Not Appreciating the Final Fantasy 7 Remake As Much Part 5
So . . .
The last chapter of Final Fantasy 7 Remake is something.
Something I didn't necessarily like. In fact, at one point, in frustration I said, "I'm done," put my controller down, and turned off the system. I haven't done that in a long time.
One positive aspect of chapter 18? I got to see my favorite character in Final Fantasy 7, although it was much earlier than I was expecting.
Before you follow the cut below, know that there will be massive spoilers underneath about the story and the integrity of this remake.
Yeah, remember how so far the game has been fun and the battle system has been enjoyable and the controls haven't been too bad? What if Chapter 18 took all of that away? The last chapter of the game feels rushed. Not only that, it seems like this was the entire spectacle chapter. Good stuff for commercials. For following the plot? Not so much. Leaving Midgar isn't that much of a spectacle in the original game. Plus there's all the plot holes that the Remake creates, but we'll get to that later.
The last time I posted, I had just started "the drum," an enclosure for Jenova that Hojo created and has trapped Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII in. Did you say that you wanted repetitive hallways? I can't remember how many times I got turned around in the drum. That's a big issue when you get into the Shinra building. Whereas in the slums, the environment changes radically between one place and another, any time you're in a Shinra owned building or reactor, everything looks exactly the same. So it's hard to figure out where you are.
Let's get into another problem in the battle system: I had no warning that the parties would switch rapidly. I have relied on juggling only a few mastered materias. So when there was a mini-boss with the Swordipede and it switched over to Aerith and Tifa, I suddenly realized that they weren't equipped with materia. And yet, somehow they made it through. With sheer willpower and mashing of the triangle button while controlling Tifa, she kicked the crap out of that Swordipede.
Eventually, the group breaks out of the drum and Hojo's just like, "Cool, see you later." Really. It's hard to believe that someone who put that much effort in to kill the group is just out of there. I mean, he did try to tell Cloud that he had never been in Soldier but the plot device ghosts stopped him. Once near the top of the drum, the group sees that Jenova has been taken out of her enclosure with a trail of alien goo blood leading to the elevator.
The group follows the alien blood up to the highest floor of the Shinra building: the presidential office. Cries for help can be heard. Cloud follows them to find President Shinra hanging from the ledge. Barret toys with him, making it seem like he'll drop Shinra, but instead throws him to safety. All Barret wants is for Shinra to admit he dropped the plate on Sector 7, clearing Avalanche's name. But Barret doesn't know the first rule in villainy as Shinra immediately pulls out a gun.
Before he can kill Barret, Sephiroth runs him through with his sword. Sephiroth then stabs Barret as well. The implication is that Barret has died. Before Sephiroth leaves, he gives Cloud and the group a present: a piece of Jenova.
Jenova Dreamweaver should have been the penultimate boss of this game. This boss fight is amazing. One of my favorite tracks from the original soundtrack is J-E-N-O-V-A. The track starts at the beginning of the fight in an orchestral version, but doesn't really kick in until you get Jenova Dreamweaver to reveal herself. And then it's full-on J-E-N-O-V-A. They've kept it pretty much the same as the original. For me, it was the best moment in the game. When I beat her, I felt a sense of accomplishment. A feeling of, "That's it. That's the end."
IT WASN'T.
It turns out that the Sephiroth they had been following was just a man in robes. Marco, the very neighbor that Cloud almost killed in the beginning of the game. The plot ghosts drop by and bring Barret back to life. Because yeah, let's just kill off important characters only to bring them back a second later. Barret's stabbing had no emotional impact on me because I knew they were going to bring him back to life. That was annoyance #1.
As the group heads to the roof of the Shinra building, they see the Avalanche helicopter that Wedge called. It gets shot down by another helicopter. This one has the Turks and Vice President Rufus Shinra on board. Aerith, Barret, Tifa, and Red XIII run back to escape while Cloud holds off Rufus.
Annoyance #2: They've taken away Rufus' speech. That moment is pretty character defining for Rufus. But no, we need to have a pointless cut-scene with Scarlet proving she's evil rather than see Rufus monologue about the power of fear. Instead Rufus says that he owns Cloud because Cloud's an ex-Soldier. I'm also not feeling Rufus' new design. The jacket's pretty cool, but the pants are bizarre. Does he need a skirt for his pants? And why does he need so many belts? I think if one element was taken away, either the skirt or the belts, it might not be as egregious. All of Rufus' mannerisms have dissipated as well. He doesn't flip his hair at all.
