I was falling apart when the jenova fight started, just like Cloud I could not process what was happening... when Zack and Cloud were together my head exploded
I love reading this, it's just how it was in OG. You get thrown into a bossfight and are incapable of grieving just yet.
I wish there was more time after for grieving but it seems they're going for something different.
No lie I had to leave it in tactical mode for a minute while I composed myself. I think Cloud has been split across worlds now rather than just his mental state as he's in a world or fiction where he saves Aerith but for everyone else she is dead. The grieving has been blocked and muted out and will be in part 3 when you put Cloud back together
He's living 2 alternate timelines at a time, split by a single "decision". The decision being his sword hitting sephiroth's a millisecond earlier. He can easily communicate with Aerith and he sees things that are in other timelines(the rift in the sky that signals impending doom for the specific timeline).
What I really like about the original Jenova's fight is the design trick behind it.
They give you a very powerful enemy with the powerful Aqualung skill, however, they also grant your party actual immortality unless you, for some reason, totally refused to explore and missed the water absorbing high end equipment you would immediately equip if found due to its stats despite not knowing the impending water based boss.
This means you cannot degrade the scene by being forced to see it more than once back to back because you will not ever lose the fight. Meanwhile, Aqualung is very powerful and thus will force most players to have 1-2 characters popping limit breaks regularly as they don't have the absorption and thus take heavy damage. If they die it "appears a struggle" but the reality is your immortal character can just keep reviving them keeping the fake tension there or simply finish the boss, himself. Spamming the limit breaks due to this makes it feel more dramatic and like a peak unusual moment as you release emotionally on the boss after what just happened to Aerith.
Further, this is one of the few bosses with exceptionally low MP and is highly likely to run out of MP. This creates a shifting experience even for underdeveloped players that are slowly grinding this boss to suddenly feel empowered as the fight continues to shift in their favor and they no longer have to heal/revive the two vulnerable members and just go berserk on the boss that can no longer fight back once out of MP creating an escalating tension and release on this boss.
This isn't even factoring other elements like visuals of the location, music, etc. Very subtle but incredible design process behind this boss.
Not really. Cloud doesn't get his little speech and in the original you fight Jenova and that's that. Here, because these Remakes just can't help themselves, they have go for big spectacle instead of just letting the moment sink in. You don't get the scene of Cloud bringing her into the water either.
I get why they left out the water scene though, because Cloud isn't accepting what actually happened and let his delusions take over. I expect they will show the water scene retroactively in the 3rd part when Cloud finally figures out his past...and that's when it will hit him.
You need to understand that in Cloud's perspective, he saved Aerith. He's living both timelines at the same time. He doesn't need to grieve. He didn't lose anyone. The others did.
The opposite. Maybe the proper scene is less impactful, but the aftermath and the set up for next game are much more impactful.
In the Og after Aerith died, she was barely mentioned. Nothing about grief, the difficulty of letting go. Here you can see all the seeds of that.
Does it? I think it was done really well, I much prefer what they've done here over just seeing areith get impaled again.
Cloud's mental state, him trying to process / deny, the group seeing cloud hold areith's limp blood covered hand to his face while him imagining her holding his face saying it's ok, they even had cloud "ugly crying", very raw.
Far more interesting and emotionally impactful to me.
The 2 hour boss fights at the end are way over the top but the Jenova fight with areith's song playing had me in tears all over again, that's your cue to accept that this isn't a happy ending.
Ofc you do SE fan boy they can do no wrong lol they could kill off Cloud and everyone for that matter and you'd still be down for it and making excuses to defend it on thier part lol.
Lmfao, ok mr unhinged crybaby, for what its worth I'm the furthest thing from a square soft fan boy, i actually think the gameplay in rebirth was tripe the majority of the time. They nailed the cut scenes though.
>Cloud doesn't get his little speech and in the original you fight Jenova and that's that.
He actually says the lines but we don’t get to see it. They’re going to reveal it when we flashback to it and Cloud accepts her death
Even if they do, the actual moment is ruined forever and that's what's bothering a lot of people. I'm not even against the new take. It's interesting and it could pay off. But the way it was presented just was not the way to go. It makes the scene too bloated, especially when you factor in the overly long boss gauntlet that comes afterwards, which also includes her returning on screen while you didn't even get to internalize what happened. It's a huge tonal shift and works against the death scene, regardless of their intent.
I’m reading a lot of hate about it but I loved it and the ending showing how broken Cloud’s mind actually is just wait until part 3 when Sephy shows him the truth and how it was Cloud that killed her.
They could make it work retroactively for me depending on how they do things in part 3 but I'm not betting on it just in case.
Even tho I criticize the ending I overall love the game. It's my new fav game of all time tbh.
I think I'm in this same camp. I'm still really confused by the ending, but I'm holding onto hope. They didn't technically ruin anything yet, so part 3 may end up being rough. As for part 2, it's damn near a perfect game for me. I think it's my favorite game of all time, but I need some time to sit on the whole experience more.
What's different from Remake's ending (in my humble opinion) is that it did not overly change an iconic scene from OG. It only added new scenes after what played out mostly like OG. The highway escape and the motor boss fight were left untouched for the most part.
The issue here is they used an iconic scene from OG as footing for a new one, the latter of which was also way too bloated and mood killing.
I understand where you're coming from and I've been thinking about it for the past few days, as I was part of those who didn't quite adhere to Remake's ending at first but ended up enjoying it a lot later on when I started to 'get' their intent, but here it's different. I can't separate the new scene from the old one and enjoy what it's bringing on its own right because they mixed both together, and even if I'm on board with their intent, the way it's presented is just too clumsy and detrimental to the OG scene. There had to be a better way to handle this.
I doubt they show anything like Cloud killing her, He never did.
Rebirth basically confirms without a doubt that this is purely a remake and all the big plot points of the OG wont be change in any major way. They are just going deeper into the world building and the character interactions.
Yup. The biggest spoiler is that the Remake Trilogy is actually a pretty faithful remake/reimagining of FF7, that includes elements from the Compilation.
You have to wait for the 3rd part to say this with any degree of certainty, you've got an entire last game yet, that's where all the big reveals will come.
Personally, I think you are dreaming if you think they aren't going to change anything major in the finale
We are now 2/3 of the way through the story with zero significant changes. The model has been established.
"Personally, I think you are dreaming if you think they aren't going to change anything major in the finale"
Many people (including me) said the same thing about Rebirth.
Bro Zack is still hanging around and legit fought with cloud.
The main story beats are the same, but the fact that those two fought together is outrageous.
>I doubt they show anything like Cloud killing her, He never did.
I think there’s a big chance that Sephiroth is going to try to trick Cloud into thinking he killed Aerith along with telling him that he’s a fake Cloud. In that moment, Tifa can’t be sure he didn’t. Knowing that Tifa isn’t sure in that moment, is going to destroy Cloud
Good job remaining unspoilered for it after all this time. Seriously that spoiler is ultra legendary. I'm glad it still hit for you even if it didn't for me.
As an og FF7 guy, Rebirth's version was a lot more muddled, and doesn't give the player as much space to feel the moment imo. Small example, but in the original, one thing is that the entire fight with Jenova afterward is set to Aerith's theme. When I played it, the music was what actually made me tear up, giving you time to appreciate Aerith's final moment. I don't think Aerith's theme stops playing until you swap discs.
