I think what's happening is Aerith and Sephiroth are metaphorically playing "new game plus" trying to get the "good ending" and naturally they have very different ideas of what the good ending is. But let's face it, neither of them had a good ending in the original
I agree. I feel like the entirety of this Remake is sort of the clash between the Whispers (The Planet) and Sephiroth. Sephiroth wants to change things and get the ending he wanted in OG. By having the gang kill the Whispers in the end, that gives the chance for his true goal to come to fruition. I think that is why Aerith is hesitant about crossing the bridge and changing fate. I think due to her Cetra origins, she has deja vu and instinctual moments of what's going to happen. Not that she knows everything, but she has glimpses so the planet attempts to remove the memories to prevent any changes. One thing Aerith does understand that the Whispers don't interfere with is her eventual end. I think Aerith is resigned to that that she won't try and change it. The Whispers appear to stop her from telling the gang about Sephiroth, but they don't appear the only times when she does remember something. Aerith could've brought up Sephiroth when Cloud mentioned him, but I think she agrees with the Whispers for the most part and wants it all to go the same way as the OG in order to defeat Sephiroth.
Being corrupted by Jenova, who wins in the end of the compilation story, Gaia believes any departure from OG is wrong. Now that Aerith and Sephiroth united against Jenova and Gaïa, destroying the orbiter to make change possible, Rebirth trailers seems to show Cloud embracing reunion way sooner and maybe Zack will come back up Aerith, witness her fate, play a role in bringing back Cloud?
The Whispers are around Aerith at the beginning beacuse sephiroth encounters cloud at the stairway and they were keeping her there since he would have missed her now beacuse of him getting held up
"The most improved voice actor in the Remake is Tifa. Tifa's voice actor in Advent Children was fucking atrocious." ...are you're not thinking about Aerith's voice actor? Because while I can (somewhat) agree that Rachael Leigh Cook's performance wasn't great, I would say Mena Suvari's performance in that movie is probably what killed her career.
I personally am less worried, because every time they reference the compilation, it’s been done in a very good way. Like, they haven’t thrown genesis in our faces for example lol. And deep ground in the dlc was actually kinda cool. I’m excited because this is their chance of creating the experience of FF7 all over again. Not just letting us replay the game upgraded and remember the original, but actually recreating the mystery and the emotions the OG had. They might fuck up, but so far they haven’t, and I’m tired of worrying when I can’t do anything about it. I’d rather be excited to see the characters they wrote so well in remake again in rebirth.
@@danieljarose9501 I mean, isn’t it a remake in a sense? Plus I think they wanted to keep it a secret so naming it FFVII 2 wouldn’t work. And it doesn’t catch one’s attention as much as “remake” does. It isn’t a sequel in the traditional sense either, that would more be advent children, so it doesn’t fit if you ask me I guess xD
@@livith9it's a remake for me. We are experiencing the events of the original. Some things are expanded, some are minimized, and somethings are entirely different. But we are experiencing the events of the original. If it was 1:1, it wouldn't be a remake.
The fact that the game already involves interstellar parasitic aliens, unreliable narrators, and an enemy with the ability to make illusions and they felt they needed to introduce time travel and multiverses on top of that is just baffling to me.
20:10 my understanding is that as an ancient she can communicate woth the planet. Therefore future Aerith can talk to this Aerith. It wouldnt make sense if she got matrix downloaded a program of all the knowledge.
the whispers are the angry fans, who wanted a copy of the original. They would complain about everything that's not exactly like the OG. By making the whispers the final boss, the game makers are telling the fans "we gave you the perfect remake you wanted, now the shackles are off, let us do what we want with the next game"
I don't think that we should see whispers as being "controlled" by Sepiroth.They are a part of the destiny of the planet itself, they try to make things stay on course, while Sepiroth slowly learns how to defy destiny throughout the game, same goes for Aerith and the team at the end, when they destroy the arbiter of fate... One thing is really telling when replaying the game, Both Aerith and Sepiroth knows waaaay more than they should, They have recollection of what has already happened in the original FFVII, and they both want to change the course of destiny... Why Cloud's flashbacks allow him to see glimpses of the future, is a biproduct of him being connected to Sepiroth through Jenova. Jenova can shapeshift, change appearance, change voice, it also has the ability to peer into people's souls, steal their memories etc. So really cloud seeing into the future of what already happened in FFVII is the ability of Jenonova and Sepiroth's strong will to use Cloud for his own needs.
if you look closely at Aerith just before Cloud walks up to her, the people she's offering flowers to walk away. She would've left if the whispers hadn't held her there. Cloud goes above plate the night before the sector five bombing with Jessie, sleeping in while they're about to head off, so the whispers attack so they'll be forced to take Cloud. They save Barret, stall Wedge, stop Cloud from killing Reno. In ShinRa HQ they even stop Aerith from explaining more about them, so I think Sephiroth has taken control of the whispers and Aerith, with a limited amount of understanding of the original story, is trying to avert her fate. It's why she makes little remarks like "Let's mosey!" she's not Aerith from the future, and so she tries to fight her fate and destroy the whispers... playing right into Sephiroth's hands.
This likely won't get seen, but FF7R is the sequel to FF7. Best guess is that Sephiroth has somehow come back in time, which is actually good for everyone because the 500 years later ending of the original is that all of humanity is dead (confirmed by SE). This is why you see the fate ghosts, because starting in chapter 2 of FF7R is when Sephiroth starts messing with the timeline. First he's screwing with Clouds head, way before Cloud would be on original Sephiroth's radar, which delays his meeting with Aerith. This is why the ghosts are messing with her, to hold her until Cloud gets there to ensure the fated meeting. Every time you see fate ghosts it's because the down stream effects of Sephiroth's meddling is changing fate and the ghosts are trying to put it back on track. Once the Arbiter of Fate is killed, the timeline is free, which is obviously Sephiroth's plan, since things didn't go his way originally. This is also why Zack is alive in an alternate timeline, as fate affects all of time, so now he gets to live... how that ends up affecting the main timeline is yet to be seen.
