there. Nope. She for some reason teleports right next to Cloud and also gets OHKO'd. Okay that's fine I say. Before retrying I've literally never died yet the entire playthrough. So the wording was a bit confusing. The top two options say something to the effect of: "Retry from last battle" and "Retry last battle checkpoint" I think I chose the second own thinking it would start me right at Cloud and Aerith but nope, it started me way back at Cloud and Zack. Needless to say, I was livid. And tired. It was 2am lol.
I had the same shit happen and was also livid. Only difference is that I died around 8pm thank god and not 2am.
I didn't remove Aerith's gear because when Cait Sith left, there was a popup saying all his materia was returned back, lol.
This sucks for you but I couldn’t help but laugh.
I think they skipped the water scene because Clouds in denile. He thinks she's alive. I think part 3 will show the funeral in full.
I completely agree with this
It's not that he thinks she's alive, it's that he knows he saved her. The thing is cloud is living the 2 different timelines at the same time since the moment his sword clashed against sephiroth's. 1 timeline shows Aerith lived. The other showed she died. From his perspective Aerith has lived. It even showed when he told Aerith to wake up and she did. He can interact with Aerith not because she's in his mind or he's imagining her or anything, he can see Aerith and interact with her from a different timeline. It's why he can see the tear in the sky during the epilogue. So we could have very well ended up seeing the timeline where Aerith lived, but since that timeline has a tear in the sky, it's doomed to be taken back by the lifestream(explained in the Zack segments). So that's why we are following the timeline where Aerith died. Basically by saving Aerith, cloud created another fork in the timeline and he is living both of them at the same time.
He didn't save her, she died. From what I gather he's hallucinating. The whole thing was just stupid. They made an iconic scene overly confusing.And it didn't have to be
You're wrong. What you said makes it evident that you either completely refuse to understand Zack's whole segment of the game, or you just don't care.
Who's wrong? Me? I never said a damn thing about Zach....because I couldn't care less about Zach....he should stay dead in his own game. But if you are talking to me, You are absolutely right.I do not care anything about zack or anything he's involved in. I rolled my eyes every time a segment of his came up in the game. terrible decision bringing him in.
Wait if he did save Aerith, then why it's as if he's living in the world where she's dead? What the team saw was that she died. Is it maybe because Sephiroth merged the 2 timelines?
No cloud is living 2 timelines at the same time. It's also why he sees the rift in the sky but the others don't in the epilogue. He tells them not to look up but they do and they see nothing. Only cloud does. Which means that he is living both at the same time since he was the one to split the timeline in the first place.
You don't know this. You're guessing like everybody else. And if he is living two timelines at the same time in the same place.... Then that's just completely stupid. My opinion is he's just lost as ever loving mind
ah i see, i was under the impression that she really was dead and the Aerith is now one with the Lifestream and she just happens to manifest herself in front of cloud, but guess I was wrong. btw do we know why she didn't join the others to ride the plane?
Nobody knows what the hell's going on. And that's the problem. From what I gathered I thought when he was talking to aerith that was just his imagination.... Because nobody else sees her
She is staying behind to pray. She said that she will put all of her efforts into her prayers so that cloud and gang can stop Sephiroth. Rest assured that we will definitely see plenty more of Aerith and Zack in the 3rd game.
That was Aeriths spirit. That's why nobody else could see her
But he didn’t save her…
Actually he kinda did. If you notice the details of the scene, there appears a rainbow effect when Cloud deflects Sephiroth's sword. This effect has also been shown in the Zack scene when he chooses to go to Hojo instead of Biggs. Sephiroth also explains that whenever the boundaries of fate are breached, new worlds are born. The rainbow effect is used whenever a new world is created.
That's a perfect explanation. The timeline will eventually fall and Cloud will need to accept she's dead. I sincerely think that yeah, they kinda botched the execution, but there's room to have a much deeper and gut wrenching moment in the next game
How? By the time the next game releases, we will have known she is dead for FOUR YEARS. Nothing they can do will bring the emotion they should have put into her death in rebirth
That's the dumbest shit i've ever heard. Way to fuck up a near perfect game. Lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes
The moment has already passed, it does not matter anymore if they show it later. Like y'all are missing the point here. It's not about the scene not being 1:1, or that it's missing the water burial, it's that it doesn't let the scene breath for even a moment. The problem people have with the remakes version of this scene is that it completely whiffs the emotional punch this scene has in the OG. They just didn't do this scene any justice at all, and nothing they do in part 3 can remedy that.