This annoys me because Rufus is another one of my favorite characters in Final Fantasy 7. For someone who was supposed to be an antagonist, he actually did a lot to stop meteor, stop Sephiroth, and stared down death rather than run away. I don't know, I've always liked Rufus.
The boss fight with Rufus and Dark Nation (Dark Star now, but it will always be Dark Nation to me) is one of the most annoying fights in the game. You're supposed to kill off Dark Nation first. But it doesn't help when Dark Nation constantly pulls you into Rufus who pulls off an unblockable series of shots. It happened constantly. And I know, cast magic on them. It's hard to cast magic when Rufus and Dark Nation are constantly hitting you and being hit causes your spell to be interrupted.
I survived with limit breaks.
Something explodes and Cloud is thrown off the building, but Tifa is there to help him up. As they're trying to escape, they notice the vehicle display and get an idea.
At this point, after the Rufus fight, I was exhausted. I wanted to save and take a break. But guess what. You don't have time for a break. You have to fight another boss. Without a save point. A problem I have is that when the game prompts you near the bottom of the screen with a very small button, I don't notice it when there's a massive cut-scene. So I missed being able to open the party menu before the next boss fight. This is a major problem. You should have been in control of Barret getting onto the elevator so that you knew to put materia onto your characters.
And let's not even get started on the "check-point" system in this game. If I were to load the check-point I was last at, it probably would have been back at the beginning of the chapter and I would have to fight Jenova Dreamweaver and Rufus all over again. These are problems that always existed in the game, but with chapter 18 being so boss heavy with little rest time, it becomes far more apparent.
When Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII hop onto the elevator, they see a boss in the elevator next to them. Now, I remember this boss fight. I had a feeling it was going to happen. But I didn't want to fight it right there and then. So I thought maybe the game would give me a moment. It didn't. If you don't catch that button on the screen, you've lost your chance.
The Arsenal, which is what they've named this boss, shoots through the glass of the elevators. The elevator Barret, Aerith, and Red XII are in crashes on the floor, where they have to battle the Arsenal. Guess who didn't have any materia equipped on Barret and Aerith! Me!
Somehow I survived this boss battle. I'm not sure how. I know I used all of Barret's abilities and all of my elixirs.
After the Arsenal is destroyed, Barret, Red XIII, and Aerith try to escape out the front door. Heidegger stops them with his soldiers and that's when one of the best moments in Midgar is recreated, only without Rufus asking them who they are. Aerith has one of the best responses with, "A local florist!" Would have loved to see what Cloud and Tifa described themselves as, but oh well.
Meanwhile the plot device ghosts throw Wedge out a window and kill him. Because why not. I really hate the fact that they kept Wedge alive longer to kill him off later. It feels really cheap.
Cloud and Tifa have stolen a motorcycle and a truck from Shinra. They pick up Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII before escaping. From there, it's back to my favorite mini-game. There are different enemies to swipe at, but it's still the game I know and love. Only guess what! You have to kill another boss while you're on the motorcycle.
So remember how the controls were decent against Roche? How about if you fight Motorball without decent controls? Motorball is not a difficult fight. His attacks are easy to avoid. If you can control Cloud, that is. I can't tell you how many times I would slow down Cloud and try to veer him away from Motorball only for the exact direction that worked before to not work a second time around. I died 5 times to this boss. Not because it's difficult. Because the controls are so janky. There's something about the perspective on Motorball that really messes up the controls.
Eventually, I lucked out on the controls and beat Motorball. I made a promise to myself that I would never play chapter 18 ever again after this.
After getting to the edge of Midgar, the group sees all of the plot device ghosts swarming around the building. They move to block the group from leaving Midgar. Red XIII says that they're Arbiters of Fate which is a term used one too many times in Japanese media. Aerith gives them this whole speech about how blah blah blah fate and destiny are not destined, we can change everything and be free of our destinies. The group decides to fight the plot device ghosts because, why not?
