Final Fantasy 7 Without Sephiroth

[Skan]

But then it wouldn't be a "If Tifa died at Nibelheim" story, it'd be an "If Tifa died at Nibelheim and X also happened" story.

Every what-if story is going to involve "and X also happened" to make the plot fall together, though. It's just a question of how plausible that X is given the previous what-if event. And I think there are more than one plausible X's that can drag Cloud into the story, e.g. the Turks stumble upon him at the train station, recognize him as the one they were supposed to find alongside Zack, and help him recover over the next two months. (Why not just turn him in? Who knows, I'm not writing the story. But it seems Tseng's not too tight on turning them in, and maybe in addition to that, Rufus wants to know wtf really happened at Nibelheim and with Sephiroth and thinks Cloud is the key to figuring that out to create bad press for Daddy Dearest, etc.) Now, not only could that lead to an interesting situation in which Cloud is fighting alongside Rufus and against AVALANCHE, it'd also let the author plot out a completely different trajectory for Cloud's character (which could have a tremendous effect on how he reacts to Sephiroth's mindscrew).

 

[Clement Rage]

Every what-if story is going to involve "and X also happened" to make the plot fall together, though. It's just a question of how plausible that X is given the previous what-if event. And I think there are more than one plausible X's that can drag Cloud into the story, e.g. the Turks stumble upon him at the train station, recognize him as the one they were supposed to find alongside Zack, and help him recover over the next two months. (Why not just turn him in? Who knows, I'm not writing the story. But it seems Tseng's not too tight on turning them in, and maybe in addition to that, Rufus wants to know wtf really happened at Nibelheim and with Sephiroth and thinks Cloud is the key to figuring that out to create bad press for Daddy Dearest, etc.) Now, not only could that lead to an interesting situation in which Cloud is fighting alongside Rufus and against AVALANCHE, it'd also let the author plot out a completely different trajectory for Cloud's character (which could have a tremendous effect on how he reacts to Sephiroth's mindscrew).

There are always lots of possibilities. But it's normally best if the 'X also happened' part naturally falls from the original change. For instance, in a situation where 'Tifa pushes Aeris out of the way at the end of disc 1', I find 'Sephiroth shrugs and kills Aeris five seconds later than he had planned' more natural than 'crap, I have to switch the names in the script, I'm totally going to leave my target alive even though she's a legit threat, because my quota of PC kills is fixed at one'. If you have do lots of work to retain a broadly similar plot, then you're not fully exploring the consequences of the change.

You could do as you suggest, but then it's not exactly the same kind of 'what if', because it's no longer one simple change. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that, either.

 

[Lord Kesharq]

FF7 without Sephiroth.......please dont try to make a remake of this game!


(serious anwser, while i like the "what if" ideas in general i think Sephiroth was one of the main points of this game, without him am sure the game would not have been as good as it was...well i guess so anyway....but at the same time Aerith would still be alive and then there would be no LTD lol)

 

[Sanzku]

Without Sephiroth, then there is no reason for Cloud to search for Sephiroth and go through all that trouble. So that would mean to stop Shinra and hunt down Rufus. No, wait "

Spoiler

Sephiroth kills the president, so that don't happen either. So first stop president Shinra, then Rufus

 

[Ⓐaron]

didn't see this the first time around

Replace "corporation" with "empire" (what Shin-Ra actually is) and you're back at generic anime conflict #7777.

There's a pretty big difference between a corporation and an empire, though. One has a lot more relevance to our world, for starters. There aren't actually any emperors today.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

There's a pretty big difference between a corporation and an empire, though. One has a lot more relevance to our world, for starters. There aren't actually any emperors today.

With the way corporations are characterized in most fiction though, there might as well not be. There are far more similarities between fictional empires and fictional corporation then there are differences. Also, back when a lot of tropes were first come up with there were no corporations, only empires.

 

[jazzflower92]

didn't see this the first time around



There's a pretty big difference between a corporation and an empire, though. One has a lot more relevance to our world, for starters. There aren't actually any emperors today.

Unless you count Donald Trump as one.

 

[Sanzku]

Unless you count Donald Trump as one.

If its good enough for Donald Trump, its good enough for you

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

There's a pretty big difference between a corporation and an empire, though.

Note that what I said was "what Shin-Ra actually is." =P And it is.