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lol hell yeah, I love that kind of pedantic argument over whether something is mistranslated or not I do think his theory makes sense, though, and is similar to what I was thinking was going on. The only hole in it, for me, is Sephiroth's line about "when the boundaries of fate are breached, new worlds are born." But he also seems to imply that these new worlds are within or at least a part of the same Planet, meaning the same Lifestream, so  Honest Thief posted:I don't think it's literal vr but a metaphor, where it's all a dream but also all is real because of the nature of the lifestream, and we're all compressed into those seven seconds sefi said at the end of remake The "seven seconds" thing is such a great example because its explanation is actually in the game itself (the area where Cloud and Sephiroth have that conversation is a "vision of the world seven seconds before its end") but people didn't notice for a while. Although now that I type that out, having that place described as a "vision" seems to also support the "alternate realities are dreams of the Planet" hypothesis. Pollyanna posted:Yeah, I’m on team VR. Makes Sephiroth’s plan totally nonsensical but his new motivation is crap anyway, so whatever. To be fair it feels like his plan is totally nonsensical no matter what theory you subscribe to. Sephiroth just doesn't seem to make sense yet. I absolutely cannot figure out what he was trying to achieve at the end of Rebirth and if he succeeded or not, or what the hell the "confluence of worlds" was about at all. Harrow fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 14:33
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Harrow posted:I actually do like this read--the idea that the multiple worlds are there essentially as virtual spaces for souls to explore the choices they didn't get to make and come to accept their death. I know one theory I saw pointed out that Biggs seemed to die after realizing his role and accepting everything that's happened, which could mean that he passed on into the Lifestream, having accepted his own death. I didn't exactly post this but I ran with the purgatory idea in the previous thread triple sulk posted:This would be hilarious, though I'm pretty much behind the "Zack's in a purgatory-like state in the lifestream" theory for the time being. I'm wondering if the lack of a playable Cid and Vincent means we'll get a playable Zack or maybe even Biggs since I can't imagine that they only added two new playable characters in Red and Cait Sith, especially if Red had already been pseudo-implemented with animations and behavior from Remake. I was half right in that we got a playable Zack, if only for 20 minutes. The Biggs stuff felt pointless for how little time he was there unless if you look at it from either an acceptance angle or solely as a mechanism to justify timelines, but then it could have also been Jessie.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:40
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My theory on the vibe of Cloud's plot in Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSdfiVzmz50 With Ghost Nappa replaced with Ghost Aerith/Ghost Roche.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:40
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It's kinda bs square hide the best option behind a clear game save, the auto pick up materials
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Mar 13, 2024 14:43
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triple sulk posted:I didn't exactly post this but I ran with the purgatory idea in the previous thread It is plain wild they made a fleshed out playstyle both for Sephiroth and Zack but Cid and Vincent don't even do something like Red's assists from the end of Remake
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Mar 13, 2024 14:50
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Caidin posted:It is plain wild they made a fleshed out playstyle both for Sephiroth and Zack but Cid and Vincent don't even do something like Red's assists from the end of Remake With Vincent at least you get a whole boss fight against him.
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Mar 13, 2024 15:59
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That was a cool fight though. Good "oh poo poo" and "we can put you down, old man" moments.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:01
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Caidin posted:It is plain wild they made a fleshed out playstyle both for Sephiroth and Zack but Cid and Vincent don't even do something like Red's assists from the end of Remake Yeah, of the game's flaws, I'd say that's definitely one of them. He's even there at the end to help open the path for Cloud. Why not go with them?
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Mar 13, 2024 16:10
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triple sulk posted:Yeah, of the game's flaws, I'd say that's definitely one of them. He's even there at the end to help open the path for Cloud. Why not go with them? I think part of the honest answer is that they built the final dungeon around 2 teams of 3, which is also why Cait Sith sits it out despite being there in the original game.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:20
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Azubah posted:That was a cool fight though. Good "oh poo poo" and "we can put you down, old man" moments. I hope square knows I now demand fully destructable environments for Vincent to rampage through and weaponize. 
