I think Aerith's fine. What is interesting to me with the characters is that they have chosen to expand on them; as such, Aerith's role has changed in Remake. She knows definitely more, and has accepted her lineage and powers, albeit I'd say she still has to learn to listen to the Planet, but that has shifted her attitude a bit. She is still her OG self, but way less flirty with Cloud, and more someone characters will turn to by the end of the game, when she takes the lead because she obviously knows more.
Her less flirty side, I will say it's because of CC and the way Zerith was dedvelopped. In the OG, we were supposed to grasp that she still had feelings for Zack, but that has escaped many, and maybe they are driving the point home more with this Remake. Also, maybe it is due to the translations, but I didn't get the feeling of manic pixie!Aerith to be honest, she sounds very childish in French.
The question with her knowledge is more, does she learn and understands things as the game goes, or does she hide a lot? There may be a bit of both and it's to note that she seems as lost as the others once they have defeated the Whispers. I feel that there is a lot to examine carefully with Aerith, because I don't think that she knows *that* much, she seems to understand things as they come too - Sephiroth aside. We see how that works in chapter 18, imho, we see her having a long vision about Zack before and after the fights against the bosses; that should be what she sees at the very best (given her link to Zack, we can expect the clearest vision for him and also maybe they are sent by the whispers on purpose). She's the only one to see them, and takes decision according to those. We can place bets that it's how she usually goes; did she know about Cloud when she first met him, or did the knowledge come later when he fell through the church's roof? There are tons of interesting things to dissect, but she says herself that she isn't sure because every time the whispers touch her, she loses a part of herself.
Aerith has some knowledge but not the understanding to go with it. She's definitely not all knowing or anything close to her level of planetary awareness like during the Temple of the Ancients or when she dies and joins the Lifestream.
Having more knowledge of her lineage instead of being completely in the dark about it, doesn't mean she's unable to learn more from the journey. If anything, the Remake raises Aerith's agency and participation in the wider plot, which is a good thing. That's what makes her stronger as a character, as an active force with greater stakes in the story. She's not just a potential love interest dragged along by the plot because her life got turned upside down.
And Aerith is hardly anything close to being the pejorative "Pink Jesus" she's been called before due to her abilities in AC and I guess KH to an extent. I swear, it's like people are adverse to her demonstrating her Cetran lineage, even when it's minimal and not at the expense of her very human and down to Earth character. But the fact is, she's magical. Just like Cloud's superhuman, Tifa's a fighting goddess and Barret's a cyberpunk warrior with a gattling gun on his arm, lol
The wit, charm and sass Aerith demonstrates upon meeting Cloud and traveling with him to her home and Wall Market just kills that Pink Jesus meme in a fire. Like, it's false, they rightfully went opposite of that direction . Aerith's not just in the vein of her OG appearance, she's better. That's not even a hot take. She's demonstrated far more personality, expression and hilarious wit than the OG's corresponding portion of FFVII. She's more than just a love interest or rival to Tifa. She talks about her lineage not just in removed, expository way, but in connection to her own lived and personal experience. Her history with Shinra and how she feels about them plays a far greater role and fleshes out her backstory. You feel the pain, loneliness, yet optimism she exudes when describing her life, which reflects who she is as a person. And her individual character is far more expanded beyond being the ignorant Cetra who just goes along to figure shit out. I don't know about any said flaws of her's, but characters don't need "flaws" to be well written and identifiable. That's like saying a character needs a vice or some malign habit to demonstrate authenticity and that's simply not true, because not every human is like that. Characters who are written to have flaws, are done so to demonstrate authenticity and relatability. But that's not the only way to accomplish that.
Aerith is authentically herself, through her very character that is friendly, sassy, vibrant ,and very much alive. Which makes sense, because she's not a ghost in this depiction
Those scenes with Zack in chapter 18 - is Aerith seeing them? I very much got the impression that only the player was seeing them; that Aerith didn't see him at all and knew nothing about it.
Those scenes with Zack in chapter 18 - is Aerith seeing them? I very much got the impression that only the player was seeing them; that Aerith didn't see him at all and knew nothing about it.