When they show Zach surviving, I think it’s like showing Cloud’s memories. We are seeing the moment where Cloud believes he is Zach. Zach still dies and what they’re showing is Cloud’s memories of ”himself” surviving the attack. That is the moment Cloud and Zach’s memories become one and Cloud starts believing he was the one in SOLDIER all along.
I'm only at 19:17, so this may be suggested later in the video, but on the question of the whispers and sephiroth, isn't it possible that it's the planet trying to set things on the course of the original specifically because sephiroth has shown up (and the events of the original were how he was defeated originally)?
I think Sephiroth is the random element trying to change things. Sephiroth has the ability to control any of his clones (puppets). In OG FFVII, Cloud was was likely ignored by Sephiroth for a long while. But after Cloud defeated him at the end of OG, Sephiroth is now focused on Cloud. Thus, Sephiroth sends Cloud visions he didn’t receive the first time. For instance, after the reactor one bombing, Sephiroth gives Cloud a vision of Nibbhiem burning. This delays Cloud getting to Loveless St. The whispers delay Aerith from leaving so that her and Cloud’s meeting take place as normal.
I think you will really like FF8 and maybe 13. They were some of the games made by the Kitase-led team who also did FF10 and FF7R. 7R has a lot in common with FF13 in particular and feels like an evolution of that game's design. Motomu Toriyama directed both of them (co-director in Remake), so it makes sense. Looking forward to your FF8 video!
I'm sure someone else has said it, but I don't think Sephiroth is controlling the Whispers. To the contrary, I feel like the Whispers are trying to stop Sephiroth and he is leading the party against them. After all, Sephiroth loses in the original timeline, and the Whispers are trying to make sure things follow that original timeline. Every time he tries to change something, the Whispers try to set it right. When you look at that final fight, Sephiroth goads them into fighting the Whispers, and it's not until they're victorious over the Whisper Harbinger that Sephiroth appears... and when he does, it feels more like he's testing his new limits than actively trying to stop them. He's too gleeful in the last encounter with Cloud
You can see exactly why he is so gleeful too... in the OG Cloud hits Sephiroth with his ominslash limit break, but in remake when cloud does omnislash Sephiroth blocks every single swing of Clouds blade and Sephiroth just smiles the whole time, he knows exactly which swing is coming when.
I feel like Britt Baron absolutely killed it as Tifa. She feels like she's on a diff level than the rest, save maybe Cloud tbh. I'm also super biased because she's the most lovable character for me
A bit late to the comments but I think Sephiroth couldn't control the whispers, they were reactive to changes. He instigated events till there were so many whispers that the three boss whispers showed up, he needed cloud's group to kill them somehow. And meteor was locking him on a collision coarse with cloud and it results in his defeat, by absorbing it he might have changed his fate. Also, he might have been stalling the fight just enough for zack to survive without the whispers interference. because Zack is alive, the storyline maybe branced.
I think Aerith has limited knowledge. She’s communing with the Lifestream which is putting her in touch with the alternate her who DOES know the future, but may not be giving her the whole story. I think if you get the scene with her in Ch 14, that Aerith that Cloud speaks with has full future knowledge because he’s talking to Lifestream Aerith.
Yeah, unfortunately after the amazing Jenova fight I basically hated the rest of the ending. And not just in a "boo it shouldn't be different" way, but it actively seems like they're undermining the entire original game (you know ...the beloved classic that everyone has loved for generations?). I don't WANT Aerith and Zack to live! That defeats the tragic sacrifices they made that make the happy ending so much more worth it. Not to mention showing all these moments early without any of the buildup for them makes them so incredibly anticlimatic. you need to build these moments up or they mean nothing. Aka: We need that scene of Aerith and Tifa meeting Zack's parents and the mystery of who they're referring to, we need that scene of Sephiroph showing cloud what really happened in Nibleheim, we need the test tube scene of Zack breaking Cloud out and dragging his butt everywhere. You've got to build him up so when Zack is finally revealed we *care* about it! The ending just killed any motivation I have to play the sequel. I keep trying to convince myself it will be worth it (like you said in this video) "to see how they do the bosses" and certain moments and stuff... but there's no guarantee they'll even have those moments. They're screwing with the plot way too much, and that takes all the steam out of my sails.
You ask what is the domino effect that causes the whispers to appear. It is Sephiroth's return. He's in the life-threatening messing things up behind the scenes. It is a struggle between Seph and the whispers the entire game until finally, Sephiroth takes control of them. Also, can someone give me a legitimate reason for why Genesis is so disliked? Is it because he's eccentric and obsessive? His story is really tragic, but people seem to hate him simply because he wasn't in OG FF7.
13:00 the reason why things are different is pretty much from the moment cloud got distracted by sephiroth on the way to the sector 8 train station, by sidetracking cloud it would've put him out of sync with meeting up with Aerith, who was being held in place by the whisperers, that escalated into a snowball effect which lead to cloud asking the group about invisible enemies which more than likely made the decision to drop cloud from the mission as they couldn't risk having someone along who was seeing things.
There's also the very subtle detail of Aerith in the opening intro, she gets startled by "something" and runs off. Some people say it's the whispers, others says it's sephiroths presence.
@@GamebustersUK It's 100% Sephiroth. There's the music in the background. My theory is it is at that moment when future-Aerith returns to past-Aerith and she begins to remember things she shouldn't know. Part and parcel of that knowledge is the knowledge that there is a bigger bad out there, Sephiroth (and, by extension, Jenova) and that if she could travel back in time following Sepiroth to the past, then its 100% likely that Sephiroth is already there and affecting things.
I like how in just a few months time you’ve experienced the full 25 year emotional roller coaster us OGs went on from original 7 being awesome to Advent Children and Crisis Core being kind of cool but also kind of ruining the themes of the original game and now back full circle to the remake. I’m kind of nervous about where remake is going because it seems obvious it’s actually a sequel but on the other hand I think back to like 9 year old me who was dying for the story to continue and I’m excited we’re finally getting that.