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Mar 13, 2024 16:23
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I'm (pleasantly) surprised by how many comments I'm seeing on ending-related videos, or final boss theme videos, from people who say this version of Aerith's death made them cry just as much as they did in 1997. I think that was a big part of the intent behind taking that scene in such a wildly different direction: even if the same thing ultimately happens, it still hits you like a sucker punch, and the game also does an excellent job selling just how shattered Cloud is. Assuming the "Aerith is dead and that's her ghost at the end and not an alternate reality alive version" read is correct, that final scene before the credits is absolutely heartbreaking, too. It hit me pretty hard the first time I saw it (since my immediate read was the "Aerith is a ghost" one), just seeing Cloud be so oblivious to what really happened and everyone around him being so devastated. The weird, unnatural way Cloud smiles at an Aerith that only he can see sitting by the side of the water is so unsettling, too.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:31
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Harrow posted:I'm (pleasantly) surprised by how many comments I'm seeing on ending-related videos, or final boss theme videos, from people who say this version of Aerith's death made them cry just as much as they did in 1997. I think that was a big part of the intent behind taking that scene in such a wildly different direction: even if the same thing ultimately happens, it still hits you like a sucker punch, and the game also does an excellent job selling just how shattered Cloud is. I think if nothing else spending like 100 hours with this version of Aerith is inherently going to connect people to her more than spending 15~ with her in the original.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:39
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ImpAtom posted:I think if nothing else spending like 100 hours with this version of Aerith is inherently going to connect people to her more than spending 15~ with her in the original. Oh absolutely. Even knowing it was coming I'm still really sad that she's gone. Well, "gone." I think it's obvious she will have screen time in part 3 but probably a lot less screen time so her presence will still be missed (and her presence within the party dynamic will definitely be missed)
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Mar 13, 2024 16:40
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the moment I got ATB Ward was when somewhere ,in the back of my mind, I knew she was out for part 3
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Mar 13, 2024 16:45
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Harrow posted:Oh absolutely. Even knowing it was coming I'm still really sad that she's gone. Honestly what I'm going to miss most of all is her and Tifa's dynamic. Tifa's response at the end was absolutely devastating far more than anything else. She lost her best friend and the person she seemed to trust most on the adventure. Like if Rebirth nailed one thing that FF7 fumbled, it was "Tifa and Aerith are close friends."
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Mar 13, 2024 16:47
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the whole bit on aeris' dreamworld was already moving enough that I thought they werent going to do the alter sequence too, because that shot of pushing cloud down and sefirot coming in the church? Kino
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Mar 13, 2024 16:53
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Aerith will reconstitute herself in the next game, Dr. Manhattan-style.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:54
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ImpAtom posted:Honestly what I'm going to miss most of all is her and Tifa's dynamic. Tifa's response at the end was absolutely devastating far more than anything else. She lost her best friend and the person she seemed to trust most on the adventure. God yes. Tifa and Aerith's friendship in Rebirth is fantastically done. I'm actually kind of dreading part 3 (not in a serious way) because Tifa's grief is going to be so hard to watch.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:59
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I wanna be excited for whatever it is thier gonna do for Zack but the incredibly slow burn pace of his story in Rebirth has me skittish. Did they clarify what caused that explosion over by the church when he was going to find Biggs for the first time or just completely skip over it? I guess he was trying to figure out how to make bombs himself? I dunno.
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Mar 13, 2024 17:03
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So, it seems like what Sephiroth wants with other realities is that he seems interested in harvesting emotion--specifically, negative emotions like grief, fear, and despair. Notice how full of despair the Terrier world is, how everyone's giving up, the world's falling apart at the seams. When he's bringing together a "confluence of worlds and emotions," that's what he means--he's taking this world full of despair and linking it to this one with the despair caused by Aerith's death, so he can harvest all of that negative emotion. Why does he need negative emotion? Well, think about the Gi for a second. They describe to us how the Black Materia was created: the Gi acquired the "purest" materia from the Planet, and poured all of their sadness, despair, and yearning for oblivion into it, turning it into a materia designed for nothing but destruction. If the despair of a single tribe could do that, what do you think multiple whole worlds (whether they're literal worlds or spiritual worlds made of Lifestream stuff) full of despair could do?
