Rebirth: Too many worlds spoil the plot 

Dude you dont know how refreshing it is to find someone who is nailing the same sentiments I have about Final Fantasy. I hate when I try to talk about these frustrations and all my friends get so mad at me.

the sad, empty, actual answer for any of this is, as always, MONEY the crappy mobile games, the infinite spinoffs, the avalanche of merchandise, and the potential of a lucrative avenue in any and every direction possible all die if there's ANY definitive conclusion to anything in the story. Why close that door when it leads to a bank vault?

Final Fantasy ended when Sakaguchi left.

A multiverse carries an inherent flaw, if there's infinite realities, then nothing really matters. It makes the viewer not care about what's happening.

In the OG we had: - Cloud's schizophrenia - Cloud's amnesia - Cloud's illusions and warped perception of reality and himself On top of that (as if that wasn't complicated enough), we now got: - Multiverses - Multiple timelines - Aerith's dreams and visions - Multiple timelines and multiverses colliding and merging - Whispers that actively shape fate and kill more people in Midgar by preventing us from saving them than Sephiroth killed in Nibelheim and in total - Whispers reviving characters arbitrarily - Ever Crisis ... - FF7 Remake Project DLC yet to come and unlikely change anything for the better => Congratulations Nomura and Kitase. The story of FF7 now officially makes less than zero sense.

The weirdest thing was how a bullet was gonna headshot zack... but thats not how he dies... he talks to cloud before he dies it was so weird and really shit on the OG.

Good multiverse stories actually requires effort, talent and care to make it work. Thinking about every possibility, thinking about the actual concequences and how it will impact the future story of that timeline. What Rebirth did, is not just the lack of focus on making the multiverse working on paper, but it is also infested with inspirations from other franchises. If we want to make a good conclusion on a beloved story, then we have to think of everything. The context, the buildup and the impact. That should be the proper rule for many writers.

Multiverses are so hard to get right, and in this day in media overused. My original thought when playing Remake was that Sephiroth was in a sense “time travelling” to rewrite the story/destiny bc he knows how the OG story ends. They could have left it at that. It still implies there’s another universe (the OG) and then the Remake universe but doesn’t get to complex and gives weight to the steaks and the Lifestream and overall the environmental change subject matter

And let us not forget the 2.0 version of this trilogy when it’s finished too. It’ll go the route of Kingdom Hearts most likely, adding in additional cutscenes here and there to “Try” to add more context or explain plot threads of the timey whimeyness “better”

Final Fantasy VII the Multiverse of Madness

I’m just glad people are recognizing how much of a hack Nomura, Kitase, And Nojima are and have always been. They absolutely suck at writing and have needed to be booted from writing stories for a while.

perfect argument, doesnt matter how many times you experience a good story, it will always work. the changes are just a reflection of ego, and born of the idea of "making it fresher, better, unexpected" shame. I'm tired of square, i dont give a F* about rebirth and its sequel.

Part 3 is probably just going to reveal that what we've played in 1 and 2 all takes place in Cloud and Tifas lifestream scene, the players choices being written off as Cloud being an unreliable narrator finding the truth. Us the players have been repairing his mind, it'd be the biggest copout of this horrible multiverse shit but its probably the most plausible and Square thing to do. FF7 REmember, Help I'm in the hell timeline

Most writers including marvel can't write multiverse stories. In my experience only Michael Moorcock wrote multiverse well. The difference is Moorcocks approach created an ever increasingly complex tapestry of stories. Bad multiverse writing is when nothing really matters.

I feel bad for the og ff7 fans who have been wanting a one to one remake since the reveal of the ps3

Best video on the subject I've seen thus far. 100% agree. Multiverse, parallel timelines, alternate worlds, other realities, blah, blah blah... Whatever we choose to call it, that general concept/possibility simply existing in an FF7 related story dilutes the finality of death. There's a version of reality where Zack died and a version where he doesn't. Same situation with Biggs. Same with Aerith possibly as well, who knows at this point. (Some people are very confident that she is actually dead, but the fact that it's even debatable one way or another is a problem imo.) In general, when there are multiple versions of a character that can live or die depending on branching timelines/worlds/whatever, that cheapens the moment when a character actually dies. Because in the back of my mind I know there is another version of that character still alive and happy in a different version of the event. This is an issue I have with multiple realities as a concept itself, separate from however the FF7R series ultimately chooses to implement it. The FF7R characters could all end up with the same exact fate as the original by the end of part 3 and I would still have huge problems with the story being told in this way. It just sucks my investment out of the story when I know there are multiple versions of the same character who may be alive or dead, all for the sake of keeping the fanbase guessing for 3-4 years between games. I have similar gripes with the Marvel multiverse stories too. I have always disliked those types of tropes in the comics as well. Why should I care if Peter Parker and Mary Jane eventually get together if there are an infinite number of universes in which they both do and don't get together!? For FF7, it's much harder for me to care about Aerith's death if there are many, many possible realities (or Lifestream memories/realities/whatever) where she doesn't die. If we just happen to be viewing a version of reality where she does in fact die, then yes, I can still feel empathy for the characters in that moment when they lose their friend. But my personal attachment to losing that character is not nearly as strong as it would be if there was only ONE Aerith in existence that we could lose. The multiple worlds/realities trope is simply incompatible with the message of having only one life to live and cherishing the time we have together as temporary but meaningful. That we must all accept we are just a small part of nature's cycle, and that death is just the natural end of our experience. Mr. Sakaguchi's FFVII was trying to show us a way to be at peace with that concept. But that theme was already damaged at the midpoint of Remake, well before the ending sequence at the end of the highway. During the sector 7 plate fall scenario, every named NPC we meet in the earlier chapters just happened to survive. Compared to the original, where it was implied that basically no one (other than Aerith and Marlene) got out in time. The scenario in Remake doesn't make the player feel any sense of loss. And so it felt much less tragic than it did in the original, despite Remake having much more powerful visuals and sound in it's toolbox to convey a sense of loss. Wedge survives the platefall (twice), only to be killed later on (maybe?) because the whispers are inconsistent plot devices. They revive Barret instantly, yet allow Wedge to live for a whole extra day before trying to kill him again. Biggs died at the pillar, but is apparently alive in another reality. Jessie is the only character not shown to survive, but they show us her headband/glove in the ending cutscene to keep people guessing. Teasing a possibility that she might be alive similar to Biggs. Whereas in the original there was no question about her fate. But tropes like these are just 10x worse when used in a story like FF7 which was originally about the finality of death and the preciousness of life. Now if others are not bothered by this and are still hyped for the rest of the FF7R series the story that's great. I am happy for people who are still enjoying Square Enix's wild ride. I'm just personally not on board with this storytelling approach. I hope the trilogy ends in a satisfactory way for all of those who are still invested.