She is definitely seeing them, there is a zoom on her and she makes a face right after the vision ends. She's the only one who sees them too - we see the others being weirded out later when they have the vision of future!Red XIII, here no such things, she's the only one to react (trust me I went through this in slow motion lolol). As I said, it's interesting that it's the vision setting her in motion; did she think she could help Zack somehow? Or did it motivate her to fight when she saw him ready to fight? I think it's at least the latter, but the fact that she acts on the singularity - which is to me, the most pink!Jesus thing she ever did in the whole game BTW, that was really weird - makes me wonder if she hoped to influence his fate while fighting hers too.
I have told you that the game happens really fast and to grab details and catch what is TRULY happening, watching in slow motion is the preferred way for some scenes. This is what we see right after Zack's vision:
We see Aerith holding her head just like Cloud does when he has a vision BTW. And then, when we see her face:
She is shocked, surprised by what she just saw (Zack attacking a bunch of Shinra troops all by himself). Then there is a zoom out and everyone else is in fighting stance. Why would she be shocked if not for having seen Zack's vision?
It is to note that there are tons of whispers during the Zack scene and that the singularity is already happening, so it feels that she decides to act because she hopes to help Zack - if there are no more whispers around him, then maybe he can survive. The fact that the Stamp logo is different and how it's been pointed at by the devs feels too much for it to not be an alternate reality of some sorts, maybe one that Aerith created when she did what she did to the singularity.
Remake has made me appreciate both Final Fantasy VII and the Compilation in ways that I never had before, and it's given me the excuse to finally do all the sort of ridiculously overly-detailed analysis of things that I've always been interested in – at a time where I have a lot better tools to rely on to achieve that. I very much can't wait to get to a place where I can just go play through it again, and just drink it all in. I honestly cannot get enough of it. It's weird that I have spent far more time in Final Fantasy VII-related things in the last 6 months than in... almost any time in recent memory since the ACF days, even though how I direct that energy is totally different. Like... I haven't even come close to hitting platinum in the game or gone through a single chapter in Hard Mode yet – but I eagerly anticipate doing so.
The more time I spend poking at it, the more I just absolutely love it.
I think I'm on playthrough six now, so obviously I'm still getting lots from it. It's also allowed me to analyse/nit-pick it a little more without the blur and excitement of the initial run.
My personal feeling from the start was to try and be open-minded about it and approach events with a mindset of "could this have happened within the bounds of the original story". To me, most of the game ticks that box, although maybe sometimes the execution of certain parts didn't quite hit the mark., e.g. Plate Collapse , some of the sidequests and new characters (Kyrie).
One thing you do start to notice on repeated plays is the acting, or more to the point, the script. I thought that almost all of the VA was terrific and the actors involved did a great job, however some of the scenes and dialogue are just a little bit off to me. I know it's a different genre and this may be unfair, but if you compare it to the hyper-real feeling from something like TLOU2 (less said for the rest of that game, probably better), I felt like some of the more emotional scenes could've been better executed to make it feel more real. On repeated viewings, Jessie's scene for example just had a bit too much cheese in it.
This is what I do though, I nit-pick. None of these little things detract from what was a great experience. That first time in Wall Market was a true 10/10 gaming moment. The music was almost faultless and I'm still finding tracks that catch your ear and have you listening on repeat.
Someone earlier in the thread spoke about the trailers and recalling every single beat of it. I remember that feeling too, what a buzz the build-up was and the joy of going through the game is still there for me. It's so good that we've got this now to plug the gap ahead of the next installment, whenever it may be.
One thing I am interested in, has anyone been back and played the OG again yet? Has the remake made you see things through a different lens, or detracted/added to it at all?
I think I'm on playthrough six now, so obviously I'm still getting lots from it. It's also allowed me to analyse/nit-pick it a little more without the blur and excitement of the initial run.