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Mar 13, 2024 17:13
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I really want to be emotionally affected by Aerith Dies 2.0, but the multiple fakeouts and the confusing and tonally muddled nature of the final boss and ending annoys me to the point of ruining it for me. I had my breakdown during her song at the Gold Saucer, anyway.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:20
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I was more upset that I won't have an amazing caster for Part 3.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:21
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:I was more upset that I won't have an amazing caster for Part 3. Mysteriously Cid will no longer use a spear but a staff and instead of being a dragoon he'll be a magic user.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:31
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:I was more upset that I won't have an amazing caster for Part 3. Is the world’s greatest ninja a joke to you Harrow posted:So, it seems like what Sephiroth wants with other realities is that he seems interested in harvesting emotion--specifically, negative emotions like grief, fear, and despair. Notice how full of despair the Terrier world is, how everyone's giving up, the world's falling apart at the seams. When he's bringing together a "confluence of worlds and emotions," that's what he means--he's taking this world full of despair and linking it to this one with the despair caused by Aerith's death, so he can harvest all of that negative emotion. They’re gonna have to make a nice hefty big ol’ DLC to explain and clarify what they’re going for, I think. Cause this requires way too much speculation and brainstorming to make sense of it as-is. Really, I would just change two things for the ending: 1. Don’t do the glitchy fakeouts where Cloud parries Sephiroth and then seems to jump between seeing Aerith live and die, just have it show her death as in the original 2. Don’t immediately jump to Sephiroth Reborn after Lifeclinger, suspend time for a moment - spawn a whisper portal or some poo poo and give the player a breather beforehand
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Mar 13, 2024 18:32
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Pollyanna posted:Is the world’s greatest ninja a joke to you I think the glitchy fakeouts are necessary to show that not everyone is seeing what Cloud is seeing. I also think, from an emotional perspective, the glitchy fakeout is where the biggest emotional punch is. Going in knowing Aerith died in the original, seeing Cloud break free and change things, giving that one brief perfect moment of "oh poo poo she's going to live" and then snatching it away is pretty much the only way the game can come close to the gutpunch of her being skewered out of nowhere in the original. They might be able to tone things back more after that (though I think the use of blood is effective since the game is otherwise so bloodless) but that moment is critical assuming you're going in unspoiled because you're given a couple of heartbeats of hope before it gets dashed. I won't speak for others but when I reached that scene, I was going "Oh man, is she going to die? I don't want her to die" and waiting for the moment and the second Cloud broke free I basically cheered, and then having the rug pulled out from under me hit me hard enough that I was willing to give the rest of the scene what it wanted. It's a rare case where I unambiguously think knowing she dies for sure beforehand hurts the scene. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 18:36
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ImpAtom posted:I think the glitchy fakeouts are necessary to show that not everyone is seeing what Cloud is seeing. The post-credits scene establishes that far better than the Schröedingerfication fakeouts. Just have it pull that duty by itself. quote:I also think, from an emotional perspective, the glitchy fakeout is where the biggest emotional punch is. Going in knowing Aerith died in the original, seeing Cloud break free and change things, giving that one brief perfect moment of "oh poo poo she's going to live" and then snatching it away is pretty much the only way the game can come close to the gutpunch of her being skewered out of nowhere in the original. Maybe I’m unique in this regard but that wasn’t a gutpunch for me, I’m too self-aware for that. It didn’t make me angry at Sephiroth, it made me annoyed at the devs and writers. I would have preferred something simpler, I guess! quote:They might be able to tone things back more after that (though I think the use of blood is effective since the game is otherwise so bloodless) but that moment is critical assuming you're going in unspoiled because you're given a couple of heartbeats of hope before it gets dashed. Unspoiled on Rebirth, or unspoiled on FF7? I’m worried that anyone playing Rebirth who is truly unspoiled and doesn’t know the events of the original (I’m sure they exist) would just find the circumstances of her death confusing instead of gutpunchy.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:44
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I had the same reaction of joy when Cloud parried, which then dissolved into confusion for the next two hours or so. For me, the execution of everything past that point undermined the emotional effect it was supposed to have. It took me until a few hours after putting the game down before I thought "hang on, is Aerith dead?"
