|
bewilderment posted:I assume rebuilding Nibelheim as it was allowed Shinra to maintain an easy official story. it's a corporation that adopts the typical model of moving from opposition to co-opting the cause of reconciliation. sometimes all you have to show for it is a basic memorial like the one in gogaga
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 12:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:50 |
|
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:This is a very Tifa thing to do regardless of anything tbf. Poor Tifa has been gaslit from the very start. Cloud is confidently telling the entire party what went down in Nibelheim and the entire premise of the party's journey is based on falsehoods, which she still can't deny because much of it is grounded in truth, and because Cloud is mentally unstable and prone to bouts of extreme violence. I'm not surprised her mental state is super fragile.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 12:36
|
|
|
Morroque posted:My interpretation of the ending lends towards something more intertextual. The FF7 remake was essentially a game they were bullied into making. It was a very strange kind of sensation, since they likely never quite understood where the impulse came from and probably thought the original was always fine as-is. They never had to deal with the rough mouthfeel of the original English translation, which always promoted this sense of "a good first draft; now go and do it again." The market pressure to "remake" this thing seemed strange, so a lot of the themes of the first remake game relates to getting all ponderous about it. That's an interesting interpretation, but there are a few wrinkles in your evidence, I think. For a start, as far as I can tell, they absolutely did want to remake 7, and weren't satisfied with a number of elements (like not feeling satisfied about how well they'd got across Aerith and Tifa's friendship). I think that comes across in every part of the games - these are absolutely passion projects, to a degree I don't think I've ever seen in AAA games before. And then for Cloud's line you've picked out, that actually is from the original, although I think it did get mangled in the translation. This is about him feeling alienated from himself first and foremost. I don't think it's a death knell for your interpretation, but it's probably not what I'm into.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 14:46
|
|
|
Based on that environmental Cosmo Canyon dialogue I'm leaning towards these being more pocket dimensions in the lifestream shaped by strong emotion and intentionality, instead of traditional multiverse stuff. The whispers are like lifestream janitors who normally stop things from going too off the rails but while there's a big whisper confluence and they're distracted and the lifestream energy is high you can get more expansive pocket dimensions like Zack's. The cracks in the sky are the lifestream naturally shutting down and reclaiming them. I think ultimately it's cleaner than a more physicsy multiverse thing and it explains how Aerith and Sephiroth are able to bounce around and manipulate them because it's a lifestream thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 15:21
|
|
|
That makes the lifestream more nefarious than anything Sephiroth is doing, then. "Oh, this is a pocket dimension. Time to kill everyone inside of it because we gotta clean up all this." I also don't think there's an overwhelmingly strong emotion in people wishing that Stamp was a different breed of dog. Maybe it's the case but these games are anything but "cleaner" than the original. Diverging timelines makes more sense and lines up with Sephiroth's goals. Is there like a multiverse lifestream that connects each one? Most likely but I don't believe for a second that all this is just emotions in the world's lifestream. May as well end the last game with a gunshot.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 15:42
|
|
|
They should let you put Zack and Sephiroth in your main party for New Game+/Chapter Select. Give us a chance to play around in the open world with those two. I wanna see Sephiroth ride a chocobo. Also, put in a secret date with Sephiroth at the Gold Saucer.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 16:03
|
|
Jimbot posted:That makes the lifestream more nefarious than anything Sephiroth is doing, then. "Oh, this is a pocket dimension. Time to kill everyone inside of it because we gotta clean up all this." I also don't think there's an overwhelmingly strong emotion in people wishing that Stamp was a different breed of dog. Maybe it's the case but these games are anything but "cleaner" than the original. I mean the lifestream was fairly amoral in the original game as well, it’s easy to forget since advent children has been out for so long but a fairly explicit and intended possible interpretation of the ending has always been “poo poo, maybe Holy wiped out all of humanity too while it was dealing with meteor since it considered us a threat”
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 16:54
|
|
|