In Rebirth, Aerith's theme was woven into Jenova's theme. I thought that was nice, but it Def didn't hit the same for me. I was pretty disappointed when after just one phase in a 4 phase fight Aerith's theme disappears from the arrangement.
I could be wrong about that, but I really don't remember hearing it after that first phase. That combined with the unnecessary and (imo) very rushed boss gauntlet left the moment feeling very drowned out.
I can see why people felt it was muddled and probably didn't have the same impact but to me it did if not more. There was the whole lead up to her death when cloud and Aerith went on the date and cloud knew something was up. That whole moment at least to me you could feel the sadness and Aerith knowing what's next to come. To me the emotions where already hitting at that point.
That date sequence had me totally gutted. I started crying then and just kept crying until after her death. The music and the mood in the date part was just totally gorgeous, especially knowing what was to come (I haven’t played the OG but the one thing I knew was her death lol)
Oh yeah I thought the date sequence was pretty good. My issues aren't with most of the setup (outside of reframing this to be a sacrifice instead of a tragic death) it's just that a lot of the OG's strong moments get less space to breathe.
Dyne was another example, where in the OG they give Barret some space after his death, but in rebirth they insert a tonally weird boss fight at a moment where my man Barret is like 50 feet away bawling.
Rebirth obviously has things to offer up as well, I'm not trying to discount it's strengths, but several moments definitely left me very conflicted. Cosmo Canyon in particular I really was not a fan of.
The strength of Rebirth/Remake is the extra room given to all the character interactions. OG didnt show nearly as much of all the party members interacting with each other and the closer relationship they all had to one another. (there was an interview recently where Nojima talks about how he wanted to portray Aerith and Tifa's relationship better, He nailed it)
>where in the OG they give Barret some space after his death, but in rebirth they insert a tonally weird boss fight at a moment where my man Barret is like 50 feet away bawling.
Did they though? Within 5 minutes we're off in magic tunnels racing giant chickens to get out of prison, I feel like thats just as jarring.
I think you're pointing at what the devs saw, yeah.
On paper, yes, the next thing you do is ride in the chocobo race. On paper it is jarring and I don't think it's wrong to feel that way.
Imo though Rebirth gives Barret even less space. After Dyne in the og, there's a fade to black that implies time, even if it's functionally a loading screen. That few moments of silence where they close out the scene is important.
In Rebirth, there's no time. You fight Palmer with no buffer, pushed from watching Barret face a literal embodiment of his guilt to Palmer's comedy relief robot where he literally gets out of the cockpit to shake his ass at you. I absolutely appreciated the devs showing Cloud getting an opportunity to support Barret, but this is also a moment where Dio tries to fistfight Rude and followed by a turret mini game that really overstayed it's welcome.
Imo by putting all of this together, you make it all one moment. The scene no longer ends when Dyne is gone and when Barret grieves. Now the scene ends after the turret mini game.
Yeah, I think the need for boss fights at the end of big moments sometimes is what kills the pacing most. Most of them are great, But the game has trouble keeping to quiet moments sometimes. I feel the game could have done with one or two less Turks fights, and a fair bit less Corneo, at times.
Well that and the tonal whiplast during the Jenova fight where the party is cheering each other on while Aerith apparently lays dead on the ground next to them did not fit. No real need for Hype moments from anyone but say Cloud or Zack in that fight.
Ad a 12 phase gauntlet with unskippable transitions was just overkill.
Dynes death is something I agree with. It felt weird that right after his death Barret barely had time to mourn. Although it felt weird and odd it didn't ruin the game for me. I did overall enjoy the game and the differences even some that I may not 100% agree with. I just like to bring up some of the positive strengths because people are so easily vocal about what they hated that even though it just might be the minority of people it becomes so vocal it overshadows the overwhelming positive the game provides. For myself I had a couple things I didn't like about the game but to me it's minor and my own personal preference. I rather look at the positive because once I finished the game that what I felt a huge joy for playing the game but also an empty hole because I finished the game lol. Not to say people can't talk about parts they didn't enjoy but rather let it be a discussion rather than a vocal rant and hate (not saying you were doing this cause you werent)
The impact overall is still strong because of the focus on the relationships in the game and how her death impacts everyone. Seeing Tifa so hurt was the hardest for me.
The scene was extremely muddled compared to the OG. In the OG Aerith's theme is playing the whole time whereas in Rebirth it cuts between a bunch of different tracks which imo, takes away from the focus on her. Plus we dont get Cloud's speech before the Jenova fight.
I'm OG and I feel just like you.
When the Jenova fight started and I saw they kept the same approach with keeping the music going, they were starting to really win me over and I won't lie, I even started to weep a little (might just be nostalgia), but then I remember that feeling began to fade pretty fast when it switched to a regular (albeit very good) boss fight theme soon after.
I really think keeping the fight mostly the same and saving the rest (Bizarro and Cloud/Aerith vs Sephiroth) for later would have helped a lot with what they were trying to do.
Perhaps the real mistake was having the game end at the Forgotten Capital, which prompted them to ensure it was going to be as epic as the end of a game should be by their usual standards for the series.
Maybe if they pushed it to the Northern Crater at least, the death of Aerith could have had a chance at being handled a little closer to OG, while still adding the new elements of Cloud being deluded about what happened if they wanted to, but presented in a more subtle way that wouldn't work against the impact of the scene so much.
I don't know. Can't help but feel the whole thing is a bit of a shame because I don't necessarily hate what they're trying to do, I just think the way it was executed is a big miss.
I think you might be correct. Ending at north crater would give the player time without Aerith in the party to mourn her, and allow part 3 to start with the weapon raid which I always thought made for an absolute banger of an opening conceptually. They may not have felt like there was enough game left at that point to adapt though?
That seems like a stretch though. Now that they built out Midgar so much more I felt like they could do much more on the return trip. But hey, I guess we'll find out in four years.
Yeah, until they confirmed it would end at the Capital months ago, I was convinced Northern Crater would be the ending point, starting Part 3 without Cloud his fate unknown, with just Barret and Tifa waking up in captivity in Junon would have worked well as a beginning game wise, kinda like what they did with the Nibelheim flashback having just 2 playable characters and starting with lower stakes.
With what we have right now, I can't see how it will make for a small start since the stuff that happens right after the Capital feels more like middle game stake wise (and with reason, it was literally the mid point of the OG game).
They're probably going to add new stuff to pad the beginning a little, the snow region will most definitely be made much bigger and act as the Grasslands for Part 3.
I think that they appreciated the Nibel demo so much, that they want to play the Northern Crater in the same way. A dubious telling of lies and Truths capably of seeding doubts and clarity to a mind that suddenly break this time.
And they Will surely play on "Cloud won't be with us for a Long time" while giving him all his kit for the prologue
True it's so impressive as 25 year old spoiler its hard to avoid it. Even those people who try to be considerate of people who are unaware of the spoilers sometimes give one or 2 words that can give you a hint of what may happen. Idk how they manage to avoid the spoiler but super impressive!!!!!
This is going to sound daft but I genuinely credit Harry Potter with letting all these new players avoid THE spoiler.
Before Half Blood Prince, “Aeris dies” was the meme spoiler to post everywhere. Now it’s >!Snape kills Dumbledore!< .