I could be mistaken, but Aerith and Zack's relationship developed over months. Crisis Core doesnt really do a great job of conveying time skips, except for the occasional "some time passed" type of comment. But we're made to believe that Aerith and Zack got to know eachother over time. So it really wasnt just a few days. She fell in love with him over time. especially after he helped her with building the wagon, and supported her dreams of providing flowers for everyone :)
No I know that, my criticism is at the fact they didn’t bother to show us any of it. If you’re doing a game about Zack set before FF7 and you don’t show us much of him and Aerith, how do you expect me to believe it was an important part of his life?
@@ItsLazBoi I love that they can spend all that time on Genesis' futzing around in Nibelheim, but don't show the scene in the truck aside from one line. THE scene that established Zack's whole character in the original.
The reason Tifa protests the notion that she is an imposter is because Cloud sees Tifa get struck by Sephiroth hence why he said "I saw you lying there, I figured it was too late". Then a very alive Tifa rightly asks "What are you implying? That I'm an imposter?".
I don't think that Aerith really knows what will happen. By how she acts during the game she seems really unsure. I feel like it's more that she has some feeling of the future but not close to the full picture. Kinda like the flashes Cloud seems to have but she kinda knows what they're refering to.
I think the Aerith in the lifestream and the same one Cloud speaks to in the dream in the garden is OG timeline and final fantasy 7’s Aerith, and she knows everything that occurred before. But the one in this timeline isn’t OG Aerith yet occasionally is tapping into other Aerith’s déjà vu sense and awareness through her ability to communicate with the planet.
9:40 This is also my personal concern. When people talk about FF7's spoiler, many will (understandably) point to the event in the Forgotten City. But to me, the one with a much more satisfying reveal is the one in Mideel. That whole sequence (especially with the triumphant timing of the original music score) is just perfection. I can't help feeling that the release of Crisis Core Reunion sacrificed this very important part of the original story just to give a little bit of context regarding Zack for the newer audience.
I think the goal with Remake is ultimately to give old and new fans to FF7 a similar, but new experience to the story - they want the same general story beats, themes, and emotions, but with twists. So, it would make sense that things like Aerith's Death, Cloud not being 'Cloud' etc are subverted in the remake as well, that way everyone is in the dark on what will ultimately happen. For example, we might learn in Rebirth/3rd one that Cloud is not only "not cloud/not a soldier etc" but that he isn't even the cloud from this timeline (explaining why hes having visions of the future?) - That might not be the exact twist, but I think subverting expectations of what we know will happen is explictly the point, "the unknown journey will continue" blah blah. That being said, this is the trickiest part for me because while its very common knowledge Aerith dies, I agree that the cloud identity reveal is the more cumulative and interesting surprise and - for those who havent played the original, is most certainly something they don't know. Cloud in compilation/other places is always mistakenly characterized as edgy/emo, but Remake especially rectifies this by showing him as childlike, trying to impress, and coming off as out of place/having underlying issues in a way that the PS1 couldn't, but was likely trying to do. Basically, they could keep this twist in tact and just amplify its impact for new and old players, or they could subvert it too. I think they're leaning towards the second option, and "Rebirth" will be the subversion of Aerith death, with "Re____" (final game) being a subversion of Cloud's identity reveal, but I kind of wish they just kept with what they set up with Remake, and use it as a chance to make the OG twist hit harder. Who knows tho!
@@jt1973 I thought Cloud's getting visions of the future purely due to proximity to Aerith, the way Red and presumably Marlene did. But I admit that doesn't explain the one he sees of the plate falling...
@@cloudkitt It's been a while since i read the translated ultimania for ff7 remake but the way cloud get the vision is different from Red & Marlene. Red & Marlene get the info when Aerith use her "magic" to calm them down however she kinda give them extra knowledge regarding the future as Red mention in chp 17. Cloud on the the hand is affected from the White Materia from Aerith.
That "oh, right" part where the shot only shows her mouth (or lower part of her face). If you've watched enough anime, you'll recognise right away that's something they often do when a character isn't being particularly truthful. It's really interesting to see streamers (who may not be seasoned anime viewers) not recognise this right away but still eventually get there and figure it out.
I'm not so sure Aerith knows everything, otherwise she wouldn't really still be carrying on about how the sky frightens her. She's still Aerith who has never left Midgar. I think when we see her in the very beginning she's getting a glimpse of something intangible, and maybe when she meets certain characters (Cloud, Marlene, Red XIII) they become more clear but not 100% understandable. Otherwise Rebirth is just going to start like "So, hey. I have to use the materia in my ribbon to summon incredible magic that will save the world, and I have to do it quick because something bad will happen to me if I don't."
Yeah, I honestly don't think there's any kind of time travel as such. Probably just that Aerith is able to "tune into" the Whispers and get glimpses of the future. There are far too many times where she reacts with surprise for her to know exactly what's going to happen.
She doesn't know everything. She sees glimpses of stuff and she has knowledge she shouldn't and can use powers that she should not have, but she doesn't know everything. In fact, during the scene in her room in the Shinra building, she mentions that every time the Whispers touch her, she LOSES part of that future memory, so by the end of the game, she's probably lost much of what FutureAerith imparted to her, other than vague feelings about wrongness and possible implications for future events.
@@Qarth56i think is more like the future is changing the past without actually traveling to time but sending a message back in time. Og(previous compilation from og to AC) Seph sending info to his past self who is controlling jenova cells around the world to prevent og time lineline. The world sending the info back that Seph is trying to change the past so making the ghost trying to stop the small change seph tying to do. All via lifestream that Aerith can tap on too
Idk if anyone has mentioned this, but it's kinda important to knowing context to why things are phrased as they are in reference to trying to prevent the outcome of the OG timeline. It was said at some point in an interview that the post credit scene with Red running with his kids (500 years in the future) is a bad end. It's a world without humans, a world where yes, life is slowly returning, but humans have ceased to exist on the planet. So, them struggling against the "fate" that the planet has for them (OG timeline) is them trying to prevent the destruction of humanity by breaking free from the path the planet had laid for them. The sephiroth stuff adds even another later where he's also trying to get them to break free from fate because the OG timeline leads to his destruction, and them freeing this new timeline from the rails opens up the possibility of him winning. Sorry if this was long 😅 I deeply enjoyed your foray through the ff7 universe!! 💜💜
Oh wow I've never read that before ! My interpretation was that it was how Midgar ended, empty, because everyone left for a better place and no one ever tried to rebuilt the city.