Jimbot posted:That makes the lifestream more nefarious than anything Sephiroth is doing, then. "Oh, this is a pocket dimension. Time to kill everyone inside of it because we gotta clean up all this." I also don't think there's an overwhelmingly strong emotion in people wishing that Stamp was a different breed of dog. Maybe it's the case but these games are anything but "cleaner" than the original. If you go by Dirge(yes I know), then the Lifestream does not give a single, solitary, poo poo about people, or even the planet it's inhabiting, and is fully willing to nuke everything and GTFO if things seem bad enough, and given that Deepground is in the remakes Squeenix is leaning towards that still being canon. Also, remember that the Weapon's purpose is to go out and kill things that are actively harming the planet, this includes Jenova, but they will also happily go after people. If anything, the Lifestream acts like an animal, concerned first and foremost with its own survival, but it can be directed if you know how to talk to it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 17:41
|
|
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:This is a very Tifa thing to do regardless of anything tbf. This is entirely true. But it does seem interesting and odd that Tifa sees both versions of Aerith in that moment. I don't think Cloud stopping the blade was just a bait and switch hallucination, because that would genuinely feel a bit like just yanking the player's chain in a clumsy fashion. We're supposed to feel like changing events has a meaningful difference here, rather than it just being "ha ha you lose!" Sephiroth is visibly taken aback at his defeat at Aerith and Cloud's hands.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 17:50
|
|
|
I always interpreted stuff like the Weapons to be a kinda auto-immune response rather than the planet acting with any sort of malice or conscious intent.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 17:58
|
|
|
We see benevolent action taken by the Weapons in the Lifestream to keep Tifa safe, so I don't think we're gonna go with "the Planet is basically amoral." Yes, the Whispers acted to ensure Biggs, Wedge and Jessie died, but that seems more like a "bigger picture" thing. The Whispers don't seem intelligent per se, more like an immune system response. They behave more like cells than independent beings, that's why both Sephiroth and (greater) Aerith can so easily command them to do their being. On their own they don't really seem to think or take complex actions, just rigidly try to ensure events take their proper course.
Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Mar 30, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 18:08
|
|
|
I gotta say watching scenes back, when Tseng shoots Sephiroth the formers reaction is really funny Just eyes wide open 'what the gently caress' getting cut off
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 18:11
|
|
|
ThisIsACoolGuy posted:I gotta say watching scenes back, when Tseng shoots Sephiroth the formers reaction is really funny "Oh, right, guns."
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 20:01
|
|
|
Jimbot posted:That makes the lifestream more nefarious than anything Sephiroth is doing, then. "Oh, this is a pocket dimension. Time to kill everyone inside of it because we gotta clean up all this." I also don't think there's an overwhelmingly strong emotion in people wishing that Stamp was a different breed of dog. Maybe it's the case but these games are anything but "cleaner" than the original. I'm thinking of the Zack dimensions we see as more of a purgatory he assembled around himself as he died and entered the lifestream. The people in it wouldn't necessarily be fully conscious individual beings so much as lifestream memory soup bent by Zack's will (although I do think Biggs' soul got pulled more-or-less fully formed into it). It's not a perfect copy which is why we end up with stuff like different Stamps, which honestly I think is mostly just a cute way for the devs to signpost things rather than something to read into. I actually had the sense that the "NPCs" in the alternate dimensions were acting more NPC-like than usual when I was playing through it. Like they all seem to have intuited and just accepted that the crack in the sky means the end of the world? And the shopkeepers on Aerith and Cloud's date are just hanging out selling tchotchkes at the end of all things, and giving you weird false choices like an obnoxious "But Thou Must" questgiver teaching you a lesson about fate. And yeah I think of the lifestream as more of just a force of nature than anything. If these little pocket dimensions were clogging up lifestream energy or something, then they might ultimately need to be reclaimed for the health of the planet. Or just to release the souls stuck inside them. Either way it would be less like a mass genocide and more like the end of a dream. Obviously could be completely wrong but it's the idea I've liked the most so far. I've always felt like actual physical multiverses kinda cheapen things, but here instead of millions and millions of Zacks it'd be more like one Zack running through a bunch of different possibilities, and the ultimate trajectory would be him helping out again when there's a final big lifestream/whisper nexus thing and then accepting his death to get recycled into the lifestream alongside Aerith.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2024 20:49
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:
there, that’s better
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 01:01
|
|
|
Aerithga
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 02:20
|
|
|
kliras posted:the game has a long line of incidents with shinra going from covering them up > acknowledging them and basically giving five bucks to a charity as a tax write-off It's extra fun in Coral's case because in EU materials the thing that caused the reactor to blow up was an attack from the original incarnation of Avalanche. They didn't even need to to do a massacre and make a scape goat, Scarlet was just bored or something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 06:48