That could be true. I would say Harry Potter is more well known and mainstream compared to FF7 (depends how you look at it) when I started getting into the FF7 lore is was cause I was generally interested in Cloud and Sephiroth. I forget what media I saw them in but I knew of them and the popularity they have. As I'm a person a curious person once something has my interested I do tend to go into a rabbit hole on the subject. That's when my knowledge expanded and learned about about FF7 story and such. It's my own curiosity that caused the spoiler. Did I hate that I did it? No, not really. It wasn't until many years later I played the OG and other details were revealed. Nowadays if a game or a movie is based on something for example Harry Potter with books and FF7R from the OG game you have to absolutely avoid any comment section about it. It's full of potential spoilers. I could remember 12 years ago that the comment section was as bad with spoilers but now everything is a spoiler zone. It's best to avoid it all together but sucks cause you want to be a part of the community of the thing you enjoy the most.
I knew of the moment and that it was coming but never played the OG just cause it’s soooo outdated but the emotions hit me like bricks none the less.
I think if you played the OG and then play rebirth the moment hits different because you’ve already experienced the moment and know what’s coming.
For people that don’t though, the emotions hit and I think SE was aiming for that.
I played the OG dozens of times and it hit me like a ton of bricks too. The last date and her smile before she goes was a lot to take in. I cried.
It hit me differently this time I think because I’m an adult now and I lost someone very dear to me back in 2017. I think it opened up old wounds and I’m still processing a day later.
Bud the OG is my favorite game of all time and I promise this hit harder because I’m older now, but also because there were legitimate herrings of hopefulness placed throughout the game. I legitimately believed I saved her for half a second and was extra gutted when it cut back to what I assume in the intended timeline.
I think I know where I sit now after some reading.
Cloud can actually see her, but he’s seeing her in a doomed timeline that he was able to save her in, but that will eventually be “reunified” or rather a reunion with the final game.
She’s alive there for now but the timelines will converge as Sephiroth intends, he’s just going to lose in the end, Aerith will end up in the lifestream.
I’m still torn up over it because I was given false hope for the briefest of minutes.
I didn’t played the OG at the time but I sort of knew the backstory of what transpired in the FFVII universe. Not gonna lie, I bawled at Aerith’s death even knowing what is coming.
Imagine what it was like for us in the original without all of the metaverse shenanigans and boss battle gauntlet. The monologue from cloud then the funeral scene and individual character reactions were brutal.
Was hard to feel much in this one with the confusion followed by 50 mins of fighting.
Yeah, that's what I disliked the most about Rebirth's version of Aerith's death--CONFUSION. It completely overpowered the sense of tragedy of the situation. By this point the player is aware of the timelines BS and that awareness totally encroaches on what is happening in the ending.
They could have nailed it, like they did with Dyne. Dyne's event was obviously different from FF7, but it was no less impactful. I don't like how we had to immediately jump into fighing right after, but the emotional impact landed. It was clear that Dyne was too unstable and that he died.
With Aerith it was just sensory overload the whole way through. Is it happening? Is it not happening? Is it both at the same time? It felt like something was definitely happening, but you're left without an understanding of what exactly is happening.
>They could have nailed it, like they did with Dyne.
Please elaborate on what about it they nailed.
Was it the fact Dyne turned into a Resident Evil boss fight in the last phase?
Or perhaps it was the Shinra grunts that came out of nowhere just so he could have an epic last stand?
Or maybe it was the shoehorning of a boss fight with the literal comic relief of the villain side?
My favourite part was definitely the sudden appearance of Dio and his magnificent flexing pecs trying to comfort Barret (which I'm sure totally landed).
Totally nailed it, man.
I love the game but this is my one gripe too. Honestly I would’ve preferred no boss fight, and just let the characters process what happened. Would’ve made for a better ending in my opinion. Admittedly there were some hype moments though. Zack and Cloud fighting together, even Cloud fighting against Sephiroth’s influence and blocking his stab.
In Remake the ending, while questionable, was easy to ignore.
Here they took the most important story moment of this segment of the story and turn it into a confusing mess.
I don't hate it but... It's a downgrade.
This. In the original and because of the nature of the og game you have time to grieve and take in the moment. In rebirth it's happens all so fast that the moment doesn't have real time to sink in til the after credit stuff starts
You know, I think it would've been way better if they stopped showing her face.
If it were my decision the moment she died you would NEVER see her face again (apart from the lake scene) to make players feel the loss.
I really hope she doesn't keep appearing in part 3. I love Aerith to death and I wanna feel the pain of loosing her.
Honestly, the fact that they kept showing her interacting with Cloud while everyone else is grieving (especially Tifa, god her reaction made it the hardest) made it sink in more imo. Mainly cause of the scene itself not having the same impact.
The scene does little for me compared to the OG because of how short it is. The OG scene was like 2 mins of her song playing as you realize that she is dead before they cut back to cloud yelling at Sephiroth then he spawns the boss fight. Whereas here they do a fakeout into like 30 seconds of her dying and BAM boss fight. There is no room for the moment to actually breath. hell you barely even see her materia drop into the water which is one of the biggest parts of the scene
All of this. It's clear they're turning the endings of this trilogy into huge spectacles that barely even fit the rest of the games, and based on transition from Remake to Rebirth and how it just began as if nothing, you can pretty much ignore it. And while a lot happened in Rebirth's ending which was too much and felt out of nowhere that I'll still ignore, I'm afraid I won't be able to do that with the fact that THIS event, the most important event of the first disc, happened right in the middle of that mess and now I'll have to deal with at least that.
As someone who played the OG and Rebirth, I was turning my house upside looking for that misplaced bottle of Aspirin after I experienced Rebirth's ending.
I had already played the OG before so it didn't hit as hard and I was just confused during the entire thing so it didn't hit at all this time.
That being said the Dyne and Barret part made me bawl, the Nanaki and Seto part also made me cry.
Planning on playing the game again so now that I have more context regarding the ending and Aerith I expect it to hit way harder.
Dang this game is good
Like others, Dyne and Barrett was the most impactful and emotional scenes in the entire game. Voice acting was raw and amazing. Having played and beaten OG along with Crisis Core...the ending of Rebirth honestly took the wind out of my sails.
Pure, utter confusion left me with zero impact as to what I was seeing. Which was another problem, I couldn't connect what I was seeing to what had came before it in a logical way.
Like for instance, with Sephiroth Reborn, why was he like Bizarro Sephiroth from OG when it was only the second game? Small detail maybe, but it threw me off. Fighting Sephiroth multiple times, while it was hype with Zack and Aerith, I was just like...what? What even *is* all this?
I get setting up the third game, but there's good execution, and there's bad execution. This is...bad. The ending of Rebirth sucked. It just did. I get, I think, what the devs were going for, but there was no impact whatsoever. I was too busy trying to figure out what timeline was what, and did *that* really happen or not?
Like, the rift in the sky predicts a doomed timeline...so does that mean that the timeline where Aerith is supposedly saved is the *right* one, or is it vice-versa? The weight of that moment was just completely negated. Muddled by poor design choices and execution thereof.
Rebirth was my GOTY until the ending, and now that accolade belongs to Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. That ending sucked so bad for me that I'm even contemplating not even buying the third one and just watching YouTube videos to see how the story ends. That's how put off I was by the ending.
Instead of hyping me up for answers with the last game, I'm bitter about it. Instead of being excited, I'm just...over it. I don't care nearly as much as I wanted to. Rebirth is an amazing game with an ending that screwed over my experience. Instead of good subversion of expectations, I felt cheated out of them.