That barren portion in the credits are meant to represent the gray part around Midgar in the original I think. Essentially the closer you are to Midgar the more dead things look thanks to the reactors.
Also, when they flash the moment from the beginning of advent children with Cloud swinging at Sephiroth, it's the old design of the Buster Sword, but they went out of their way to remodel the Buster Sword in Reunion...
I feel like a minority of people actually don't like the compilation at all and I don't understand why that is lol. It's so poorly written and executed, completely pissing on what made VII the iconic game that it is. Is it nostalgia maybe ? I wonder how those games would've been welcomed if they weren't attached to the FFVII name in any way, like brand new IPs. Like you said, Rebirth worries me quite a bit because of the many bad directions it could take. I really liked Remake when they stayed more or less true to the original and disliked it when the new additions ended up being more convoluted than smart. If I see Genesis anywhere near the Nibelheim scene I'll know they screwed the whole thing up 😂
Minority? Most people don't like the Compilation. Crisis Core was liked only because it had Zack in it. Very few people liked DoC and AC, almost nobody knew the novellas and the animes, nobody can play the mobile games anymore.
Loveless is FF7's equivalent of Christmas Story, or Miracle on 34th street. It's a culturally defining work of entertainment and they do it every year.
Bro, your journey to becoming a FF7 fan has come so far. It's such a cool full circle to see you come back to this game knowing everything now. Your reactions are so legit and priceless. It's like "he gets it... He really gets it" lol welcome aboard this train. Ain't no getting off now.
I’m always interested in how people take to FF7 Remake when they’ve never played the OG. I’d imagine so many things would go over your head or make you think “wtf is happening?”
i still dont like that they have chosen to kingdom hearts the fuck out of the OG... I played it back then and i wouldve loved to have the story of the og like it is just with more character development, beautiful looks, more stuffed out and so on. its bothering me that they chose to change it so drastically with these wispers, showing sephiroth so early and then this ending..... its not FF7 anymore. its a different game in the ff7 universe. but what did i expect. Sakaguchi isnt at square anymore.
@@budakbaongsiah but he was a producer. maybe not as involved anymore but you cant say that after he an uematsu left there was no change noticeable in the games. i defenetly noticed it before i even knew about the developers and thier names. i loved every ff up to 10. played them several times. but as soon as 12 was there, it was different. i only played it once and never touched it again. cant even remember much of it. then 13 came and i put it down after 20h. was so disapointed. i wanted to like it but i couldnt. after that the only new ff release i played was ff7 Remake. i liked it a lot but i think the nostalgia for the original did play a big part in that
@@99Lezard99 Well, I was trying to say that the directors are the ones we should be wary about. Kitase and Nojima's been very weird since they worked on FFX. Oddly, the co-director of FFVI and director of FFIX hasn't been working on anything since Zodiac Age released. Also, no love for XI even though Sakaguchi was the producer and Uematsu was the main composer? People seem to leave that one out, even now after XIV 2.0 became popular.
@12:50 Back in the day, many argued that the original ending of FF7 (showing nanaki playing in a distant future, devoid of human intervention etc mako restored) was a "bad" ending. They stopped Meteor/Sephiroth, but ultimately humanity does not survive and learn to integrate peacefully with the planet, and they return to the planet/lifestream's memory. The scene of Nanaki and the overgrown vegetation of Midgar is showing that humanity didn't actually make it. Yoshinori Kitase supported this conclusion in interviews back in the day and said that this epilogue is the true "happy" ending of FF7, even with humanity gone. To others, seeing Aerith's face is cyclical like in the beginning and supports the idea that that the ancient one did lead us to the 'promised land' (which is actually a world where humanity/sentient life can live alongside the planet in harmony, instead of the technological hellscape and natural wasteland that midgar/shinra/etc envisioned). However you slice it, its ambiguous. To this point, Sephiroth tricking the party into changing fate in a way to allow him to control the planet/do evil Sephiroth things is believable - especially since we see the Nanaki running scene from the epilogue in the final chapter and they talk about how they can defy fate. FF7 has lots of pyrrhic victories and not black-and-white or clear cut conclusions in its themes, which is one of its strengths and in this interpretation could include - Aerith's death and even radically the cast saving the planet from Meteor. It's possible that they canonize the former interpretation - that, although humanity stops Sephiroth/Meteor by Aerith/Holy's intervention,, humanity does not ultimately reckon with their abuse of the planet's resources/memory, and ultimately don't survive/die off in some way at a later time. They might be trying to rewrite a fate (or conclusion of the trilogy) in which humanity and the planet actually learn to co-exist canonically and unambiguously. All of that said, I tend to gravitate towards the individual, character driven themes of loss and going on in the face of hardship than the ones that are derived from the overarching plot points, so I just want to remain intact, and for me Remake has only doubled down on those so far, even if they end up changing some of the plot-driven themes late.
Not sure if it was brought up in any of the discussions for you but it sort of looks like the flowers are wilting in the zack scene at the church during intermission ending. So perhaps in zacks timeline, aerith is dead? Would explain everyone at the church crying and mourning as that scene would be taking place weeks prior to the plate falling so it wouldn't have any connection to that
Good to know I'm not the only one who LOVES Final Fantasy VII but HATES the rest of the compilation. This is unfortunately what happens when you give Tetsuya Nomura too much creative power. There are good scenes in Crisis Core or Advent Children (like the last scene at the church when Cloud sees Aerith's spirit), but overall... every single part of the compilation is... to say it politely... BAAAD.
i also dont like the expanded universe things. but i wanna admit i had my fun with crisis core. overall a good game but it blows the story and adds characters that allways felt completely tacked on afterwards.