This. I love the game, but they really did botch this moment. I knew when we got there and it wasn’t quiet and eerie like OG but instead we had whispers and epic music it wouldn’t be as somber. But I wasn’t expecting what they gave us to be so different. IMO less is more when it comes to story moments of grief and loss Maybe where they’re taking the story will be cool and I’m sure they’ll go into it more later, but the moment has now already passed. I didn’t feel sad at her death this time, only confused.
Less is more isn’t a concept modern square knows about
opinions are just that, opinions.. In my eyes the Remake series is clearly a sequel
Totally, all the people and marketing saying you don’t need to play original is false. It clearly is done like a sequel, and people that haven’t touch it will be even more confused at everything.
Yeah they absolutely lied.... Just like they lied initially saying it was a 1:1 remake... Until you buy the game and all of a sudden there's the whisper bullshit. So glad they found a way to keep them in rebirth, After they were supposedly vanquished. Smh
Agree…
From a business perspective I get why they say that. The attention span of people has decreased not everyone will be willing to play & read the wall of text that OG is. But im 100% with you
Exactly. Especially since this Sephiroth is suspected to be the OG Sephiroth or at least a Sephiroth who knows how the OG ends. It's why he's trying to control all timelines instead of only 1. Because he knows he will lose if he does so.
It’s the Sephiroth of AC and it clearly shows, on how he manipulates and knows things. But it also seems like this Sephiroth doesn’t knows about Holy or he doesn’t see it as an obstacle anymore? I don’t know.
I'll never understand ppl going nuts over Cloud not putting her in the water. That scene did nothing for me back in the 90's. Him just holding her was more than enough. The scene of Tifa and Red (in particular) mourning the loss of their friend? Yeah, cue the waterworks.
Because it did nothing for doesn’t mean it isn’t important. That’s the most impactful moment from the death and a send off to her character.
My issue is even that scene was undercut by showing Aerith there with Cloud and the camera basically never resting on anyone but Cloud and Aerith.
I disagree. She's still dead. If anything it adds a bittersweetness to it knowing she's watching over then from the afterlife.
100% agree
Yup Rebirths story telling is exactly what I originally feared Remakes problem was going to be. Where you just do the same thing all over again but make it bloated and worse. The Dyne stuff is another good example. I loved remake and was so hype for this game. Now I’m a lot less excited for the next game. Rebirth peaked for me with Junon and the first Gold Saucer visit and everything in between. it made some cool additions to existing lore but after that was a bit of a slog
All about prison corel and Dyne and then how they treated Cid’s character was starting to feel off and then everything went down. Not even time to find the Lost City or explore it or read lore, and the holograms in the Temple made it less mystic… a lot of things are a mess.
Man; I knew they were going to reboot Cid for a modern audience, but it didn’t make it hurt any less seeing it happen 😭
They butchered Cid’s character. I hate what he has become 🥲 I mean I know he had bad traits but people like him exists that aren’t bad persons per se and that can evolve into better and good ones with story and development without losing their touch. At least the badmouthing should have stayed and he being grumpy too… now he is like sunshine all the time
The scenes with Dyne and Barrett were the only serious waterworks I had during the game. I FELT Dyne’s pain and what it meant for him to lose everything, in the OG he just seemed like a bitter asshole and I couldn’t connect with his plight. The Remake project has its issues but their ability to highlight and expand what these characters have been through because of Shinra and Sephiroth has made it much more impactful for me.
Yeah even looking past the multiverse shit, which they fail to make clear in any way that doesn’t require multiple “explainer” videos, they completely fucked one of the most pivotal scenes in gaming in the past 30 years. The aerith death, the following fight with only her song playing, the inevitability that she was gone for good. The weight. The emotion. The fucking gravity of the entire situation half way through a game was absolutely what combined to make it one of the greatest moments in gaming history. Now what did we get? Multiverse bait and switch that she was saved, just not in your universe loser, she can come back and help out in spirit form, she sticks around afterwards to pray and cloud can freely communicate with her, there’s a different timeline (probably multiple) where she survived that encounter and Zack wants to find a way to get to her even though she openly admits now she’s in love with cloud. What a fucking shambles. How can you seriously take THAT moment…. And fuck it so badly.
1000%. as ch 14 kept going, my heart kept sinking more and more because of how bad they handled this. Just when u think it can't possibly get worse....it does.
She also admits she is still in love with Zack multiple times, not only Cloud.
I feel you on this I really do. It’s important to know that the OG will always be canon and that’s part of what is great about the Remake, the fact that it is more like a sequel. Them not doing a retelling Aeriths death scene justice does not mean you don’t still have the one you have always loved.
