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doos posted:The Unknowns are going to be so pretty. Memories of Unknown 2 farming now flooding into my periphery
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Apr 4, 2024 05:20
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Looking at the bestiary I forgot how many FF7 monsters are just straight up Resident Evil monstrosities. The Jenovas you fight in this game would look right at home in a John Carpenter or David Cronenberg movie.
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Apr 4, 2024 06:14
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just finished up, but one lingering question i have that has almost definitely been discussed: was aerith actually talking to red xiii about the white materia in that one-off inn scene? seems pretty obvious but it set my radar off at the time e: still trying to skim the thread, so this was maybe also discussed but: all of rebirth's additional emphasis on jenova mimicking someone never really had a payoff that i can recall (beyond the immediately next scene with tifa of course). probably just trailer misdirection, but at the same time it's interesting when i'm leaning towards the "more aerith in part 3 than you'd expect" camp stuker fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 09:13
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Yeah she was. And ultimately I think the payoff to the Jenova stuff was just additions to how Seph was loving with Cloud and I guess subsequently Tifa getting eaten by a Whale.
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Apr 4, 2024 09:47
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I mean the ultimate payoff is what occurs in the Northern Crater with the Black Materia in the original. But now since Cloud HAS the Black Materia... I mean I do think Jenova using Aerith's visage to gently caress with Cloud in Game 3 would be sick as gently caress. Even if she wasn't at the end of Rebirth (Which to be clear I don't think she was.)
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Apr 4, 2024 10:04
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Caidin posted:Holding out hope that Ghost Ship makes it in part 3. Apparently one of the dinosaur enemies has the same Japanese name as Heavy tank so that might not be happening
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Apr 4, 2024 12:10
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RatHat posted:Apparently one of the dinosaur enemies has the same Japanese name as Heavy tank so that might not be happening Yep, it's the dinosaur looking creature in Gongaga.  "Heavy Tank"
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Apr 4, 2024 12:49
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Disgusting.
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Apr 4, 2024 13:27
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Bland posted:Yep, it's the dinosaur looking creature in Gongaga. Aww. That sucks.
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Apr 4, 2024 13:29
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They also turned the motorcycle mutants around Midgar to just, bandits on motorcycles. Total cope, but there's alrays room for mutant versions of them in the future as palette swaps, especially with Hojo being involved.
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Apr 4, 2024 14:15
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Rich Uncle Chet posted:The Jenovas you fight in this game would look right at home in a John Carpenter or David Cronenberg movie. Jenova was meant to be essentially The Thing / necromorph Brethren moon that was forced into imprisonment by magic, so yeah I would agree
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Apr 4, 2024 19:44
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Revisiting the ending after a few days because I’m stuck in a 6 hour layover: I liked it a lot at first, but like it less now that I’ve thought about it and read about it more. I still go with the theory that Cloud created an alternate world where Aerith lives, but himself ended up in the (main timeline?) world where she dies. Creating a world where she lives makes the most sense based on what we actually see on the screen and allows Cloud and the party to actually have some kind of victory in the end that potentially affects how the plot will play out, but keeps the tragedy of her loss as well as the tension of Cloud being both nuts and in denial but also right about his own actions and abilities. What I don’t like is that I don’t think the story will change in any fundamental way. We might get some more screen time from Aerith, but I’d be shocked if she actually is “brought back” or rejoins the party except in some fights like Zack in rebirth. The writing may set things up so “saving Aerith” and the last fight with Sephiroth in rebirth thwart his plans, but it will fundamentally be the same story with a lot of unnecessary complications. I know the writers want to tell the same story with a new mystery, but the ending of Rebirth denied the possibility of mystery because it makes us feel like everything is going to turn out the same anyway, just with more trippiness and metaphysical speechifying from Sephiroth along the way. Additional mystery that is guaranteed to go nowhere isn’t very satisfying.