With all the praise Crisis Core and Advent Children get online, I thought I was alone in not liking them. Glad to see there are other FFVII purists out there.
Idk if you mention/figure it out in the full vod. But there is a key piece you're missing here. When Red says "a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today" it is because the OG FF7 has a bad ending. At that point in the future humanity is extinct (creator confirms this in an interview years after the game). There are 3 groups in this game. Humans, Sephiroth/Jenova, and the Earth. The Earth sees humans and Sephiroth as a threat hence why the weapons woke up. The whisps are on the side of the planet. They are trying to keep things on the timeline that will bring us to OG FF7 where the planet is safe without humans and sephiroth. Sephiroth wants the whisps destroyed so he can change fate and be the world's ruler, and we (the party) also want them destroyed so we can find a resolution to live peacefully with the earth.
This is exactly why I am not a fan of the FF7 demake series. For starters, the fans waited over 20 years for a faithful recreation of the 1997 game, in similar vein as the 2002 RE1 remake. And it was teased multiple times in form of Playstation tech demos throughout the years. Then finally, come late 2010s, Square starts the project for reals, and promises to keep things as faithful as possible... Only to pull some weird Marvel Cinematic Universe multiverse card, creating a meta-level joke of a SEQUEL to the FF7 and its half a dozen spinoffs. Thus betraying both the old fans, and the newcomers who expected to get to experience "THE JRPG of all times" with a new coat of paint. And to make things worse, it's not even a complete game, but an episodic clusterfuck. This is why I always, always recommend going back and playing the very OG games first. Especially the modern remakes and remasters always drop the ball at some point.
I could be completely wrong (and probably am) but I don't think the final boss fight of FF7R is actually against Sephiroth. I'm pretty sure its just the Whispers' last ditch attempt to fight back against Cloud and the gang - manifesting as Advent Children Sephiroth just as the previous Whisper mini-boss fights were manifestations of the other Advent Children antagonists. I'm pretty sure it was real, OG Sephiroth's goal to destroy the Whispers and 'fate' as a concept all along. and he manipulates the heroes into doing the deed for him. Now that he's no longer destined to be defeated at the hands of Cloud, Sephiroth is free.
sorry for all the spam comments but i really do love your reactions to the compilation of FF7 =D i would recommend you look up Maximilian dood and his FF7 theories and facts, he is always so on the mark i guarantee you that his vid's would answer any question you have =) he's even done some discussions with easy allies and itsmejp/cohh, it's worth seeing! =)
Saying Aerith wasn't that deep of a character, while saying "Cloud and Tifa are more complex" left me in shock. I'd say that about Tifa, her character is only supplementary to that of Cloud's, and without Cloud's backstory Tifa's character becomes a white dot in a blank canvas. While with Aerith in the OG it's her mysterious nature that makes the player want answers, answers we get in the form of tapes (after her death), letting the player know about her parents and the cetras. Tifa and Cloud's relationship is complex in the sense that they're estranged friends, they were never friends to begin with (as seen in OG), that's why cloud starts having flashes of Tifa running in front of him and the other boys all after her, and when Aerith asks if Tifa is Cloud's girlfriend he says "No." (No hesitation) Aerith: "But she's someone special!" Cloud: "It's not like that." (Slight pause) "More like... I don't know how to explain." This scene is there to let the player know their relationship and that not even Cloud knows. Both characters are important in their own right, but only one appears in the begin and end of the game.
This is a fair assessment, I think I do agree that what I find more complex than aerith’s character is the relationship and dynamic between Tifa and Cloud more so then their individual characters
The most important change is literally the first thing that happens. When Aerith stand up to to go the street she looks back as one winged Angel plays. Sephiroth’s existence in this timeline is what causes the whispers to act but in their appearing they cause the characters to react differently. Sephorith was smart he knew if they made themselves seen the characters would react differently…changing everything. Sephorith wants you to change the timeline because he needs to win. I don’t think Aerith is AC Aerith but rather since OG Aerith is in the lifestream she can communicate. That’s why cloud has those visions, his OG self also has been in the life stream and Tifa. I believe that the OG characters are trying to communicate with them to tell them to not alter the timeline but they can’t. BUT I think Aerith knows what Sephiroth’s plan is and her plan is like a Hail Mary, they have to go with his plan in order to lure him out to actually stop him but that runs a huge risk of Sephorith actually being successful. In the end when the Arbiter of fate is destroyed it opens the flood gates. All the chips are on the table and the threat is real
I'm guessing that the only reason they would spoil the Nibelheim Incident by releasing Crisis Core Reunion before Rebirth is because for some reason, they want everybody, even newcomers, to know that when Cloud is telling his version of the flashback, at Kalm, he's lying or misremembering things. That's the only thing I can think of. It would lead to both the characters and the players questioning Cloud, and build up to him finally breaking at the Northern Crater when he hands Sephiroth the black materia. They obviously will have some other twists in mind, which will play into this, but I don't see them touching the Cloud Tifa lifestream event regardless. It's too important of a scene to change anything, regardless of what they decide to do with Zack. Even if newcomers won't necessarily be surprised by Cloud being the infantryman in the Nibelheim incident, it will still be a great scene if executed well. Most people already went back and played the OG anyways, and there might be some newcomers to Remake that skip out on Reunion as well.
Well the first trailer already has Tifa question Cloud's story. In general, the party didn't talk all that much in ff7, which I'd say is one of its biggest weaknesses. Playing up the distrust within the group is a natural choice but I still feel like knowing what actually happened ("what is fact and what is fiction" as they say) is a weird choice but guess we'll see what they do
It’s not that I dislike Zack, he’s a perfectly likeable person, I just think as a character he’s incredibly shallow and how he’s used by Square only minimises the point of him in the OG and the meaning of the OG
@@ItsLazBoi that’s totally (Zack) Fair ;) Hey, you do an awesome job with your video breakdowns; especially enjoyed this one and your editing is on point, keep it up! :) Glad I found your channel, can’t wait for FFX!!