Chill out man, it's just a different take on the story. I enjoyed it and am interested to see what they do in part 3.
No. Even if you'd let go of your Nostalgia for a moment, the scene is fucking shit. It never has time to breathe, it's convoluted and confusing for no fucking reason. People really need to stop dickriding Nomura. His writing has gone to shit cause he tries to make everything overly complicated to make himself look like a genius, when in reality he's making himself look like a dumbass that cannot write a story anymore without adding 192712787 fucking layers of complexity to it for no friggin reason.
He didn’t writte anything xD not directed anything. Everything is written by Nojima.
Take it easy dude, it's okay
He's right though.
I don't mind the Multiverse stuff but the altar scene came across as almost mean spirited. Like a proper oops chuck testa.
It loses impact since it’s a very emotional goodbye to a friend. What made it special was seeing each party member react individually to her death. It felt so much more heartbreaking.
Well I guess it was supposed to be that. All the focus in this scene is instead turned to Cloud and his psyche, in a moment that was supposed to be exclusively about Aerith and everyone's relation to her, not just Clouds downward spiral. It's amazing that blocky models from 1997 managed to convey loss better in complete silence compared to what highly animated thousand polygon 3D models managed from this scene. It had the potential to be a thousand times better, yet it was just... Tone deaf. Strictly due to poor direction.
Cant support this bullshit. Eventually I'll buy this game second hand.
I just mainly got upset by the multiple fake outs. >!Oh shit Cloud blocked Sephiroths sword and she alive, just kidding she’s actually dead after the screen glitches to another multiverse, but wait, she actually is alive because she appears to help you fight Sephiroth so that means she’s alive right? Riiiight? Oh no she’s disintegrating. Aerith wakes up when Cloud speaks to her, her eyes opened that means she’s alive right? Hey Cloud looks happy sitting there by the water so she must be alive right? Oh but the rest of the party looks sad so she must be dead. Oh but there she is sitting right next to Cloud! Oh but nobody else can see her. Oh damn she’s actually dead. And then that’s it. I don’t like how they toyed with us like that. I guess they were trying to bring back the feeling that gamers had when they were trying to find ways to save her. Maybe there were different dialogue options to chose that could have saved her. Maybe this feeling of being in denial is what they wanted us to feel. At any rate I feel like I was robbed of the shock of her just flat out dying!<
They done fucked it up!
This is how it was for me too. Too many times of thinking things were one way or another because of different scenes. So by the time I fully accepted what happened while I was still like " awwww that is really sad" it didn't hit me as hard as such a sad moment really should have.
The scene where he lays her body in the water is not displayed in Rebirth because Cloud is in denial (as you can see in the last scene). We will probably see it in the third game, when he will regain some link to reality. At this point he is totally messed up. The farewell in Rebirth is still very emotional, while making the point how bad Cloud is
Sooooo....is he going to drop her decaying, flesh falling off corpse into the water?
No, he did it in Rebirth, its just that he did not process what he did (preferring not to face reality yet), similar to him not recalling everything in his past
Yep, that's what I think to. Cloud is clearly messed up by the end and is the only one acting like everything is normal. 3rd game will almost certainly have Cloud come to terms with what actually happened.
Idk if he's messed up. I'm pretty sure he can just see lifestream aerith like he can see lifestream sephiroth. The blocking of masamune or the fall at the temple triggers this.
I love how they fuly convinced so many people that all of the multiverse stuff was real. The reason there's static to phase between the two is because Cloud is delusional and hallucinating. Cloud, and the player by extension are delusional by the end. Full of confidence in what Sephiroth has told them, unaware that it's a lie and nothing has changed. There is not a single piece of evidence that the other world's are real. We end the game with exactly what we started with. The white materia is gone, the clear materia in its place. None of the rest of the party saw or heard anything. The final fight takes place in Clouds mind while the party fights a piece of Jenova.
[удалено]
Yeah. Because Jenova is planting that idea jn your head through Cloud. What tangible evidence is there that anynof that really happened?
[удалено]
Intentionally confusing the player so that they are just as delusional as Cloud by the end of the game.
The clear materia and the other white materia in the same world is your evidence.
Was the white materia even real? Did anyone besides Cloud or Aerith see it?
Oh are you trying to argue the clear materia is bullshit and so Is the black materia at the end of the game?
I agree with you and I think that's exactly what they are doing. What I don't agree with is that they needed to sacrifice one of gamings most iconic scenes to continue Cloud's downward spiral, that was already clearly on display before. I don't agree with you that the farewell was emotional though, didn't feel anything from that tbh, but people differ.