No thank you. FF7: Reunion or Restoration or whatever other R word they come up isn't worth me spending another 70 dollars to see the FF7 franchise get turned into a convoluted Kingdom Hearts nightmare of storytelling.
Edit- spelling
This. I don't get how people can praise this as a well-executed sendoff to a character? It was completely butchered for the sake of le marvel multiverse bullshit.
Why would anyone care when Aerith can come back at any given time using time travel magic? Just like Zack, whose death too means jack shit anymore. They'll both be back, hopefully in the 3rd installment of Nomura's fanfiction. Maybe alongside Sora from KH!
And I wouldn't have Aerith death in Og as a top 3 scene of the game. All of those should be in part 3, so buckle up.
The more I see then ending, the more I like it. The death scene itself is simply better in the Og, but the aftermath and the epilogue destroyed way more in Rebirth (I think the epilogue is fantastic). Seeing Tifa and the party in that situation + seeing Cloud completely broken and unable to accept it, and seeing the reactions of Barret and Tifa to Cloud's behavior. There is so much set up for my favorite scene in part 3 to be even better.
I guess something that made me enjoyed the ending a lot was that I think Rebirth explained Remake's ending very well and clear.
Never got to experience the OG game but I knew it was coming. Living it hits different. Having to fight the final boss gauntlet afterwards without respite is brutal af
Nope, i didn't cry once, was sad albeit, but it was not impactful like it should have been, also not even my gf cried and that's saying something as she's very emotional usually, there were poor decisions made on the way they handled Aeriths death and the ending in general.
Except this scene doesn't hit hard in the remake bc she's just fine in "universe B" and can/will still be helping you battle in game 3 due to her ultimate weapon not being present in rebirth.
All the stakes and the reason this scene cut deep were removed in Rebith. Aerith has plenty of plot armor now to keep her safe and sound.
An atrocity to the original.
Aerith still died. Not only that, she still died despite Cloud deflecting Sephiroth's sword. Rebirth proves Aerith's death is a canon event, a fixed point in time.
When I saw the scene, Chrono Trigger's "...But, the future refused to change" game over scene flashed through my mind.
If anything, her death hits harder because people were holding out hope for the past 3 years that there was actually a way to save her this
time.
[https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/15561-explaining-analysing-what-happens-in-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ending](https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/15561-explaining-analysing-what-happens-in-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ending)
It's hard for me to understand how folks completely write off the metaverse stuff. Remake had the same where a number of people vehemently denied that it was showing a Zack that survived at the end. It must be some deep-seated denial.
My interpretation is that Metaroth has been killing Aerith across every universe, there isn't a Universe B Aerith anymore, and every time Cloud sees Aerith "alive" post death is a delusion created by his failing mental state. Those walls will come down in part 3, and the story will come to the same resolution as OG.
For me I think we're getting into lifestream white and black and each world is a different possibility within the lifestream and lifestream Aerith (lifestream white) is hiding from lifestream Sephiroth (Lifestream Black) within these possibilities. Sephiroths goal is to remove Aerith from the lifestream entirely.
This is pretty much it in my eyes, the Aerith that gives Cloud her white materia is killed right after, which is a different timeline than the one where Zack meets Sephiroth outside the church (different breeds of Stamp in each one), assumedly he's going to go do the same thing to that universes Aerith.
Cloud could even be the one to kill her in some timelines, as Tifa briefly sees him with blood on his hands when he's cradling her.
I've also been thinking maybe Cloud and Aerith are comatose in each universe except for the "main" one, and the "date" universe ones only woke up because they fell into the reunion Sephiroth was creating.
Pretty sure she’s still going to die in “universe B.” The game ends with “No promises at journey’s end” which could be interpreted as no promises she’ll still be alive in the other world at the end of part 3. As sephiroth said, all those other worlds were created when the party challenged fate at the end of part 1. Both Aerith and Zack are in worlds that have accepted their fate, their doom as evidenced by the rifts in the sky. This game for me felt like a celebration and appreciation of the original, the passion was there. To say it was an atrocity is an awful hyperbole
As kitase said, all will lead to advent children in the end
I agree with this. People will write it off as "she's dead in the main universe", but you can say that about Zack too and yet he is effectively still an active character getting continued development and scenes.
"Death" has been turned from a binary state where characters go from "by your side" to "permanently gone", to a spectrum of how much you get to interact with and see them.
I keep seeing this, but her death in the original is the single most notorious video game death/spoiler in history. It could never hit as hard for anybody who experienced the original.
Devs knew the players knew and that it wouldn’t be the same if it played out the same. That moment is in the past, it already happened, so.
It’s fine to criticize the execution, but I think it’s worth keeping in mind that it could never have the same impact.
I give them credit for being bold enough to do things different while trying to hit the same beats. They could have absolutely just phoned it in, but they’re more ambitious than that, and I respect it.
She's dead. What you see is Cloud imagining her because he cannot deal with her being dead+he's in a weird mental state. But it's clear from every other characters reaction that she's dead and gone.
She's as dead as Zack is, and quite possibly as dead as Sephiroth is as well.
Which is to say, widely open to interpretation and perspective. I'd say physically dead, spiritually alive. I don't think the Aerith that Cloud sees is 100% imaginary, and that's supported by the thought that Nanaki could faintly sense her. It's also supported by some things she says towards the end of the game, that those who die live on in the lifestream-- though that doesn't make it better for those who are left behind.
Yeah but that's nothing new, it was the case in the OG and that's implied that she's the one who makes the life stream destroy the meteor at the end.
Zack is different, he's in a different world (although I still don't understand the whole thing with that, aside from having him play a bigger part just for fan service).
Tbh I would be pissed off if she's alive and well in the third game and they mess up the ending. I already think some stuff in the two remake games are already unnecessarily complicated just to pad the playtime.
I don't think Zack is different at all, personally. I think his "different world" is just something within the lifestream. They allude to it when they say that he has trouble understanding how time has passed in this world, and there's no logical "timeline" where Biggs knows FF7 Remake Cloud and Zack only knows Crisis Core Could.
I think it's an illustration of what "living on within the Lifestream" looks like. It's almost like a dream world, like Zanarkand if you will. That's reflected in the last date scene, where Aerith calls this dying world her dream.
I was falling apart when the jenova fight started, just like Cloud I could not process what was happening... when Zack and Cloud were together my head exploded
I love reading this, it's just how it was in OG. You get thrown into a bossfight and are incapable of grieving just yet. I wish there was more time after for grieving but it seems they're going for something different.
No lie I had to leave it in tactical mode for a minute while I composed myself. I think Cloud has been split across worlds now rather than just his mental state as he's in a world or fiction where he saves Aerith but for everyone else she is dead. The grieving has been blocked and muted out and will be in part 3 when you put Cloud back together
He's living 2 alternate timelines at a time, split by a single "decision". The decision being his sword hitting sephiroth's a millisecond earlier. He can easily communicate with Aerith and he sees things that are in other timelines(the rift in the sky that signals impending doom for the specific timeline).