Also in ff7 fate is the future the planets chose for themselves. And what red and the party are saying about the visions doesn't mean what people think they have no context for what they are seeing and are just assuming things are good or bad and need to be avoided...... And no we didn't destroy fate we didnt kill the planet so the whispers still exist.....one thing we may have done is broken Jenova's hold on sephiroth....When you really look at it all without the whole oh it must be a sequel you can get so many other things from these teases.
one thing I noticed is you mentioned a few times about how aerith knew zack for like 5 min, but it is implied they knew each other for a while because of his hair growth. So they did spend some time together.
So the way I understood the whole plot Caspers thing is that whatever this "new game plus Sephiroth" is doing has already kinda derailed the events of OG FFVII from the very start, which the plot caspers are trying to undo. You'll notice that everything's largely faithful until Cloud sees his first Sephiroth vision post the bombing run and then seems to hang around for a bit too long with Aerith, which is when the whispers appear to put things back on track. Basically, it looks like the world of the remake already tends towards deviation and the whispers are trying to make sure it doesn't. As for what triggered that trend towards deviation, that's the entire mystery I suppose. The prevailing theories atm seem to be 1.) They've expanded on the idea of the powers Sephiroth attained in the lifestream after the Nibelheim incident and he's been given foreknowledge. So now he's being pretty aggressive in trying to alter the course of history. 2.) There's a time-travelling Sephiroth from post Advent Children whose gone back and is trying to fuck with things 3.) This is all tied somehow to Genesis post Dirge of Cerberus and that it's not Sephiroth doing the time-travelling nor the one behind all this crap, but time-travelling Genesis pretending to be Sephiroth. All the theories are dumb imo and I'm not really interested either way, but these seem to be the most likely explanations.
The Whispers are actually under Minerva(The Planets) control up til you defeat Harbinger at the end,at which point Sephiroth usurps them. And with everything Sephiroth has implied he wants you to join him...to overthrow Minerva. The fact the whispers exist st all doesnt imply good things. Aerith called freedom terrifying. The implication is that everything that happened in FF7 was all according "The Goddess" Minervas script. Any deviation was corrected by the Whispers. But now Sephiroth has enough power to ignore them and gives you pushes to be able to defy them as well. Like it or not, by defeating Harbinger, the entire group defied Destiny just like Sephiroth asked of Cloud. Let's be clear...the new Sephiroth retains more of himself as The General rather than just Jenovas son. Each time in the series Sephiroth has came back hes been more and more linguistic. He's started as just talking about "Mother". In Advent Children he was actually a bit taunting with Cloud and rather than speaking in absolutes he to Cloud "thats up to you." In the new game, he seems to not be serving Jenova at all, merely using her cells as a puppet for his own ends if I read his character correctly.
@@CircuitReborn this is my theory too, and it's the only way I'll be ok with these convoluted changes. I remember being young and 100%ing Crisis Core on my PSP and I fought Minerva which was really cool. I would like to see her show up in the narrative for real
this is still inconsistent and doesn't make sense, but the cait sith and reeve thing isn't (usually) reeve literally talking into something. This also ties into why cait sith has an accent but reeve doesnt, as reeve actually does naturally speak/think with an accent that he is just suppressing at work. The general concept is (I think) cait sith is a doll that picks up on feelings and thoughts reeve transmits to it, and then the doll independently interprets that into words and actions. There's a line in original ff7 right before cait sith #2 shows up where the first one says something like "even if another comes after, theres only one me" which is because even though all cait siths are just vessels for reeve's feelings, they all have a certain degree of autonomy (and ability to interpret) so that reeve can do his actual job while cait sith is spinning a slot reel and fighting toads. Though honestly I don't know how much of this is from canon sources and how much of this I made up in my head to justify how illogical it all is
20:00 there is a small series called "lifestream white" and "lifestream black" that takes place between FF7 and AC it explains how Aerith is able to know about events in OG FF7, many have speculated that the Aerith at the end of FF7 is FF7R Aerith getting a full backstage viewing of the whole event, chapter 14 if you have Aerith as highest affinity confirms this with her: "you mustn't fall in love with me" line.
And now, ff7 rebirth will be here later this year for us all. But really can’t wait for you to get to 8. 7 is my fav, 8 is MUCH lower on the list but I still love it lol.
agree that the majority of aeriths growth in the og game actually came post-event, a huge part of why i love the game is that she impacts the story and characters in such a deep way even though she isnt really in the game that much as a character. Thats one thing im concerned about in part 2- if they try to avoid her death then that really will screw up the entire theme of the original. also 'why would it change' is hilarious, that's a weird thing i find with the whispers, like its not like any external factors get involved that cause changes that forces the ghosts to intervene, seems like things change from the og just because, which imo is kinda unimaginitive writing
The theories I like to entertain: 1. This is a separate timeline where things are just different slightly but then get pushed way off course for the presence of two people who know more than they should about the future 2. This is the past that has been knocked off course by the presence of two people who know too much about the future. Lots of little things change as a result. In both cases it seems like the whispers only really interfere to correct any changes that would cause too much deviation. Finding an underground lab is fine until the moment Cloud might remember things prematurely. Why Biggs could live since he gave avalanche a reason to go to the roof since they hadn't been captured by the Turks and broken out during Jenova's extraction. The whispers seem to exist somewhat outside of time which would explain why beating them also allowed Zack to live and in some reality probably both Biggs and Jessie since they were instrumental in making sure they died the first time.
9:59 I think they initially said the plan was to not re do any of the other complication stuff. But then did crisis core anyways cuz they love money lol
To be fair, Crisis Core was stuck on PSP and a lot of people liked it. And since Zack is seemingly going to be playing a part of events going further, it made sense to remaster Crisis Core as not to alienate any new audience who doesn't know who he is. The same thing cannot be said of Dirge of Cerberus though. It is a bummer that some new to the franchise are going to be very confused why Cloud has imprinted his own memories over Zack's though, because it was really a great moment in the OG when he and the people playing the game finally realizes who he truly is.
In what way that Crisis Core redo? It's literally the same f-king game from the PSP version. It doesn't tied into Remake nor Rebirth whatsoever. Wtf are you even on about?