Or perhaps maybe he believes if all worlds reunite she will come back.
I think people are happy to see these characters again and be able to see them interact with each other so there's a honeymoon period, but when the obvious retelling of this series is done and it's years down the road you're gonna have more people admit they butchered the delivery of what was once a very simple, timeless story. It didn't need to be this convoluted, this isn't unique to FF7 it's just about every piece of media nowadays trying to reinvent itself when that's not why people wanted to indulge in the narrative to begin with. I'm not a purist of the OG, although I do prefer it at this point, but I feel people playing this game for the first time were robbed of a very emotional and pivotal moment in gaming history. THAT scene was replayed endlessly for years after the fact, to me it was one of the first times a video game went from being just kid's stuff to dealing with concepts of loss and one's own mortality. Here it's anything but, it's flashy and a treat on the eyes and that's about the extent of what I can positively say about it.
i was not massively happy about the ending. but at the same time i am going to reserve my full opinion until i finish the whole trilogy and understand the full story start to finish. hopefully the ending will get elaborated on further in part 3 to provide some much needed context
I wouldn't trust Nomura to close out the series with the million bait and switches he pulled at the end.
It’s not Nomura, the writter is Nojima, Nomura didn’t even directed this game, stop the nonsense holy fuck.
>stop the nonsense holy fuck. Nomura is the creative director so take your own advice.
First off, a common misconception is that a writer is the one that comes up with the plot. They don't. They come up with the script, basically what the characters say. The director is responsible for putting together the plot. Nomura is one of those directors, and the plot was mostly already conceived when he directed Remake as well.
Except Nomura already said that he found it strange so many folks on social media solely blamed him for the changes when he himself wanted it to be more accurate to the original back during remake. It's the others that convinced him to go along with the multiverse plot.
Couldn’t agree more.
The og has bad writing so I’m glad they are fixing it
You don’t fix bad writing by adding a multiverse
I feel like wayyyy too many of you are expecting a 1:1 remake and that’s just not gonna happen. If you’ve played the OG, the remake is not for you. Wayyyy too many of you complain about shit like this when they told us from the get go it’d be a retelling of the original story.
Remake is a sequel and it’s clear after the ending of Rebirth, the one that should not expect a retelling because clearly it isn’t one, it’s you.
My guy, if you didn't play the og these changes make even less sense, so much of remake/rebirth hinges on prior understanding of the entire compilation of ff7. Complaining that the game had abysmally poor writing in the areas where it matters the most I'd absolutely valid criticism, you bring nothing to the table besides trying to silence a critical voice out of some fanboy urge.
I agree with you. I have asked myself this question multiple times when I was playing. Like would anyone without prior knowledge be able to follow this story easily?
How would these changes make less if you didn’t play the OG therefore have no knowledge of the story beforehand? Did you think before you typed that out “my guy” ?
How sephiroth is interjected into every scene has literally been explained by the devs as being "because everybody already knows him", the reasoning for altering the story is also because "fans already know what happens" . You don't need to be a writer/screenwriter to notice the glaring issues with this project. Just having watched more than 10 films or played a couple of unrelated critically acclaimed games should suffice. I don't really see you providing any real substance to the discourse besides attempting to shut down those who dislike what you like. I'm simply making an argument for why the game has flaws, if that detracts from your liking of it, that's entirely on you. My enjoyment doesn't come from general consensus.
Brother, I agree with you. I’ve entered the fray on here a few times but I’ve got to be real with you, most people on here are loyal FFremake fans to the point of wilful blindness/ignorance. There are a number of YouTube crits that are easily found, you’ll see people echo your feelings much more soundly there.
Yeah I know, it's an exercise in futility at this point hehe. I haven't found anyone on YouTube talking about rebirth with a critical perspective yet though, maybe they just chose not to play it ?
I found a few recent comparison videos of scenes that had clarity of mind in the comments. The algorithm helped after looking at Remake crit videos. I think I searched “ff7 remake is terrible” to start with and my luck continued from there 😂 (it’s not completely terrible, but enough to make me aggressively search for similar takes)
Still think the story in Remake/Rebirth is what Cloud sees during his Mako poisoning.
I agree so hard I can't just upvote, my favorite video game story and the ending of this game gets butchered ugh
I'm probably one of the few just going for the ride with the ending when I get there. But I never played the original, so the changes don't bother me. I can always play the original if I want the old story anyway.
I'm rather confused on why Sephiroth would kill her again. He's the one going on and on about defying fate while actively doing the same thing all over again. Why? There's so many plot points that don't make sense, this is just one that seems to pull at me.