I got a feeling this is due to that clear version of the holy materia he has
What I really like about the original Jenova's fight is the design trick behind it. They give you a very powerful enemy with the powerful Aqualung skill, however, they also grant your party actual immortality unless you, for some reason, totally refused to explore and missed the water absorbing high end equipment you would immediately equip if found due to its stats despite not knowing the impending water based boss. This means you cannot degrade the scene by being forced to see it more than once back to back because you will not ever lose the fight. Meanwhile, Aqualung is very powerful and thus will force most players to have 1-2 characters popping limit breaks regularly as they don't have the absorption and thus take heavy damage. If they die it "appears a struggle" but the reality is your immortal character can just keep reviving them keeping the fake tension there or simply finish the boss, himself. Spamming the limit breaks due to this makes it feel more dramatic and like a peak unusual moment as you release emotionally on the boss after what just happened to Aerith. Further, this is one of the few bosses with exceptionally low MP and is highly likely to run out of MP. This creates a shifting experience even for underdeveloped players that are slowly grinding this boss to suddenly feel empowered as the fight continues to shift in their favor and they no longer have to heal/revive the two vulnerable members and just go berserk on the boss that can no longer fight back once out of MP creating an escalating tension and release on this boss. This isn't even factoring other elements like visuals of the location, music, etc. Very subtle but incredible design process behind this boss.
Oh I never noticed the whole water absorption thing but you're absolutely right, that's genius.
Not really. Cloud doesn't get his little speech and in the original you fight Jenova and that's that. Here, because these Remakes just can't help themselves, they have go for big spectacle instead of just letting the moment sink in. You don't get the scene of Cloud bringing her into the water either.
I get why they left out the water scene though, because Cloud isn't accepting what actually happened and let his delusions take over. I expect they will show the water scene retroactively in the 3rd part when Cloud finally figures out his past...and that's when it will hit him.
And SE has told you this for a fact? Or are you making assumptions?
You need to understand that in Cloud's perspective, he saved Aerith. He's living both timelines at the same time. He doesn't need to grieve. He didn't lose anyone. The others did.
Which completely destroys the impact of one of the most impactful scenes in gaming.
The opposite. Maybe the proper scene is less impactful, but the aftermath and the set up for next game are much more impactful. In the Og after Aerith died, she was barely mentioned. Nothing about grief, the difficulty of letting go. Here you can see all the seeds of that.
Does it? I think it was done really well, I much prefer what they've done here over just seeing areith get impaled again. Cloud's mental state, him trying to process / deny, the group seeing cloud hold areith's limp blood covered hand to his face while him imagining her holding his face saying it's ok, they even had cloud "ugly crying", very raw. Far more interesting and emotionally impactful to me. The 2 hour boss fights at the end are way over the top but the Jenova fight with areith's song playing had me in tears all over again, that's your cue to accept that this isn't a happy ending.
Ofc you do SE fan boy they can do no wrong lol they could kill off Cloud and everyone for that matter and you'd still be down for it and making excuses to defend it on thier part lol.
Lmfao, ok mr unhinged crybaby, for what its worth I'm the furthest thing from a square soft fan boy, i actually think the gameplay in rebirth was tripe the majority of the time. They nailed the cut scenes though.
I know, I have the same issue you have, I'm just saying I'm happy some new fans are having the same feelings I had when I first played OG.
>Cloud doesn't get his little speech and in the original you fight Jenova and that's that. He actually says the lines but we don’t get to see it. They’re going to reveal it when we flashback to it and Cloud accepts her death
Even if they do, the actual moment is ruined forever and that's what's bothering a lot of people. I'm not even against the new take. It's interesting and it could pay off. But the way it was presented just was not the way to go. It makes the scene too bloated, especially when you factor in the overly long boss gauntlet that comes afterwards, which also includes her returning on screen while you didn't even get to internalize what happened. It's a huge tonal shift and works against the death scene, regardless of their intent.
Agreed poorly handled.
I’m reading a lot of hate about it but I loved it and the ending showing how broken Cloud’s mind actually is just wait until part 3 when Sephy shows him the truth and how it was Cloud that killed her.
They could make it work retroactively for me depending on how they do things in part 3 but I'm not betting on it just in case. Even tho I criticize the ending I overall love the game. It's my new fav game of all time tbh.
I think I'm in this same camp. I'm still really confused by the ending, but I'm holding onto hope. They didn't technically ruin anything yet, so part 3 may end up being rough. As for part 2, it's damn near a perfect game for me. I think it's my favorite game of all time, but I need some time to sit on the whole experience more.
Just like remakes ending it's hard to process the first time then people start coming around when they begin to understand it
What's different from Remake's ending (in my humble opinion) is that it did not overly change an iconic scene from OG. It only added new scenes after what played out mostly like OG. The highway escape and the motor boss fight were left untouched for the most part. The issue here is they used an iconic scene from OG as footing for a new one, the latter of which was also way too bloated and mood killing. I understand where you're coming from and I've been thinking about it for the past few days, as I was part of those who didn't quite adhere to Remake's ending at first but ended up enjoying it a lot later on when I started to 'get' their intent, but here it's different. I can't separate the new scene from the old one and enjoy what it's bringing on its own right because they mixed both together, and even if I'm on board with their intent, the way it's presented is just too clumsy and detrimental to the OG scene. There had to be a better way to handle this.
I doubt they show anything like Cloud killing her, He never did. Rebirth basically confirms without a doubt that this is purely a remake and all the big plot points of the OG wont be change in any major way. They are just going deeper into the world building and the character interactions.
Yup. The biggest spoiler is that the Remake Trilogy is actually a pretty faithful remake/reimagining of FF7, that includes elements from the Compilation.
You have to wait for the 3rd part to say this with any degree of certainty, you've got an entire last game yet, that's where all the big reveals will come. Personally, I think you are dreaming if you think they aren't going to change anything major in the finale
We are now 2/3 of the way through the story with zero significant changes. The model has been established. "Personally, I think you are dreaming if you think they aren't going to change anything major in the finale" Many people (including me) said the same thing about Rebirth.
Bro Zack is still hanging around and legit fought with cloud. The main story beats are the same, but the fact that those two fought together is outrageous.
>I doubt they show anything like Cloud killing her, He never did. I think there’s a big chance that Sephiroth is going to try to trick Cloud into thinking he killed Aerith along with telling him that he’s a fake Cloud. In that moment, Tifa can’t be sure he didn’t. Knowing that Tifa isn’t sure in that moment, is going to destroy Cloud
Oh I did t think about that dude. Because Sephiroth is attacking the cloud/tifa relationshio because she’s who pulls him back to reality in the OG
Its when Cloud will realize that her death is his biggest mistake in life. It will haunt till Advent Childeren.
Agreed, the ending was ~~great~~ fantastic.
Zack : “cloud save her” that shit broke me
Dude that legit gave me pause as to potentially actually saving her. I’m still broken beyond belief
Good job remaining unspoilered for it after all this time. Seriously that spoiler is ultra legendary. I'm glad it still hit for you even if it didn't for me. As an og FF7 guy, Rebirth's version was a lot more muddled, and doesn't give the player as much space to feel the moment imo. Small example, but in the original, one thing is that the entire fight with Jenova afterward is set to Aerith's theme. When I played it, the music was what actually made me tear up, giving you time to appreciate Aerith's final moment. I don't think Aerith's theme stops playing until you swap discs. In Rebirth, Aerith's theme was woven into Jenova's theme. I thought that was nice, but it Def didn't hit the same for me. I was pretty disappointed when after just one phase in a 4 phase fight Aerith's theme disappears from the arrangement. I could be wrong about that, but I really don't remember hearing it after that first phase. That combined with the unnecessary and (imo) very rushed boss gauntlet left the moment feeling very drowned out.