They all have visions of events from the future, like Aerith's death. And it's implied that Aerith knows she'll die but wants to fight the plot device ghosts anyway. Annoyance #3, but we'll get to that later. They jump into the astral portal that the plot device ghosts have created and fight . . . Whisper Harbinger, Whisper Croceo, Whisper Rubrum, and Whisper Viridi? Bosses I don't care about at all.
They're incredibly annoying to fight. They hit you over and over and over again, so you block in and try to creep up on them to pull off an ability. But then they turn around and immediately interrupt whatever you wanted to do. There's a lot of shifting too, so I would pull off a limit break only for the game to make the enemy disappear. And then they form a Bahamut to fight. I had no connection to this boss fight. Didn't care about killing it because . . . why are they killing it in the first place? Because it's there? Because Aerith told them it was a good idea?
After killing it, the Whispers take on the form of Sephiroth and you have to fight him. Guess how happy I was to see another boss. This is another incredibly annoying boss fight. I spent most of it with Cloud either blocking or in Punisher mode. Not exactly my idea of fun. After staggering Sephiroth, you get two party members back at random. This means you have to plot out your materia thoughtfully. Barret was a real life saver with the Prayer materia.
I died twice to Sephiroth. Once near the end of the boss fight. And then I decided I'm done. I put the controller away and left it.
When I came back to the game, it was as I feared: I had to go through the whole Whispers boss battle AGAIN. Because the auto-save function is useless and there's no save point between the Whispers and Sephiroth. This time, I got to the part where Sephiroth casts meteor and pulls off an attack that puts everyone down to 1 HP. Sephiroth was near death. Tifa had a limit break and had cast Leviathan before this attack. I thought Tifa would have the final blow and as she started her limit break, Sephiroth killed her. Annoyance #4: Enemies being able to kill you as you're pulling off a limit break.
Meanwhile, Barret was still alive and survived long enough for Leviathan to use it's ability before leaving. That ability killed Sephiroth. And that was it. That was the end of the game. Cloud: dead. Tifa: dead. Barret: 1 HP.
That's 6 bosses. Without much of a break.
So afterwards, Cloud and Sephiroth have a 5 minute battle because that hasn't become tiring at all. One of the biggest issues I have in this game is how present Sephiroth is. By this point in the original game, the characters didn't even know what Sephiroth's intentions were. In the Remake, they're like, he's evil. We have to stop him. I prefer the mystery of the original: you keep seeing things that Sephiroth has done but you never actually see him until you've traveled the planet a little bit.
The Whispers have been defeated and the group has messed with fate. Everything that the Whispers have meddled in is reverted: Biggs is shown alive which means that Jessie and Wedge are probably still alive too. Zack (said favorite character) is shown from the past holding off the Shinra soldiers while protecting an unconscious Cloud. He ends up surviving against them because of what the group has done and takes Cloud to Midgar.
Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII, seemingly unchanged by anything they've done, leave Midgar. And that's the end.
I had a lot of thoughts about this ending. I know it's been polarizing. But I've been thinking about it a lot.
Here's the thing: I actually like the idea that the entire cast of Final Fantasy 7 has been doomed to replay the events of their story over and over. This might lead into a rather Nietzsche version of FF7 where the characters have to learn to love their fates. I'm into that. I like that. If they were able to pull that off, I wouldn't even be that mad at them for suckering people in with a "remake." I've even come up with a subtitle for the next game: Thus Spoke Bugenhagen.
Instead, they went for your typical plot-hole heavy time change story. With killing the Whispers and reverting everything they did there are some major plot holes we have to deal with. Wouldn't Barret be dead by the end? They revived him. When Cloud fell through the church's roof, it's implied that he died. Wouldn't he be dead by the end? If the Whispers intervening before the Sector 5 Reactor were stopped, Cloud wouldn't have gone on the mission and thus, wouldn't have met Aerith. But they're still together at the end of the Midgar section.
Or how about the biggest plot hole? The Whispers are blocking the group from leaving Midgar. Supposedly, the Whispers are trying to keep the group from straying from the original story line. If this is true, they wouldn't have blocked the group from leaving Midgar. In the original story line, the group leaves Midgar at that point. So why are the Whispers stopping them? It doesn't make any sense except for, "We had to end it somehow with something big and showy, so we chose that."
