Final Fantasy 7 Without Sephiroth

[jazzflower92]

I know that Sephiroth has essentially become Square's most famous villain in the Final Fantasy franchise. Although he does his role as the villain very well some might think what would happen if he actually was taken out of the game entirely. You can still have Jenova and Hojo still in the game but Sephiroth would not the main antagonist because I would see that Shinra would still be the main villain. The reason why I say this is because I feel the conflict with Avalanche and Shinra really came off as a deconstruction of the RPG tropes at the time. I would have liked to see this development further looked at because I think Sephiroth took away a lot from that element with his presence.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Well... the Nebelheim incident wouldn't have happened... which pretty much means the entire OG wouldn't have happened... and Meteor wouldn't have happened... it would pretty much be a cliche "let's take down the evil corporation" plot not the "let's save the world" plot that it is. Way more boring game with no real villain, esspecially when even in the OG not everyone who works for Shin-Ra is presented as being evil.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Precisely. The AVALANCHE vs. Shin-Ra sub-plot is only a deconstruction because Sephiroth derails it -- otherwise it would be generic anime conflict #7777.

 

[Clement Rage]

It depends on when you take him out... was Sephy just never born, or did he never return after Nibelheim? Because if he never existed, the SOLDIER programme is also in trouble and Hojo may never have made it to the department head. JENOVA might have had a lot more difficulty breaking out of Nibelheim reactor.

The WEAPONS might still get released due to the Mako extraction, and with no distractions, all of them would come gunning for Shinra at once. If two WEAPONS attack at any one time, would Shinra have the arsenal to stand up to them?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, SOLDIER would still be there (going by the Compilation, where it pre-dated Genesis, Angeal and Seph's births), but would it still use Jenova cells? For the moment, let's assume it would.

More than likely, the plot would then call for some other famous/significant SOLDIER to serve as a primary antagonist for Cloud, and at this point, we would really be running the risk of just copying FFVI, a short-sighted critique leveled at FFVII enough as is.

 

[Flintlock]

I'm imagining "Final Fantasy VII without Sephiroth" to be like "Garfield minus Garfield", a game in which Cloud appears to be even more fucked up than he already is, as he keeps going on and on about this legendary SOLDIER who nobody else has ever seen or heard of. Eventually his friends and comrades realise that he is FUBAR and decide to humour him - "Sure, Cloud, we'll go after Sephiroth just as soon as we finish blowing up this reactor" - because of his excellent fighting prowess, which comes in handy as they get on with their actual quest of stopping Shinra from destroying the planet.

Cloud is Jon. Sephiroth is "Garfield".

 

[jazzflower92]

I'm imagining "Final Fantasy VII without Sephiroth" to be like "Garfield minus Garfield", a game in which Cloud appears to be even more fucked up than he already is, as he keeps going on and on about this legendary SOLDIER who nobody else has ever seen or heard of. Eventually his friends and comrades realise that he is FUBAR and decide to humour him - "Sure, Cloud, we'll go after Sephiroth just as soon as we finish blowing up this reactor" - because of his excellent fighting prowess, which comes in handy as they get on with their actual quest of stopping Shinra from destroying the planet.

Cloud is Jon. Sephiroth is "Garfield".

Actually that could be explained by the Jenova cells in Cloud messing with his head to conjure up a person named Sephiroth. This kind of would make Jenova more of the main villain in a way. And this would make the game even more psychological as well.

The other thing to make it work is to have Sephiroth not return from the dead at all. This way the Nibelheim incident does happen and Cloud still has incorrect memories of it. This would make the main antagonists still Shinra with Hojo and Jenova shown to eventually to be the true big bads.

 

[Clement Rage]

If Sephiroth doesn't exist, Cloud never catches Hojo's eye, and thus never gets JENOVA cells in the first place. He'd just be another infantryman, working for Shinra. Tifa would not have a reason to work for AVALANCHE, and neither would Vincent.

Sephiroth never returns from the dead? Thing is, he's central to Hojo's motivations, he abandoned Shinra to chase him, he commandeered the Sister Ray to help him. If it's just JENOVA, Cloud and Tifa don't have that personal connection driving them. Hojo would still be interested in JENOVA, but might not be as motivated to help her, since he hates magic. Even if he was, he might not have been able to cut the same swathe of destruction... Unless JENOVA took Sephiroth's form, but then we basically get the same game anyway.

 

[SirVival]

Hate to be that guy, but what a load of crap. I tried and wrote a few different answers to more thoroughly discuss this topic, just to find myself deleting them a few minutes later. To discuss about this is pointless, especially when the whole setting you give is this vague. If we go further with the idea that Sephiroth doesn't reincarnate after Nibelheim, you should probably take Cloud out of calculations as well. Imo The most probable candidate for the main protagonist's role would then be Barret.(I would buy that game ).

 

[jazzflower92]

If Sephiroth doesn't exist, Cloud never catches Hojo's eye, and thus never gets JENOVA cells in the first place. He'd just be another infantryman, working for Shinra. Tifa would not have a reason to work for AVALANCHE, and neither would Vincent.

Sephiroth never returns from the dead? Thing is, he's central to Hojo's motivations, he abandoned Shinra to chase him, he commandeered the Sister Ray to help him. If it's just JENOVA, Cloud and Tifa don't have that personal connection driving them. Hojo would still be interested in JENOVA, but might not be as motivated to help her, since he hates magic. Even if he was, he might not have been able to cut the same swathe of destruction... Unless JENOVA took Sephiroth's form, but then we basically get the same game anyway.