My personal feeling from the start was to try and be open-minded about it and approach events with a mindset of "could this have happened within the bounds of the original story". To me, most of the game ticks that box, although maybe sometimes the execution of certain parts didn't quite hit the mark., e.g. Plate Collapse , some of the sidequests and new characters (Kyrie).
One thing you do start to notice on repeated plays is the acting, or more to the point, the script. I thought that almost all of the VA was terrific and the actors involved did a great job, however some of the scenes and dialogue are just a little bit off to me. I know it's a different genre and this may be unfair, but if you compare it to the hyper-real feeling from something like TLOU2 (less said for the rest of that game, probably better), I felt like some of the more emotional scenes could've been better executed to make it feel more real. On repeated viewings, Jessie's scene for example just had a bit too much cheese in it.
This is what I do though, I nit-pick. None of these little things detract from what was a great experience. That first time in Wall Market was a true 10/10 gaming moment. The music was almost faultless and I'm still finding tracks that catch your ear and have you listening on repeat.
Someone earlier in the thread spoke about the trailers and recalling every single beat of it. I remember that feeling too, what a buzz the build-up was and the joy of going through the game is still there for me. It's so good that we've got this now to plug the gap ahead of the next installment, whenever it may be.
One thing I am interested in, has anyone been back and played the OG again yet? Has the remake made you see things through a different lens, or detracted/added to it at all?
I just skip the Jessie death scene. It's unbearable.
I guess the Remake did her some favours in that it gave her an expanded role, more of a backstory, and fingers. But they could have done it so much better than they did.
One thing you do start to notice on repeated plays is the acting, or more to the point, the script. I thought that almost all of the VA was terrific and the actors involved did a great job, however some of the scenes and dialogue are just a little bit off to me. I know it's a different genre and this may be unfair, but if you compare it to the hyper-real feeling from something like TLOU2 (less said for the rest of that game, probably better), I felt like some of the more emotional scenes could've been better executed to make it feel more real. On repeated viewings, Jessie's scene for example just had a bit too much cheese in it.
I think that most of the "slightly off" things for me are things where you can tell that the motion capture is done by Japanese actors, and the facial changes match to the English dialogue. That in general is something where because I know about the technological implementation those things are actually less jarring upon rewatch for me.
I just skip the Jessie death scene. It's unbearable.
I guess the Remake did her some favours in that it gave her an expanded role, more of a backstory, and fingers. But they could have done it so much better than they did.
I've seen this particular line called out a lot, and I have to really strongly disagree. The dialogue during Jessie's death scene is FLAWLESS.
Cloud had the rather intensely unexpected 1:1 moment with Biggs dying that sets the difficult/somber tone starting with the, "Promise me it won't all be for nothing." This is where it really breaks through Cloud's fake "tough guy" exterior where he didn't care about the Avalanche crew, but especially because Biggs calls him out for having so much in common with the orphans. That stuff all coming together is all a micro-triggering flashback to what happened when Zack died with him – 1:1 promising to make sure what they did will mean something. This is why Cloud starts to try and tell Biggs that he has to take care of things himself at the orphanage. He's retreating back into a sort of protective denial, because he doesn't have the emotional capacity to carry the responsibility of the unfinished legacy of more people's deaths on his shoulders. He's trying to just tell people that they're too important to die, because there're all these little things that they have to take care of on their own as a way of saying without admitting, "I can't do that for you. I'm barely holding myself together. I can't shoulder any more of this sort of responsibility, even though I feel obligated to because if I don't, there's no other option. Please. Don't die." because he's not emotionally at the point where he even recognizes that this is what he means with what he says.
That's why when with Jessie, what you see is that Cloud is literally trying to play the strong character for both Tifa, Jessie, & himself. He's trying not to let this all happen again, but he doesn't have any control over what's happening in the exact same way that Jessie is just pretending it's all a play & she's just acting for an audience – which is why she asks if she did something wrong when Tifa starts crying. That's just reinforcing Cloud's tactics of retreating back into the little PTSD shock reactions where he can't think and he's grabbing at anything that immediately had emotion and meaning.