Man what a breath of fresh air to hear some one spitting so much facts.. People need to stop defending this crappy writing.. it's so bad, all I ever hear is people justifying it by saying it's a 3 parter .. thats what they said after part 1 and after part 3 they will say to wait until the dlc and then after the dlc they'll say we gotta watch the anime thats coming out soon, then they'll say wait until the Advent Children video game is released 5 years from now in order to be able to fully critique it. I gave the story a chance for part 1 and now 2 and its only getting worse.. I have no problem with them changing the story if it would have been for the better but square has not done that. They set up that fate can change but nothing actually changes.. the same things happen but in worse ways than the OG.The pacing the tone the stakes everything was done better in the OG..and I never even played the OG back in the day.. i'm not even a die hard fan of the OG but the remakes are objectively worse. They bring back Biggs and Wedge back just to die randomly later in an unceremonious way.. They keep on spoiling the story so that there is no mystery.. They show Cait in Reeves office .. They show Barret chasing after Dyne and Marlene even flat out tells you that Aerith is going to die.. They don''t explain shit in this game either.. I don't think any new ff7 player even realized that Sephiroth was caressing jenovas body part in the boat fight because cloud and the gang never talk about what happens and act like it was nothing. Aerith's death ruined by multiverse crap and an hour long boss rush Don't even get me started on the mini games and the "open world" The one thing I don't get is how on earth can someone say that FF7 was one of their most favorite games of all time and at the same time call this crap a genuine "masterpiece". Are they lying when they say ff7 was that good or what.. Because if they did this to my favorite final fantasy, which is FFX and changed it like this i'd be incredibly disappointed and infuriated. I have no doubt in my mind that in another 15 years when people get over their recency bias, people will look back at these remakes and say " what the hell were they thinking?"

you give both the creators and the fans of the remake fans too much credit and respect by engaging with them on this level love you king thank you for all your work

