Hopes for Remake & Rebirth (story/content)

[55-]

I'm pretty sure Jenova's tank was busted open from the inside.

I just have no explanation for how Cloud's door got opened. If it was Sephiroth via Jenova, there would have been a blood trail. Though, the blood trail did lead straight up to the president's office, and there were plenty of other dead people laying around. Maybe he flew. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's amazing how many people Sephiroth failed to kill. In the case of the Nibelheim villagers, I suppose he only slaughtered the ones in his immediate vicinity and the rest would've died form the fire, save for the ones who probably would've ended up too injured to be able to escape from Shinra afterwards.

That's the impression I got from one o them prequels. Before Crisis I think. Still though, I think it's odd that Tifa's like "Cloud is all I have left, everyone else I have ever cared about died when Nibelheim burned to the ground. I only care about Cloud." But then you find out like, Zangan lived. That boy who sent her the letter you find when snooping around her room wasn't even in Nibelheim at the time. And what about the friends she made after leaving? What about Barret? I think she just wanted to sound romantic, lol.

The wiki quote's pretty decent, though I'm not sure Sephiroth had any choice in where his body ended up.

Okay this I know isn't true. He wanted to hang out in the North Crater so he could absorb lots of lifestream, it was definitely his plan to be there. Though it's very possible he didn't need to have any control, he could have just passively floated and ridden the stream of lifestream still trying to heal the crater.

 

[Starling]

Well, the guard with the key got killed and the blood trail was obviously deliberate so he probably did open the door for Cloud.

Cloud is all she has left from her past in Nibelheim. She was hoping to see him again after the promise they made. Zangan basically disappeared after she was taken to safety and might as well be dead as we're never going to find out what happened to him afterwards. As for the guy in the letter, who knows? She doesn't seem to have kept in touch with him.

 

[NikolaiBroketheZoom]

I always figure that the guard opened the door to Cloud and Tifa's cell because Cloud was asleep against the wall and wasn't visible through the little window, so the guard wanted to make sure Cloud was still there. He was then killed and dragged away before he could shut the door and somehow the entire party slept through it.

 

[55-]

I reread the letter from Zangan you find tucked away in Tifa's piano with Final Heaven. He does mention Hojo ordering troops "to gather up everyone still alive for the experiment." (So I guess the theory about the Sephiroth clones being old Nibelheim residents holds a lot of weight.) Then, Zangan brings Tifa to Midgar, drops her off with a doctor, and then decides he needs to go wherever the wind takes him and disappears. He stops in Nibelheim and sees all these weird cloak guys and he's like wow this is fucked up I should tell Tifa about this, but rather than send her a letter or float on the wind of his arbitrary travel back to Midgar, he just shoves a note inside the replica of her piano and assumes it'll get to her LOL.
So, Zangan's alive, he's just impossible to get in contact with because he has no permanent address and doesn't know how mail works.

 

[Cat on Mars]

IStill though, I think it's odd that Tifa's like "Cloud is all I have left, everyone else I have ever cared about died when Nibelheim burned to the ground. I only care about Cloud." But then you find out like, Zangan lived. That boy who sent her the letter you find when snooping around her room wasn't even in Nibelheim at the time. And what about the friends she made after leaving? What about Barret? I think she just wanted to sound romantic, lol.

After the incident, Shinra buried all evidence and sure as hell they didn't make press releases about Nibelheim. So we have a handful of people scattered around the globe, probably keeping a low profile and not talking about something that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, didn't ever happened.

So yes, quite literally, all that's left of her past is Cloud.


On another note, I really find the whole Nibelheim incident and following cover up unsettling even by FFVII's standards. If you really want to think about it, Shinra tried to wipe out the local population and replace them with settlers. That's not murder, it's genocide.
Heavy shit.

 

[Starling]

Which one of the reason Kalm being given a similar treatment in BC doesn't sit well with me. Corel got wrecked too but Shinra didn't rebuild the place and pretend it never happened.

