SPOILERS LTD Remake — It's like New Coke except ... no, it's exactly like New Coke

[nars305]

Half a year ago I was blissfully ignorant.

Innocence lost.

I relate to this so much. I miss when I more casually enjoyed FF7. Now I feel like know too much about it because I fell down the LTD rabbit hole. I was so casual I didn’t even know the release date of Rebirth. The power of CloTi.

 

[CldS7]

These Cleriths kill me cause now they seem to be saying that none of these dates matter and that they’re all “non-canon”

When we’ve been saying this since 1997 lmfao

 

[Ryushikaze]

They are either all canon or non of them are, but they all matter.

On the subject of Aerith's date being romantic, I think for her it is, but for Cloud, it's not. He's not being mean, he just doesn't realize. He thinks she's torn up about Zack, and he's right to an extent.

 

[cgnVirtue]

I don’t think it ever began for me. Walking away from Rebirth, with no other knowledge of these Ultimanias, novels, etc, it seemed obvious to me what SE was setting up as far as romantic partners. I guess that’s the luxury of becoming an FF7 shipper in 2024.

I didn’t realize how bad it was until Rebirth. I’ve been a fan for over a decade but I suppose I was lucky in that I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the fandom.

It was lurking and joining this forum (mostly trying to find some way to pass the time until the game came out) that I realized just how far the rabbit hole went.

Half a year ago I was blissfully ignorant.

Innocence lost.

This is exactly how I feel too, and I didn’t realize how bad it was until I became invested. I knew of it, but… now I see that I had no idea what it was like. I didn’t care much before, probably due to the way it was discussed. Personally I made up my mind of who I liked. But when I realized who Cloud himself unambiguously chose, everything changed.

At first it was like “I like Tifa, she seems nice.” “Oh it seems like Cloud likes Tifa. That’s cute.” Then in Rebirth “Wait does Tifa like Cloud too?” “WAIT. THEY REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER?”
“CLOUD AND TIFA?! GONGAGA?!”
And the moment I became invested I inherited all of the history of CloTi and I opened Pandora’s box.

I would say it’s insane to me that anybody can watch events play out in Rebirth and still think that CloTi isn’t canon, but there are real people, living right now, that unironically and wholeheartedly believe that the earth is flat. Most self-care thing I did was make an account here lmao.

Anyways I feel strangely vindicated by the Ultimanias because for so long I also felt gaslit into thinking I was reading the narrative the wrong way. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a part of the FF7 discussion until after Rebirth, so it was completely possible that I just didn’t see that Cloud was actually in love with Aerith the whole time because Tifa sucks and is actually worse than Sephiroth because she was mean when she was 8. But turns out I’m not an illiterate idiot and I had the correct reading this whole time. Feels nice.

 

[nars305]

And the moment I became invested I inherited all of the history of CloTi and I opened Pandora’s box.

I love everything about this. This is just literally what happens.

Honestly, overall, I can’t feel gaslit by any takes because it’s SE who are the ones hammering it into my brain that Cloud and Tifa belong together. Unless SE is gaslighting me. I don’t know how they’d expect me to see the LS sequence, see that Cloud and Tifa choose to remain together through life, wear matching jewelry, keep on reiterating their promise, keep on reminding me they had *crushes on each other as kids, and not come to this conclusion…and that’s not even all of it.

All that to say…I’ll just patiently see what happens in Part 3 and let the creators do what they do best.

 

[Yoru]

REMINDER : The only part of Ultimania to be taken as face value are the last pages with the developpers itw.

All the rest is written by "Game testers", because Ultimania are first and foremost game guides.

Wich means : You're watching at personal interpretation for the most part. That's why the ending recap is super vague and doesn't tell us shit. Because the dude is like us. Can only analyze images and try to put it in order.

Best example being the dude thinking real hard if Aerith is dead or alive like "yeah big mistery, have to wait for part 3" when the devs itw in the same book is kinda straightforward "yup, she's dead"

Can you explain what the difference is? I admittedly am not the most well versed on Barrets story, but wasn't it always about Corel having a better life thanks to the reactor Shinra proposed? And so Barret took the offer thinking it would improve everyones lives, or have i forgotten some other key details that the japanese script actually brought up?

Sorry to take this a bit off topic, but i just don't really remember what else there was to it.

In english he's telling Dyne to accept Shinra's deal to help Marlene have a better life. Except... she's not born yet.. Scene takes place 6 years ago and Marlene is 4 in our present. So it's impossible.

Yes it's impossible... because Barret in other versions is telling Dyne he'll accept the deal because he wants a better life for his wife Myrna. What this version tell us ? That Barret acted this way for TOTALLY SELFISH reasons. It was for him alone he wanted this deal. Kinda a big deal when this deal will actually destroy the life and family of your best friend who didn't want a part of it to begin with.