I'd have a lot more respect for Remake/Rebirth fans (and the developers) if they would stop engaging in historical revisionism. If they would just be honest and say: "this is a different version of FFVII which has alternate universes and destiny stuff added in." This would make it easier for us detractors to ignore the 7R trilogy and go back to loving the OG. Bending over backwards to try and argue that these things somehow existed in the OG is actually worse and only serves to make Remake fans look deceitful and desperate. The "Lifestream scene" wherein we learn about Cloud's past and false memories was not a real, "alternate world"--it was happening IN CLOUD AND TIFA'S HEADS. Because they had fallen into the Lifestream, their minds were connected, allowing Tifa to see Cloud's memories and reconcile her (correct) ones with his (fake ones). The reason why Cloud's memories were fake is because he didn't fully remember everything and he was filling in the gaps with Zack's memories. More crucially though, the events which take place in the Lifestream scene did not TANGIBLY AFFECT "the real world"--they only affected Cloud and Tifa's PSYCHES; nothing that happened in the Lifestream scene was PHYSICALLY transferred over to the real world when Cloud and Tifa woke up. This is VERY different in Rebirth. The scene where Aerith-B hands Cloud-A the White Materia so that he can take it back to World-A CLEARLY establishes that these alternate worlds are REAL, TANGIBLE PLACES; not mere visions/hallucinations in the Lifestream. This means that there are theoretically infinite versions of the characters which can be transferred from these alternate worlds to the main worlds. Furthermore, these alternate worlds we see in Rebirth still SERVE THE SAME PURPOSE IN THE STORY that alternate universes do in multiverse stories: they exist to show multiple different versions of the characters in a variety of different scenarios (e.g., the "main" scenario and the ""What if?" scenarios)--they are corporeal places which spring into existence whenever someone/something hits a fork in the road of the series' timeline, leading to different outcomes of events. It is FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL to how the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (multiverse theory) works in other works of fiction. Saying: "it's not a multiverse because it's in the Lifestream" is like saying: "Star Wars doesn't have magic; it's the Force." The names make no difference; they still serve the exact same FUNCTION IN THE STORY. This is one of the things that aggravates me most about FF7R fans--they aren't actually engaging with the UNDERLYING PREMISES of critics' arguments. Instead, they're just pedantically nitpicking the DEFINITIONS of WORDS; not getting to the meat of the discussion. (e.g., "It's a remake, not a remaster," blah blah blah). In this case, the meat of the discussion is the following question: "Do these new plot devices and mysteries (e.g., Zack's new role, the alternate worlds, Sephiroth's plan to destroy them and fuse together a new world which he can rule over) MAKE THE STORY BETTER?" In my personal opinion, the answer is "no," for two reasons: 1) Adding a literal multiverse to a story based on an extremely liberal and unusual interpretation of one scene is a terrible way to write stories. The interpretation of the OG's Lifestream scene as some kind of alternate world flies right in the face of Occam's razor, and it would make for the most contrived and torturously forced retcon I have ever seen in fiction. And you can tell that it's a retcon because there's no way in hell that the Lifestream in the OG could control the spacetime continuum or create alternate worlds. If it could, then why the hell didn't Sephiroth mention it? Why didn't he find out about them after he was thrown into the Lifestream in the Mako Reactor at Nibelheim? Doesn't that seem like something that would have been important to factor into his plan (or at the very least mention)? 2) Storytelling is about CONFLICT: if you want the audience to care about your story and characters, you need to establish what can or cannot happen in that story's world; you need establish that the odds are stacked against the heroes, and that bad things will happen if they don't succeed in their mission. The OG succeeded in doing this for a simple reason: Holy was the ONLY spell that could stop Sephiroth's meteor; the game went out of its way to establish that no amount of any other kind of magic could possibly work (not even crashing Cid's rocket into it made a difference). However, JENOViroth were blocking Holy at the Northern Cave, and so the heroes had to find a way of defeating them ASAP so that Holy would work. No to mention, there were no alternate worlds to speak of either (there was only ONE version of each character; they were unique, and so we still cared whether they lived or died). FF7R's new story additions/lore changes rob me of any reason to me care about what the characters are fighting over: 1) You can't tell an emotional story about life and death when there is a repository of replacement characters in the Lifestream. 2) You can't depict a riveting, high-stakes conflict about "saving the planet from destruction" when the planet itself is an omnipotent cop-out which can arbitrarily do whatever the writers arbitrarily want it to with no warning. E.g., Making up new Lifestream powers like the Whispers resurrecting Barret (if Lifestream magic can resurrect the dead then where is the "Resurrect" materia?), altering the spacetime continuum, changing how the Black and White Materia work with no explanation, etc.). 3) You can't tell an immersive story when the writers are constantly making their presence known-by changing the rules of how the world operates and forcing the characters to behave in ways which are out-of-character for the sake of the plot (e.g., the heroes fighting the planet-protecting whispers only moments after Sephiroth-who wants to destroy the planet-taunted them to do so). Over the past few years, it has become clear to me that the writers at CBU1 (Nomura, Nojima, Toriyama and Kitase) have absolutely no idea how stakes and conflict work. They seem to think that, if you just throw characters into huge, spectacular and unexpected battle scenes and you don't know what's going to happen or what's going on, then that *somehow* equates to "high stakes and conflict." It doesn't. As I explained in Section 8 of my video, LIMITATIONS are how you create stakes-you have to TRAP the characters in tight circumstances wherein they have limited options and limited time in which to succeed. E.g., in Osmosis Jones: - The hero, Ozzy, is pliable and can bend his body into any shape. His partner, Drix, has an arm cannon. - Thrax, the villain, uses his claw to steal a nucleotide from Frank's hypothalamus, which results in Frank being taken to the hospital with a life-threatening fever. His daughter. Shane, watches over him in the hospital (and she happens to be wearing false eyelashes). - Thrax escapes from Frank with the nucleotide. It seems as though all hope is lost. - But Ozzy does some quick-thinking, remembers that he is pliable, and tells Drix to fire him out of his arm-cannon after Thrax. He does, and both Ozzy and Thrax end up landing in Shane's eye. - Ozzy then uses his pliability to trick Thrax into getting his claw stuck in Shane's false eyelash, which then falls into a beaker of rubbing alcohol where Thrax dissolves. - Ozzy remains on Shane's real eyelashes, and when she cries over her nearly-dead father, he rides one of her tears back to Frank with the nucleotide so that they can save Frank's life, just in the nick of time. Simply put: fictional conflicts are only entertaining if the audience knows what the combatting parties can/cannot do AND--crucially--what they are VULNERABLE to. To quote Predator: "If it bleeds, we can kill it." FF7R utterly fails to do this because we have absolutely no idea what the Planet and/or JENOViroth can/cannot do or what either is vulnerable to. Someone needs to translate Brandon Sanderson's laws for magic systems into Japanese (if they haven't already). The Remake trilogy might have been SO MUCH BETTER if Nojima and co. had read it before they started putting words to paper. Also: the transition at 8:15 was perfect!

FYI: the lifestream never had a connection to other timelines or anything like that. That was a retcon from a novel and I don’t care about what other people say is canon, it’s not. It’s a retcon forced into a story with a lore that doesn’t support it.

I heard someone say they love that the remake wasn't a 1:1 remake because they liked not knowijg what was gonna happen, which is fair... but they went on to say they already played the original and don't want to play it again... Kinda sounds like the original wasn't that special to them. My favorite games and movies I go back to over and over again because I love how they make me feel, whether it's the gameplay or story. When someone "remakes" that thing and makes changes, then it's no longer the thing I loved.

Considering multiple things in media nowadays relies on the multiverse The concept loses its value For example if the character dies in the original game they can have a happy ever after inside another universe and Vice versa to that Universe as well In a nutshell it's mainly a lazy plot device in case Backlash to a story decision Gets 2 Out of hand Love your videos dude always look forward on your takes on FF7 and final fantasy in general 😎👊👊

An aspect of multiverse which remains unexplored is the impact of its mere existence on the characters. If I knew about millions and trillions versions of myself I would develop an identity crisis. Imagine the type of conflict and drama this could inject in the story.

