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ImpAtom posted:
Wow that’s cool, what was the loving point of adding the whisper poo poo then?????
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Mar 12, 2024 00:13
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 05:57 |
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theblackw0lf posted:Man hearing Aerith’s theme while fighting the Jenova creature at the end still packs an emotional wallop. Though a little less so since I was confused just what the hell happened, though became clear to me eventually Honestly, I didn’t like it. Her moment got overshadowed by everything that happens afterwards, including Bizarro Sephiroth and the whole fakeout with her reappearing to help fight Sephiroth. The original gave you time to quietly contemplate what happened while fighting Jenova LIFE and then time afterwards to process. The remake immediately launches you into a final boss rush plus multiverse/time batshittery and Aerith Dies takes a backseat to all that poo poo. If they were gonna bring up timeline splits and defying fate and poo poo, they shoulda delivered on it and done something interesting instead of “eh gently caress it she dies here I guess, or maybe not lol??”. Kind of a fuckin waste.
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Mar 12, 2024 01:47
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Fucker posted:endgame spoilers 
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Mar 12, 2024 02:32
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Yeah the ending shits its pants mostly because it tries to shove way too much into way too short a timespan, and because it’s confusing and inconsistent as gently caress. I’d rather they not play stupid games with the plot, but we’re way past that point now I guess.
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Mar 12, 2024 03:47
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Also I’ll just say it, it’s a huge loving shame that we lose such a great character right when she’s in peak form. Yes, I know that’s the whole point, but still. Maybe I’m biased.
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Mar 12, 2024 03:51
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poo poo or get off the pot, I say. Either we’re doing whispers and defying fate or we’re loving not, pick one and stick with it. As it is now, in five to ten years people are going to be replaying and watching video essays about this series and everyone’s gonna have to say “yeah just ignore the whispers they’re weird and didn’t go anywhere” and that’s pretty sad.
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Mar 12, 2024 04:16
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Yeah, that’s my point. It’ll be up to part 3 to pay off the whole defying fate/future not written in stone thing, because if not then keeping everything effectively the same instead just makes you wonder why this was all added to the mix in the first place.
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Mar 12, 2024 04:33
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Slept on the ending and ehhhhhh yeah no I still don’t like it. For one thing, I don’t think it was a good idea to end right at Aerith’s death. That really wasn’t the time or place for a big ol’ pompous final boss rush. I would have preferred time to decompress and process afterward like you get in the original, then advanced or reorganized the plot to a more appropriate time to fight Jenova (and Bizarro/Rebirth Sephiroth I guess?). I suppose the problem would be going into the final sequence without Aerith, but that’s already the case anyway (which sucks if she’s one of your favorites to play as btw). Also not too hot on blowing the load on Bizarro Sephiroth early, especially not without any Birth of a God remix!!!!  Another is that the execution and presentation of her death is confusing to the point of annoyance. It’s really unclear what the hell happened, and not in a good way. The constant glitch cuts and the back and forth fakeouts/unreliable 3rd person narrator thing was distracting and took attention away from the moment itself, and I really didn’t wanna spend that time going “wait, what, did she die, did she not die, did Cloud deflect the blow, which if these is the real world, are they just blowing smoke up my rear end???”. You can argue that that’s the point, that the audience is supposed to be confused because Jenova brain etc. etc., but that only works if it’s enjoyable. IMO it’s not, it’s just annoying. The world hopping(???) was just an excuse to fight Bizarro Sephiroth and have Zack and Aerith in your party. It doesn’t meaningfully affect the story (which I’ll get into) and there’s little reason to include it other than to hint at different story possibilities. I don’t know why we have four or five different universes, each with their own goddamn Stamp, if none even matter in the end. And Sephiroth’s plot being “harvest multiversal suffering for haha-I’m-evil purposes” is an unnecessary twist for the sake of justifying the defying fate/future unwritten elements from Remake, especially when Rebirth walks those back. Finally, the whispers. I thought the entire point of the whispers was that defeating them freed the remake trilogy from having to follow the original plot arc. Clearly, Square-Enix changed their mind and the overall arc did not change, this isn’t an AU or a rebuild or a meta-sequel or anything. So then…why are they still here? They’re not what they originally represented, they’re Sephiroth’s spirit army or something now. They’re just there to get in the party’s way whenever Sephiroth feels like it, and have no other narrative use. It sucks cause I actually came around on the Remake whispers once I started considering them a metatextual element representing the devs’ desire to change things up as they see fit, and that was genuinely kinda cool. Now they’re just generic filler and now I look like an idiot. The problem really boils down to Square-Enix getting cold feet. They set themselves up to get weird and creative and new with the ending to Remake, and then just…chickened out. They set up some good mystery and questions with the clear materia, Tifa confronting Cloud early, and the Zack sequences, and then either didn’t deliver or came up with something messy and confusing. I wish they had gone with one of two options: 1. Introduce whispers and what they represent, then go ham on the multiverse and/or defy fate, future isn’t written in stone thing and have fun with it and make it actually matter; or 2. Not introduce those elements at all!!! To be clear: 90% of the game is great, and the next 5% is decent but is kind of tedious. But that last 5%, holy poo poo man. What a wasted opportunity. What a mess.