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Mar 13, 2024 18:45
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Yeah, I want to be clear: my problem is with the ending’s execution, not what it’s trying to go for. It can do whatever the hell it wants and I’ll sit there and grumble about losing Aerith again for a bit before getting over it. It just has to do it well, and IMO it did not.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:47
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I was prepared for a rugpull for the final two hours of the game, and I really thought when Cloud skewers the vision Sephiroth in the vision Midgar Plate tower that it was going to glitch back to reality and be Aerith, as a parallel to the Tifa scene
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Mar 13, 2024 18:53
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Pollyanna posted:The post-credits scene establishes that far better than the Schröedingerfication fakeouts. Just have it pull that duty by itself. If it was something simpler then it loses literally 100% of its impact because everyone knows it is coming. "Oh, Aerith died. Ok." Like people would still be sad but part of the reason Aerith's death was enduring was that it was unexpected. Prior to the game coming out you had major newspapers putting articles about Aerith's (original) death in headlines. If you're attempt to capture even an iota of that impact while doing the same thing then it involves misdirection. They probably could have cleaned things up more but the lingering disappointment of Aerith's death and the inability to subvert it is pretty necessary to the "Welp, everything's hosed" tone the game ends on. (Also just from a personal perspective, we've got people who didn't realize Viceroy Anagram was Rufus, so putting over-emphasis on something is probably necessary.) I *do* think Aerith shouldn't have come back for the final battle but I accept they wanted to give players one last chance to use her moveset.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:56
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Harrow posted:Oh absolutely. Even knowing it was coming I'm still really sad that she's gone. I really hope that she has a minimal presence in FF7R3. There are definitely ways to use her effectively by having her appear sometimes but not a ton. Personally, I think it will loving suck if she has a ton of loving screen time and/or the game ends with her alive or some poo poo like that. Make consequences that stick and make us actually miss her!
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Mar 13, 2024 19:00
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:I was more upset that I won't have an amazing caster for Part 3. In OG FF7 Vincent was I believe technically the best magic user, which considering the stat spread did not matter at all, but there you go.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:02
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I genuinely think Aerith's appearances in VII-3 will be tied to flashbacks and lifestream scenes exclusively, but I expect a few more of those. (At least in some way involving Zack) and I 100% believe she'll be back for whatever the big final super epic megaboss fight is because that opens up 3 teams of 3 fighters (with Zack and Aerith on Cloud's side, even if just as lifestream ghost allies or something) for the final fight.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:03
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Gologle posted:In OG FF7 Vincent was I believe technically the best magic user, which considering the stat spread did not matter at all, but there you go. Maybe Vincent will be able to transform into a public domain monster that is also a great caster. That would be kinda cool.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:12
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Gologle posted:In OG FF7 Vincent was I believe technically the best magic user, which considering the stat spread did not matter at all, but there you go.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:15
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I'm very curious to go through these games with my wife sometime this year. She's not very online and she doesn't know that Aerith dies (I have no idea how someone can play video games and not know that). A couple years ago, she played a few hours of og FF7 (she just got to the end of Midgar) before getting bored with it. She really liked Aerith too. lol Being that she has no knowledge of FF7 and the expanded FF7 video game universe, I'll be curious to see if she finds the game hard to follow or confusing at all.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:18
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I thought the biggest gutpunch scene was when Cloud is holding Aerith after Sephiroth stabbed her, and then she opens her eyes and tells him it's ok. For a moment I wondered "did she actually survive that?" Then you see it from Tifa's perspective and Cloud is holding Aerith's lifeless body and is putting her hand on his cheek himself, and you realize he's lost his entire drat mind.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:20
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I think the entire boss rush and the ending sapped away any emotion that scene could have. The ending FMV left me feeling like the season 2 finale of Twin Peaks.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:24
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Spermando posted:Well, that certainly didn't carry over to Dirge. Dirge was based on a lovely multiplayer mode about being a deepground grunt instead of actually designing it as a spectacle gunplay and monster mash thing they really should of at least tried for from the ground up. As for the Aerith, I dunno I don't think I really care for the way it was done. I left Remake excited and speculating about it all go now and things have rerailed in a sufficiently muddy fashion that I don't really feel like my hypes there anymore. Maybe they'll do a weird Zack thing but probably nothing going as far as I like. Caidin fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 19:25
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Spermando posted:I think the entire boss rush and the ending sapped away any emotion that scene could have. The ending FMV left me feeling like the season 2 finale of Twin Peaks. well that means that when part 3 comes out in 25 years it will be the best poo poo you've ever seen
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Mar 13, 2024 19:28
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