This is just my opinion, but I feel the weight of business decisions are impacting this game more than anyone is willing to admit. Like a drug dealer, they're chopping up the source material to allow them to sell much, much more. This multiverse pivot is the same thing diluting Marvel IPs. After so long, it gets old...and they're just willing to ride that into the ground so long as people pay for it, but at what cost?

agreed, they need to hire better writers as well, both noct and cloud loudly groan in womens faces but all women cant pick up on body language apparently (according to square writing team) and love them for some reason, charters just turn all meta n cryptic and no one questions it! or follows up on it this game is ff7 kh edition, got to play the original, the spin offs watch a movie, find some translations for some terrible "novels" (poem more like) and play the mobile gacha game....... we have entered namura territory lmao imagine a world where they did a actual remake instead of this nonsense, (would have sold way better, look at resi 4) i see this and the impending kh4 flop to sink square for good, they nearly did when namura took 13 years on ffxv, but somehow he still gainfully employed and why cant they add combo modifiers? cloud doing the same 6 hit combo for 160 hours now 🤦🏽🤣

they shouldn't have done this in the first place ugh

god i hate multiverse trope

I'm gonna paste this conversation I had about the topic of FFVII Remake Project's world: Me: Apparently in regards to FFVII Rebirth, Toriyama thinks the structure of the world will become clear in the third game. Brother: WAIT! Are you heading into the 3rd act of a story not knowing how the world works? Me: Yeah, pretty much. Brother: That is so dumb. Me: I find it funny that the more info we get from the Ultimania. The more I see people upset it contradicts their favorite theories. Brother: Is that what matters more than the baseline rules of the game's world? Me: Remake project lives off of theories. Brother: How long were Remake & Rebirth? Me: 66-80 hours together for the story. Brother: AND YOU DON"T KNOW HOW THE WORLD FUNCTIONS? Me: Thought I did, then Rebirth happened.

Every single multiverse story in existence is garbage and for a clear reason. I will absolutely never understand why they did go down that route. There was nothing to gain or explore that way and they lost everything. Idc, if there is actually people liking this style of storytelling in general, it's just plain heartbreaking one of the greatest videogames and stories had to be ruthlessly disfigured and desecrated this way. By it's own creators nonetheless, how mental is that. And just to trump it all, they literally bait people into playing a malevolent and immoral gacha game by sprinkling it with story bits. It was all for greed they sacrificed this legacy.

The way alternate timelines/universes/multiverses are done now is terrible and is more used for "hey lets bring this character everyone likes back." these days. Back in the day alternate universes had a good stake, for example some Stargate stories. These explore scenarios where earth makes very different decisions that have moral implications in their worlds. Or SG1 has to fix something the bad guy changed. Star Trek did the same. The issue with FFFRemake+sequels is the writers are doing what I call the ''Marvel' method of writing. Where they are looking to make moments fans get excited and have theories, then they decide to write based on the popular Theories. It's the Japanese version though. It comes off as too fanfiction-y, and I liked the remakes but also see their problems.

These games take place in an alternate reality where everyone looks and sounds like a cringe-worthy cosplayer version of themselves.

While I love getting your take on this there's a part of me that thinks it's not even worth humoring this mindset. "Not a multiverse" is becoming the modern "Squall is dead". For those who don't know most corners of the FF fandom openly and rightfully ridicule people who believe in the "Squall is dead" theory as it's become short-hand for needless and insipid theory crafting conceived from a lack of media literacy. And if you take them seriously then they would suggest their respective games' plot are ultimately a Jacob's Ladder scenario which is an even harder concept to pull off without the proper writing chops. I'm not even someone who is completely against parallel realities as a plot device, I think they can be fun but I openly acknowledge the narrative pitfalls it creates. I think you hit the nail on the head pointing out that it's less about there being alternate realities at all and more about how it dilutes the original story. FF'97's story is TOO important to be using this crap. You bring up some interesting film examples but I feel like there is a much more famous example that you can apply the same pedantic arguments 7R fans use and yet it would still qualify as one of the most objective examples of "alternate universe" in the history of film. The 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. You could make the case that George Bailey is deriving these "what if" scenarios from the flawed memories of his own life and in this case the stand-in for what people call the "lifestream" is a little thing called "heaven". However if what he experienced within his moment of despair was in fact "all in his head" then it becomes less powerful since "heaven" as a concept is meant to be aspirational within the logic of the film. The story makes not only heaven aspirational but living as well. Life and death. The story made its point with only two realities and that's difficult enough to pull off in fiction. What some people don't seem to understand is that a multiverse doesn't HAVE to be infinite, having even a handful is already complicating your narrative immensely so if your writing is bad it becomes very noticeable. I often see people talk about 7R being too "anime" but really I think that mainly applies to the way action is directed. Feels like a lot of principles you would use for sakuga applied to video game cutscenes. The bigger issue to me is that it's very comic book. Classically mainstream comic books have relied on recycling legacy characters that they own throughout the decades almost as a proving ground for up and coming writers. That's why they love using time-travel, multiverse, and universally reboots. Weirdly enough there is some merit to this style as more often than not the best characters stories...aren't written or drawn by the creators of said character and that becomes somewhat perilous to navigate when corporate ownership is involved. Anime/manga tends to be self-contained one and done tales (at least the good ones are) and because of that they have their own kind of complicated publishing hurdles to contend with due to that bespoke nature. Because of that writing style manga sales have been stomping a mud hole in western comics purely because you can often start a series from chapter one and expect an ending point most of the time, as opposed to deciding whether you should jump into Spider-Man on issue #181 or #237 or if the next 7 years of new issues will even be worth it? Should you jump into FF7 on the '97 original or Rebirth or should Crisis Core be the first thing? Should I look up videos of First Soldier just so I know something extra super secret that only our super secret club of fans know about? I've recently had this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that they're going to call the 3rd game FFVII: Revival. The idea being to hint at those Aerith revival rumors from back in the day. And hey maybe they'll be tasteless enough to make a side mission where you defeat a magical (game) shark so you can recruit her lifestream hologram to fight with you to the end. But of course that will be a bait and switch like everything else they've done and she'll still sacrifice her hologram body to stop Sephiroth from making time stream taffy or whatever he's doing. And the devs will be like "We meant it as a jumping off point for the 'revival' of FF7 as a brand." So get ready for Advent Children: The Movie: The Game, get ready for Before Crisis: Remind, get ready for Rougelite of Cerberus, get ready for Dissidia 7R. Would 7R fans have the right to complain after spending the last 4 years praising the subversive/deceptive use of the title "Remake"?