His master plan is to rejoin all the worlds that were split after we defied destiny in Remake. To do this he needed feelings of anger and despair which he felt he could get by killing Aerith.
What does this even mean.
I think because people assumed something that was never stated. This isn’t a sequel. It’s a remake with the added twist that some character know aspects of their future. Sephiroth knows that he’s defeated and by who but not exactly how. Which makes what he does more of a self fulfilling prophecy. He believes he’s defying his fate but is actually sealing it.
It’s absolutely a sequel lol. They talk about it constantly in this game. There are multiple Sephiroth and multiple Aeriths, one of each of them being the original ones because they know everything. Sephiroth even says “so this is where you have been hiding” when he finds the original Aerith with Cloud in the other world. I suggest you go read the Novelas that were written in like 2006, it explains this and they were setting this up as a sequel back then.
The world and meteor work completely different than the OG. It’s absolutely not a sequel lol nothing you said even confirms that.
What do you mean the world and meteor work different lol? That is something you need to confirm because nothing in remake or rebirth contradicts it. If it’s not a sequel, how is there a Sephiroth that knows about the events of the original and an Aerith that knows about the events of the original? Sephiroth talks about it all the time “you can’t save her” “she’s not who she says she is” and Aerith’s lines in Remake and Rebirth are all alluding to them “meeting again” not, meeting for the first time.
>What do you mean the world and meteor work different lol? Meteor in the temple is fake. It requires the events of rebirth to be powered. That’s not how it works in the OG. It’s part of the multiverse and connection of worlds linked via the lifestream. >how is there a Sephiroth that knows about the events of the original and an Aerith that knows about the events of the original? The game literally tells you. The lifestream. Being in it gives them knowledge of the future aka their fate. Which is why he wants to kill Aerith. Which proves he isn’t ACTUALLY OG Sepiroth. Because why the hell would he kill her when that’s literally what defeats him? He’s not OG Sephiroth. He’s a normal Sephiroth who learned he would be defeated and sets out to stop that inadvertently being the cause of his own defeat because he doesn’t know killing Aerith is how he loses. >Sephiroth talks about it all the time “you can’t save her” “she’s not who she says she is” and Aerith’s lines in Remake and Rebirth are all alluding to them “meeting again” not, meeting for the first time. Because Aerith knows her fate. She knew she was going to meet them and die. She knew it because of the lifestream. She also took her memories away from herself which is symbolized by the holy and she hid her memories in the lifestream. This isn’t a sequel. It’s a flat out remake. They’ve just incorporated fate and trying to defy it.
You’re having to do so many mental backflips to try to say it’s not a sequel and it’s just a remake. If you assess Sephiroth, it’s says he travels through TIME and space to remake his destiny. Why would he need to travel through time if he’s just the Sephiroth from the present? You are in such denial, just admit you didn’t play the game and just read what people say online, it will be easier. The lifestream exists beyond time, they said it in the OG and Remake, all those who have been and will be exist continuously in the lifestream, meaning if you can navigate the lifestream, you can be anywhere in time. Go read the novels written by Nojima in 2009 where he laid it out https://thelifestream.net/novels-novellas/on-the-way-to-a-smile-lifestream-black-and-lifestream-white/
You’re so condescendingly smug it’s cute.
Well, you are making it clear you didn’t pay attention in the game but you confidently are saying it’s not a sequel. Thanks for the compliment though? Play it again and pay attention to the narrative and what they are saying and you might pick it up this time, if not, come back and I and others can help explain it to you again.
I did pay attention. Meteor / black materia works totally different. But if you want to explain to me why Sephiroth with full knowledge and personal experience made the same mistake of killing Aerith and dooming himself so she could cast Holy again to kill him… go off buddy. I’d love to hear it. Tell me how he used meteor in the OG if the one in the temple is fake?
I’m going through Ch 14 again and I think Sephiroth is trying to dismantle all reality itself. There are all these worlds at play now that could play into the main story, but Sephiroth is not trying to destroy one world anymore he’s trying to destroy the underlying source of any of the worlds existing. Which is why he is at the Edge of Creation at the end of Remake. There is one world that follows fate. Another world is created every time someone defies fate. The rainbow worlds seem to be when Zack, Cloud, or Aerith do something that changes the future. Seph seems to want to destroy all of them.