I can see why people felt it was muddled and probably didn't have the same impact but to me it did if not more. There was the whole lead up to her death when cloud and Aerith went on the date and cloud knew something was up. That whole moment at least to me you could feel the sadness and Aerith knowing what's next to come. To me the emotions where already hitting at that point.
That date sequence had me totally gutted. I started crying then and just kept crying until after her death. The music and the mood in the date part was just totally gorgeous, especially knowing what was to come (I haven’t played the OG but the one thing I knew was her death lol)
Oh yeah I thought the date sequence was pretty good. My issues aren't with most of the setup (outside of reframing this to be a sacrifice instead of a tragic death) it's just that a lot of the OG's strong moments get less space to breathe. Dyne was another example, where in the OG they give Barret some space after his death, but in rebirth they insert a tonally weird boss fight at a moment where my man Barret is like 50 feet away bawling. Rebirth obviously has things to offer up as well, I'm not trying to discount it's strengths, but several moments definitely left me very conflicted. Cosmo Canyon in particular I really was not a fan of.
The strength of Rebirth/Remake is the extra room given to all the character interactions. OG didnt show nearly as much of all the party members interacting with each other and the closer relationship they all had to one another. (there was an interview recently where Nojima talks about how he wanted to portray Aerith and Tifa's relationship better, He nailed it)
This and the combat are easily it's strongest offerings imo. The way we get to watch cloud's mental state degrade in this game is legit amazing.
>where in the OG they give Barret some space after his death, but in rebirth they insert a tonally weird boss fight at a moment where my man Barret is like 50 feet away bawling. Did they though? Within 5 minutes we're off in magic tunnels racing giant chickens to get out of prison, I feel like thats just as jarring.
I think you're pointing at what the devs saw, yeah. On paper, yes, the next thing you do is ride in the chocobo race. On paper it is jarring and I don't think it's wrong to feel that way. Imo though Rebirth gives Barret even less space. After Dyne in the og, there's a fade to black that implies time, even if it's functionally a loading screen. That few moments of silence where they close out the scene is important. In Rebirth, there's no time. You fight Palmer with no buffer, pushed from watching Barret face a literal embodiment of his guilt to Palmer's comedy relief robot where he literally gets out of the cockpit to shake his ass at you. I absolutely appreciated the devs showing Cloud getting an opportunity to support Barret, but this is also a moment where Dio tries to fistfight Rude and followed by a turret mini game that really overstayed it's welcome. Imo by putting all of this together, you make it all one moment. The scene no longer ends when Dyne is gone and when Barret grieves. Now the scene ends after the turret mini game.
Yeah, I think the need for boss fights at the end of big moments sometimes is what kills the pacing most. Most of them are great, But the game has trouble keeping to quiet moments sometimes. I feel the game could have done with one or two less Turks fights, and a fair bit less Corneo, at times. Well that and the tonal whiplast during the Jenova fight where the party is cheering each other on while Aerith apparently lays dead on the ground next to them did not fit. No real need for Hype moments from anyone but say Cloud or Zack in that fight. Ad a 12 phase gauntlet with unskippable transitions was just overkill.
Dynes death is something I agree with. It felt weird that right after his death Barret barely had time to mourn. Although it felt weird and odd it didn't ruin the game for me. I did overall enjoy the game and the differences even some that I may not 100% agree with. I just like to bring up some of the positive strengths because people are so easily vocal about what they hated that even though it just might be the minority of people it becomes so vocal it overshadows the overwhelming positive the game provides. For myself I had a couple things I didn't like about the game but to me it's minor and my own personal preference. I rather look at the positive because once I finished the game that what I felt a huge joy for playing the game but also an empty hole because I finished the game lol. Not to say people can't talk about parts they didn't enjoy but rather let it be a discussion rather than a vocal rant and hate (not saying you were doing this cause you werent)
The impact overall is still strong because of the focus on the relationships in the game and how her death impacts everyone. Seeing Tifa so hurt was the hardest for me. The scene was extremely muddled compared to the OG. In the OG Aerith's theme is playing the whole time whereas in Rebirth it cuts between a bunch of different tracks which imo, takes away from the focus on her. Plus we dont get Cloud's speech before the Jenova fight.
Seeing Tifa weeping on the hill in the final cutscene broke me, man.
This is an odd question, but how many game discs are there for Rebirth? I got the digital download but I’m curious.
Iirc there are 2 discs, but you don't swap them like you did in the og. Would have made for some fun nostalgia to do some disc swapping though.
2
I'm OG and I feel just like you. When the Jenova fight started and I saw they kept the same approach with keeping the music going, they were starting to really win me over and I won't lie, I even started to weep a little (might just be nostalgia), but then I remember that feeling began to fade pretty fast when it switched to a regular (albeit very good) boss fight theme soon after. I really think keeping the fight mostly the same and saving the rest (Bizarro and Cloud/Aerith vs Sephiroth) for later would have helped a lot with what they were trying to do. Perhaps the real mistake was having the game end at the Forgotten Capital, which prompted them to ensure it was going to be as epic as the end of a game should be by their usual standards for the series. Maybe if they pushed it to the Northern Crater at least, the death of Aerith could have had a chance at being handled a little closer to OG, while still adding the new elements of Cloud being deluded about what happened if they wanted to, but presented in a more subtle way that wouldn't work against the impact of the scene so much. I don't know. Can't help but feel the whole thing is a bit of a shame because I don't necessarily hate what they're trying to do, I just think the way it was executed is a big miss.
I think you might be correct. Ending at north crater would give the player time without Aerith in the party to mourn her, and allow part 3 to start with the weapon raid which I always thought made for an absolute banger of an opening conceptually. They may not have felt like there was enough game left at that point to adapt though? That seems like a stretch though. Now that they built out Midgar so much more I felt like they could do much more on the return trip. But hey, I guess we'll find out in four years.
Yeah, until they confirmed it would end at the Capital months ago, I was convinced Northern Crater would be the ending point, starting Part 3 without Cloud his fate unknown, with just Barret and Tifa waking up in captivity in Junon would have worked well as a beginning game wise, kinda like what they did with the Nibelheim flashback having just 2 playable characters and starting with lower stakes. With what we have right now, I can't see how it will make for a small start since the stuff that happens right after the Capital feels more like middle game stake wise (and with reason, it was literally the mid point of the OG game). They're probably going to add new stuff to pad the beginning a little, the snow region will most definitely be made much bigger and act as the Grasslands for Part 3.
I think that they appreciated the Nibel demo so much, that they want to play the Northern Crater in the same way. A dubious telling of lies and Truths capably of seeding doubts and clarity to a mind that suddenly break this time. And they Will surely play on "Cloud won't be with us for a Long time" while giving him all his kit for the prologue
did you know it happened in the OG though?
I do now. Once I finished Rebirth I watched a summarized video on part 2 of the original.
I am honestly impressed that you've managed to dodge one of the most iconic moments in gaming for 25 years. Good on ya for getting to it blind.
True it's so impressive as 25 year old spoiler its hard to avoid it. Even those people who try to be considerate of people who are unaware of the spoilers sometimes give one or 2 words that can give you a hint of what may happen. Idk how they manage to avoid the spoiler but super impressive!!!!!
This is going to sound daft but I genuinely credit Harry Potter with letting all these new players avoid THE spoiler. Before Half Blood Prince, “Aeris dies” was the meme spoiler to post everywhere. Now it’s >!Snape kills Dumbledore!< .