 

[thetriplerhyme]

Ultimania confirms that GS dates are not part of the main story line ( of course its not then Cloti would have confirm feelings in GS dates and not HW ) but based on players choices with scenarios created for them and course Cloud's interactions which means C/A will never got a kiss because their relationship is not like that at all.

 

[LNK]

They also supposedly said this, willing to bear the brunt if it’s not true but the translator source is solidView attachment 15500

They've said the equivalent for years now. That's nothing new. Defeating fate was never going to have the huge ramifications some fans expected

 

[CldS7]

https://x.com/aitaikimochi/status/1778673470882398372?s=46&t=ivxjxhkAU4je_TiXey-g9A

Zerith reunion or Full Sexo under the highwind

 

[Stiggie]

REMINDER : The only part of Ultimania to be taken as face value are the last pages with the developpers itw.

All the rest is written by "Game testers", because Ultimania are first and foremost game guides.

Wich means : You're watching at personal interpretation for the most part. That's why the ending recap is super vague and doesn't tell us shit. Because the dude is like us. Can only analyze images and try to put it in order.

Best example being the dude thinking real hard if Aerith is dead or alive like "yeah big mistery, have to wait for part 3" when the devs itw in the same book is kinda straightforward "yup, she's dead"



In english he's telling Dyne to accept Shinra's deal to help Marlene have a better life. Except... she's not born yet.. Scene takes place 6 years ago and Marlene is 4 in our present. So it's impossible.

Yes it's impossible... because Barret in other versions is telling Dyne he'll accept the deal because he wants a better life for his wife Myrna. What this version tell us ? That Barret acted this way for TOTALLY SELFISH reasons. It was for him alone he wanted this deal. Kinda a big deal when this deal will actually destroy the life and family of your best friend who didn't want a part of it to begin with.

I was wondering about this, heard him talk about his daughter and thought "wait, wtf is the timeline here?" Glad I'm not crazy

 

[Stiggie]

This is exactly how I feel too, and I didn’t realize how bad it was until I became invested. I knew of it, but… now I see that I had no idea what it was like. I didn’t care much before, probably due to the way it was discussed. Personally I made up my mind of who I liked. But when I realized who Cloud himself unambiguously chose, everything changed.

At first it was like “I like Tifa, she seems nice.” “Oh it seems like Cloud likes Tifa. That’s cute.” Then in Rebirth “Wait does Tifa like Cloud too?” “WAIT. THEY REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER?”
“CLOUD AND TIFA?! GONGAGA?!”
And the moment I became invested I inherited all of the history of CloTi and I opened Pandora’s box.

I would say it’s insane to me that anybody can watch events play out in Rebirth and still think that CloTi isn’t canon, but there are real people, living right now, that unironically and wholeheartedly believe that the earth is flat. Most self-care thing I did was make an account here lmao.

Anyways I feel strangely vindicated by the Ultimanias because for so long I also felt gaslit into thinking I was reading the narrative the wrong way. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a part of the FF7 discussion until after Rebirth, so it was completely possible that I just didn’t see that Cloud was actually in love with Aerith the whole time because Tifa sucks and is actually worse than Sephiroth because she was mean when she was 8. But turns out I’m not an illiterate idiot and I had the correct reading this whole time. Feels nice.

I still can't imagine how weird it must be to know about the LTD, assume that both girls are equally love interrests...and then play the game.

Must be such a "wtf is going on, there is literally only one love interrest here, wtf am i missing?" moment

 

[c.lupara]

So from the first info:
we can even not consider appointments as part of the story.

Having said that, for LTD, it remains: moment between CT in gongaga with maximum sexual tension and CA's fake date in the dream which incidentally is not even with the Aerith of the game we play.


Ok practically nothing changes xD

 

[CldS7]

It’s kinda interesting to hear how the Devs were worried about the affection system and how they weren’t sure they were going to include it

Then they also talk about both Tifa and Cloud’s first kiss and that it’s something the fanbase has been asking for a long time lmao

 

[c.lupara]

This ultimania confirmed what I feared: the magical trio doesn't have the balls, the courage or the will to tell 'fans' that one thing is canon and the other isn't.
This fake respectability and wanting to make everyone happy has started to get boring.
This is a tutorial on how to make forgettable something that could have been magnificent and more complete than the OG.
If this vision is confirmed in part 3 without a precise and clear position, it will make the entire remake project a huge wasted opportunity.
(the additions of the multiverse it is a huge wasted opportunity)

 

[Eerie]

Ultimania confirms that GS dates are not part of the main story line ( of course its not then Cloti would not have confirm feelings in GS dates and not HW ) but based on players choices with scenarios created for them and course Cloud's interactions which means C/A will never got a kiss because their relationship is not like that at all.