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Apr 5, 2024 11:36
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What Rebirth suggests to me--and I know this is maybe controversial, but hear me out--is that I think when the trilogy is all said and done, they want this to be something you can play and fully enjoy whether or not you've played the original FFVII. I know the conventional wisdom is that this is a "sequel" and so you need to play the original first, but as of Rebirth, I could see a direction for this to go (primarily, the same direction Rebirth did, where the actual bullet points of the plot are the same but a lot of new stuff is happening around them) where, ultimately, the full trilogy ends up being able to stand on its own. It certainly contains things meant to play with and be fun and nostalgic for fans of the original, absolutely. That's the stated goal of all the Zack timeline stuff--a mystery to intrigue fans of the original and keep them guessing. But I think in the end the intention was for it to always end up in roughly the same shape as FFVII, rather than a hypothetical "FFVII-2: Cloud Strife in the Multiverse of Madness." I think they're trying to have it both ways: have mystery and teasing that will intrigue long-time fans while ending up telling a story that can stand on its own. Then again I was also dead certain the third game would be subtitled "Reunion" and that's clearly not the case so I'm probably wrong 
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Apr 5, 2024 13:37
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I would've enjoyed it a lot even if it didn't have the new mystery. Frankly, I don't even like mystery box stuff like that in stories that AREN'T remakes. I'd much rather have good execution of a predictable story than be baited along by some cheap "mystery." And the new way they're treating Wutai and stuff is already a hook for me. Like the fate ghosts are already here and I'm going to live with them, but the very idea that they needed to add a new mystery for old fans strikes me as a bizarre. Edit: Like, when I excitedly speculate about the next game with fellow FF7 fans, I never mention the fate stuff at all, instead I wonder how they're going to expand on Rocket Town or how they're going to incorporate Vincent's story into the main plot better. Those are the things I care about far more than "what kind of weird purgatory is Zack in?" Clarste fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 14:29
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Revisiting the ending after a few days because I’m stuck in a 6 hour layover: I liked it a lot at first, but like it less now that I’ve thought about it and read about it more. I still go with the theory that Cloud created an alternate world where Aerith lives, but himself ended up in the (main timeline?) world where she dies. Creating a world where she lives makes the most sense based on what we actually see on the screen and allows Cloud and the party to actually have some kind of victory in the end that potentially affects how the plot will play out, but keeps the tragedy of her loss as well as the tension of Cloud being both nuts and in denial but also right about his own actions and abilities. I've said in the past, and maybe you can chalk this up to cope or whatever, but even if the story doesn't fundamentally change and just ends up slipping nicely into Advent Children like they said in an interview I don't think the characters will be in the same place as they were there. The Advent Children we know is a continuation of the OG, which is clearly what we aren't playing. The story beats are the same but the character beats are not. I feel the ending to this game was far more polarizing than the one in Remake, which opened a door of possibility that got folks excited and this one seems to have folks believe that it just slammed that door in their faces outright. I'm excited to see where things go because I believe there really is a whole multiverse going on and Aerith and Zach are alive in them doing their own thing. If that ends up not being the case I'll be disappointed but I still will enjoy the third game because everything in Rebirth has been amazing. Someone mentioned in this thread that the game's ending is a supreme downer. Seemingly nothing is changed, everyone in the party is broken, Cloud may be even more insane than he was in OG, Cid isn't yelling at everyone to drink their goddamn tea, ect. So the tone of the ending makes it hard to really feel optimistic that any of this stuff will pay off. Plus, you know, if you want to dissect the ending and look for all the weird stuff to build up an idea of what's going on you have to watch through some of the most emotionally damaging stuff in the game. Oh, gonna watch this scene were Aerith dies for the upteenth time listening to the saddest rendition of her theme ever produced. Oh gonna watch this stuff of the entire party, especially Tifa, just sitting around broken and trying to make sense of things. Now it's time to see Sephiroth try to tell Cloud what is going on and seemingly unphased by every victory and effort from the party trying to stop him. It's draining. Jimbot fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 14:45
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it owns
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Apr 5, 2024 14:47
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Also yes, it owns. This is the kind of stuff that you don't see that much in games anymore - especially in big releases. The ending of these two games will stay with me for a very long time.
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Apr 5, 2024 14:48
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Clarste posted:I would've enjoyed it a lot even if it didn't have the new mystery. Frankly, I don't even like mystery box stuff like that in stories that AREN'T remakes. I'd much rather have good execution of a predictable story than be baited along by some cheap "mystery." And the new way they're treating Wutai and stuff is already a hook for me. Like the fate ghosts are already here and I'm going to live with them, but the very idea that they needed to add a new mystery for old fans strikes me as a bizarre. I agree completely. I think Rebirth has fully proven that this trilogy really didn't need the new mystery to keep it interesting because there's so much other new and expanded stuff to be excited about. But it's here now so, well, y'know. I can either accept it or not. And at least as of Rebirth I think I'm having more fun with it and enjoying that aspect a lot more than I did in Remake.
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Apr 5, 2024 14:53
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I'm much more optimistic than you folks. It feels to me clear that something did meaningfully change and that a complete "nah, all that changing fate stuff was a red herring" would be writing that would be far too inept and, honestly, a bit of a vets-only bait and switch with 20 years of buildup.
Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 17:04
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That's pretty much where I am,
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Apr 5, 2024 17:28
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I wonder if, once Ever Crisis is done, they'll rework all its remade scenes into an actual remake. They've covered a fair bit of FF7 already.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:34
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Jetrauben posted:I'm much more optimistic than you folks. It feels to elme clear that something did meaningfully change and that a complete "nah, all that changing fate stuff was a red herring" would be writing that would be far too inept and, honestly, a bit of a vets-only bait and switch with 20 years of buildup. I feel like the majority is down with it we just exhausted our “shits good” posts.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:35
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Yeah I'm on board now. I would've loved to see a version of this remake trilogy without it, but like... I'm interested to see where it goes now. I think Rebirth's sheer quality, combined with its faithfulness to the spirit of the original, really put me at ease and I have basically no concerns going into part 3 anymore. That's a big step up from Remake. Hell, I even posted earlier in this thread that I was feeling pretty bad about the multiverse stuff but the more I've thought about it and rolled my own interpretations around in my head, the more I'm into it. I think especially if I take a step back and look at these games from the perspective of being a reimagining but something that is still its own thing--not a sequel, not a super-faithful remake, but an adaptation--it's a lot easier to just have a good time with what we have instead of wishing for what we don't. After being so annoyed with the Whispers in Remake and the way Remake ended, I feel a lot better after Rebirth. I have much more confidence that the multiverse/fate stuff is going somewhere that's both interesting and true to the spirit of FF7.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:44
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Honestly, the new plot wrinkles of the FFVIIRe series has been refreshing so far for me. Maybe I'm not playing the right ones, but it feels pretty rare for a game to be planned around having a sequel to wrap everything up and answer questions, so it's allowed to just leave the story with so many questions left to answer. I get the apprehension that it might not stick the landing, but for now I want to see what they're cooking.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:48
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I think a big goal of the Remake trilogy is to make FF7 feel just as big and impactful today as it did in 1997 and I think the added mysteries and complications are doing a great job at that, controversy and all. I’ll never forget the sheer dread and anticipation I felt going into Rebirth’s finale, not knowing if they would go through with killing Aerith or not. People are now debating whether Aerith’s really gone for good or if we’ll be able to revive her in the end…just like they were in 1997! “If you just do X at Y you’ll be able to get Aerith back in your party” is one of the classic video game myths right alongside Mew hiding under the truck. It’s awesome. A faithful 1:1 remake or a straight expansion on top of what was already there could’ve never done this.
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Apr 5, 2024 18:03
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I like that they are not telling the exact same story, I just am worried that “defying fate” will just end up letting the party win in a more elaborate way without producing meaningfully different results beyond some kind of metaphysical nonsense that is hard to connect to anything real. Remake sets up the question of what will happen at the end of Rebirth, and allows for Aerith to live, or a different party member to die, but Rebirth doesn’t seem to set up a mystery that can clearly lead to questions about what will happen in part 3. Getting the player to wonder whether Aerith could potentially be alive in another possible world just isn’t as interesting as telling the player, “anything could happen.” Similarly, being rich in another possible world would not help me all that much in this one, even if my rich counterpart somehow helped me write the best burns on my internet posting enemies. This sounds like I’m saying Aerith shouldn’t have died at the end of rebirth, and while that would help mitigate childhood trauma, I’m definitely not sure it would ultimately end up producing the better story. I also don’t hate the ending. I liked it when I played through the first time, and maybe I like it less now, but I still like it. And it certainly did keep me thinking about the game and reading about it a lot after the credits rolled. I just feel like it adds extra complication without leaving any really interesting to ask about what’s going to happen in the next game.
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Apr 6, 2024 02:53
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I dunno, I’m of the mind that we as the players are over-analyzing. Which I think was the intent, since it keeps the hype going to sell games in a three part series. But ultimately, I think everything is going to end up mostly the same. We get expanded lore about the planet, the Lifestream, and Wutai, but in the end…Cloud and the gang defeat Sephiroth, the Lifestream takes care of Meteor, and Aerith is dead. And I don’t mind that one bit, personally. I think the “anything could happen” is less of an indicator that the story is fundamentally different, but more of a free pass to shuffle things around a bit to make FF7 work as a PS5 game and smooth out some of the more clunky parts of the story.
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Apr 6, 2024 03:14
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Yeah, I was going into Rebirth expecting things to go a bit more off the rails on this Unknown Journey but they basically played things like Remake in that there were defiinitely a bunch of additions but very few that meaningfully change the direction of the story. And after two games of that i'm fairly confident that's just the strategy they're taking with this Remake project. So while there are No Promises At Journey's End I expect things to basically be played similarly in Part 3. And i'm a little disappointed about that but I still loved Rebirth a whole lot so I think it will turn out well.
