A year later, how do you feel about the ending to Rebirth?

[Roundhouse]

See thread title.

Having an interesting convo about this on the Discord, so curious about what you all think. Some think P3 will redeem the stuff they disliked about the ending in Rebirth, others think P3 can't save it, and I'm sure others don't even see any problem with P3 and feel there is nothing to redeem, etc. Where do you stand?

[This isn't in the spoiler section because for some reason polls don't seem to be allowed there, and also, to be honest, after a full year I don't think we need to be contained to that section any longer, but let's see what the mods think.]

 

[Tetsujin]

Needs a middle option for "it was okay"
Felt weird at first but honestly grew on me. Unlike the ending to part 1 which at first repulsed me lmao

 

[Roundhouse]

Added.

 

[Theozilla]

I am kinda like a mixture of the second and fourth options, though overall I err more positive so I guess the fourth option is the best fit for me.

 

[Wol]

2nd option for me, though it was miles better than Remake's ending, which honestly had no redeeming qualities (and almost killed my hope for future sequels). Rebirth instead regained that hope and its ending has several developments that may enhance certain story beats, so my hype for Part 3 is big.

I see Rebirth as an absolute win. Its been a year and I still struggle to believe how good it felt. I say felt because, apart for excellent technical quality all around, is such a wholesome experience.

 

[ForceStealer]

I don't have hope that P3 will make me like Rebirth's ending, but that's different from having no hope for P3 as a game.

 

[Roundhouse]

Added an option for you.

 

[Ghost X]

There's also a lack of newspaper option in the poll, Round, but as for the ending of Rebirth, I'm going with "It was okay" like I think Marvel movies are okay, as the same systemic problem is at hand. As a result, I think part 3 will also be okay, if I were to wield my crystal ball.

When we say the end of Remake was bad, I figure we're talking about the Whisper Harbinger? I find that sequence largely forgettable, tbh . I didn't play the games though, only watched them, so perhaps the experience was more traumatic for the players.

 

[null]

The parts that were faithful to OG were absolutely beautiful. Everything else felt complicated and distracting. And look, I want them taking risks, but here it's like they started with a flush and kept drawing. I'll be thrilled if they pull off that one perfect hand, but we all know the odds of a royal vs a bust.

So right now, yeah, it was okay. But after part 3 I don't think there will be a middle ground. Either their gamble pays off in spades, or Rebirth will feel like a manga where the hiatus cliffhangers look really awkward in hindsight.

 

[Mayo Master]

I thought that was okay. The execution could have been better - The emotion I felt the most during the ending on my first playthrough was... confusion.
Still, it wasn't that bad, and I'm hoping P3 will make it better in hindsight and clear some of the nebulousness. Somehow I'm hanging on to the sentiment I had when first playing the OG, where I had to get to the Lifestream sequence to finally see the puzzle pieces fitting together.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Given that the original Final Fantasy VII was basically the quintessential example of ambiguous endings that sparked endless conversation, I don't really expect Part 3 to be any different in that respect, as that's sort of been an established expectation from both Remake & Rebirth.

That being said, I don't think that that's an issue in the slightest – and I also felt that the ending of Rebirth was great & don't think anything about it needs to be fixed.

One of the big parts that Rebirth's ending set up is that Cloud hasn't actually processed what's happened. His swiss-cheesed memory is just making it harder and harder for him to not just disassociate from the shared reality that everyone else experiences (in the same way that Barret walks in on Dyne talking to his dead wife in an empty room, which is why he's the one dealing with Cloud doing that in the ending while Tifa can't handle it yet). Having this really allows for a more clear "before & after" to Cloud's character arc when looking at Part 3 needing to function as a standalone narrative construction, where Cloud coming to terms with that loss is something that players are being faced with the reality of for the first time along with him – and the original game sets up a point for exactly where that'll happen.

I figure that the return to the City of the Ancients with Bugenhagen will end up being the main lens through which players get to (re)process a lot of what happened both literally & existentially, since that part of the game combines not only existential cosmogony about the nature of the Lifestream which Buenhagen himself was grappling with in Rebirth, but also directly presents a non-Cloud centric perspective on what occurred there with Holy which ties back to the Gi & Black Materia. This helps to emphasize the ways in which Cloud has been an unreliable narrator, and experiencing things that others don't, which has also been set up for connecting those things directly to the Huge Materia being intertwined with the Weapons that Sephiroth is combatting in the Lifestream. This is also bringing in the conflict against Shinra that Wutai is linked to with Yuffie's mission during INTERmission during the return to Midgar, and all leading those themes building up and coalescing directly into the final battle against Sephiroth at the North Crater.