Wish more people would see this video

The tension between Remake and the OG is the tension between grounded storytelling versus melodrama. You know those eighties US soaps and dramas where characters came back from the dead, parts of what happened for whole series were dismissed as dreams, the fourth wall broke down, the characters were having visions of the supernatural etc etc? That's what Remake is. Remake is the _St. Elsewhere_ or _Dallas_ of Final Fantasy. This, combined with the apparently total narrative constipation of Nomura, Noijma and Kitase, is why I would not at all be surprised if at the end of the Remake trilogy, everything that happened is revealed to have been a dream of Vincent while he hibernates in his coffin.

They did this shit it kingdom hearts too. Characters would "die" and be brought back by bullshit ways.

I rather play dirge of cerberus and crisis core than the remake/rebirth games.

Square have been ruining the story of FF7 long before Rebirth. The compilation have been making retcons and additions that have not enhanced the story in any way but only taken away from it. Genesis is a terrible, awful character whose entire personality is quoting some stupid play yet was retconned into the Nibelheim reactor where apparently he was the one to send Sephiroth on the path to losing his mind. We know what really happened in Nibelheim but Crisis Core just says no, this is what REALLY happened. In Advent Children, not only are there clones of Sephiroth but he comes back too despite being beaten by Cloud in the Lifestream at the end of OG. Rufus is still alive even though he shouldn't be. They just pulled some BS excuse that there was a hidden bunker or something under his desk? Yeah except we saw him engulfed in flames during the attack on Midgar and he would not have possibly had time to take cover. Rebirth is just the latest entry that retcons, changes and takes away from the story of OG FF7 because Square knows that they can milk this just because it is FF7.

Exactly the title. That also kinda ruined Bioshock Infinite. Here I'm loving the game, story a bit confusing but who cares, until Elisabeth goes nuclear on me. In all these universes, apparently there were not a single good Comstock, but who cares, Elisabeth kills all the versions and herself. Don't get me started about the DLC, burial at sea.

This game was doomed from the botched part 1. I rather play the original for another 50 years then put one hour in this trash

I skipped rebirth. I can’t take how they butchered the story.

It's a multiverse, because the original concept of death, with this change, there will be no consequences. Zack and Aerith are alive and coming to the last part of the demake project, to make the "happy ending"

I really wish I knew how to explain it but the remake/rebirth games just don't 'feel' right. There is just no natural emotion in the environments, no atmosphere. Even the music doesn't produce the same 'atmosphere' as the simple original arrangements did. Every scene just feels generic. I don't feel awe, wonder, discomfort, excitement in any of the environments they jut lack personality. I wish someone more intelligent and poetic could explain this on my behalf better.

If you want a good multiverse story, I recommend Black Science by Rick Remender. It's a comic that takes the concept to it's absolute limit, has real stakes, and nuanced characters.

i have a feeling that ff7r writer are trying to copy attack on titan "paths" or "attack titan" abilities to show memories through space and time this is very apparent when sephiroth said "this landscape, i could've sworn I've seen it before", implying sephiroth from "future/alternate verse" sending that memories to sephiroth in "ff7r verse" using lifestream and also the weird reaction from aerith when she touched the water in "gi" land, and the zack/cloud stuff yada yada so now "lifestream" in ff7r = "paths" from attack on titan if that were the case, I'd hate it even more, why the writer trying to copy a plot points from popular series? they have no confidence the series would sell if they just stick to original?

7:30 Zero Escape confirmed as a justifiable canonical sequel to the Titanic movie, rose SHIFTed to another world with the morphogenetic field to escape death of old age Zero escape is a good example of many worlds working, but as you say, "a story built around that premise" can work.

THE RISING STAR HAS DROPPED AGAIN!! Hell yeah, man, it's always a pleasure to hear what you have to say on these topics!

And this is a demonstration of a perfect example of why i fundementally dont like comic book multiverses, my setting has a multiverse but it's Neither parallel realities or timelines instead its a cluster of a good couple thousands of universes (far from infinite but still beyond the abilities for an average Person to comprehend) and heres the big twist crossing universes isn't just a rare event thst has ome off implications and shows multiple versions of characters its a commonality to the point that its considered in general 2nd Year Magic to learn about its existence and how to Cross to other universes and because of this major element of it being a commonality the multiverses genetic profile are such that duplicates are Rare and even if a Duplicate does occur genetically their experiences will be so radically different that its hard to even call them the same person much less interchangeable should one die because. And then Theirs the influence this commonality has on faction's for example theirs a cult that for a potion of time had complete influence in a good 10% of the multiverse until they're own actions caught up to them and they made their own undoing and then theirs the also the faction of scientists who created their own Universe and called it the nexus. Note that most stories I've concepted in my setting don't even dive into the multiverse angle of my setting unless their fully focused on magic and even then i like to portay perspective so from a perspective of someone in my setting when they're first told about or shown that they exist in a multiverse their first reaction is most frequently a mental breakdown

Lifestream livestream multiversuuuuruuuuu!!

What were they thinking? Multiverses are popular right now, via the transitive property if we have a multiverse people will like it. Squaresoft made works of art for a passionate fanbase. Square Enix makes products to generate revenue for shareholders.