This is why the "Hey, we were supposed to do this little things together." is his line about the pizza, and speaking from experience – It's a perfect example of weird little things that you get focused on when people actually die – because you're subconsciously trying to convince them and yourself that there's no way it's actually happening.
My friend killed herself last year, and one of the things that felt really odd was that the week before she mentioned that she'd never eaten at Taco Bell – and so our group had all just joked around that were gonna make her try it just once that upcoming week. That was one of the first conversations that we all had as soon as we got together was that it was unacceptable that she managed to get away without having had Taco Bell. It sounds ridiculous if you're trying to analyze it as particularly emotionally significant dialogue, but the reality is that you do REALLY weird things to try to counter-balance your emotional grief. It messes with your entire awareness of scope & time, and so you try to grapple for stability with anything recent that connects you to who they just were when you saw them last and they were completely ok, and you're subconsciosuly trying to mentally force that previous version of events into place and overwrite what's currently happening. That's why you just grasp desperately at an easy-to-think-of happier time when you were all just joking around and right about to do something fun & inconsequential, because that's the literal exact opposite of how painfully overwhelming & significant the current event is.
I went thought that all last year. Then this year one of my friends died in June, and other one died in August. You don't get more capable at handling things like that. If anything you end up relying on those escapist crutches even more up until you just hit your absolutely limit and just totally have a breakdown... but you also don't ever hit that point if you're constantly forced into fight-or-flight survival, and it's not safe to break down completely, because you don't have anywhere to relax. (Which is also true of my life for the last two years).
Cloud's PTSD has him well beyond the range of his normal emotional regulative capacity. This is his grasping at stabilization, and while it might seem weird – that "You owe me a pizza" line is like getting punched in the face by a train because that is EXACTLY what you're like when someone dies unexpectedly, and you're on the verge of totally losing your cool and breaking down into an absolutely helpless mess, but you're locking all of your emotions down, and trying to get other people to snap back to finding something that feels like an emotional "normal."
This is the why Cloud only experiences the deaths of people in game when he literally HAS to keep fighting, because it's stealing away all of the moments that he needs to emotionally process what's happening. He literally can't just stop putting on the front of being the guy who's pretending to be ok and taking charge until he's left in a wheelchair literally incapable of speech, and needs someone to come and put him back together. It's same reason in Advent Children why Cloud can't handle all of the similarities and feelings of helplessness around not being able to save anyone. He totally shuts down and mentally retreats, because he doesn't even have the energy left to try and push himself into crisis mode and have the facade of handling everything just fine anymore after the end of Final Fantasy VII, leaves him with his real self again – but he's still grappling with tons of emotional damage.
These are little things that make it clear that the people who write the dialogue have a real familiarity with loss & portraying it accurately, rather than trying to match the portrayal of how media generally presents "realistic" death from a perspective that's just narratively smooth & focused solely on constraining things within a particular emotional tone of "serious and sad" which is anything but how it actually works.
To me the pizza line was indeed good, because it's the focusing on everyday things that makes the death impactful. I could argue that Jessie went on and on when she was dying, but it was also a way to set up a Cloud mini-arc growth about being able to comfort Tifa, so as a cloti, I can't really complain about that one either lol. I mean, in the end, Jessie's death showed us how Cloud had changed since chapter 1 re: Avalanche, and how he still had so much to learn (i.e. him being mentally 16). In a storytelling point of view, that is flawless because the narrative is double and still sets up the path for Cloud to continue to grow.
Jessie's whole death scene is one big weird, uncomfortable, overly heavy, tonally inconsistent mess, with joking about inconsequential nonsense, being on the verge of soul-shatteringly sad, and sort of left sort of empty of any impact & not knowing what to do except just keep going & climbing the stairs up to whatever you're supposed to be doing. It's just constant mood whiplash that doesn't deliver any real weight whatsoever, and ultimately leaves you feeling very little of anything in specific.
It's very much NOT the sort of heart-string-wrenching emotion that you'd use in a well-structured emotional narrative. I absolutely get why it doesn't land for a ton of people. For most people it'll just be something that only stands out in how badly every pieces totally breaks the scene, feels just all over the place, and wrong SO MUCH that it almost totally lacks any appropriate emotional impact, and ultimately just feels like you ruined a meaningful moment.