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Mar 12, 2024 15:39
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Also, what is even happening at the very end? Force ghost Aerith or multiversal bleeding? Clearly Aerith did in fact die, because everyone’s crying. But she is non-physically still there and Cloud isn’t just going crazy, because Red XIII reacts to her presence even if he can’t see her. Is this a metaphorical thing just for closure? Is it real and one of the changes they reserved the right to make? Do I even understand what I saw???  ImpAtom posted:You literally fight Jenova directly after Aerith's death in the original though Yeah but it’s not a whole-rear end final boss or boss rush. Jenova LIFE in the original was just enough to give you something to beat up and get upset over, and then her funeral comes immediately after. Here they jangle a bunch keys while you’re still figuring out what’s going on. It’s also weird and tonally confusing to have Aerith show up to help in that last Sephiroth boss fight, but maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. quote:
Nothing meaningfully changed. Nothing happened to redirect the arc of the plot, nothing truly diverged from the expected flow. If it was supposed to, then I don’t really see how the presence of the clear materia would change what the party can accomplish in disc 2 and 3. Same for Zack hopping through the multiverse, cause he’s just off doing his own thing. Maybe this will make more sense in part 3, but man it’s gonna be 2028 by then.
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Mar 12, 2024 15:58
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VagueRant posted:They've literally said in interviews they're still working off fan reactions. Aw goddammit, no wonder this is a mess. This is never a good idea. It muddles the hell out of your output and prevents you from making a solid core to your work and that’s the part that actually impresses people. Imagine if From Software or Nintendo did that poo poo. Pick something and stick with it, don’t try to please everyone and definitely don’t waffle back and forth.
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Mar 12, 2024 16:05
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I’m fine with Aerith still dying. Obviously I prefer she lives because she’s my favorite in many ways, and I would have been very happy if that happened. But her death is such a pivotal and famous moment that I am not in the least bit surprised they decided that her death is what’s best for the story. So, I would have also preferred if they played her death completely straight with no timelines, parallel universes, unreliable narrators, or other meta fuckery. It sucks, and I’m certainly not in the mood to ruminate on death right now, but I understand why it has to happen. What I’d rather they not do is what they ended up doing, which is try to have their cake and eat it too. Now we have smushed floor cake.
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Mar 12, 2024 16:57
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Harrow posted:I guess we know for sure it's a multiple worlds situation? Is it, though??? Or is it a lifestream afterlife thing like the aurora borealis thing hints at? It’s not clear if there’s many different parallel universes, or one single universe and a lifestream with a bunch of virtual sub-realities. What even was that sky thing, anyway?