|
|
|
Actual thing came up when watching cutscenes. Zack and Biggs talk during the boat trip doesn't make a ton of sense to me as it can't just be 'oh it's a different timeline' Biggs is from prime world where he and cloud met and cloud was a merc, while Zack just got done bringing him back to Midgar in his poisoned coma. The two conflict with each other in the same timeline as both couldn't have happened, so I'm a bit lost on if I'm overthinking or if that's just a unanswered hook. Goes with Marlene knowing stuff I suppose
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 18:15
|
|
|
ThisIsACoolGuy posted:Actual thing came up when watching cutscenes. Zack and Biggs talk during the boat trip doesn't make a ton of sense to me as it can't just be 'oh it's a different timeline' The thing that confused me was that Shinra was looking for a suspect with a Buster Sword before Zack even arrived in Midgar.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 18:23
|
|
|
In that same convo, both Zack and Biggs comment that their sense of time is completely nerfed, with Biggs specifically pointing out that he can’t remember when he met Cloud. I really think they’re veering hard into the planet as a living organism in this series, extrapolating off of the basic comparisons made in the original, The Lifestream is obviously analogous to the bloodstream, the whispers are cells, and Sephiroth infects them to make them cancerous “bad” cells. The Weapons are the immune response, and whatever the hell is going on with the multi-worlds is the planet’s imagination running amok via a possibly literal fever dream.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 18:30
|
|
|
ThisIsACoolGuy posted:Actual thing came up when watching cutscenes. Zack and Biggs talk during the boat trip doesn't make a ton of sense to me as it can't just be 'oh it's a different timeline' I still think it's because there's not multiple versions of these characters per se, there's one version who keeps getting made to go through these experiences again and again. Sort of an "oversoul" or essence of the character who gets incarnated repeatedly. It's the same way that Cloud subconsciously remembers the events of the original game at times. Zack experiences each timeline and fated death in sequence, and just refuses to give up, that's why he's on the verge of despair when he sees Biggs go down and the same fate of a bunch of Shinra soldiers about to gun him down as happened in the original ambush outside Midgar and then at the Shinra Building foyer. I also doubt we've actually seen the last of Biggs. The Remake has established the interior of the Lifestream as a place where events meaningfully happen. Someone being dead in the world of the living does not mean they're out of action. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Mar 31, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 18:36
|
|
|
Biggs is joining the Zack/Aerith B-Team alongside Zombie Sonon, and uhh Zangan.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 18:58
|
|
|
I *really* want to know what the gently caress happened to Zangan. Like Tifa needs to go and find him in some woods so she can learn Bum Rush.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 18:59
|
|
|
It's a shame they didn't give Zangan a moment where he tried to fight Sephiroth in the flashback. He would have gotten his poo poo kicked in, but it would have been cool to see.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 19:03
|
|
|
I was hoping to see Zangan again at some point, maybe in a side quest or something. Maybe next game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 19:04
|
|
|
It is weird that he's there and just vanishes in the original game too. He's the one who rescued Tifa but that's it. He's gone afterwards and you only find out that from the piano note. I mean he didn't need to be anywhere necessarily but just weird to introduce the guy and then he poofs away. Maybe he's hanging out with Banon from FF6.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 19:10
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:I still think it's because there's not multiple versions of these characters per se, there's one version who keeps getting made to go through these experiences again and again. Sort of an "oversoul" or essence of the character who gets incarnated repeatedly. It's the same way that Cloud subconsciously remembers the events of the original game at times. Zack experiences each timeline and fated death in sequence, and just refuses to give up, that's why he's on the verge of despair when he sees Biggs go down and the same fate of a bunch of Shinra soldiers about to gun him down as happened in the original ambush outside Midgar and then at the Shinra Building foyer. it's funny because people kept joking that this was FF7 Horizon on launch but it's actually Xenoblade 3, just nobody realizes it because it was a switch exclusive so nobody played it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 20:05
|
|
|
IcePhoenix posted:it's funny because people kept joking that this was FF7 Horizon on launch but it's actually Xenoblade 3, just nobody realizes it because it was a switch exclusive so nobody played it. I played it, and Rebirth is absolutely a Xenoblade spiritual cousin. Just as Xenoblade is a spiritual cousin to FFXII. Everything is cyclical.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 21:19
|
|
|
Arist posted:The thing that confused me was that Shinra was looking for a suspect with a Buster Sword before Zack even arrived in Midgar. They clearly mean Cloud?