"In [the eyes of many FF fans], it's utterly perplexing why we WOULDN'T want many worlds. 'Why have ONE version of a character when you can MANY? Why let dead characters join the Lifestream, when you can travel there with them; pull up a deck chair and crack open a couple of cold ones?'" I suspect there are two main reasons why these fans are so perplexed by our lack of interest in an FFVII multiverse. 1) They don't understand that, for us, "more" =/= "better." We value quality > quantity. We want BETTER content; not simply MORE. 2) For us, the thing we loved about the original FFVII was its high stakes and conflict--the feeling of being on the edge of our seats as we tried to stop Sephiroth from destroying the world. Many 7R fans don't care about this. They only care about either gameplay, surprises, or forming relationships with the characters, and couldn't care less if the story has little-no conflict worth getting invested in. I've seen a lot of FF7R trilogy fans say that they don't care about Sephiroth's plan to destroy the alternate worlds and fuse the remains together, but they still enjoy the trilogy because of its character interactions, battle system, and/or because "not knowing what will happen is exciting". Well for me, the original game's conflict about Sephiroth trying to destroy the planet while the heroes fought to save it is what I loved most. FF7R has so greatly (and pretentiously) over-convoluted that conflict with alternate worlds and new interdimensional/Lifestream powers that I cannot remain emotionally invested in it. And since that trumps all other concerns I have, the 7R trilogy is of no value to me.

Adding to the Titanic tangent, it would have still sank no matter where it went because of the passengers aboard who opposed the Federal Reserve's creation, this tragedy was inevitable.

Hey Orion, I've been watching your videos more lately as i really enjoyed your rebirth video it really opened my perspective on the game i come from a different position than most people who played the og when it came out as i was a freshman when remake was going to drop but i had played the og before the hame came out and i was young and didn't really know why i liked the things i liked i just consumed cause i was looking for something special and FF was that and remake helped me a lot during covid and my growth as a person but i wasnt to experienced with the story. but when i beat the game i was so excited to see locations remade but it was quite a long wait so id just keep replaying the og and played all of squares games like FF just so i could become a fan of the series and i grew such a connection with the original game and games VII-X but i still hadn't knew why i was just feeling emotions but i thought if the og was this great and remake has the potential to be better than the original in terms of the locations and atmosphere and i remember watching a lot of theory videos and a lot of max that got me even more excited and i was like that for 3 years so i had a big attachment with remake and the team behind it as i look up to them and was quite open to the changes and in a way still am. And was super eager leading up to the games launch and even had the opportunity to meet naoki hamaguchi and a lot of voices to the characters and those are experiences ill never forget so i have the emotional attachment to the team and staff behind the game but during the wait last year for rebirth i really began asking why i loved FFVII to begin with and i finally found my answer and it was the story and the themes and the dark atmosphere which was something i could take everywhere in my life so maybe i had made a mistake for realizing i loved when ffvii was about a compelling story and world and possibly getting overhyped by theories of things that realistically couldn't have been true maybe it was both but the only way ti find out was by playing the game and i had so many experiences leading up to this games launch When the game came out and i remember liking it when i played it but something just felt off about the experience and i wasnt sure why and i love knowing why i feel the way i do that resolution in myself gives me so much passion to like sometimes so i kept asking myself about rebirth and letting that thought sit and i found just some choices in game design and story and music that just didn't have weight as to why they were the way they were and there was also somethings that i loved about fleshing out the characters more and game design choices but part of the reason i love the og was the dark and unsettling theme of death and in the og that reflected everything in the music and locations and i wasnt getting that in Rebirth everything was to happy and party like and it felt off for me but i love getting other peoples opinions from both sides as i love discussing FF games and i really saw a lot of perspectives but majority of them from both sides didn't really attack the reasons as to why something was bad or good and there wasn't any form of discussion just hating on each other. for the longest time it was just the normal thing to assume people who wanted a faithful remake where bad people and i never really questioned why but seeing your videos and how much you understand and explain things for why you didn't find the games good really made me rethink why people thought purists are bad and i just feel from both sides everything just comes from hate but i just love discussing opinions about the game and you opened my perspective not to immediately discount a opinion just because its unpopular and i also noticed people are just out for blood if you disliked the remakes and i just never understood why. and i noticed majority of the big names in the fandom didn't really take the story as serious as i thought i did and they were just wanting to feel hype and emotions and not question why and all the power to them but i used to feel that when i first got into FF but i just found a reason why i liked the series so i was at odds seeing people not care not question just consume and call every decisions amazing maybe its just the honeymoon phase as i certainly had one but i kept thinking what made me feel a little dissatisfied and thats something after a lot of thought i think I'm less optimistic about the final game and if it'll deliver which im at a conflict because i love ffvii and the team behind it but i cant help but feel skeptical especially with a lot of the choices they made but also at the same time i want the best for the series and a reason why im so pretentious about FF is cause i love it so much i want the best for it but at the same time i think its best to have lower expectations next time so thayf if the last game manages to work then ill enjoy it there's a lot of small things i could yap about but ive already gone on long enough i just wanted to express my opinion and gratitude for your videos and your analysis on the games and i also am not looking for hate but just stating a opinion and my opinion may change in time thanks for reading this long yap of mine

Loved this, thanks. I feel like these worlds are within the lifestream and are akin to “Dream Zanarkands” with the souls who could not merge w/ lifestream acting as the “fayth”. I think OG already happened, humans maybe didn’t survive post-DoC, and there’s is still a lot of hatred in the lifestream, which Aerith is trying to continuously clean up. But something happens at the opening of remake. She looks so dazed and confused, almost as if she can’t believe she’s alive. I think something glitched in the lifestream matrix because of you know who, and the dream became real. And now its a countdown to get all these “dreams” to stop becoming Sephy tainted, and also becoming real…because if everything is real, nothing is real, just chaos, and Sephiroth wants to absorb it. How do certain dreams of lifestream get made real? Yeah, I guess Seph went on a dinner date with Yu Yevon, who still doesn’t know wtf happened with that Tidus kid.

I hate (.)7 'remake" and I hate this game. I really hate the people that like this game.

I avoided playing remake until recently, I heard about the story changes and that was enough, I didn’t want to play it. Since the original is one of my favorite games I figured I’d at least see give it a chance. To my surprise I’m enjoying it more than I expected, I can see the potential of what the project could have been. A large part of my enjoyment comes from recognizing places, music and characters from the original, those things have an impact on me, but what about a newcomer? The locations, music and characters don’t mean anything to them. If I was to recommend ff7 to my brother who has never experienced it before, I couldn’t recommend remake because it’s a different experience entirely. Remake does more things right than I expected it would, I just can’t get past the story changes.