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Mar 12, 2024 17:30
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D.Fuzzbot posted:I think if the feedback is strong enough though that we were "tricked" into thinking fate changed then they might pull more aggressive multiverse shenanigans But that’s going to be even more flailing which is going to make things even worse! Harrow posted:I mean I would prefer if it was a Lifestream afterlife thing, but Sephiroth pretty directly states that "when the boundaries of fate are breached, new worlds are born" and talks about all the other worlds that exist and will inevitably end. I thought he or someone else said that the planet itself births those worlds, which would imply the lifestream, right? ImpAtom posted:The sky thing is likely part of a bigger mystery and there's some genuine indication that Aerith could see it before she lost the White Materia. (Which is part of why they changed the ending line that everyone bitched about.) That reminds me, I don’t quite get the order of events for the white and clear materia. IIUC it’s: - Whispers show up in Remake - Aerith gets planetary (fore?)knowledge via the white materia - Aerith opens a portal to the Patented Whispers And Sephiroth Boss Arena™️ - Party defeats whispers and Sephiroth - Whispers take planetary knowledge from the white materia, and therefore from Aerith - White materia is now clear materia - Much later, Cloud and Aerith bonk their heads real bad and they wake up in Sector 5 - Aerith turns to be a different Aerith who still has the white materia - Aerith gives Cloud the white materia - Cloud wakes up in the forest and gives Aerith the white materia - Aerith mouths something I didn’t catch and gives Cloud the clear materia -  - Cloud now has both the clear and black materia, white materia is MIA Is that correct?
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Mar 12, 2024 17:47
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ImpAtom posted:Cloud and Aerith fall into a pit, which is strongly implied to mean they took a brief dip in the Lifestream. (If you pay attention to Cloud's behavior afterwards he's acting like he got Mako Poisoned.) Okay, so then that’s more evidence for them being virtual lifestream realities instead of distinct timelines or parallel universes. Which makes this a lot simpler - all the Zack stuff occurs in the lifestream where everybody is either dead or formed from the memories of the dead. That means there’s only one timeline, the events of OG FF7, and we can safely ignore the other Stamp realities as lifestream dying-dream shenanigans. ImpAtom posted:Oh! There's something I don't see anyone bringing up but: Was that dialogue in Rebirth?
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Mar 12, 2024 18:35
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Harrow posted:He does say that the Planet "encompasses myriad worlds" or something along those lines, and that when those worlds end, they return to the Lifestream in a "homecoming." But it's also worth noting that it seems like the Gi's world was also somehow absorbed into Gaia, assuming that's what "subsumed" means in this context, and that definitely wasn't an alternate timeline born from within the Lifestream (because they are specifically not connected to the Lifestream). Yeah none of this makes sense and I think Square-Enix is pulling Kingdom Hearts style bullshit out of their rear end.
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Mar 12, 2024 18:37
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ImpAtom posted:Nope, it's from the original game, but it actually doesn't come up until later in the game. The team actually has to go and find out what happened with the Materia because they otherwise think things are hopeless, it's where the whole "Holy might destroy humanity" thing comes from. Maybe, but in that case I think the reveal is going to be “Holy wasn’t cast yet”, and they’ll add a section where they have to recover the materia and cast it for real this time or something. Not that we’re going to do a No-Holy% run. That would avoid majorly changing the story, which SE seems to prefer from here on out.
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Mar 12, 2024 18:39
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$50 says Reunion gets a Playable Aerith DLC for $19.99 extra.
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Mar 12, 2024 18:46
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I cast Wish! 
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Mar 12, 2024 18:59
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That’d be pretty lame. I like how the planet itself came up with the freaky kaiju. Making it Sephiroth the whole time sucks.
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Mar 12, 2024 19:31
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On a note other than ending talk. What’s left to cover in part 3? I know at minimum we got: - Snowboarding - Weapons - Lifestream - Wutai - Airship - Space - Sister Ray - Huge/Magnus Materia - Return to Midgar - Beat up Hojo Plus the final boss n all. I forget what else.
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Mar 12, 2024 21:16
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It occurs to me that there was no big, weird, speculation-bait wham scene at the end of the game like there was last time. Remake had Zack show up out of nowhere and inexplicably survive, making us wonder what the hell was going to come next. Rebirth doesn’t as far I can tell, or at least nothing that an FF7 veteran didn’t already know about. Maybe that’s because they reserved it to goodbye to Aerith, but from a hype-building point of view there wasn’t much to get us excited for disc 2. Kinda wish there was, though.Spermando posted:So the ending was basically this. What other forum? Got a link?