And the fact that Cloud is completely unchanged after Zack survives due to their actions? Cloud would not be the same Cloud at the end of Midgar if Zack survived. Maybe they didn't have time to show that. Maybe that's planned for the next game. But it seems like a pretty big error.
I mentioned Aerith earlier. The fact that she's goading the group on to fight the Whispers was problematic for me. I got the feeling from the original game that Aerith knew she was going to die. The same is true in the Remake. But that's what made Aerith so compelling in the original. She knew she was going to die and she sacrificed herself anyway. Because she believed that the survival of the planet and everyone on it was more important than her life. In this game, she's like, "Hey guys, let's fight fate!"
And let's address the elephant in the room: "Remake." This game is more of a sequel than a remake by the end. Again, I don't have a problem with that concept, except when you aren't as open about your project for the sake of making money. For years, we've been promised a remake of the original. They sold Final Fantasy 7 Remake on the fact that it was a remake. Though Tetsuya Nomura said that it would be a "Rebuild" which doesn't exactly mean much to me because even the Evangelion remake films followed the series pretty closely until the third film.
All they had to say was, "It's kind of a remake, but also kind of not," and I would have been fine. Transparency is really important to me and the fact that Square Enix kept mum about the fact that it was a secret sequel rubbed me the wrong way. During the credits, when it said, "For the fans!" I made a snide comment. Because FF7 is their cash cow. They've got to keep milking it, right?
Ultimately, I feel like there would have been a way to execute this idea and story better but Square Enix failed to execute it properly and the secrecy on the intention of this "remake" made me feel a little swindled.
It was really weird beating this game because I loved it up until the last chapter. There are plenty of issues throughout the game, which I'll probably mention in a follow-up post, but I was willing to overlook them because I enjoyed this game so much. Then the last chapter came around and everything fell apart.
I'm intrigued to see if they can make this concept work in the next game. But I'll be honest. I'm afraid they're going to use it to just keep major characters alive or kill them one moment and bring them back a second later. If they promise me Yuffie or playing as Zack . . . I don't know.
We'll just have to see.
The last chapter of Final Fantasy 7 Remake is something.
Something I didn't necessarily like. In fact, at one point, in frustration I said, "I'm done," put my controller down, and turned off the system. I haven't done that in a long time.
One positive aspect of chapter 18? I got to see my favorite character in Final Fantasy 7, although it was much earlier than I was expecting.
Before you follow the cut below, know that there will be massive spoilers underneath about the story and the integrity of this remake.
Yeah, remember how so far the game has been fun and the battle system has been enjoyable and the controls haven't been too bad? What if Chapter 18 took all of that away? The last chapter of the game feels rushed. Not only that, it seems like this was the entire spectacle chapter. Good stuff for commercials. For following the plot? Not so much. Leaving Midgar isn't that much of a spectacle in the original game. Plus there's all the plot holes that the Remake creates, but we'll get to that later.
The last time I posted, I had just started "the drum," an enclosure for Jenova that Hojo created and has trapped Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII in. Did you say that you wanted repetitive hallways? I can't remember how many times I got turned around in the drum. That's a big issue when you get into the Shinra building. Whereas in the slums, the environment changes radically between one place and another, any time you're in a Shinra owned building or reactor, everything looks exactly the same. So it's hard to figure out where you are.
Let's get into another problem in the battle system: I had no warning that the parties would switch rapidly. I have relied on juggling only a few mastered materias. So when there was a mini-boss with the Swordipede and it switched over to Aerith and Tifa, I suddenly realized that they weren't equipped with materia. And yet, somehow they made it through. With sheer willpower and mashing of the triangle button while controlling Tifa, she kicked the crap out of that Swordipede.
Eventually, the group breaks out of the drum and Hojo's just like, "Cool, see you later." Really. It's hard to believe that someone who put that much effort in to kill the group is just out of there. I mean, he did try to tell Cloud that he had never been in Soldier but the plot device ghosts stopped him. Once near the top of the drum, the group sees that Jenova has been taken out of her enclosure with a trail of alien goo blood leading to the elevator.