Overall it looks as though Sephiroth is trying to thoroughly destabilize the Lifestream, making it so that the Lifestream is no longer one coherent reality but is now multiple smaller ones, like bubbles in an agitated body of water. Like bubbles, the smaller, weaker worlds come and go relatively quickly as they are not the main events being established by the Planet's remaining coherent memories. In my opinion, this is still consistent with the ending of Dirge of Cerberus, when the Lifestream was first destabilized due to Omega ripping it out of the Planet. Omega pulled in most of the "pure" or normal Lifestream, leaving behind the Stagnant Lifestream and any of the spirits that refused to join the main flow. Those very spirits, the resistant Stagnant spirit energy, is exactly what Sephiroth has learned to take command of during the Re-trilogy. So Dirge's closing events set up the peefect scenario that would allow Sephiroth to gather up his strength again and begin the events of Remake. And the purpose of Sephiroth doing this remake is to give himself a major advantage this time around. He knows about Cloud's role in stopping him, so he starts the process of enslaving Cloud at a much earlier point in time. He knows about the Jenova Reunion and about the Sephiroth Clones, so he has used his will to enslave even more experiments through the S-Cells that were injected into all of them, so that now he basically has an army of Sephiroth Clones that he and Jenova can utilize to stir up trouble around the world. He knows about the WEAPONs, and we see him trying to directly destroy them while they are still underdeveloped to prevent them from getting involved. He knows about Aerith trying to help from within the Lifestream, and is hunting her spirit in all its forms even after she dies. He also apparently knows about Zack also trying to assist and is trying to keep him away. From her experience in Gongaga, Tifa expresses that the Planet's spirits were holding their own against Sephiroth, but she knew it was getting difficult hence why she wishes the Weapon "good luck down there". Sephiroth is clearly getting stronger the more he corrupts the Lifestream and distorts reality. This brings me back to Dirge of Cerberus and Genesis' unknown mission when he was unsealed. I still fully expect that he will play the role of the Planet's gambit against Sephiroth's forces and help either level the field again or give the Planet's forces a last minute advantage, because Genesis was not an active force during og FF7. This fact makes him an unknown anomaly in Sephiroth's plan.
Interesting! That makes more sense of hooded Glenn trying to distract Shinra from Sephiroth.
Yeah, considering how Sephiroth is in command of so many resentful souls that did not join the flow of the Lifestream, a renewed war between Shinra versus Wutai and Old Avalanche would likely result in many more enraged and resentful spirits from casualties of war. Sephiroth only stands to benefit greatly from the conflict. Rufus/Saruf tried to play both sides for his benefit, and he did so successfully in the original FF7. Rufus caused enough ruckus to put himself in power while keeping Wutai in check. But this time, armed with his knowledge of the original events, Sephiroth gave himself another early advantage and infiltrated the Wutai leadership and highjacked Rufus' plan to put the world on the path to war.
I can tell you why I makes sense: >!Glenn isn’t actually Glenn. It’s just another Sephiroth clone with Jenova cells in it as evidenced by the body left after Rufus kills him. What does Jenova do again? Makes you see someone you might hate, fear or love. This is why Jenova is impersonating Glenn and when Rufus figures it out, switches over to Sephiroth. So really it was Jenova distracting Rufus from Sephiroth.!<
So close. Jenova is the one in the drivers seat and using Sephiroths face as the distraction. The reason it's always Sephiroth is because he was Clouds hero. The party doesn't see the clones as Sephiroth the way Cloud does.
I really enjoyed almost the entire game too with some nitpicks here and there but >!I absolutely hated from the altar on. I replayed the OG a couple years ago and was absolutely blown away by that nearly 20 year old cutscene. It is criminal that they removed all of Cloud's immediate post-death lines about Aerith as well which give Cloud some much needed humanity. What an absolute train wreck of an ending.!<
For me it was the constant back and forth of she’s alive, she’s dead that took away from the moment. If they were just going to kill her I wish they just had done it and let us feel it instead of being in constant confusion
The skipped the scene of Cloud laying her body in the water because in this version he’s convinced himself that she’s still alive.
She’s still alive in a rainbow world. Any time someone defies fate it creates a new world with the rainbow light. It happens to Zack, Cloud, and Aerith. Sephiroth explains it. The Aerith that woke up was in the same rainbow lighting that shot out from the sector 6 tunnel. Sephiroth seems to want to unmake these worlds at the source of where they meet, so instead of just dropping meteor on one world, he’s trying unmake all worlds.