Mario better have some sort of 3D power up in this game. And also I hope the Bowser Boss battles are actually good. They need to have Bowser Jr and the Koopalings but make the fights good

I enjoyed these games a lot. I loved the character interactions, the graphics, the enhanced, notalgic music the gameplay itself. Revisiting these places as I imagined them to look in real life is an amazing experience. The characters look glorious and the voice acting is superb, but it's pretty clear Square pretty much stepped into the same trap as all the rest of the reboots/remakes...cheesy commercialism, useless fan service and too much Sephiroth...TOO MUCH SEPHIROTH! Every time they don't know what to do the reintroduce him.

Even if its comes from the lifestream and we are seeing multiple outcomes before a final reality manifests/ merges whatever. If all these outcomes have a possible probability of existing.... its still a multiverse/ timeline story even if its from the same source ( lifestream). It doesnt need a full fledged universe and planet for each one. You need to understand Schrodinger cat thing. We're seeing multiple possible outcomes/ possibilities. Would you prefer "timelines" as a descriptor word? perhaps I dont know. If the lifestream is the blueprint machine for physical reality that it will conclude with.... it doesnt mean it's not multiverse. Or would you say its not multiverse but generating possibilities for the final reality? So..... its not multiverse story..... its a blueprint making story for a final physical reality? thats not much of a difference. We're seeing multiple outcomes/ possibilities where it originates from is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if its in the lifestream or not. The final reality when it merges of these events in the third game doesnt matter where its source is. It does not matter if its the lifestream not at all. "Multiverse" doesnt mean an established universe that you have have to go through a wormhole in space to get to. Like taking a vacation that's on another planet lifestream etc. Again the source of the game's events ( lifestream) doesnt matter.

When Sephiroth said that line "join me, let us defy destiny together", I was actually hoping they were trying to go for a redemption arc for Sephiroth and he would team up with Cloud & Co. to defeat Jenova together, assuming Sephiroth was under the control of Jenova and wanted to break free and save the world for real and not become a God/vessel. maybe even meet his REAL mother (Lucrecia) and gain more insight from Vincent Valentine as he was freaking there when he was conceived... What a wasted potential that would have been, at least then there would not be a Marvel Multiverse of Madness thrown onto us from left field and the story would be a bit different but more contained within the same universe! Honestly, I forgot Biggs survived thanks to the Whispers and then I busted out laughing when he was killed AGAIN mid-speech! By the time the ending arrived, I was thuroughly confused and disappointed. I'll probably just watched the cutscenes of the 3rd Finale rather than play it because it's certainly not worth my time or effort when so much as changed :(

I like multiverses that are inherent to the setting like in Planescape Torment and such. But when games (or stories in general) throw multiverse crap in the mix, it only makes a turd sandwich a forth dimensional quantum turd sandwich, which happens to taste like shit beyond time and space.

First :)

Okay so here's my take on the whole thing. You've already talked about how the nature of loss is a core theme of FFVII, and I agree with this, but as far as people in OG FFVII just being gone after they die, I think the ending of the OG contradicts that claim. I mean, the closing images of the game very heavily imply that Aerith is still around in some compacity. We see her hand reaching out to Cloud in an attempt to save him, after he has defeated Sephiroth. Now, maybe you could say that this was just a hallucination in Cloud's mind. Later though, the scene of Meteor's destruction heavily implies that it is in fact Aerith who is controlling the lifestream from beyond the grave, and using it to save the planet. So if it's true that people who die really are just gone...how did she do this? For that matter, how did the lingering wills of the Cetra remain in the Temple of Ancients, even after thousands of years? How did the soul of Elmyra's husband attempt to come and visit her after his death? (Aerith confirms that his soul came a long way to see her in the OG) There are several examples in the OG which seem to confirm that death is not really the end in FFVII. While we are told that the conciousnesses of the dead will eventually dissolve and join with the lifestream, there does seem to be an unknown period of time where the souls of the dead continue to linger, even after death. Aerith is still around by the end of OG. It's just that her ability to interact with the physical world is more limited than when she was alive. The same seems to be true in Rebirth. She's able to interact with Cloud to some degree because of everything going on with him, but she's unable to directly interact with characters like Red, Yuffie, or Tifa. Her friends are suffering from the pain of her loss, and Aerith is unable to comfort them. So her death does still have consequence. There are things she could do while alive that she is simply incapable of doing now that she is dead. Her spirit may still be around, but things will never be the same for her, or the party, ever again. Personally, the nature of how life and death actually works in this world is something that I've always been very curious about, and I've always wanted to explore how the lifestream works in more depth. I feel this way about a lot of things in the OG actually. In my multiple playthroughs of the OG, I've always found myself thinking things like "I love this idea, but I wish we could explore it more.", or "This character is great! I wish we had more time to really go into what makes them tick." The FFVII Remake Project allows us to re-experience the core narrative of FFVII, while also expanding on that narrative, and exploring the themes, characters, and concepts of the OG in greater detail. For me personally, that is an incredibly exciting prospect. Now of course, I won't truly know how I feel about the results until part 3 finally comes out, but for the moment at least, I find myself very satisfied with how this world and these characters have been expanded. For people who adopt a "less is more" mindset when it comes to FFVII, or simply aren't interested in the same things that I am, then yeah, the prospect of an FFVII deep dive doesn't hold much appeal. It just feels like an overcomplication of something that they saw as at least damn near close to perfect already. I get that, but for me, someone who really did want a better understanding on the mechanics of the lifestream, on the nature of life and death in this world, on the characters, the struggles they face, and how they individually deal with loss, this project really is shaping up to be a dream come true.

I definitely hope it lands with a perfect 10x10.