The group follows the alien blood up to the highest floor of the Shinra building: the presidential office. Cries for help can be heard. Cloud follows them to find President Shinra hanging from the ledge. Barret toys with him, making it seem like he'll drop Shinra, but instead throws him to safety. All Barret wants is for Shinra to admit he dropped the plate on Sector 7, clearing Avalanche's name. But Barret doesn't know the first rule in villainy as Shinra immediately pulls out a gun.
Before he can kill Barret, Sephiroth runs him through with his sword. Sephiroth then stabs Barret as well. The implication is that Barret has died. Before Sephiroth leaves, he gives Cloud and the group a present: a piece of Jenova.
Jenova Dreamweaver should have been the penultimate boss of this game. This boss fight is amazing. One of my favorite tracks from the original soundtrack is J-E-N-O-V-A. The track starts at the beginning of the fight in an orchestral version, but doesn't really kick in until you get Jenova Dreamweaver to reveal herself. And then it's full-on J-E-N-O-V-A. They've kept it pretty much the same as the original. For me, it was the best moment in the game. When I beat her, I felt a sense of accomplishment. A feeling of, "That's it. That's the end."
IT WASN'T.
It turns out that the Sephiroth they had been following was just a man in robes. Marco, the very neighbor that Cloud almost killed in the beginning of the game. The plot ghosts drop by and bring Barret back to life. Because yeah, let's just kill off important characters only to bring them back a second later. Barret's stabbing had no emotional impact on me because I knew they were going to bring him back to life. That was annoyance #1.
As the group heads to the roof of the Shinra building, they see the Avalanche helicopter that Wedge called. It gets shot down by another helicopter. This one has the Turks and Vice President Rufus Shinra on board. Aerith, Barret, Tifa, and Red XIII run back to escape while Cloud holds off Rufus.
Annoyance #2: They've taken away Rufus' speech. That moment is pretty character defining for Rufus. But no, we need to have a pointless cut-scene with Scarlet proving she's evil rather than see Rufus monologue about the power of fear. Instead Rufus says that he owns Cloud because Cloud's an ex-Soldier. I'm also not feeling Rufus' new design. The jacket's pretty cool, but the pants are bizarre. Does he need a skirt for his pants? And why does he need so many belts? I think if one element was taken away, either the skirt or the belts, it might not be as egregious. All of Rufus' mannerisms have dissipated as well. He doesn't flip his hair at all.
This annoys me because Rufus is another one of my favorite characters in Final Fantasy 7. For someone who was supposed to be an antagonist, he actually did a lot to stop meteor, stop Sephiroth, and stared down death rather than run away. I don't know, I've always liked Rufus.
The boss fight with Rufus and Dark Nation (Dark Star now, but it will always be Dark Nation to me) is one of the most annoying fights in the game. You're supposed to kill off Dark Nation first. But it doesn't help when Dark Nation constantly pulls you into Rufus who pulls off an unblockable series of shots. It happened constantly. And I know, cast magic on them. It's hard to cast magic when Rufus and Dark Nation are constantly hitting you and being hit causes your spell to be interrupted.
I survived with limit breaks.
Something explodes and Cloud is thrown off the building, but Tifa is there to help him up. As they're trying to escape, they notice the vehicle display and get an idea.
At this point, after the Rufus fight, I was exhausted. I wanted to save and take a break. But guess what. You don't have time for a break. You have to fight another boss. Without a save point. A problem I have is that when the game prompts you near the bottom of the screen with a very small button, I don't notice it when there's a massive cut-scene. So I missed being able to open the party menu before the next boss fight. This is a major problem. You should have been in control of Barret getting onto the elevator so that you knew to put materia onto your characters.
And let's not even get started on the "check-point" system in this game. If I were to load the check-point I was last at, it probably would have been back at the beginning of the chapter and I would have to fight Jenova Dreamweaver and Rufus all over again. These are problems that always existed in the game, but with chapter 18 being so boss heavy with little rest time, it becomes far more apparent.
When Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII hop onto the elevator, they see a boss in the elevator next to them. Now, I remember this boss fight. I had a feeling it was going to happen. But I didn't want to fight it right there and then. So I thought maybe the game would give me a moment. It didn't. If you don't catch that button on the screen, you've lost your chance.