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Apr 6, 2024 03:35
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It kind of feels like Sephiroth is intentionally trying to take things off the rails by baiting everyone into defying fate while aerith/the lifestream are trying to get it back into the OG timeline and thats the battle. But contrary to normal story telling in remake it seems like defying fate is a good thing when in actuality it created the jenova whispers and the disassociation cloud is experiencing around aeriths death is a continuation of that while aerith is trying to say 'no its ok this is how it should be' and the nominally second of the trilogy downer is actually a good thing overall.
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Apr 6, 2024 15:28
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You also have Zack coming to the conclusion "gently caress fate you guys are assholes" and he's probably the most unambiguously Heroic Good person in the tale Reaching this conclusion after bumping repeatedly into timelines that kept getting him killed, to make it funnier DeathChicken fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Apr 6, 2024 |
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Apr 6, 2024 15:58
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Still don't get how folks see the ending and go "yeah this is gonna be a story about acquiescing to Fate and also Aerith is turbo dead and will never return, after everything related to Zack's arc and the entire climax of the game." It's genuinely baffling.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:06
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I don't think anyone thinks that. Like obviously Part 3 is not going to be a straight-up unaltered retelling of the last part of the game with no changes. There's honestly like 3 outcomes that are remotely likely A) The protagonists defeat Uber Sephiroth in a way that puts the world back on track to its good ending. Aerith and Zack are dead but are shown to be happy in the lifestream together. B) The protagonists defeat Uber Sephiroth in a way that puts the world back on track. Aerith and Zack are alive in some other timeline and shown to be happy together. C) The protagonists defeat Uber Sephiroth in a way that puts the world back on track, Aerith and Zack come back to life somehow and are happy together. C is unlikely because they've said that they intend the story to end up where Advent Children starts, but A and B are reasonably likely in their own ways. But no matter the outcome "Uberroth is defeated" is going to be the big thing that changes.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:25
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How is defeating Sephiroth a thing that changes? If anything that's what things staying exactly the same looks like.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:33
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Yep, I’m solidly in camp A. In my mind, they’re expanding on the tidbits about the nature of the Lifestream, the souls the make it up, and Jenova that were in the OG.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:34
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Clarste posted:How is defeating Sephiroth a thing that changes? If anything that's what things staying exactly the same looks like. "Defeating Sephiroth" meaning "Defeating what the weird time-god Sephiroth is" as opposed to "Defeating the dude in the Northern Crater."
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Apr 6, 2024 18:34
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ImpAtom posted:"Defeating Sephiroth" meaning "Defeating what the weird time-god Sephiroth is" as opposed to "Defeating the dude in the Northern Crater." I mean, yeah, but they also added weird time-god Sephiroth, so removing him from play without changing anything else is like adding 1 to both sides of the equation. It's still the same thing. You have changed nothing.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:36
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Clarste posted:I mean, yeah, but they also added weird time-god Sephiroth, so removing him from play without changing anything else is like adding 1 to both sides of the equation. It's still the same thing. You have changed nothing. Sephiroth at the end of Advent Children pretty explicitly says "I'll keep coming back forever, lol." Then the Whispers you fight in part 1 are explicitly based off the Advent Children dudes, and all the various other hints that Sephiroth is aware of more than just the current timeline. So what it does is close the time loop (in good FF1 fashion) by defeating the Sephiroth who keeps coming back. At least that is my assumption of what a change would be.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:48
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Although that kind of gets interestingly weird because Advent Children closes with the implication that the Remnants are being accepted into the Lifestream/redeemed in spirit in some way.
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Apr 6, 2024 18:53
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ImpAtom posted:Sephiroth at the end of Advent Children pretty explicitly says "I'll keep coming back forever, lol." Then the Whispers you fight in part 1 are explicitly based off the Advent Children dudes, and all the various other hints that Sephiroth is aware of more than just the current timeline. So what it does is close the time loop (in good FF1 fashion) by defeating the Sephiroth who keeps coming back. But they can't defeat Sephiroth once and for all because he has to come back for Advent Children.
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Apr 6, 2024 19:09
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ImpAtom posted:"Defeating Sephiroth" meaning "Defeating what the weird time-god Sephiroth is" as opposed to "Defeating the dude in the Northern Crater." I will be quite surprised if multiversal singularity Sephiroth is not conducting his plan in the Northern Crater and also does not just turn into a Supernova flinging Angelic monster. Anyway, after Rebirth I just feel "defying fate" is a lot less meta than it first seemed and I don't think the game's take on fate necessarily means that major dramatic shifts to FF7s plot will be happening. Like, the Cetra talk about being unable to defy fate and they don't mean the narrative of the original game.
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Apr 6, 2024 23:01
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