That could be true. I would say Harry Potter is more well known and mainstream compared to FF7 (depends how you look at it) when I started getting into the FF7 lore is was cause I was generally interested in Cloud and Sephiroth. I forget what media I saw them in but I knew of them and the popularity they have. As I'm a person a curious person once something has my interested I do tend to go into a rabbit hole on the subject. That's when my knowledge expanded and learned about about FF7 story and such. It's my own curiosity that caused the spoiler. Did I hate that I did it? No, not really. It wasn't until many years later I played the OG and other details were revealed. Nowadays if a game or a movie is based on something for example Harry Potter with books and FF7R from the OG game you have to absolutely avoid any comment section about it. It's full of potential spoilers. I could remember 12 years ago that the comment section was as bad with spoilers but now everything is a spoiler zone. It's best to avoid it all together but sucks cause you want to be a part of the community of the thing you enjoy the most.
I knew of the moment and that it was coming but never played the OG just cause it’s soooo outdated but the emotions hit me like bricks none the less. I think if you played the OG and then play rebirth the moment hits different because you’ve already experienced the moment and know what’s coming. For people that don’t though, the emotions hit and I think SE was aiming for that.
I played the OG dozens of times and it hit me like a ton of bricks too. The last date and her smile before she goes was a lot to take in. I cried. It hit me differently this time I think because I’m an adult now and I lost someone very dear to me back in 2017. I think it opened up old wounds and I’m still processing a day later.
I’m sorry for your loss man, I hope things are going better now.
When Aerith's theme started playing during Jenova Life I had to pause and take a minute, one of the saddest moments in all of gaming.
Bud the OG is my favorite game of all time and I promise this hit harder because I’m older now, but also because there were legitimate herrings of hopefulness placed throughout the game. I legitimately believed I saved her for half a second and was extra gutted when it cut back to what I assume in the intended timeline.
Dude I hear you so much on that last part, they really toyed with my feels when it cuts between the timelines 😔
I think I know where I sit now after some reading. Cloud can actually see her, but he’s seeing her in a doomed timeline that he was able to save her in, but that will eventually be “reunified” or rather a reunion with the final game. She’s alive there for now but the timelines will converge as Sephiroth intends, he’s just going to lose in the end, Aerith will end up in the lifestream. I’m still torn up over it because I was given false hope for the briefest of minutes.
No matter how many times I watch this scene in any form, the second her theme starts when the materia hits the ground I will always tear up
I didn’t played the OG at the time but I sort of knew the backstory of what transpired in the FFVII universe. Not gonna lie, I bawled at Aerith’s death even knowing what is coming.
It hit me insanely hard as well, was bawling my eyes out.
Yeah someone randomly started chopping onions in my room... alot of onions...
Imagine what it was like for us in the original without all of the metaverse shenanigans and boss battle gauntlet. The monologue from cloud then the funeral scene and individual character reactions were brutal. Was hard to feel much in this one with the confusion followed by 50 mins of fighting.
Yeah, that's what I disliked the most about Rebirth's version of Aerith's death--CONFUSION. It completely overpowered the sense of tragedy of the situation. By this point the player is aware of the timelines BS and that awareness totally encroaches on what is happening in the ending. They could have nailed it, like they did with Dyne. Dyne's event was obviously different from FF7, but it was no less impactful. I don't like how we had to immediately jump into fighing right after, but the emotional impact landed. It was clear that Dyne was too unstable and that he died. With Aerith it was just sensory overload the whole way through. Is it happening? Is it not happening? Is it both at the same time? It felt like something was definitely happening, but you're left without an understanding of what exactly is happening.
>They could have nailed it, like they did with Dyne. Please elaborate on what about it they nailed. Was it the fact Dyne turned into a Resident Evil boss fight in the last phase? Or perhaps it was the Shinra grunts that came out of nowhere just so he could have an epic last stand? Or maybe it was the shoehorning of a boss fight with the literal comic relief of the villain side? My favourite part was definitely the sudden appearance of Dio and his magnificent flexing pecs trying to comfort Barret (which I'm sure totally landed). Totally nailed it, man.
I love the game but this is my one gripe too. Honestly I would’ve preferred no boss fight, and just let the characters process what happened. Would’ve made for a better ending in my opinion. Admittedly there were some hype moments though. Zack and Cloud fighting together, even Cloud fighting against Sephiroth’s influence and blocking his stab.
In Remake the ending, while questionable, was easy to ignore. Here they took the most important story moment of this segment of the story and turn it into a confusing mess. I don't hate it but... It's a downgrade.
This. In the original and because of the nature of the og game you have time to grieve and take in the moment. In rebirth it's happens all so fast that the moment doesn't have real time to sink in til the after credit stuff starts
You know, I think it would've been way better if they stopped showing her face. If it were my decision the moment she died you would NEVER see her face again (apart from the lake scene) to make players feel the loss. I really hope she doesn't keep appearing in part 3. I love Aerith to death and I wanna feel the pain of loosing her.
Honestly, the fact that they kept showing her interacting with Cloud while everyone else is grieving (especially Tifa, god her reaction made it the hardest) made it sink in more imo. Mainly cause of the scene itself not having the same impact. The scene does little for me compared to the OG because of how short it is. The OG scene was like 2 mins of her song playing as you realize that she is dead before they cut back to cloud yelling at Sephiroth then he spawns the boss fight. Whereas here they do a fakeout into like 30 seconds of her dying and BAM boss fight. There is no room for the moment to actually breath. hell you barely even see her materia drop into the water which is one of the biggest parts of the scene
All of this. It's clear they're turning the endings of this trilogy into huge spectacles that barely even fit the rest of the games, and based on transition from Remake to Rebirth and how it just began as if nothing, you can pretty much ignore it. And while a lot happened in Rebirth's ending which was too much and felt out of nowhere that I'll still ignore, I'm afraid I won't be able to do that with the fact that THIS event, the most important event of the first disc, happened right in the middle of that mess and now I'll have to deal with at least that.
Having a game like this with no final boss woudl be weird.
I think they could have done the big fight BEFORE the scene then. Well, that and cut the Sephiroth parts of it. Jenova would have been plenty.
The pain has only just begun.
As someone who played the OG and Rebirth, I was turning my house upside looking for that misplaced bottle of Aspirin after I experienced Rebirth's ending.
