Marge: Come on, Homer. Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon.
Homer: That’s not how I remember it.
The Simpsons, “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo”
Full spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Remake, and the original FFVII follow.
Aerith dies.
Growing up, I was a Nintendo kid. I did not own a PlayStation until I was a man. Nonetheless, Aerith’s death at the hands of Sephiroth’s Masamune is common knowledge for anybody who knows the acronym JRPG. Seeing this moment recreated in glorious high-definition was the main appeal for picking up Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Technically though, I also grew up playing Rebirth. I started the game shortly after its release as a late-young thirtysomething and finished it a year later as a young-mid thirtysomething.1 FFVII Rebirth is too long. Beating the game took me under one hundred hours, so this is not the longest JRPG ever created. Yet it drags so damn much. I would play for a week or two at a time but grow bored every time I set off to complete all the world intel for each region. Inevitably, I would put the controller down for a few months, play something else, and then pick Rebirth up once again. Remake’s shorter, forty-hour runtime felt like a light snack in comparison to Rebirth’s all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
A lot of this drag is caused by Rebirth only being part of the story. Persona 5 can be two hundred hours long because it tells a complete story whereas Rebirth is half the length but only a third of the full narrative. This is exacerbated by the primary driving force for Cloud and company: They simply follow the hooded men around the globe. Their adventure has no direct goal until the Gi reveal the existence of the black materia. Stopping Sephiroth may be the party’s ultimate objective, but they have no clear understanding of how to do so.
And while we visit stunning vistas in Rebirth like Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga, none of them compare to Midgar. The City of Mako feels like a real place, and its two-tiered design is genuinely interesting. Some of my favorite moments in Rebirth were getting to revisit Midgar in the Zack intermissions.
Unfortunately, an open-world game can make the world much smaller because players can explore. In order to create a fully-realized open world, the developers actually have to model all of it. On the other hand, a more linear experience allows the player to believe there is so much more behind the curtain (or the invisible wall) than there truly is. Because of this, Remake was able to create an enthralling city by only showing the player a few, limited sectors. This is even more true of the pre-rendered backgrounds from the original game.
Nonetheless, the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an excellent continuation from what its predecessor started. New abilities such as Cloud’s ranged attack and Aerith’s ward shift ability improve these familiar characters. Most impressive though is the addition of the new playable characters Red XIII and Cait Sith. Though neither is my favorite, they are welcome additions that feel completely different from any one else in the party. This motley crew plays like a ragtag bunch, and each one breaks the mold from any prototypical RPG characters.2
And ultimately, Final Fantasy VII’s greatest strength is its cast. I love spending time with them and seeing their stories unfold. Of course, the two best characters are Tifa and Aerith. Personally, I am a Tifa boy.3
For the Gold Saucer romance scenes, I intentionally tried to go for Tifa. Nonetheless, I could not just throw Aerith to the side. Her and Cloud are too strong of a match to completely forsake their relationship in pursuit of Tifa. As such, I tried to make the optimal relationship decisions with both characters and planned on my more frequent use of Tifa-Cloud synergy abilities would help me win the heart of the woman who fights with her fists.
This plan was going well, and my version of Cloud spent the first Gold Saucer date with Tifa. But when it came time for Cloud to open the door before starting his second date and revealing his partner, I realized I was wrong. My fan service wishes should not overwrite the narrative truth: Cloud and Aerith belong together. But the game surprised me; Aerith was behind that door. And after seeing his scene with Aerith on the skywheel (and later watching the Tifa equivalent), I knew that this was supposed to the canonical version. Destiny had brought these two characters together.
Unfortunately, the character that has become the most confusing in the remake trilogy is Sephiroth.4 Going back to Remake, the writing of our central antagonist has two problems, the first of which is Cloud’s mako degradation. Most of our interactions with Sephiroth across both Remake and Rebirth occur in Cloud’s mind. Perhaps this is the real Sephiroth reaching out to influence Cloud, or maybe this is only Cloud’s degradation-related psychosis. As the audience, we do not currently know. Every time we run into Sephiroth though he comes across more as a figure from a nightmare rather than a fully characterized villain.
