FFVII REMAKE CONFIRMED

[Clean Cut Chaos]

That is terrible about the Koalas!

Spoiler: Good news though.

This brave lady is doing her part! So lucky she was there.

Also, SquareEnix could you maybe please fix the moogle?

 

[ForceStealer]

How often are we gonna see the moogle clearly, really?

 

[Ite]

Bad moog, cancel pre-order

Srsly though it def needs a redesign. Goin’ on the mod list.

 

[Rydeen]

I'm getting serious Sonic-controversy vibes from that moogle

 

[Mayo Master]

I'm really happy with the interior design of Aerith's house. I had spent so much time on making a model of it myself!
The flowers, the hexagonal carpet, and a freaking CRT TV! Ok, fair enough, we had seen the concept art, but seeing the place as it is in-game is a lot more tangible.

 

[Kai Schulen]

Heads up: If you preordered the Remake from the SE store, make sure that you have the money for it in your bank account for it by next week:

Thank you for your pre-order of FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE - 1ST CLASS EDITION [PS4]!

Pre-orders are typically debited 2 to 3 weeks before the shipment date. However, some customers have experienced payment rejections in the past due to insufficient funds or expired credit cards before payment processing leading to pre-order cancellations.

To ensure there are sufficient funds in your account, the payment processing attempt for FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE - 1ST CLASS EDITION [PS4] will start earlier than usual.

Please expect the first debit attempt to happen during the first week of December. If this attempt is unsuccessful, there will be additional debit attempts throughout the next few months. Upon successful payment, your order will be secured and is expected to be shipped near the release date of March 3rd, 2020.

If you would like to expedite this payment process and avoid any potential delays, you can pay for your pre-order now by visiting the PURCHASE HISTORY page below, click “MANAGE” for your order and then click “DEBIT NOW”.

 

[Ryuman]

No communication on that in the UK yet, but this has definitely put me off. Might downgrade to Deluxe.

 

[Ite]

Hey yo if anyone in NA wants to trade their First Class edition for this reason gimme a DM.

 

[Fangu]

Hahaha rrriiiiggght. Common move from a company when they want to keep stock holders happy: Increase revenue by the end of the year to make the numbers look good.

Sigh.

 

[Claymore]

No communication on that in the UK yet, but this has definitely put me off. Might downgrade to Deluxe.

Odd. Yeah nothing from the UK. Checking elsewhere, no-one from the UK seems to have received this email.

 

[Tetsujin]

Rated 16 in Germany
Second Final Fantasy after Dirge of Cerberus to receive that rating.

PEGI rating is 16 as well.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1200127290765664256

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Hahaha rrriiiiggght. Common move from a company when they want to keep stock holders happy: Increase revenue by the end of the year to make the numbers look good.

Sigh.

Hopefully it benefits the game, though, in the form of getting DLC or the next installment properly greenlit.

 

[NazMan]

Speaking of DLC-

I'm really hoping for a revive Aerith DLC. And with Square's hints so far... I think SOMETHING is going to change!

 

[Kai Schulen]

I'm very against the revival of Aerith in any shape or form, even if it's just simple DLC where Aerith is added back to the party post-game.

It just cheapens the emotional impact and gravitas of her death. If SE has DLC where you bring her back to life, they might as well just not have her die in the first place. It's pointless pandering to the fanbase like that ruins a good story, and I've been burned too many times by shit like that.

....and yes, I'm well aware that the Remake is technically pandering to the fanbase, but I swear it's different. I just need time to elaborate on it, lololol.

 

[Freki]

I'm very against the revival of Aerith in any shape or form, even if it's just simple DLC where Aerith is added back to the party post-game.

It just cheapens the emotional impact and gravitas of her death. If SE has DLC where you bring her back to life, they might as well just not have her die in the first place. It's pointless pandering to the fanbase like that ruins a good story, and I've been burned too many times by shit like that.

....and yes, I'm well aware that the Remake is technically pandering to the fanbase, but I swear it's different. I just need time to elaborate on it, lololol.

Seconded. I love Aerith, but she has to die so the entire planet can not die.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Thirded, but...

It's a mistake to think Aerith is some kind of Jesus figure, a necessary sacrifice to save the Planet. When the Lifestream came forth to drive off Meteor, it was the Planet who did that, not Aerith-in-the-Lifestream. As I understand it. Holy didn't require a blood-offering in order to activate. I'm not even entirely sure whether Holy worked at all. At the end of the day, the Planet saved itself. Cloud & Co took out Sephiroth, which ended the force of his will pulling Meteor towards the Planet, and Shinra Inc made it possible for them to do that by breaking the seal over the Crater.

Aerith didn't need to die. As I understand it, that's the whole point and message of her death. Death is random and cruel and pointless, and snatches people away from us right in the midst of life, leaving us to figure out a way to carry on without them. Given that this is the message her death is intended to convey, I find it interesting that fans have worked so hard to re-work the significance of her death so that it becomes the exact opposite of what it was intended to be.

Having a way to resuscitate her would completely negate the impact of her death. In real life, we can't bring the ones we loved back to life, no matter how much we yearn for it.

 

[Kai Schulen]

Thirded, but...

It's a mistake to think Aerith is some kind of Jesus figure, a necessary sacrifice to save the Planet. When the Lifestream came forth to drive off Meteor, it was the Planet who did that, not Aerith-in-the-Lifestream. As I understand it. Holy didn't require a blood-offering in order to activate. I'm not even entirely sure whether Holy worked at all. At the end of the day, the Planet saved itself. Cloud & Co took out Sephiroth, which ended the force of his will pulling Meteor towards the Planet, and Shinra Inc made it possible for them to do that by breaking the seal over the Crater.