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Mar 13, 2024 01:03
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Yeah, I’m on team VR. Makes Sephiroth’s plan totally nonsensical but his new motivation is crap anyway, so whatever. This game is at its best when it’s a love letter to the original, and at its worst when it tries to be all epic and poo poo.
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Mar 13, 2024 14:21
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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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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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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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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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What was the subtitle meant to represent? In Remake, it represented remaking the future and the world by screwing destiny and all that. What “rebirth” did we see here?
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Mar 14, 2024 17:57
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Given what we learned here I figure the third game will be called Reunion to allude to all three of Jenova, the conjoining of the spheres, and seeing Aerith again in some way. But that’s honestly a complete guess, I don’t know what they’re trying to do outside of what was already in the OG.
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Mar 14, 2024 18:21
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cock hero flux posted:the third installment will be called reunion anyway Yeah, there’s no way they don’t. gently caress Crisis Core, the OG makes them more money. If they call it something else I’ll be surprised.
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Mar 14, 2024 18:48
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Because Meteor is a classic FF spell.
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Mar 14, 2024 20:58
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RC Cola posted:Holy poo poo imagine being this wrong about so many things. My dude, I’m specifically talking about the execution of the ending. Everything you brought up is under that other 90-95% I said was great.
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Mar 15, 2024 18:16
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I guess the difference with me is that others found that rugpull effective instead of cheap.
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Mar 15, 2024 18:27
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You’re gonna get XIV 1.0 Gridania and you’re going to love it
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Mar 15, 2024 18:33
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Oh hey, saw a cool observation just now. One of Cait Sith’s fortunes when he first meets Cloud and Barret is “Watch your belongings. Lucky color: black.” Remember what Cloud finds in his pocket at the end?
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Mar 16, 2024 05:45
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This is exactly what I mean by the execution of the ending dragging the rest of the plot down.
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Mar 17, 2024 03:13
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Comrade Fakename posted:The question of “is Aerith alive or has Cloud had a complete mental break” isn’t an either-or. It’s a pretty classic sci-fi/fantasy trope for fantastical plot devices to be metaphors for real emotional or mental issues, and this is doubly true for FF7 and Cloud. iadwtp and i also think they made a mistake by waffling on the whole unknown journey thing. This journey has been anything but unknown - almost everything I thought would happen happened.
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Mar 17, 2024 04:44
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Shhhhh shh shh shh. No think. Only play.
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Mar 17, 2024 05:12
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Mordiceius posted:I'm still of the feeling that I think these games would be better if they just expanded the original story instead of adding Whispers and potential multiple timeline bullshit. Like I said, they should have taken a poo poo or gotten off the pot. Walking back the original concept of the Whispers and what they were implying with the end of Remake was a misstep cause now the directional whiplash is confusing everybody. Either go whole hog on the Whispers and piss off the purists while having fun with the story and world, or indulge the purists don’t introduce any cutesy will-they-won’t-they teasing at all. But pick one and loving stick to it. And for the record, I played FF7 when I was a mere little child of 9~10 years old and I would have had a loving blast if the series had gone off the rails, so I ain’t no purist.
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Mar 19, 2024 19:30
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Lifestream purgatory VR is a cleaner explanation than any multiverse/timeline poo poo Square-Enix could possibly justify at this point. Nothing else works given the backpedaling from Remake.ImpAtom posted:That would mean Elmyra and Marlene are dead too, wouldn't it? I mean in various media you see characters go to hell and face everyone and everything they’ve failed, dead or alive, relatively often. So it’s not that big a stretch. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 19:20
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 05:57 |
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DeathSandwich posted:Truly the most damned curse is a character that has the superpower of "knowing the plot of Final Fantasy 7". It’s been long enough that I don’t actually remember the details of how true this was in Remake. What exactly did she say and/or do again? Rosalind posted:In the alternate universes where FF7 Rebirth definitively confirmed whether Aerith is alive/dead, what do you think is the main focus of discussion is in that alternate version of this thread? Whether one would have preferred one option or another. As it is now, the ending is too ambiguous to even have that debate in the first place. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 02:08
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