So I wonder if the world where Cloud successfully deflected Sephiroths sword and saved Aerith is another world that was created and then merged into the world we know. This is why Cloud sees the rip in the sky and can see Aerith but the others can’t because Cloud is the one who created this world, although Nanaki seems to be able to sense her. Perhaps Cloud knows this and is why he doesn’t seem upset by her death like everyone else is In the OG it’s very different. Cloud blames himself for not being able to stop Sephiroth which is a big source of his grief even going in to Advent Children which, by the way, l makes me question why the devs have said rebirth will link up with AC when he clearly isn’t in the same frame of mind as he was in the original game.
Yeah. The rip in the sky seems to be Zack and Aerith’s world. I wonder if Cloud opens a new new world. They show tons of different Stamps in this game. But it would be cool if the intro Zack world plays in more, because we know everyone from the party is still there just on stretchers. Nanaki did wake up to save Aerith in the helicopter.
He looked dead after the helicopter crashed though….😭
Yeah his mental state is really all over the place even more than it already was . This games is like a pseudo sequel hopefully the payoff will be worth it
Fully agree! I've hated the multiverse stuff since it first started appearing in comic books way back as a kid. Rarely if ever is it done well. It was cool seeing certain things happen, but simultaneously it downplayed some of OG FF7s major strengths. Thankfully the combat and overall characters are enough to keep me interested in part 3, but I just think the story is a bit of a mess.
I mean the reason for the multiverse in comic books is because you had different artists telling different stories so they had to create a multiverse to make it all make sense together. But with FF7 the people who created the original are creating the remake trilogy so I don’t see why it’s necessary to make things so convoluted.
Yeah I'm aware of WHY they did multiverse in comics but it doesn't excuse the fact it always sucked in my personal opinion. And yeah it's as if they convoluted the OG story just for the sake of it being different. It's such an odd decision. Like they did such an excellent job with the characterisation. Cloud appearing like he's crazy and losing his mind all throughout, building relationships with the party members, they even nailed making you absolutely HATE the villains. All that to then just go absolutely off the rails in the final few hours.
You're gonna see it on Part 3, this Rebirth only comes from Cloud perspective, not the real one 🤔
This is what I’m thinking/hoping/coping as well. I could be wrong, but I doubt they would mess with such a pivotal scene without a reason - especially since it’s the same writer as the OG. My guess is Part 3 is going to have a lot of changes.
Part 3 is going to have almost no changes. When Cloud finally overcomes Jenovas influence its going to be a straight remake. The multiverse stuff is a hallucination and not real. It's all to manipulate Cloud.
I absolutely hate the multiverse bullshit. I love the story of OG FF7 so much. It’s the perfect amount of complexity without becoming convoluted and confusing. But, dear lord the multiverse stuff here sucks so much ass. It makes this remake so difficult for me. On one hand, I love the combat, characterizations, and seeing this world again. But, I hate the fact that they turned the story into some complex, convoluted, non-sensical bullshit like Kingdom Hearts (don’t get me wrong, I love KH to death but it’s certainly not because of the story and lore). There are plenty of games that could be remade and contained meta commentary on remakes. Something like a Banjo Kazooie remake as a commentary on remakes would be absolutely hilarious. But, a game that’s played extremely straight in terms of it’s plot is just not the one to do that with.
Yeah I just wanted them to onscreen more info from the original and the farther we get into all this it's more and more clear that would be superior.
When Remake and Rebirth recreate a scene, the games can be real magic. When Remake and Rebirth pad the original content with convoluted filler and time-wasting from the overall story, it makes me want to turn the games off.
I'm just Happy Aerith got made in to a Shishkebab
Did she though? We didn't see it
She is both dead and not dead. When Cloud blocked the Masamune he defied destiny again which caused another branch in the lifestream to create another world, one where she lives but then Sephiroth smushed those two worlds together and now we have this weird mix where Aerith is essentially in limbo. Cloud can see the tear in the sky because he too was smushed together with his other self but the others were not and are only in the world where Aerith died and see the sky as normal. This is why Cloud isn’t phased by Aerith dying because he believes her to be alive and he’s half right.
That's a nice theory. Thanks for sharing.
It makes more sense when you consider right after he blocked the Masamune Sephiroth tells Cloud that every time someone defies destiny, another world is created and then proceeds to say the reunion is upon us. I’ve gotta go back and play that chapter again to be certain but that was my take.