 

[Flare]

When I replayed the game earlier this year, there's two Sephiroth Clones in Nibelheim that seem to confirm for sure that they used to be the surviving residents of Nibelheim after Seph burned it to the ground.
In Cloud's 'past' sequence, when you can walk around Nibelheim before going to the reactor, there's two children in one of the houses, and the little brother likes to repeat the ending words of his sister every time she talks.
When you go to Nibelheim in present time, in that same house on the second floor are two small Sephiroth Clones, and one murmurs something about a Reunion, whereas the second one adds '...eunion' or something after the first one's done speaking.
I took that to mean that they were what was left of the two kids that survived the fire, and were made into Sephiroth Clones. Really disturbing.

And I always had the feeling Sephiroth unlocked Cloud's cell door. Not sure how he did it without leaving a blood trail, but he obviously killed the guards there too. I figured he wanted Cloud to see what he'd done and be unsettled by it (like I was when I first played the game)

 

[55-]

Tbh I hope they don't include the part about Nibelheim being rebuilt as an exact copy, including the interiors of the buildings, in the remake, just because I find it really eyerolly and ridiculous.

 

[Starling]

If you compare a screenshot of flashback Nibelheim and present day Nibelheim, you can see some differences, the most notable one being the presence of cobblestone where the originally wasn't. Now that they're remaking the game with better graphics, they'r probably still going to have both versions of the town look disturbingly similar but the differences will be more noticeable if you take the time to look.

 

[55-]

I actually have done that. Didn't notice it in game, but have noticed it playing around with makou reactor.
Still, I find the fact that they bothered to replicate everything, down to the layout of Tifa's house and all of its contents, very lazy and video gamey. Also impossible. How did they have that information and why would they care.

 

[Starling]

Never underestimate Shinra's ability to do illogical and surprisingly elaborate things in the name of screwing people over.

While the level of detail is probably impossible to manage even if they got their hands on pictures of various parts of the town, the fact that it's nearly identical adds to how disturbing it is. I'm sure they'll make the inside of buildings more different at the very least.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

I actually loved and agree with how notably disturbing the "fake Nibelheim" later on, complete with the child Sephiroth clones that cause Cloud to shake his head in sadness is. Somebody mentioned way early in this thread that they hope the remake keeps in place many of the sometimes-forgotten "horror" elements (blood trails, body deformities, Cloud's freakouts, the uses of "Those Chosen By The Planet"), and that's definitely one of them. I agree that it's a little preposterous, but so is a silver-haired half-alien warrior failing to die as all other creatures do because his "will" is too strong. And a Shinra executive deciding the subtlest method of spying on the group is to use a fortune-telling cat shouting at a giant Moogle he's riding through a megaphone. Whole damn game is ridic.

Side note, earlier somebody was discussing Ifalna, while Icicle inn is close to the "Knowlespole" where Jenova crashed into the planet and the Cetra had a settlement, that's not how she ends up there. She is being held in the Shinra building, and during that period Gast falls in love with her and realizes his guilt and error in participating in the experiments simultaneously, so he breaks her out of the building and flees to Icicle Inn (that's why Hojo is looking for them in the first place)

Edit: 2nd side note, Seph/Jenova breaking Cloud out of the Shinra Building, I'll have to find the specific place where I read this, but supposedly rather than having to do with it being SPECIFICALLY Cloud, he was being freed because he was another walking mass of Jenova cells, and thus inadvertently part of the evil gang (we see how he gets used by Seph later on). "All this time I thought I was pursuing...but I was being led" etc

 

[Channy]

Seeing 55-'s link and saw a screen shot of the Ancient Forest... nnnghhh... some of those renders are beautiful as is... It's going to be full on graphigasm when everything is remade.

 

[Starling]

I look forward to seeing how disturbing the scene in the **** room ends up being in the remake.

I don't remember any mention of Gast breaking Ifalna out of Shinra. In fact, I'm pretty sure Hojo says something about Gast finding Ifalna for him while he was in hiding. My understanding was that Gast probably tried to better Sephiroth's life in some way that made it dangerous for him to stick around. Unable to take sephiroth with him, he fled on his own and eventually met Ifalna. Keep in mind that as former head of the science department, Hojo had plenty of reason to want to find and kill Gast even without Ifalna's involvement.

 

[hleV]

So... Sephiroth opened the cell doors of where Cloud was specifically, yet in the ship Sephiroth is all like "who are you?"? It does seem weird, though I don't have a better theory. Things are just damn confusing.