I will say this but it’s the Lifestream scene where Cloud and Tifa realise their feelings for each other. It’s a huge love confession and I think they’re going to point at that in p3 because so many players miss that.

 

[Sacky]

I will say this but it’s the Lifestream scene where Cloud and Tifa realise their feelings gor each other. It’s a huge love confession and I think they’re going to point at that in p3 because so many players miss that.

And traces and Gongaga has set that up to be more intimate than ever "Cloud I need you"

 

[frosty]

Side note, I know everyone is so excited about the Ultimania, but is this the same Ben Sabin who does the translations for Remake and Rebirth?

He did a long lecture about how game companies should explicitly embrace sex scenes and not cop out with fade to black? Somehow that makes me laugh a lot thinking the translator of the games might somehow also subject Nojima/Nomura to a big powerpoint deck on why under the Highwind needs to be explicit for a good half an hour. I'm genuinely laughing about how passionate this dude is.

Must be such a "wtf is going on, there is literally only one love interrest here" moment

I'm watching a few streamers that are going in first time blind, and they've heard about the epic love triangle and cos their chat constantly harasses them and comments are along the lines of:

"I thought at this point of the game they'd push the love triangle more but it seems more of just Tifa" - this is from a player called Welonz who just left Corel
"You can't tell me he doesn't love her" - About Tifa in Gongaga from a player called Kastaclysm
"He keeps looking at her lips!" - About Tifa in Gongaga too, from a player called Julia'sTv

The men who are new and are playing the game seem pretty...awful about the LTD so far.
"She's like a home wrecker" - This is Supertf about Aerith
"Tifa come get yo man from Aerith - she making the moves on your man" - This was someone watching the dream date in I'm dontai's stream

It's kind of a weird, out of body experience to me to think the love triangle has been surviving as long as it has, and that I see as CT/CA as being equal in terms of story, screentime and fanservice when new players have the above impressions

 

[Hix]

Ultimania confirms that GS dates are not part of the main story line ( of course its not then Cloti would not have confirm feelings in GS dates and not HW ) but based on players choices with scenarios created for them and course Cloud's interactions which means C/A will never got a kiss because their relationship is not like that at all.

So certainly it comes as no surprise to learn it's a bit "all or nothing" with the Gold Saucer dates, which I think anyone arguing in good faith has had to concede from the beginning.

The way it's being described here is as a hypothetical scenario in which Cloud and this other individual are on this date, this is how Cloud would react. In fact, this is exactly what we've been saying here and would seem to lean heavier toward "all" rather than "nothing"

One can extrapolate plenty, then, from the dates without the devs having to worry about dealing with the consequences of them thereafter. For instance, put Cloud and Tifa in the gondola and Cloud is going to kiss her. The devs have expressly made this clear that in the event of an encounter such as this, mutual feelings would be shared between the two - normally an event we would have to wait until "under the Highwind" for.

Further, put Cloud and Aerith in the gondola and Aerith may well express feelings for Cloud. The difference here is he won't openly reciprocate these feelings. He will act cold at the beginning, refusing to sit next to her not once but twice. He will struggle with his sprouting memories of Zack - which will almost certainly preclude him ever being able to reciprocate any such feelings as this continues to develop. He will allow her to rest her head on his shoulder and quietly hold her hand but just until the ride is over, as if to say "I know you don't feel the same, but just let me have this moment."

If the devs have deigned to show us two expressly romantic encounters, then one is decidedly mutual and the other much more one-sided.

But here's the rub: they did not need to do this. There was no requirement for the two GS dates to be so blatantly contrasted in this scenario. If the events of the dates play outside the canon events of the story, and are more a "what if", then there was little impetus not to give an equally romantic moment to both, if not a kiss then mutual expressions that are on that level. They did not do this because Cloud would not do this in this situation.

So you see, it changes very little after all and, if anything, rubber stamps that Cloud's feelings for Tifa differ vastly from those for Aerith, as we've been told many times in the past. Further, we can extrapolate for the future too. We get the mutual exchange of feelings in the form of a kiss here, but it almost certainly will be much more passionate in the future after all the events of the Lifestream/Mideel. What I'm saying is: if Cloud does it here, all the moreso he's going to do it later.

On the other hand, Cloud fails to fully reciprocate Aerith's feelings here and, if such feelings ever should present themselves in a normal part of the game, all the moreso would he be unable or unwilling to reciprocate in the future after awakening to his full memories.

 

[Stiggie]

Side note, I know everyone is so excited about the Ultimania, but is this the same Ben Sabin who does the translations for Remake and Rebirth?