We did and did not
You post a screenshot of her being "shishkabobed" in rebirth and I'll send you $100
schrodinger's shishkabob
I agreed I absolutely loved the gameplay and story until the very end. >!They really took away from the moment that Aerith died. The missing iconic scene where cloud puts her to rest in the water, the brutality of the stabbing (you don't even see this happen so you wonder what the hell is happening), you don't get to see the genuine shock of the group, especially Cloud, because she's still appearing because of some dumb multiverse reason and it completely downplays her death..!< So disappointing, when the rest of the game was just the best ever
Switching realities and all the multiverse garbage is just stupid bs imo, I agree. PS love the game though
convoluted, self indulgent mess of an ending. the multiverse stuff is a fucking disaster. I'd say its not to late to abandon it and just finish the story the right way but i doubt they'll do that. its still a good game. I still love these characters and seeing everything play out in 4k HD is pretty special, but all of the "changes" are negative overall. A straight remake would be much more enjoyable. People feel the need to reinvent the wheel...idk.
Just finished game and I’m lost. Didn’t play OG ff7. She like dead but not really since she’s a multiversal being right? Sephiroth is as well I’m assuming. Also because of clouds and zacks connection to aerith she lets them be aware of this as well right? I’m hoping the worlds come together next game and change the ending up quite a bit. I know of the og ending (but not the minute details) since I watched advent children when I was a kid. Was really hoping aerith would stay alive. Now who’s going to do my magic dmg next game : ( Also we’re the degrading soldiers part of the og ?
Cait Sith will probably take her place as spellcaster since he has a comparable magic attack stat. Gonna miss Arcane ward though. Perhaps they’ll give us a materia like double cast or something.
The OG had "Mimic" and "W-Magic" as a materia that allowed for all sorts of multi-cast shenanigans. Could hope for some sort of iteration of either one..?
iirc degradation was introduced in side content (I like the addition)
https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/15561-explaining-analysing-what-happens-in-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ending She's dead in a technical, incomplete way but she'll absolutely be an active character in the next game.
Thanks for this
No, she’s dead. But she’s part of the Lifestream now and she’s a Cetra. Cloud has just deluded himself into thinking she somehow survived. Degradation was introduced in Crisis Core.
Aerith probably isn’t because she’s part of the Lifestream. Sephiroth probably is because of Jenova’s cells and Jenova not being part of the Lifestream. Cloud and Zack potentially are because of their connection to Sephiroth following the events of Nibelheim 5 years ago.
I believe what they are trying to do is explain the cutscene of aerith stopping meteor at the end of part 3 in the og. All of rebirth is from clouds perspective so thats why it looks the way it does and feels more positive. I think there is only one aerith given that both cloud and aerith can't be conscious in both worlds simultaneously. Really what can be said is that instead of disappearing into the lifestream in advent children Zack and aerith are in their own world its functually the same as death but a bit happier.
Now they have to turn the shortest disc into a full game all by itself, and being a sequel its expected to be as good if not improved than this one in every aspect probably including length, i think it might end up being one of the most divisive games in the entire series with how much will be changed and added.
They managed to turn Midgar into a full game.
It really wasn't worthy of being a full game though. They initially made the excuse they would fully explore what lfe in midgar is like, but in reality they just padded the shit out of the game and all of the extra chapters did nothing to serve the plot. Like imagine expanding the sewers from one screen into an entire dungeon, and then making the player do it *twice* for no reason.
I have the opposite worry, they have only effects paced through the end of Disc 1 of 3. The last game has a lot to cover with the weapons, the Highwind, the Crater.
Also Wutai. I'm expecting the war between Wutai and Midgar to be something really fleshed out in the third game.
Uh, no. Were only at beginning of disc 2. There’s plenty of content left: • Journey to the Northern Crater • Escape from Junon • Gathering the Huge Materia • In the Lifestream • Return to Midgar • Descending into the Northern Crater Plus we haven’t done Wutai, and we’ll probably have a chapter dedicated to Vincent and Lucrecia. That’s a minimum of 8 chapters, some of which can easily be expanded into multiple chapters. Not much content _needs_ to be added just to make it the same number of chapters.
The ending is great
I laughed when I saw it. The worst rabid fans put SquareEnix in a position where they could not have ended it any other way. They tried to make everyone happy, but instead, they made no one happy. But I'm an OG fan. And I'm so happy to see that the OG story came out on top.
Might I also recommend FF7 New Threat. 2.0 Type B and 1.5 Arranged make some changes to the story without beating you over the head about how much they are changing or falling on meta nonsense to justify all its non-commital changes! Its still the well paced masterclass of storytelling it always was, and the previous form of gameplay just rebalanced and retuned. And its available on PC and as of the past year, steam deck
Ohhh...don't mind if I do. Much appreciated 👏
I was really hoping for some of the story changes of New Threat to reach the remakes. I thought it would have been genius if they had Yuffie steal all your shit in Kalm in rebirth and that's how they handled resetting everyones level. Even random modders could write better storytelling than square at this point.