The second problem is related to the twist at the heart of Remake and the entire trilogy: Is this a remake or a sequel? The inclusion of the Whispers and many of Sephiroth’s lines make us believe it may be the latter. Just like in the original, Rebirth’s opening flashback in Nibelheim gives us an enlightening look at the legendary SOLDIER Sephiroth used to be. From then on though, we do not know what made Sephiroth the way he is in Rebirth. Is this the same Sephiroth as the one from the original game that went insane after discovering his Jenova heritage? Or is this Sephiroth even more insane after having experienced the full events of Final Fantasy VII?
So every time we see our antagonist the audience has only hints about who he truly is: Imaginary Sephiroth, Prime Sephiroth, or Sequel Sephiroth. This makes it impossible for us to understand who our villain is. However, these characterization flaws are a necessary sacrifice to pull off the truly magical moment that is the ending.
Everyone who picks up Final Fantasy VII Rebirth knows how this game is supposed to end. But the mysteries introduced by Remake and continued in Rebirth cast just enough doubt to make us believe that fate can be defied. In the Forgotten Capital, I mashed my triggers as hard as possible to break away from the Whispers and block the Masamune. When it looked like Cloud was successful, my heart was filled with joy. And maybe Cloud did create a parallel world where he stopped Sephiroth. But in our world for our Cloud he fails. Aerith still dies.
For the longest time, I have believed the Tetsuya Nomura’s most impressive work as a game director was the Roxas opening to Kingdom Hearts II. The ending of FFVII Rebirth has finally supplanted the beginning of KH2 for the top spot. He makes you believe you can change what is already written. Sometimes Nomura feels like a hack, but then other times he is a genius.5
And he is almost certainly going to be able to pull off that same magic trick in the final installment of the trilogy. The ending of Remake introduced the parallel world where Zack survives. The ending of Rebirth extends this even further with more parallel worlds (each with their own version of the dog Stamp). As mentioned previously, we have reason to believe that there may be a newly created world where Aerith was saved. Both Cloud and Tifa get glimpses into this world which causes the confusion of whether or not Aerith survives. And we the audience are given hope that these worlds can be reunited by the words of Zack, “‘Just as worlds unite, so too do they part.’ But who’s to say they can’t unite again.” In part three, we will come to believe that maybe worlds can be reunited and Aerith can be revived.
Final Fantasy VII’s second major twist is still to come in the next game. Cloud’s origin and relationship to Zack will be revealed. But once again, knowing the details beforehand will not matter to the audience. Cloud will have to confront all of his delusions, both his past as a SOLDIER and his mistaken belief that Aerith is still alive. Only then will we finally get to see Aerith’s burial at the shrine. And those reveals will still rip out the audience’s hearts even if we know what is coming.
A frequent question that arises is, “What movie, book, or game would you want to get to experience again for the first time?” Everyone has a piece of media they would love to wipe from their mind, so they can get that first taste once again. The Prestige is still my favorite Christopher Nolan movie, but the twists will never surprise me again. That is the true magic of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. By being both a remake and a sequel, you get to re-experience those original feelings once again.
The remake trilogy could have been a standard retelling of the original story with modern graphics and gameplay. But the developers refused to do that. It is a bold decision and an important reminder that to be creatively fulfilled you need to push the envelope. Real art requires risk, and getting everyone on a major AAA project onboard to do so is an incredible achievement.
Despite never playing FFVII on the original PlayStation, my relationship with these games goes back far. In 2005, Sony showed a tech demo of a Final Fantasy VII remake at the PS3 announcement. Ever since then I wanted to play a modern version of Final Fantasy VII, but by that point, the game’s twists had already been spoiled for me. Though I did not realize it then, I did not care about the plot details of the game. What I truly wanted was to experience the feelings those moments engendered. And that is what Rebirth has given to me.
- Let’s not even talk about how much time will have passed from the announcement of Remake to whenever the third game is released. ↩︎
- Somehow I wrote about Rebirth’s gameplay without even mentioning Queen’s Blood which is the best part of the game. ↩︎
- For those curious about my personal choice in the other major Japanese media question: Asuka over Rei. ↩︎
- Chadley is still the game’s worst character overall though. ↩︎
- As some who is also a huge fan of Hideo Kojima and Quentin Tarantino, calling someone a hack-genius may be my greatest compliment. ↩︎