Jenova for main villainess.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^^Jenova is stuck in a mako tube in a backwater town... she doesn't do anything of her own volition from the time the Cetra seal her away. You'd need to invent a lot of material to get her out of there.

 

[Clement Rage]

There are lots of people with JENOVA Cells that could break her out if necessary. And her head is already free by Nibelheim.

So, if Sepiroth never exists, all other things being equal, Marlene is killed in the Pillarfall, and Barret has to fight on alone, rebuilding AVALANCHE from the ground up? Somebody needs to write that fanfic, stat!

 

[Roger]

There are lots of people with JENOVA Cells that could break her out if necessary.

Sephiroth was told Jenova was his mother, also there was whole library filled with the lies relating to his creation in the nearby town. Sephiroth was the perfect storm needed to free Jenova, Zack by himself or a some other SOLDIER would never have been enough. And even if they were, so what? It's not like the container was actually meant to be her prison. Gast and the other researchers had no troubles with her since her discovery, why would they start now.

 

[Novus]

Precisely. The AVALANCHE vs. Shin-Ra sub-plot is only a deconstruction because Sephiroth derails it -- otherwise it would be generic anime conflict #7777.

Agreed. When I first played the game, I visualized fighting Shinra in a huge robot suit (hell they even did this gag later in the game with Proud Clod). The point where Cloud fell through the church roof was when the game became WTF for me, from there it was down the rabbit hole then it resumed normality during the Shinra HQ raid, before going to hell again with Jenova.

I find it odd this was created around the same time as NGE which did the same thing.

 

[Skan]

Everyone else seems to have said what I was thinking (i.e. Sephiroth becomes the prime mover of the plot around the time he breaks Jenova out of ShinRa HQ). Taking Sephiroth out ... the story would pretty much just lose the flair that made FF7, well, FF7.

A what-if scenario with a bit more potential (imo) would be "what if Tifa died at Nibelheim?" With just a little bit of manipulation on the author's part (fortuitous encounters to drag Cloud into the story), one could easily yank the story back on-track to something resembling a promising plot -- even if the plot looks like it's headed towards complete and unmitigated disaster, but hey, it'd probably give Rufus the opportunity to save the world!

 

[jazzflower92]

So, everybody here seems to come to the conclusion without Sephiroth Final Fantasy 7 wouldn't be Final Fantasy 7. Maybe even more than Cloud he is the heart of what makes the game work.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

it would pretty much be a cliche "let's take down the evil corporation" plot

no man this is dumb

how many games had a 'let's take down the evil corporation plot in 1997

like 3 maybe (all in japanese)?

 

[jazzflower92]

no man this is dumb

how many games had a 'let's take down the evil corporation plot in 1997

like 3 maybe (all in japanese)?

This would be a case of the Seinfield Is Unfunny trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

 

[Clement Rage]

So, everybody here seems to come to the conclusion without Sephiroth Final Fantasy 7 wouldn't be Final Fantasy 7. Maybe even more than Cloud he is the heart of what makes the game work.

Not necessarily, but too many possible things could happen to be able to say exactly how the game would turn out. It's something I see a lot in AU 'what if' and time travel fanfics, if you pull on one thread, a lot unravels, and it's unlikely you get the same game with a few names changed, instead of sometihng completely different and unpredictable.

Resident Evil had a 'take down evil corporation' plot.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

If Tifa died at Nibelheim, Cloud wouldn't recover from his catatonic state, and would be pretty much removed from the plot. And Seventh Heaven would have some other person as bartender, likely with big breast, long legs, and anti-Shinra sympathies, considering that's what the guy who built it was going for. It would basically be "FFVII without Cloud and Tifa". Barret would probably be the protagonist, and things would probably play out quite differently.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

no man this is dumb

how many games had a 'let's take down the evil corporation plot in 1997

like 3 maybe (all in japanese)?

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

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

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

So every single battle would consist of the characters flipping their shit and spamming attacks that do 7,777 damage then?

 

[Skan]

If Tifa died at Nibelheim, Cloud wouldn't recover from his catatonic state, and would be pretty much removed from the plot. And Seventh Heaven would have some other person as bartender, likely with big breast, long legs, and anti-Shinra sympathies, considering that's what the guy who built it was going for. It would basically be "FFVII without Cloud and Tifa". Barret would probably be the protagonist, and things would probably play out quite differently.

I actually think one can still write Cloud into the story. You'd just have to do a lot of work with his character, and keeping him from critical meltdown after Sephiroth gets his hands on him ... well, that'd require even more work and a very fundamental tweak in his character, but it's certainly not impossible.

 

[Sprites]

I often wonder what would have happened if Seph, had abandoned Shinra, he implied he was going to do it in Crisis Core, so you have to wonder how things are would have found out if he abandoned Shinra before going to Nibelheim and if he'd found out about his birth in a different way.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

I actually think one can still write Cloud into the story. You'd just have to do a lot of work with his character, and keeping him from critical meltdown after Sephiroth gets his hands on him ... well, that'd require even more work and a very fundamental tweak in his character, but it's certainly not impossible.

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.