 

[55-]

Seeing 55-'s link and saw a screen shot of the Ancient Forest... nnnghhh... some of those renders are beautiful as is... It's going to be full on graphigasm when everything is remade.

That reminds me, here's something that always looked amazing.



Can't wait for that in remake. Also the giant fish that blocks the door later.

 

[55-]

Doesn't specify either way RE: Gast and Ifalna.

Heh, heh, heh I've been searching for you, Ifalna…
or should I say, Cetra!

Long time no see,
Professor Gast!

Believe me, I had to turn over a stone or two to find you.

Two years I waited… That's how much I wanted
this new sample. Ha, ha, ha.

That's it, that's all we get. At least in Icicle inn. If there's anything anywhere else, I'm totally forgetting it.

But yeah that's some super vague information. I'd say both interpretations are valid.

 

[Starling]

So... Sephiroth opened the cell doors of where Cloud was specifically, yet in the ship Sephiroth is all like "who are you?"? It does seem weird, though I don't have a better theory. Things are just damn confusing.

there's a good chance he was only pretending not to recognize Cloud, considering he never really got over getting killed by him the first time around.

Regarding Hojo at Icicle Inn, I may have misremembered the dialogue.

 

[jazzflower92]

I look forward to seeing how disturbing the scene in the **** room ends up being in the remake.

I don't remember any mention of Gast breaking Ifalna out of Shinra. In fact, I'm pretty sure Hojo says something about Gast finding Ifalna for him while he was in hiding. My understanding was that Gast probably tried to better Sephiroth's life in some way that made it dangerous for him to stick around. Unable to take sephiroth with him, he fled on his own and eventually met Ifalna. Keep in mind that as former head of the science department, Hojo had plenty of reason to want to find and kill Gast even without Ifalna's involvement.

Yeah, Gast's short relationship with Sephiroth was briefly mentioned but never expanded upon. In all of his scenes, Gast never mentions Sephiroth even though you'd think he should. I mean Gast is the only one who seemed to care for him as a person.

 

[Tetsujin]

there's a good chance he was only pretending not to recognize Cloud, considering he never really got over getting killed by him the first time around.

This is what I believe as well. Sephiroth was messing with Cloud to make him believe he was never at Nibelheim. This is where he laid the groundwork.

 

[Kionae]

My greatest hope for the remake is to see much, much more of the Turks. They were always my favorite part of the original game, they were the best part of Advent Children, and even after all these years, I still love them (Reno in particular).

 

[leadmyskeptic]

I agree. I mean, they've still got to maintain the whole "disappearing for a bit and then popping up again to remind you how much has changed" aspect of The Turks, so they can't have them be around constantly, but they could certainly add in a couple more encounters. Even if they're non-combat (think the Junon pub optional sequence), but giving them some more dialogue opportunities and letting you know they're always one step behind you as you travel the world. I also hope unlike AC and even CC, this time the Turks are portrayed such that while characters like Reno do have a winking sense of humor, they are ruthless paid killers in suits (basically mafia hitmen) first and foremost, instead of lighthearted jokesters who happen to work for the bad guy. In the Compilation, some of the heroes are more brutal than the Turks are.

 

[Kionae]

I'd love to see a sidequest involving the Turks that didn't involve just fighting them. Something like Yuffie's sidequest, but a bit longer.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

That would be quite interesting...I just wonder what it could be, because if it was any more "teaming up" type of thing, I think it'd dull that delicate Turks edge a little too much. I liked how in the OG they had that whole 'fucking around but loyal to the employer bit' so that, even at the end when Shinra was basically fucked, and Rufus was (presumed) dead, the Turks were still stalking around the subways of Midgar, doing their job. Rather than having joined the heroes, or just quit and fucked off home for the apocalypse. Maybe they could feature them in something like the Huge Materia quest, where you wouldn't necessarily be fighting them but they'd be featured heavily and competing for the prize

 

[Kionae]

I agree, I'm not sure I'd like to see them team up, per se... I'd rather it be something more competitive, but not just outright fighting them. Maybe with some moral decisions to be made over the course of the sidequest that influence how the Turks react to you later in the game (e.g. Elena is trapped by a rabid Moogle... do you help Reno and Rude save her, or leave them to it and take the lead)?

Also... just for shits and giggles... how about a drinking contest minigame against Reno?