As such, I expect that we'll get a lot of more direct answers about the themes new elements that have been introduced to Remake & Rebirth while building up to unveiling all of the mysteries that are still present in the ending of the original game that leave things open to that same kind of existential speculation.

Probably what I've appreciated most about the Remake project is that it really leans in a lot better to its depictions of mental health, but that it still doesn't shy away from the magical & spiritual nature of its world's existence either. It's a really difficult balance (but especially for a global audience with wildly different core cultural contexts about spiritual afterlife), and I think that a lot of the things that may have landed poorly for some people do still have the potential to be made up with the additional parts of what Part 3 has to offer within the core elements of its story.

So, while I really liked it and don't think that anything needs to be fixed myself, I do also think that Part 3's narrative will naturally help to resolve things that a number of people are struggling with in Rebirth's ending.




X

 

[Eerie]

I personally, after analysing it, feel it's a great ending and that any tweaking I would want (like showing Aerith's true death) will hopefully be made in p3.

As for the ending of p3, @X-SOLDIER, I think that au contraire it's not going to be open as the OG was simply because the Compilation exists and it will tie into the Compilation (ACC to name it). Plus, Nojima said they were going to leave much less to the imagination, due to the 4K notably. And even if people haven't understood yet, a lot of things regarding the Lifestream and how it worked was already answered in Rebirth.

To me, if they stick the landing, the whole trilogy will be remembered as one of the greatest gaming trilogy. So, I'm hopeful as you can see

 

[Rydeen]

Still shite

 

[Clement Rage]

It's... complex.

Spoiler

One of the big things about Rebirth was that it pretty much deflated Remake's ending, because Remake's hook was 'now we are off the chains of fate, good and bad consequences of that will have to be dealt with' but in Rebirth the consequences of that were... almost nothing. Every character followed the fated path laid out for them anyway, so breaking free from Fate ended up being very similar to not breaking free of fate.

Maybe the fan backlash steered them away from it, or maybe it was all part of the plan, but either way the central hook of the last game seems to have been abandoned or at least pushed to the sidelines. Which raises the question... if they did that once, how do we know they're not going to do it again for part 2's hooks?

The Whispers in Remake were mostly coherent, they did things for reasons, but in Rebirth they don't seem have coherence to what they do. Some of them are now working for Sephiroth, some of them are now working for the Planet, but some things they do don't line up with either of them. We needed some kind of reveal as to the nature of the Whispers, not necessarily the full picture, but some progress towards understanding them. There were plenty of opportunities to discover something new about them over Rebirth, but we didn't. The team travelled through three massive repositories of knowledge in Cosmo Canyon, Nibelheim, and the Temple, but didn't discover anything new about them.

Schroedinger's Aerith is an excellent way to crack Cloud's head open when he finds out.

I have low confidence in the Wutai stuff. I get they needed to make the Huge Materia quests more central to the main story, but the game ended with Rufus and Sephiroth agreeing that the whole war is a pointless distraction. It's a shame because Yuffie's characterisation is genuinely superbly done, but Rufus v Sephiroth is a tough conflict to get invested in if neither of them are taking it seriously. Rufus can't lose while literally playing both sides, and Sephiroth can kill him literally any time he wants.

It's really weird that Sephiroth is treating Rufus the same way he treats Cloud. If Cloud and Sephiroth's relationship is not unique, that has major effects. Rufus can even somehow see the Whispers, he's like, being elevated to co protagonist even though it's important to the story that he not be.

I don't really fit into any of the poll options. There is a fundamental issue where the story is needs to break free from fate but isn't being allowed to, but it's rock and hard place storytelling because if you don't diverge you don't deliver on the main thrust of the storyline, but actually going off the rails risks crashing and burning in new territory.

Remake was hung on the hook of 'you're no longer protected from the Butterfly effect', but in Rebirth a bunch of butterflies were stomped on and nothing happened. They can't have it both ways.

I don't think part 3 will be bad or not fun, but I don't know how they resolve this. It'll take one hell of a writing team, which they do have, but the setup of remake and rebirth are fighting each other, and that's not a good place to be.

You need Legacy of Kain level writing to pull this off. If they succeed, it'll be some of the best storytelling in gaming.

If.

 

[Eerie]

That's a very interesting comment, because I think a lot of it stems from how you interpreted Remake from the get go.

One of the big things about Rebirth was that it pretty much deflated Remake's ending, because Remake's hook was 'now we are off the chains of fate, good and bad consequences of that will have to be dealt with' but in Rebirth the consequences of that were... almost nothing. Every character followed the fated path laid out for them anyway, so breaking free from Fate ended up being very similar to not breaking free of fate.