I had already played the OG before so it didn't hit as hard and I was just confused during the entire thing so it didn't hit at all this time. That being said the Dyne and Barret part made me bawl, the Nanaki and Seto part also made me cry. Planning on playing the game again so now that I have more context regarding the ending and Aerith I expect it to hit way harder. Dang this game is good
Like others, Dyne and Barrett was the most impactful and emotional scenes in the entire game. Voice acting was raw and amazing. Having played and beaten OG along with Crisis Core...the ending of Rebirth honestly took the wind out of my sails. Pure, utter confusion left me with zero impact as to what I was seeing. Which was another problem, I couldn't connect what I was seeing to what had came before it in a logical way. Like for instance, with Sephiroth Reborn, why was he like Bizarro Sephiroth from OG when it was only the second game? Small detail maybe, but it threw me off. Fighting Sephiroth multiple times, while it was hype with Zack and Aerith, I was just like...what? What even *is* all this? I get setting up the third game, but there's good execution, and there's bad execution. This is...bad. The ending of Rebirth sucked. It just did. I get, I think, what the devs were going for, but there was no impact whatsoever. I was too busy trying to figure out what timeline was what, and did *that* really happen or not? Like, the rift in the sky predicts a doomed timeline...so does that mean that the timeline where Aerith is supposedly saved is the *right* one, or is it vice-versa? The weight of that moment was just completely negated. Muddled by poor design choices and execution thereof. Rebirth was my GOTY until the ending, and now that accolade belongs to Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. That ending sucked so bad for me that I'm even contemplating not even buying the third one and just watching YouTube videos to see how the story ends. That's how put off I was by the ending. Instead of hyping me up for answers with the last game, I'm bitter about it. Instead of being excited, I'm just...over it. I don't care nearly as much as I wanted to. Rebirth is an amazing game with an ending that screwed over my experience. Instead of good subversion of expectations, I felt cheated out of them. No thank you. FF7: Reunion or Restoration or whatever other R word they come up isn't worth me spending another 70 dollars to see the FF7 franchise get turned into a convoluted Kingdom Hearts nightmare of storytelling. Edit- spelling
This. I don't get how people can praise this as a well-executed sendoff to a character? It was completely butchered for the sake of le marvel multiverse bullshit. Why would anyone care when Aerith can come back at any given time using time travel magic? Just like Zack, whose death too means jack shit anymore. They'll both be back, hopefully in the 3rd installment of Nomura's fanfiction. Maybe alongside Sora from KH!
And I wouldn't have Aerith death in Og as a top 3 scene of the game. All of those should be in part 3, so buckle up. The more I see then ending, the more I like it. The death scene itself is simply better in the Og, but the aftermath and the epilogue destroyed way more in Rebirth (I think the epilogue is fantastic). Seeing Tifa and the party in that situation + seeing Cloud completely broken and unable to accept it, and seeing the reactions of Barret and Tifa to Cloud's behavior. There is so much set up for my favorite scene in part 3 to be even better. I guess something that made me enjoyed the ending a lot was that I think Rebirth explained Remake's ending very well and clear.
Never got to experience the OG game but I knew it was coming. Living it hits different. Having to fight the final boss gauntlet afterwards without respite is brutal af
Just passed the part where cloud almost killed yoga this game is fucking insane
Nope, i didn't cry once, was sad albeit, but it was not impactful like it should have been, also not even my gf cried and that's saying something as she's very emotional usually, there were poor decisions made on the way they handled Aeriths death and the ending in general.
bruh the title
This meme format sucks and your title spoils Rebirth.
Unlucky!
Except this scene doesn't hit hard in the remake bc she's just fine in "universe B" and can/will still be helping you battle in game 3 due to her ultimate weapon not being present in rebirth. All the stakes and the reason this scene cut deep were removed in Rebith. Aerith has plenty of plot armor now to keep her safe and sound. An atrocity to the original.
Aerith still died. Not only that, she still died despite Cloud deflecting Sephiroth's sword. Rebirth proves Aerith's death is a canon event, a fixed point in time. When I saw the scene, Chrono Trigger's "...But, the future refused to change" game over scene flashed through my mind. If anything, her death hits harder because people were holding out hope for the past 3 years that there was actually a way to save her this time.
[https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/15561-explaining-analysing-what-happens-in-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ending](https://www.rpgsite.net/feature/15561-explaining-analysing-what-happens-in-final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-ending) It's hard for me to understand how folks completely write off the metaverse stuff. Remake had the same where a number of people vehemently denied that it was showing a Zack that survived at the end. It must be some deep-seated denial.
My interpretation is that Metaroth has been killing Aerith across every universe, there isn't a Universe B Aerith anymore, and every time Cloud sees Aerith "alive" post death is a delusion created by his failing mental state. Those walls will come down in part 3, and the story will come to the same resolution as OG.
For me I think we're getting into lifestream white and black and each world is a different possibility within the lifestream and lifestream Aerith (lifestream white) is hiding from lifestream Sephiroth (Lifestream Black) within these possibilities. Sephiroths goal is to remove Aerith from the lifestream entirely.
This is pretty much it in my eyes, the Aerith that gives Cloud her white materia is killed right after, which is a different timeline than the one where Zack meets Sephiroth outside the church (different breeds of Stamp in each one), assumedly he's going to go do the same thing to that universes Aerith. Cloud could even be the one to kill her in some timelines, as Tifa briefly sees him with blood on his hands when he's cradling her. I've also been thinking maybe Cloud and Aerith are comatose in each universe except for the "main" one, and the "date" universe ones only woke up because they fell into the reunion Sephiroth was creating.
There is no universe B Aerith? She’s dead. The Aerith you’re seeing now is her ghost.
Pretty sure she’s still going to die in “universe B.” The game ends with “No promises at journey’s end” which could be interpreted as no promises she’ll still be alive in the other world at the end of part 3. As sephiroth said, all those other worlds were created when the party challenged fate at the end of part 1. Both Aerith and Zack are in worlds that have accepted their fate, their doom as evidenced by the rifts in the sky. This game for me felt like a celebration and appreciation of the original, the passion was there. To say it was an atrocity is an awful hyperbole As kitase said, all will lead to advent children in the end
You know what. You're right Remakes remake story does suck 🤣
I agree with this. People will write it off as "she's dead in the main universe", but you can say that about Zack too and yet he is effectively still an active character getting continued development and scenes. "Death" has been turned from a binary state where characters go from "by your side" to "permanently gone", to a spectrum of how much you get to interact with and see them.
Yup. Will be plenty of Aerith for game 3. Low IQ fan bois running wild on this one
I keep seeing this, but her death in the original is the single most notorious video game death/spoiler in history. It could never hit as hard for anybody who experienced the original. Devs knew the players knew and that it wouldn’t be the same if it played out the same. That moment is in the past, it already happened, so. It’s fine to criticize the execution, but I think it’s worth keeping in mind that it could never have the same impact. I give them credit for being bold enough to do things different while trying to hit the same beats. They could have absolutely just phoned it in, but they’re more ambitious than that, and I respect it.
She's dead. What you see is Cloud imagining her because he cannot deal with her being dead+he's in a weird mental state. But it's clear from every other characters reaction that she's dead and gone.
She's as dead as Zack is, and quite possibly as dead as Sephiroth is as well. Which is to say, widely open to interpretation and perspective. I'd say physically dead, spiritually alive. I don't think the Aerith that Cloud sees is 100% imaginary, and that's supported by the thought that Nanaki could faintly sense her. It's also supported by some things she says towards the end of the game, that those who die live on in the lifestream-- though that doesn't make it better for those who are left behind.
Yeah but that's nothing new, it was the case in the OG and that's implied that she's the one who makes the life stream destroy the meteor at the end. Zack is different, he's in a different world (although I still don't understand the whole thing with that, aside from having him play a bigger part just for fan service). Tbh I would be pissed off if she's alive and well in the third game and they mess up the ending. I already think some stuff in the two remake games are already unnecessarily complicated just to pad the playtime.
I don't think Zack is different at all, personally. I think his "different world" is just something within the lifestream. They allude to it when they say that he has trouble understanding how time has passed in this world, and there's no logical "timeline" where Biggs knows FF7 Remake Cloud and Zack only knows Crisis Core Could. I think it's an illustration of what "living on within the Lifestream" looks like. It's almost like a dream world, like Zanarkand if you will. That's reflected in the last date scene, where Aerith calls this dying world her dream.
I feel like i was saved from most of the pain coz i'm on team tiffa. But it still did hit.
Your title has a spoiler in it for people who played the og