My "emotional train-hit-to-the-face" point was just that because it feels like an absolute train wreck of a scene without any focus – that's exactly what overwhelmed emotional reaction to suddenly unexpected death is actually like.
It's why Remake went that route with it on purpose after doing the former with Biggs. Even though it won't land for everyone, unlike most other scenes where it's delivering a targeted "feeling" emotion for the end scene that's universally relatable and is connected to hurt – the feeling you're supposed to have after her scene is just confused emptiness.
The challenge is that that sort of disconnected emptiness is an emotion that literally can't achieve the result of DOING something, or making you feel a particular way – which is why it doesn't land as anything. It's a scene that will basically hit all-or-nothing, and that's based solely on if you already have something to build off it. That's why I wanted to give context around how overwhelmingly "correct" that scene is for what's happening, as compared to other moments that might be poorly written, directed, acted, etc.
Knowing how serious Cloud is, it feels out of character to bring something so mundane as missing out eating fucking pizza when someone is dying while a plate is about to fall.
It would be out of character to any normal human being that doesn't have 8 years. That's why it fits better in KH when someone mentions losing his Ice cream company lol
Eh, I don't think it's OOC, it's a way for someone who doesn't know how to handle death as it's coming to tell someone they're not allowed to go just yet because there's x, y and z to do together still. Which perfectly fits Cloud, for he is 16 in his head and feels overwhelmed with the Avalanche's death - Jessie is already the second one, and out of the two (her and Biggs specifically since they were the ones he saw dying), she was the one who reached out to him the most. To me the pizza line was great, but maybe Jessie did take too long to die/spoke too much, as she seemed more badly injured than Biggs.
People do that all the time. The everyday, memorable and enjoyable moments that will never be experienced again due to death are referenced explicitly in people's final words.
"Looks like I can't give you that 'good time' I promised...."
"It's a shame, I had fun fighting you... Looks like we won't get that rematch after all."
"Hanging with you guys was never boring..."
"If only I could be by your side one more time..."
Come on, the little things of life are the first thing mentioned at death's door because they are what we take for granted in our lives. As Eric Draven in The Crow so aptly said:
"Little things used to mean so much to Shelly. I used to think they were kind of... trivial. Believe me, nothing is trivial."
I think after years of participating in nerd fandom, I’m at a point where debating why something works/doesn’t work on something as subjective as on an emotional level seems like a futile effort considering everybody’s got their own idea of what impacts them the most and it’s very rare for something to make everybody or even most people feel exactly what the creator intended or for everybody to universally respond the same way. Personally, I was more sad about Tifa’s reaction to Jessie’s death than the death itself since I already knew Jessie was going to die and I wasn’t particularly fond of her anyways. ...you guys hear something?
Reminds me of the mixed response to the ending: some people like it, some people don’t. Some people liked Tifa’s resolution scene more, some people liked Aerith’s more. Also reminds me of what I noticed with different Twitch streamers and their reactions to the Aerith and Marlene scene. Some were sad watching this innocent child in sorrow as she’s about to lose her home, others were irritated that Aerith doesn’t just pull Marlene the hell out of the bar as soon as possible instead of taking her time. I kinda just shrug my shoulders and say “meh, it is what it is” at this point. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess!
It's in character for Jessie, being ridiculously overdramatic is kind of her thing. It might equally have worked if she completely dropped her peppy persona at her last breath.
She might not even be thinking straight after being blown up.
Knowing how serious Cloud is, it feels out of character to bring something so mundane as missing out eating fucking pizza when someone is dying while a plate is about to fall.
If missing out on a pizza were Cloud's actual concern there, you'd be right. It's what X said, though. =P
@X-SOLDIER
Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who thought that might be the best line in the game (along with Barret's "She's tougher than me"). I've been flabbergasted at how so many people dislike it, so it's helpful to hear why it probably works so well for me.