See, the problem I think with Remake's ending is that people literally ignored the warnings the devs had been saying since the announcement of the project: this remake is the OG with an expanded story and inclusion of the Compilation. And they have been saying this over and over again, but fans chose to ignore their words.

As a result, for me who didn't have this kind of expectation and who, after playing Remake, was absolutely certain that they were following the OG major points, Rebirth hit exactly where it was supposed to. I said it here again and again that Aerith would die for example, that it was written in Remake - not about the plot, but about how they treated her (think about Nojima saying she had to make an impression because she was going to quickly get transferred: the formula did not change, and it would've been pretty unfair to Tifa to treat Aerith this way if she didn't die, because it would've been favouritism, which it wasn't).

Maybe the fan backlash steered them away from it, or maybe it was all part of the plan, but either way the central hook of the last game seems to have been abandoned or at least pushed to the sidelines. Which raises the question... if they did that once, how do we know they're not going to do it again for part 2's hooks?

I mean, it was their plan from the beginning... Nojima wrote literally an outline of the whole story from beginning to end (I don't remember which dev talked about it, I read way too many interviews sorry). They didn't abandon anything, they went on with their original plan.

One of the interviews that really marked me wwas after Remake when they said they considered the Wallmarket to be a big deviation of the OG. To me it showed clearly where they thought they could go, and what they ignored (Remake's ending). And I've said it here, but Remake's ending leaves us exactly where the OG leaves us at this point so...

The Whispers in Remake were mostly coherent, they did things for reasons, but in Rebirth they don't seem have coherence to what they do. Some of them are now working for Sephiroth, some of them are now working for the Planet, but some things they do don't line up with either of them. We needed some kind of reveal as to the nature of the Whispers, not necessarily the full picture, but some progress towards understanding them. There were plenty of opportunities to discover something new about them over Rebirth, but we didn't. The team travelled through three massive repositories of knowledge in Cosmo Canyon, Nibelheim, and the Temple, but didn't discover anything new about them.

There were already whispers that seemed to be a little different in Remake and people theorised that they were working for Sephiroth/Jenova. Hoever, it is true that the ending modified things, with Sephiroth clearly taking control of a lot of them.

Starting there, we have Lifestream White vs Lifestream Black, and it makes sense whithin the world of FFVII (On the Way to a Smile Sephiroth and Aerith' chapters, notably, established this, and this is heightened in Rebirth). I personally think that they are explained by the Gongaga chapter but hey, who am I to dare look at a Tifa scene uh. We have been literally TOLD that the Whispers are following the Planet's wish and given their colours wwe can tell that they're either following the Planet (or maybe Aerith! The one who's dead in the Lifestream...) or Sephiroth, and there's nothing surprising about it given the fight between Aerith and Sephiroth in OtWtaS.

Schroedinger's Aerith is an excellent way to crack Cloud's head open when he finds out.

Aerith's death was done that way to show how Cloud dealt with the death of people dear to him. When you see her death, you know that it's exactly what happened with Zack; he literally made a new reality where Zack didn't even exist so he didn't have to deal with his death. It's exactly the same here.

Now I do hope to see the real Aerith's death in p3. To me, that solemn moment is clearly missing. Cloud won't crack his head, as he'll have to deal with both her and Zack's deaths and accept his failures. This is the main theme of FFVII, which is loss and how the living deal with it. After the denial, the realisation and acceptation.

I have low confidence in the Wutai stuff. I get they needed to make the Huge Materia quests more central to the main story, but the game ended with Rufus and Sephiroth agreeing that the whole war is a pointless distraction. It's a shame because Yuffie's characterisation is genuinely superbly done, but Rufus v Sephiroth is a tough conflict to get invested in if neither of them are taking it seriously. Rufus can't lose while literally playing both sides, and Sephiroth can kill him literally any time he wants.

For the Wutai stuff, what gives me hope is Yuffie. I think her characterisation and the hints that were given about her and what's happening in Wutai are great, so I really think it's about sticking the landing there. I guess we'll have to see. I hope it'll be great, but yeah, they can totally fail it too.

It's really weird that Sephiroth is treating Rufus the same way he treats Cloud. If Cloud and Sephiroth's relationship is not unique, that has major effects. Rufus can even somehow see the Whispers, he's like, being elevated to co protagonist even though it's important to the story that he not be.

For Rufus, the problem is exactly the same, his fate is tied to how they will do Wutai and connect him to it. I think he gained in importance because of Wutai, and it's really the story there that seems to have a really big importance that will tell us if it's a failure or not. Also, I feel they want to connect his character there versus how he is depicted in ACC, to show the fall of a man who had everything. I guess we'll see.