Only a few minutes in, but the reason cloud wasn't invited to the mission was because of Jessie. In the og, she gets her leg stuck/hurt and is unable to contribute. In this one, the whispers come and she eventually hurts her leg again and isn't able to go.
Yeah I know, but like… why? What caused her to not have her leg hurt in this universe that made the whispers intervene? There has to be an instigating factor right?
@@ItsLazBoi While I don't have any concrete proof for this, I think she didn't get hurt originally because Cloud went with her, Biggs, and Wedge on that prior mission. I'm guessing that although it's not in the OG game, Jesse still ended up sneaking to the upper plate, but without Cloud it was much more dangerous and she ended up getting hurt, leading to his substitution.
@@ItsLazBoi In the Og, Jessie didn't get her leg hurt. Cloud agreed to go on the second mission for more pay. In Remake, he refuses. Which means he wouldn't be able to meet Aerith at the church. Sephiroth wants this, so he uses a Whisper he can control to put Cloud into a deep slumber so Cloud will sleep pass the point Avalanche will go on the mission. However, the rest of the Whispers don't want this, so They block Avalanche from leaving, and cause Tifa to go wake Cloud up. They then break Jessie's Leg, pushing her off the mission, so Tifa and Barret can guilt trip Cloud into going. Thus, Cloud will meet Aerith again.
Really enjoyed seeing you play this all again! You brought up something I was also very scared of, that being the compilation stuff, I think in this part they handle it well by just making little nods here n’ there. But considering certain things like the mention of G type soliders and deep ground straight being a thing forreal now (tho its much better)… I’m cautious about it. Though one thing I disagree abt is how you feel abt OG Aerith, I think OG Aerith was just as compelling as Remake Aerith. Sure Remake has tons more going on now so I could see why you’d prefer Remake over OG Aerith but I feel that discredits her a bit. I feel all the characters has such amazing parts to them, funny enough I’m in the boat that Tifa was one of the least compelling ones in OG. I wish we got to see more of her inner struggles like we did with other characters, cause yes while she is important so much of her writing revolved around Cloud due to him being a big part of what she has left of her home town + childhood. But I dont personally feel like the OG capitalized on it enough due to Cloud being the main focus. Also Idk if it was a joke or not but Aerith actually tells Cloud not to fall in love with her because she knows she is gonna die :p
I agree. To me, Aerith is indeed a deep character. She's a girl who suffered at the hands of Shinra through experimentation and losing her mother. She was isolated as a child with powers she didn't fully understand. She sees dead people and has a connection to the planet. Despite all this chaos in her life, she's cheerful, playful and so SO full of life. It's easy to brush that off because Aerith doesn't really show it on the surface. It's easy to think she's just childish. But she is strong and willful. With the Remake, I feel it just emphasizes that even more so. Now, she has to struggle with her duties as a Cetra and enjoying so much of her moments being with Cloud and the gang. She has always loved life, but now there's the knowledge that her life will be cut short to boot. For me, too much of Tifa revolved around Cloud. She has some non-Cloud related aspects like the loss of her family, her home. But besides that, there's not much else. Without Cloud, there's not much else to Tifa. Aerith alone as a character stands well on her own without Cloud. It's why Crisis Core annoyed me because it ties her personality to Zack when that's far from the truth! It diminishes her character just as much as it diminishes Tifa's character when it revolves around Cloud. And yes, Aerith tells Cloud not to fall for her because she is aware she will die. Why else would she preface those words with that monologue of DEATH. She sees the Lifestream, prays for the dead, and a black feather floats by her. She KNOWS she will die. She knows how hurt and broken Cloud will be after. So, hearing everything associated with Zack is annoying. That includes Cloud who is NOT Zack. He is emulating Zack's SOLDIER self and what Tifa remembers of him. Cloud put it all together into his own narrative, but he is still Cloud. Otherwise, that would be shit storytelling.
@@nohemi6899 It's so insulting when people say Tifa is not her own character. Her character does not 'revolve' around Cloud, her story is *entwined* with Cloud's. Neither realise until the lifestream sequence that the other holds the answers they've been looking for. It's 'main character syndrome' isn't it, if Tifa had been made the main character, you wouldn't be saying any of those things because she actually has a great story. She was tied down by her villages traditions, taught herself to fight in spite of it, watched her father and town be slashed down in front of her by Sephiroth, was forced to move to the slums of Midgar where she had to fend for herself, but still managed to buy seventh heaven through years of hard work, and joined an eco-terrorist group to exact revenge against Shinra. If anything, _Cloud's_ story revolves around Tifa; the only reason he wanted to join Soldier was to impress her, he finds the strength to 'kill' Sephiroth in Nibelheim after he sees what he's done to Tifa, he only goes on the bombing mission with Avalanche because Tifa asked him to, he has a mental breakdown after Tifa loses her faith in him, and can only be put back together through Tifa's help. And I don't agree at all that Cloud pre-lifestream sequence is 'still Cloud'. He is brain-damaged Cloud. Everything about him is a facade. He is living in a fantasy and has no idea who he really is. He is not in his right mind. I don’t know why that amounts to ‘shit story-telling’. It’s a story about a guy with severe mental problems overcoming his weaknesses and finding the strength to save the world!
@@funkyfranx It is stated by Aerith and Barret that Cloud has been Cloud all along. Even with his facade, his thoughts, feelings, and memories are his own even after he becomes his full self. I'm glad you find Tifa so compelling. We all have differing opinions. I'm aware of her story and character. It doesn't change my opinion that Aerith is just does more for me than Tifa and how she's handled in the Remake. Also, Sephiroth didn't just hurt Tifa, he killed Cloud's mother, burned his village. It's not just Tifa being the reason. She is one reason. As a child, Cloud also looked up to Sephiroth and wanted to be just like him as well as impress Tifa. Tifa has her role, nonetheless. Just as Aerith prevents Tifa and Cloud from getting mako poisoning in the Lifestream. I have high hopes for how they develop her.