He did a long lecture about how game companies should explicitly embrace sex scenes and not cop out with fade to black? Somehow that makes me laugh a lot thinking the translator of the games might somehow also subject Nojima/Nomura to a big powerpoint deck on why under the Highwind needs to be explicit for a good half an hour. I'm genuinely laughing about how passionate this dude is.


I'm watching a few streamers that are going in first time blind, and they've heard about the epic love triangle and cos their chat constantly harasses them and comments are along the lines of:

"I thought at this point of the game they'd push the love triangle more but it seems more of just Tifa" - this is from a player called Welonz who just left Corel
"You can't tell me he doesn't love her" - About Tifa in Gongaga from a player called Kastaclysm
"He keeps looking at her lips!" - About Tifa in Gongaga too, from a player called Julia'sTv

The men who are new and are playing the game seem pretty...awful about the LTD so far.
"She's like a home wrecker" - This is Supertf about Aerith
"Tifa come get yo man from Aerith - she making the moves on your man" - This was someone watching the dream date in I'm dontai's stream

It's kind of a weird, out of body experience to me to think the love triangle has been surviving as long as it has, and that I see as CT/CA as being equal in terms of story, screentime and fanservice when new players have the above impressions

Heej welonz, I am actually listening to her streams during work, and she in fact JUST left corel about 5 min ago for me


I was getting the feeling she was leaning strongly towards tifa

 

[Sacky]

So certainly it comes as no surprise to learn it's a bit "all or nothing" with the Gold Saucer dates, which I think anyone arguing in good faith has had to concede from the beginning.

The way it's being described here is as a hypothetical scenario in which Cloud and this other individual are on this date, this is how Cloud would react. In fact, this is exactly what we've been saying here and would seem to lean heavier toward "all" rather than "nothing"

One can extrapolate plenty, then, from the dates without the devs having to worry about dealing with the consequences of them thereafter. For instance, put Cloud and Tifa in the gondola and Cloud is going to kiss her. The devs have expressly made this clear that in the event of an encounter such as this, mutual feelings would be shared between the two - normally an event we would have to wait until "under the Highwind" for.

Further, put Cloud and Aerith in the gondola and Aerith may well express feelings for Cloud. The difference here is he won't openly reciprocate these feelings. He will act cold at the beginning, refusing to sit next to her not once but twice. He will struggle with his sprouting memories of Zack - which will almost certainly preclude him ever being able to reciprocate any such feelings as this continues to develop. He will allow her to rest her head on his shoulder and quietly hold her hand but just until the ride is over, as if to say "I know you don't feel the same, but just let me have this moment."

If the devs have deigned to show us two expressly romantic encounters, then one is decidedly mutual and the other much more one-sided.

But here's the rub: they did not need to do this. There was no requirement for the two GS dates to be so blatantly contrasted in this scenario. If the events of the dates play outside the canon events of the story, and are more a "what if", then there was little impetus not to give an equally romantic moment to both, if not a kiss then mutual expressions that are on that level. They did not do this because Cloud would not do this in this situation.

So you see, it changes very little after all and, if anything, rubber stamps that Cloud's feelings for Tifa differ vastly from those for Aerith, as we've been told many times in the past. Further, we can extrapolate for the future too. We get the mutual exchange of feelings in the form of a kiss here, but it almost certainly will be much more passionate in the future after all the events of the Lifestream/Mideel. What I'm saying is: if Cloud does it here, all the moreso he's going to do it later.

On the other hand, Cloud fails to fully reciprocate Aerith's feelings here and, if such feelings ever should present themselves in a normal part of the game, all the moreso would he be unable or unwilling to reciprocate in the future after awakening to his full memories.

It was over for me after seeing that Gongaga sequence cause there's no comparison with Cloud and any other character for how intimate and personal and vulnerable that scene is. In the main story aswell. With a FF16 almost kiss.

 

[thetriplerhyme]

btw not LTD related but wanna share

Nomura especially requested Yuffie's first love to be included on her date. yay ~

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1778663839300813053

 

[CldS7]

https://x.com/TifaTheMonk/status/1778720154647679064

lmao Cloud h0rny

 

[Stiggie]

btw not LTD related but wanna share

Nomura especially requested Yuffie's first love to be included on her date. yay ~

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1778663839300813053

I just find it funny that now two of the three women in ff7 cast have zack as their first love XD

What a Chad XD

 

[thetriplerhyme]

btw Nomura is a cad you know how he is ~ Another ultimania facts

He confirmes that people wanted to see Aerith avoid her fate hence it was given to them but added Cloud's state of mind after ~ can you read between the lines

 

[CldS7]

I just find it funny that now two of the three women in ff7 cast have zack as their first love XD

What a Chad XD

its a bit silly but I do like that it reinforces the fact that Zach is the stereotypical hero and Aerith the sterotypical heroine

whilst Cloud and Tifa are just literally regular people