SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[Odysseus]

Yuffie never went through destiny's crossroads, and i doubt we'd get a different Yuffie that joins the party from the DLC one. Also all the other characters besides the main party, too. There's clearly something going on with Rufus.

 

[Edley]

Oh I know it's easily debunkable, but what if two Clouds show up to the reunion at Northern Crater?

 

[Eerie]

Yeah I don't think there's a crossing lines thing. I think at the very end of the spectrum of possibilities, we do have a "merging realities" ala what Nomura already did in another game apparently (KH series?). But the bet is clearly safer with two timelines (even if I enjoy looking at the merging realities one because my brain works like that, and who doesn't like poking at Mako lol).

The thing is, if we expect Zack to be there in another reality... then at *some point* he will have to interact with the "OG" timeline. It makes no sense to have him there, on an alternate reality, and to do nothing with it (because he's not the hero, we're not going to focus on his story).

To me the merging realities does have the appeal of solving how tf does Zack rejoin the party. Because they are in the same world now, so it's easily solvable, unlike the second timeline where Aerith has to juggle with another singularity to maybe bring him back? Unlikely. The two Cloud in Northern Crater would be absolutely siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick and a big reason why I'm not letting the merging worlds theory die just yet lol (I did say my brain liked that kind of puzzles didn't I? XD).

 

[Edley]

Remake Part Deux: Schrodinger's Zack.

 

[eleamaya]

And @eleamaya yes, Maximilian mentioned Laguna's story as a parallel. I do think that the start of FFVII/Remake is basically the time when they get separated, only to get reunited by death. Their love is tragic like that. Before that they 'could' be reunited (technically, one being alive didn't mean the other could only be dead, even if the events prevented them to get reunited), but once FFVII's story kicks in, there is no way that they can be both alive at the same time. And to sum it up, I do think that they're both up to die *again*, to the fans' great dismay. And yet, if one could save Aerith, that would be Zack - but this is something that cannot happen. It's the whole tragedy of that pair. Prepare your handkerchieves.

I ship Zerith since AC knowing them as ghost so... that kind of story for them would still be appealing to me. And I really imagine any scenario that does not just end up as "oh they would be happily ever after, married, and have kids" haha nope. Aside from few wishful thinkings I already have to imagine how their story, after Intermission ending, I keep one scenario that Aerith in Zack's universe perhaps was already dead, and we already know that Zack in her timeline is dead. But I really really hope that they would keep sensing each other's presence since their love is strong, and while Aerith prefers to focus on her role 'cause deep in heart she knew so well it's impossible to meet this Zack from another universe, this leads Zack's motivation to go on journey to find a way to reunite since he would never give up on her. And this drives the story on his side that probably also affects Cloud's world and at one point, it'd be converged. But the real reunion? Only in death.

 

[Shademp]

Hojo's plan to steal Weiss' body and become a vessel for Omega is initiated upon him seeing Vincent turn into Chaos and realizing Lucrecia's thesis was true. He expressly credits this as the reason he chose to inject himself with Jenova cells at the Mako cannon. The problem is... there's no point in the game before the mako cannon where he could possibly have seen Vincent do that.

My bet remains that this scene where Hojo sees Vincent transform into Chaos will happen at the Northern Crater in the minutes before, during or after The Reunion takes place. Vincent is there and so is Hojo. Perhaps Vincent ends up unwillingly transforming into Chaos, due to this form resonating with the awakening of the other Weapon at the Northern Crater. This could happen when everybody is escaping to the Highwind, right after Cloud has given the Black Materia to Sephiroth.

 

[waw]

Furthermore, I think the appearance of Hojo at the conclusion of Weiss' fight is meant to set up him beginning to take an interest in Weiss as a SOLDIER, and the subject of digitization of consciousness. The experiment was to replicate Weiss's strength and consciousness via data and then import it into the Combat Simulator network. Hojo more than likely oversaw that experiment or may have even tested it out. But it clearly seems to lay the groundwork for Hojo's scheme to cheat death.

I honestly expect the digitization tech to be something President Shinra expected to use to live forever. He's big enough egomaniac and hates Rufus enough to never want to pass on or believe he has a true heir. He likes showing up as a hologram. Having his mind downloaded, living forever in Neo-Midgar as the eternal president seems like a plausible goal for this guy.

Hojo was just his tool to achieve it but Hojo had his own plans. #headcanon

Zack Stuff

I expect we'll see Zack being pinned as a sort of Last Whisper meant to fix the timeline or save things and he'll get to reunite with and/or save Aerith. I know, folks expect her to still die, and I could see that happening and it's a very important plot element. But if Zack lives, he'll save Aerith. Even if it means sacrificing himself.