Within the first three minutes “I have a fear of bad writing” and then says “I don’t care how well written it is I think it’s bad” so essentially your afraid of your own opinion, cause it could be great writing and you don’t like it so you’ll say it’s shit lol 😂
I mean, these were all sort of jokes, especially the second one. I do really only assess things at face value, I try to keep my analysis within the context of a text, so regardless of my feelings on the compilation, I will judge rebirth as a thing in its own right. But on top of that you do have to consider at a point how rebirth could potentially fly in the face of the themes of the OG in a way that’s detrimental to the point and message of FF7
Man I watched your entire highlights of OG and the Compilation. As a big fan of Crisis Core, your playthrough actually made me see through the nostalgia goggles despite knowing the game has flaws (Even fans of CC dislike Genesis, myself included). 50:10 This comment soured me though, Zack carried Crisis Core. I respect you not liking Zack but you don't have to get at people who do like him. (Someone more articulate than me could give you several paragraphs on why Zack is a good main character but that's not me)
The very beginning, when Cloud sees Sephiroth for the first time, the phantoms are keeping Aerith in the same place so they can meet. There was never a distraction from Sephiroth in the og, in this one Sephiroth is trying to mess with the timeline. He probably didn’t know about the phantoms and tried to change one small but significant thing. This is probably when Sephiroth found out about the phantoms too.
The fact that everyone playing this game has to do mental gymnastics to make the Whispers and the alternate timelines thing work, is just because the FFVII universe has become bloated over the years with messy writing, numerous inconsistencies and FFVIIR is trying to combine all of it so it becomes even more convoluted. It's a sign of bad writing. For me, the OG is canon, the rest is not.
My understanding is that Sephiroth doesn't influence the whispers, he influences Cloud. And the whispers intervene to undo the changes Cloud is making to the original timeline due to Sephiroth's influence.
I don't like the way the Compilation handles The Turks, either. In the original game, they didn't need to be "forgiven" for dropping the plate because Reno and Rude were portrayed as consummate professionals who follow orders to the letter, meaning they'll be enemies one day but not the next. There was never anything personal in what they did. You don't sympathize with them in the end, you have the choice to decide, "Nah, fighting them is pointless and there's more important things to worry about." But they got too popular and Square tried to turn them into fangirl bait, to the detriment.
I'm not sure if anyone said it, but Reunion is just a straight-up 1 to 1 remaster of og CC. It's there for the people who want to know the original story of Zack and Cloud. Remake is already going down a different path. Right now, we're not entirely sure how much of CC is gonna be carried over (I'm expecting at least some key moments and characters, but that's about it.)
12:50 Just to be clear, they absolutely DO need to change fate. The ending of the original FF7 IS them failing (as per Red XIII's comment) because it involves the entire human race becoming extinct. Maybe you didn't pick up on that, but that is objectively what it was telling the players. Yes, they beat Sephiroth, but it's a very short lived victory. If they want the human race to continue past that 500 year mark they don't have a choice, they HAVE to change fate. (also, Sephiroth doesn't gain control of the Whispers until the very end of this game during the fight with him when he pulls them into himself before going all 'Advent Children'-y and throwing buildings with his mind at 54:51)
The differences across the compilation regarding the Nibelheim Incident, I tend to sum up as perspectives. I think everything has become twisted around Crisis Core now, because that is "what really happened". OG, it's all Cloud's memories, and as noted, Cloud be Messed Up. Last Order (and possibly Before Crisis, not sure, I haven't seen that one) is the ShinRa/Turks perspective, AC and Dirge are post OG, so don't go into it. Crisis Core is Zack's perspective, and he was the only one that knows what really happened.
"7 seconds until the end" Possibly references Aeriths death in the original. It takes exactly 7 seconds from the flash of light until sephiroths blade pierces her.
It really feels like the whispers are meant to represent fans of the original game trying to prevent the writers from making changes. They need to be destroyed so that writers have the "boundless freedom" to make more significant changes. My understanding is that Nomura and Kitase were allowed to make FF8 without intervention from Sakaguchi because they had different ideas for how FF7 should play out and how the future of the series should look than he did. Sakaguchi wrote 9 to be a return to the series roots and be the example of what an FF game should be. FF9 was less successful than 8, probably because it was overshadowed by hype for FFX and Spirits Within, so Nomura and Kitase basically inherited the series. Sakaguchi was gone from the company in a few years. FF7: Remake is Nomura and Kitase tackling the story of FF7 without Sakaguchi as a filter... and I don't like it. Also how is a post Advent Children Sephiroth doing anything when he's dead? Does that infer her comes back again post AC?
I think there are two separate versions of Aerith in this game, the FF7 lifestream OG who knows what is supposed to happen and just spoke to Cloud in his dream, and the Aerith in this timeline who still believes in a person’s ability to defy their fate. I think they are experiencing overlap because Sephiroth is messing with the timeline, and Aerith is too in trying to keep it the way it is meant to be. So the Aerith in this timeline while she doesn’t know the future, I think she is absolutely picking up on whispers vibes, also OG Aerith vibes, and OG Sephiroth vibes because she’s connected to the planet and they are interfering with it from within the Lifestream. But that’s only my theory of course.
O god the Loveless thing. I never made that connection because I played Crisis Core for a bit when it came out. didn't really like it and put it away. But they are doing the Star Wars prequels things with this. Remember Loveless that's so iconic? It's a whole street and the play is on forever.... because you remember it right!? Why do lazy writers always fall for this fan service crap? It was just a advertisement in the original game to flesh out the world a bit more. Leave it alone allready.
The Whispers in Remake and Sephiroth are not related. The Whispers can't really control him however they can undo what he has done if it doesn't match the original timeline. However, once you beat the arbiters of fate then you would broken the original timeline which would allow for diverging paths or separate timelines.
Fun fact: if you pay attention, everyone except Aerith gets some kind of vision of the future. The only vision Aerith has is of Zack's last stand. If that isn't foreshadowing her fate in this trilogy, I'm a monkeys uncle. I think Stamp is different because it's an alternative timeline. The design is different because the timeline is different.