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 21:49
|
|
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:They clearly mean Cloud? Quick question: if Zack is entering Midgar with a comatose Cloud, and Zack still has the Buster Sword, what the gently caress???
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 21:52
|
|
|
If Zack is just entering Midgar why have the reactors already been bombed and the gang killed during their escape from Shinra HQ when none of that should have happened yet? It's kinda clear from the get go that this isn't exactly a split timeline from "what if Zack lived". There's something else going on.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 21:56
|
|
|
The order of events was definitely weird but it was too early to make a call for me. Biggs' scene made it clear this was some weird confluence of detritus from different timelines or something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 21:59
|
|
|
I think the Cloud that Zack brought into town replaced that version of the timeline's Cloud, and in the same way our Biggs replaced that timeline's version of Biggs. That means, for whatever reason, Zack was pulled a couple of months into the future and Biggs was pulled a few days forward. EDIT: Actually, I guess the (non-alternate) timeline for Cloud's arrival into Midgar must have changed because Cloud only received his apartment in Remake after the first mission, so unless he was hanging around homeless for a couple months after Zack died, Zack's death must have been more recent. Just Andi Now fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Mar 31, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:00
|
|
|
What amuses me is that "buster sword" is apparently an entire class of in-universe weapons. It's a lot like how Cloud's final weapon in the game is obviously a gunblade, specifically a manatrigger variant as depicted in FF14.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:03
|
|
|
Oh yeah, another weird thing about the 'timeline' Zack and Biggs were pulled to is that it's already all out of Mako, which is a pretty big deviation from anything going on in proper history even if it's on the path to something like that. I'm still betting on these "alternate worlds" not being full different timelines but some sort of weird lifestream limbo Zack and Biggs got moved into instead of passing on back to the lifestream normally.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:10
|
|
|
I think it's kind of a Loki tv show situation. The original timeline is a kind of Sacred Timeline, and the whispers in Remake basically kept everything going in that direction. When the party defeats the Whisper Harbinger at the end of Remake, perhaps not realizing this was what Sephiroth wanted them to do, the timeline started to fray into these little branch timelines whenever folks made different choices. However, these worlds are doomed to die (probably not enough lifestream to support them all), and Sephiroth is harvesting them for despair and other strong negative emotions. What he didn't plan for was for Aerith to retrieve a fully-charged white materia from one of these dying branches.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:23
|
|
|
Just Andi Now posted:I think it's kind of a Loki tv show situation. The original timeline is a kind of Sacred Timeline, and the whispers in Remake basically kept everything going in that direction. When the party defeats the Whisper Harbinger at the end of Remake, perhaps not realizing this was what Sephiroth wanted them to do, the timeline started to fray into these little branch timelines whenever folks made different choices. However, these worlds are doomed to die (probably not enough lifestream to support them all), and Sephiroth is harvesting them for despair and other strong negative emotions. What he didn't plan for was for Aerith to retrieve a fully-charged white materia from one of these dying branches. Yeah, something like this. Sephiroth also indicates that the timelines naturally fuse back into each other as they either run out or are doomed to falter. There's not multiple versions of characters; characters' souls and the Lifestream are spread out across the different timelines. My guess is that's why there's the strange glow in the sky in "doomed" or "improper" timelines, it indicates a timeline that's about to merge into another one, the onset of the different worldline bleeding in. We see timelines splitting and fusing as Sephiroth and Cloud talk in the white void, and it looks a lot like that weird gold-and-dark-hues nebula. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Mar 31, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:34
|
|
|
It’d be wild if they just didn’t do anything with Zangan since they went and got mr. Kamen Rider himself, Hiroshi Fujioka, to voice him in Japanese.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:34
|
|
|
Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:It’d be wild if they just didn’t do anything with Zangan since they went and got mr. Kamen Rider himself, Hiroshi Fujioka, to voice him in Japanese. I hope they're just doing a side quest thing for each character's level 4 limit break, and they're saving Zangan for Tifa's. vvvvv Edit: But yeah, it's probably this. Ardryn fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Mar 31, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 22:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:50 |
|
|
Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:It’d be wild if they just didn’t do anything with Zangan since they went and got mr. Kamen Rider himself, Hiroshi Fujioka, to voice him in Japanese. Perhaps that's exactly why zangan has few appearances, they did a kojima and paid for an expensive actor
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2024 23:03
|
|