The Arsenal, which is what they've named this boss, shoots through the glass of the elevators. The elevator Barret, Aerith, and Red XII are in crashes on the floor, where they have to battle the Arsenal. Guess who didn't have any materia equipped on Barret and Aerith! Me!
Somehow I survived this boss battle. I'm not sure how. I know I used all of Barret's abilities and all of my elixirs.
After the Arsenal is destroyed, Barret, Red XIII, and Aerith try to escape out the front door. Heidegger stops them with his soldiers and that's when one of the best moments in Midgar is recreated, only without Rufus asking them who they are. Aerith has one of the best responses with, "A local florist!" Would have loved to see what Cloud and Tifa described themselves as, but oh well.
Meanwhile the plot device ghosts throw Wedge out a window and kill him. Because why not. I really hate the fact that they kept Wedge alive longer to kill him off later. It feels really cheap.
Cloud and Tifa have stolen a motorcycle and a truck from Shinra. They pick up Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII before escaping. From there, it's back to my favorite mini-game. There are different enemies to swipe at, but it's still the game I know and love. Only guess what! You have to kill another boss while you're on the motorcycle.
So remember how the controls were decent against Roche? How about if you fight Motorball without decent controls? Motorball is not a difficult fight. His attacks are easy to avoid. If you can control Cloud, that is. I can't tell you how many times I would slow down Cloud and try to veer him away from Motorball only for the exact direction that worked before to not work a second time around. I died 5 times to this boss. Not because it's difficult. Because the controls are so janky. There's something about the perspective on Motorball that really messes up the controls.
Eventually, I lucked out on the controls and beat Motorball. I made a promise to myself that I would never play chapter 18 ever again after this.
After getting to the edge of Midgar, the group sees all of the plot device ghosts swarming around the building. They move to block the group from leaving Midgar. Red XIII says that they're Arbiters of Fate which is a term used one too many times in Japanese media. Aerith gives them this whole speech about how blah blah blah fate and destiny are not destined, we can change everything and be free of our destinies. The group decides to fight the plot device ghosts because, why not?
They all have visions of events from the future, like Aerith's death. And it's implied that Aerith knows she'll die but wants to fight the plot device ghosts anyway. Annoyance #3, but we'll get to that later. They jump into the astral portal that the plot device ghosts have created and fight . . . Whisper Harbinger, Whisper Croceo, Whisper Rubrum, and Whisper Viridi? Bosses I don't care about at all.
They're incredibly annoying to fight. They hit you over and over and over again, so you block in and try to creep up on them to pull off an ability. But then they turn around and immediately interrupt whatever you wanted to do. There's a lot of shifting too, so I would pull off a limit break only for the game to make the enemy disappear. And then they form a Bahamut to fight. I had no connection to this boss fight. Didn't care about killing it because . . . why are they killing it in the first place? Because it's there? Because Aerith told them it was a good idea?
After killing it, the Whispers take on the form of Sephiroth and you have to fight him. Guess how happy I was to see another boss. This is another incredibly annoying boss fight. I spent most of it with Cloud either blocking or in Punisher mode. Not exactly my idea of fun. After staggering Sephiroth, you get two party members back at random. This means you have to plot out your materia thoughtfully. Barret was a real life saver with the Prayer materia.
I died twice to Sephiroth. Once near the end of the boss fight. And then I decided I'm done. I put the controller away and left it.
When I came back to the game, it was as I feared: I had to go through the whole Whispers boss battle AGAIN. Because the auto-save function is useless and there's no save point between the Whispers and Sephiroth. This time, I got to the part where Sephiroth casts meteor and pulls off an attack that puts everyone down to 1 HP. Sephiroth was near death. Tifa had a limit break and had cast Leviathan before this attack. I thought Tifa would have the final blow and as she started her limit break, Sephiroth killed her. Annoyance #4: Enemies being able to kill you as you're pulling off a limit break.
Meanwhile, Barret was still alive and survived long enough for Leviathan to use it's ability before leaving. That ability killed Sephiroth. And that was it. That was the end of the game. Cloud: dead. Tifa: dead. Barret: 1 HP.
That's 6 bosses. Without much of a break.