Holy was cast, but Sephiroth blocked it from activating. I forget, but wasn't because Aerith was in the Lifestream that the Planet was able to use the Lifestream to stop Meteor?

But yeah. Aerith had every intention of coming back to AVALANCHE after casting Holy and living out her life and dreams, and that's the tragedy of it. If Sephiroth didn't Hell's Gate her and she survived, the irony is that Holy would still be blocked and everyone would die at the end to Meteor, because Aerith wasn't dead to rally the Lifestream into action.

Edit: Shit, wait, that's because of the Maiden Who Travels the Planet that I thought Aerith was responsible for the Lifestream shenanigans. But still, my point still stands: don't do away with the tragedy of her death with dumb fanservice.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I think that in the OG, the Planet sent out the Lifestream itself. There's been a lot of retconning because people were so dissatisfied by the meaninglessness of Aerith's death (even though that's what death is really like, and any meaning we invest it with is entirely fictional).

 

[Kai Schulen]

Okay, after looking over the OG game script (because I'm only about 7 hours in my current replay of VII ) it's pretty ambiguous whether the Planet or Aerith sent out the Lifestream.

I'm inclined to think it was Aerith, because there's a moment when Marlene senses Aerith's presence, and when she looks out the window, the Lifestream is flying around. When the Lifestream blocks the Meteor, Aerith's smiling, so conclusion from storytelling cues: Aerith used the Lifestream to stop Meteor! It was super effective!

Also, it was said that because of ShinRa, the Planet was too weak because of the Mako Reactors draining everything, so I doubt that at the time the Planet could have used the Lifestream to stop Meteor itself as an auto defense thing.

Either that, or Aerith was just down for the Meteor to kill everybody and have them rejoin her in the Lifestream, and the Planet was like "oh hell no, we're not doing that".

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I suppose it is open to interpretation, but for me, "Aerith as human sacrifice" is banal. We weren't even supposed to know at the end of the game whether humanity lived or died. I loved all these open questions the game left us with and deplore the retcons that strove to give definitive - and usually quite trite - answers. In the OG, consciousness doesn't continue to exist in the Lifestream; individual identity is lost and spirit energy is recycled into new organisms. For something new to be born, something old must die. I loved all of this and I don't like the dime-store spiritualism that has replaced it. That's why I liked the Turks novel - Kyrie was exploiting the very mind-set in people that leads to the belief that Aerith is some kind of redeemer sacrifice.

 

[Kai Schulen]

Oh no, I wasn't trying to say that Aerith had to be a human sacrifice to save everybody like she's the Planet's Messiah, or that I view her as much. She was a young woman who met a tragic end unjustly, but it just happened by coincidence that her death worked out for the best, if you think that she managed to use the Lifestream to stop Meteor.

Much like how Cloud was just an infantryman when he stopped Sephiroth in Nibelheim. Parallels in story, and whatnot. maybe not the same, but like it kinda feels the same?

Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass and making connections where there's none cause I'm drunk.

 

[Shaun]

I'm inclined to think it was Aerith, because there's a moment when Marlene senses Aerith's presence, and when she looks out the window, the Lifestream is flying around.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I never really understood why Marlene was sensing Aerith's presence. The connection between them always seems a bit overstated to me, even in official materials such as Advent Children. I mean, in the original game, they're only shown to meet once, and even that happened off-screen (when Aerith takes Marlene from Sector 7 to Sector 5 before the plate falls). It wasn't even a very long meeting, since Tseng kidnapped Aerith soon after they got to Elmyra's house. After that, Avalanche go to rescue Aerith from the Shin-ra Building and pretty much leave Midgar straight after, so it's not like they spent a lot of time together.

By the second Gold Saucer visit, when it's shown Reeve has kidnapped Marlene and Elmyra, Marlene still refers to her as "Flower Lady", and even by the ending, it's still "Flower Girl", which doesn't really imply they're particularly close. It seems odd that she could specifically recognise Aerith in the lifestream, especially given how many other people must be floating around in there.

 

[youffie]

She was a young woman who met a tragic end unjustly, but it just happened by coincidence that her death worked out for the best, if you think that she managed to use the Lifestream to stop Meteor.

That's always been my interpretation as well, though it's certainly never stated explicitly. I think it's also another neat contrast to Sephiroth, because in a way, and for a brief moment, she became "one with the planet" just like he wanted to by leading it to stop Meteor and possibly spare humanity.

That doesn't mean that her death was a necessary sacrifice. It's just the way things went down. Had Aeris never died, she probably would have still been instrumental to saving the planet and humanity, just in a different way. For one thing, she would have been able to tell immediately that something was up with Holy, so a solution might have been found much quicker. Not to mention any other possible Cetra shenanigans we're just not privy to because our only real link with them was severed with her.

I think people (including Cloud) probably like to think that her death was just supposed to happen for the world to be saved as a form of consolation, to make sense of something as brutal and unforgiving as what happened to her. But there's nothing to suggest that's the case, even if she helped in the end.

 

[Ite]

Lic everything you are saying is music to my ears <3

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I also agree with Shaun about Marlene. She's what, six years old? And she spent all of about ten minutes with Aerith, maybe a quarter of an hour at a stretch. She's very, very unlikely to have any genuine memories of Aerith. How many of us remember someone we spent fifteen minutes with when we were six years old and never met again? But I'm sure she's been told so many stories about Aerith by Cloud, Tifa and Barret that she thinks she remembers her.