I feel like I'm missing context for this video, I'm not sure I understand why you're asking whether multiple worlds are compatible with the original FFVII or not. I don't see why that question matters. The remake trilogy is its own thing that doesn't have to tell the story the exact same way as the original. I don't think the issue is that multiple worlds isn't compatible with the original. The more meaningful criticism that I think you're getting at is that multiple worlds don't do anything to meaningfully expand on the themes of the original or make them more accessible to a new and broader audience. I think it's better to regard the remake trilogy as being in conversation with the original, not being a megaphone for it. We should criticize it not for being unfaithful but for being a poor conversationalist. The remake trilogy's biggest "sin," if you want to call it that, is that it's obsessed with the original but has nothing interesting or emotional to say about it, treating it instead as a checklist of characters, events, and gameplay.

Aerith's consciousness or spirit at least was always still maintained in some way within the lifestream after her death and that's an absolute fact of the OG game and we are shown multiple times including at the end. The Lifestream in FF7 is functionally similar to The Force in Star Wars. I don't know with certainty what will happen in part 3 but I remain convinced that this isn't a sequel but a remake it is an expansion in breadth and depth of the original in every direction. I am pretty sure that the ending will differ in that as the ending in OG 7 was the Bad ending the ending in Remake 3 will be the true/good ending (or perhaps have multiple endings but I doubt it.) in that all the characters and themes that would have lead to Advent Children and Dirge will be brought up and resolved in Part 3 of remake thus making those entries not Really happen in the true canon of events.

This video is kind of weird because he’s started out with fans are making their own assertions into the plot of rebirth when he made his own assertions on the plot of the original game stuff that was never confirmed like dyne house and the grave of his wife and daughter, which I need to really say this are never confirmed. These are things that you can only really assume on a context clues basis much like the same with the people making assertions that it’s not timelines or Multiverse

In OG, there 'is' communication between Cloud and Aerith after she's murdered, same as in Advent Children. This comunication between those still in the flesh and those not in the flesh also happens in reality. Also if you think of multi-universes as multiple dimensions, then it doesnt seem that farfetched. In quantum physics, there is no space or time, meaning that everything is happening consecutively all at once. Thinking of it this way, seems that reality itself is nothing but a dream, or illusion.

Personally I think Aerith is dead but Cloud is in denial. It'll definitely make for some interesting exploration in the third game.

Love the remake project and what they are doing here. Brought the characters to life, combat to another level and whole game as it was meant to be. Bravo 🙌

if you watch The Matrix or Nightmare on elm street you should understand Rebirth and its not changing ff7 more than AC did. bottom line just like the movies i said main character goes asleep he ends up in a dream world when he wakes up, he is back in real/main world. side character has the power to make copies of himself in the dream world just like Agent smith and Zack. its not that hard to understand and anyone who had a dream knows much crazier things goes on then that. og had you going to that dream world in the lifestream sequence. the truth is you found out rebirth didnt go off track but you who caims to be a fan never understood og past cloud seph and their swords. if i said i was a big fan of matrix then said i hate all the timeline multiverse stuff in it you wont say i really wasnt a fan of matrix at all im confused

This guy is on a crusade against ff7 demake lol. Im so glad i never liked ff7 or i would be ultra depressed with this woke clusterfuck of a game. The combat system could work on a new FF though. Not as great as ff12 imo.

It is indeed a masterpiece, and anyone who understands multi-dimensional realities recognizes it as such. Even in reality, we live in a mutli-dimensionall world. Fairies are real, gnomes are real. It's not just an Irish fairiy tale. Other worlds exist within worlds.

players just don't get it. we do not care if it is a multiverse. all we care was to SEE more of these characters. more of the back stories, the lost, and suffering, joy, and happiness. who cares if there are mulitple timelines. we wanted to see more of Zack and Aerith. if they are dead at the end and happy at the end of part 3. and a dlc that brings them back to life, we will love it.

I really feel bad for players that write this story off as "just another multiverse mess". It clearly seems that you're not willing to give it a chance, even though you really don't know where this is going. Besides, it's not like the stories in this franchise are always straightforward (the only exception being FF1). The one gripe that I have with this project is that they throw too much at the end and that leaves you with thoughts like the ones on this comment section. I'll gladly wait to see how these same storytellers amaze me the same way they did back in 97.

There's evidence that the founder of Shinra traveled from FFX-2 to FF7 world timeline. Likely via the Lifestream, [called Farplane in FFX-2]. In FF7 Remake there's a monochrome photo in the Shinra headquarters showing a group of employees in front of a Shinra factory. Sitting front-and-center is a man wearing a similar mask to that worn by the Al Bhed named 'Shinra' from Final Fantasy X-2.

I've seen it all as well coming from what I call the purist fans who refuse to take off their nostalgia goggles. It's okay to have nostalgia for something and even to love it for what it is... My personal opinion is I genuinely appreciate the additions they made and for me and many others this game is a masterpiece. They did not change the core of the story or the characters... and without it I would not have been able to go through this game with the sense of curiosity and wonder that I did back in 1997. A 1:1 remake would've been great don't get me wrong, but extremely predictable and boring... I understand that change can be a little off-putting for those who grew up playing the OG and have a lot of sentimental value attached to its story, and that’s fine, but there’s some people out there who have turned to storming the internet with so much hateful rhetoric towards the remake project and its fans to the point where they are actively dissuading people from playing it or enjoying it in the first place... and that is completely messed up.

Rebirth is so good. Grognards need to get over it lol

there is no multiverse

there's no multiverse, it's one planet and one lifestream with many memories. All worlds will be merged by Sephiroth, the stakes are even higher

MUH WORLDS AND SHIET remake is alr better than og

You talk trash about the remake project but cared enough to buy Rebirth. Your just shitting on the game for views at this moment.

This video and your entire opinion is objectively wrong.