So afterwards, Cloud and Sephiroth have a 5 minute battle because that hasn't become tiring at all. One of the biggest issues I have in this game is how present Sephiroth is. By this point in the original game, the characters didn't even know what Sephiroth's intentions were. In the Remake, they're like, he's evil. We have to stop him. I prefer the mystery of the original: you keep seeing things that Sephiroth has done but you never actually see him until you've traveled the planet a little bit.
The Whispers have been defeated and the group has messed with fate. Everything that the Whispers have meddled in is reverted: Biggs is shown alive which means that Jessie and Wedge are probably still alive too. Zack (said favorite character) is shown from the past holding off the Shinra soldiers while protecting an unconscious Cloud. He ends up surviving against them because of what the group has done and takes Cloud to Midgar.
Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII, seemingly unchanged by anything they've done, leave Midgar. And that's the end.
I had a lot of thoughts about this ending. I know it's been polarizing. But I've been thinking about it a lot.
Here's the thing: I actually like the idea that the entire cast of Final Fantasy 7 has been doomed to replay the events of their story over and over. This might lead into a rather Nietzsche version of FF7 where the characters have to learn to love their fates. I'm into that. I like that. If they were able to pull that off, I wouldn't even be that mad at them for suckering people in with a "remake." I've even come up with a subtitle for the next game: Thus Spoke Bugenhagen.
Instead, they went for your typical plot-hole heavy time change story. With killing the Whispers and reverting everything they did there are some major plot holes we have to deal with. Wouldn't Barret be dead by the end? They revived him. When Cloud fell through the church's roof, it's implied that he died. Wouldn't he be dead by the end? If the Whispers intervening before the Sector 5 Reactor were stopped, Cloud wouldn't have gone on the mission and thus, wouldn't have met Aerith. But they're still together at the end of the Midgar section.
Or how about the biggest plot hole? The Whispers are blocking the group from leaving Midgar. Supposedly, the Whispers are trying to keep the group from straying from the original story line. If this is true, they wouldn't have blocked the group from leaving Midgar. In the original story line, the group leaves Midgar at that point. So why are the Whispers stopping them? It doesn't make any sense except for, "We had to end it somehow with something big and showy, so we chose that."
And the fact that Cloud is completely unchanged after Zack survives due to their actions? Cloud would not be the same Cloud at the end of Midgar if Zack survived. Maybe they didn't have time to show that. Maybe that's planned for the next game. But it seems like a pretty big error.
I mentioned Aerith earlier. The fact that she's goading the group on to fight the Whispers was problematic for me. I got the feeling from the original game that Aerith knew she was going to die. The same is true in the Remake. But that's what made Aerith so compelling in the original. She knew she was going to die and she sacrificed herself anyway. Because she believed that the survival of the planet and everyone on it was more important than her life. In this game, she's like, "Hey guys, let's fight fate!"
And let's address the elephant in the room: "Remake." This game is more of a sequel than a remake by the end. Again, I don't have a problem with that concept, except when you aren't as open about your project for the sake of making money. For years, we've been promised a remake of the original. They sold Final Fantasy 7 Remake on the fact that it was a remake. Though Tetsuya Nomura said that it would be a "Rebuild" which doesn't exactly mean much to me because even the Evangelion remake films followed the series pretty closely until the third film.
All they had to say was, "It's kind of a remake, but also kind of not," and I would have been fine. Transparency is really important to me and the fact that Square Enix kept mum about the fact that it was a secret sequel rubbed me the wrong way. During the credits, when it said, "For the fans!" I made a snide comment. Because FF7 is their cash cow. They've got to keep milking it, right?
Ultimately, I feel like there would have been a way to execute this idea and story better but Square Enix failed to execute it properly and the secrecy on the intention of this "remake" made me feel a little swindled.
It was really weird beating this game because I loved it up until the last chapter. There are plenty of issues throughout the game, which I'll probably mention in a follow-up post, but I was willing to overlook them because I enjoyed this game so much. Then the last chapter came around and everything fell apart.
I'm intrigued to see if they can make this concept work in the next game. But I'll be honest. I'm afraid they're going to use it to just keep major characters alive or kill them one moment and bring them back a second later. If they promise me Yuffie or playing as Zack . . . I don't know.
We'll just have to see.