If Zack is in the Remake timeline/universe, Aerith won't die.

 

[Maidenofwar]

I finally realized what people meant by Cloud and Aerith's appearance in the ending CGI when the streamer I was watching got to that part. At first I had just been seeing the HQ stills and they still looked yummy to me especially Aerith and even video recordings I couldn't really tell but yeah watching it being streamed on twitch I now get why some aren't happy with the way they look in the CGI

 

[Eerie]

Barret looks really good, Tifa and Cloud are OK but somehow... they botched Aerith's face IMHO :| She looks so very weird which is a shame because her lines and acting are very cute there.

 

[LNK]

If that happened, Nojima implemented Laguna's story to Zack in this timeline. Keep separating from the women he loves and particularly with Raine, he returns only to find out that she's already dead. But this works to have a separate adventure of FF7 double heroes as well as FF8.

While I think there is something similar to Laguna going on with Zack, I think it's Zack who is dead and not Aerith. I think he's searching for her in the "afterlife." Eventually Aerith dies, and they are finally reunited.

 

[Shademp]

Before the Yuffie DLC was released I considered the possibility that they would somehow make her encounter with Deepground still congruent with the Dirge of Cerberus plot. In most aspects you could still make an argument that the Yuffie we see in Dirge of Cerberus is retro-actively the same Yuffie we now see in Remake.

The main dent in that notion now is the fact that Nero is directly responsible for the death of Yuffie's comrade. It's impossible to place Remake-Yuffie in Dirge of Cerberus and not have her react strongly to facing Sonon's killer. True, AC-Tifa on a chipper phone call with Reno is an impossible scene that still manages to exist.

When reasonable logic is applied however, DoC-Yuffie never met Nero three years prior (not even retroactively) and certainly didn't have her comrade killed by him. If this will ultimately *mean* anything is up to the future but everybody already knows the camp I'm in: The FF7R series will find a way to resolve Deepground, Hojo, Omega Weapon etc before Meteorfall and lead to Dirge of Cerberus not happening in the new timeline. If the FF7R series ends with the old status quo, with the old post-OG continuity still happening, then ALL THE SHENANIGANS with Whispers, changing fate etc will feel LEAGUES more pointless than it already does.

 

[Odysseus]

My counter to that is that, outside of preventing you from entering the Seventh Heaven, the whispers never meaningfully influence Yuffie's story. As such, it evidently happened as intended, without outside influence.

Granted, I'm also considering the idea that the remake will not follow the original continuity either, so who knows.

 

[Shademp]

Thanks for informing me of that scene! The playthrough I watched didn't include the player trying to enter Seventh Heaven.

The arbiters of fate are curious because they clearly don't care about the details. If they did, Reno would have pressed the button that initiated the plate separation sequence at the end of Ch12, instead of the timeline changing to Rude being the button-presser. It's impossible then to say how much of the Yuffie DLC was part of the Whispers' "plans" and how much was simply allowed because it wasn't considered intrusive enough for the timeline. All we know is that they didn't want Yuffie to enter Seventh Heaven.

 

[Odysseus]

This, like so many other things *Cough*Zack*Cough* is something we're just gonna have to wait and see about.

On the one hand, having things like Genesis, the larger Avalanche, and Deepground in the remake goes a long way towards making the FF7 compilation feel more like a cohesive whole than it did before. With that in mind, I'd like the old continuity to stay the same. On the other hand, I also get the feeling the remake is meant to be the very literal conclusion to the FF7 saga, and as such will deviate from prior continuity.

You have the devs saying it will "still be recognizable as FF7" and "It will follow the events of the original." but all these other things seem to indicate otherwise. I'm not sure what to make of it. Part 2 will probably go a ways towards making things clearer.

 

[BioTeach]

I finished watching a play through so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts:
- I liked the additional Avalanche members (Nayo, Zhije, Billy Bob, Polk) Of them, I think Zhije was my favorite. I just thought he was a fun personality and seemed to have the most purpose. I hope we see more of them. We don't know that they died in the plate drop and since just about every other NPC we know about made it out, I'd say they have a good chance. Another reason I think we'll see more of them is that there were facts from their character bios that went unused. Like Zhije being from Wutai (I know Yuffie and Sonon mentioned it but it was never confirmed in game or explored) Also Billy Bob's bio said something about his special skill being able to drink without getting drunk and gathering intel that way. Why give him that unusual skill and do nothing with it? I dont actually remember the guy doing anything other than tell us some things about the Shinra building. This makes me think he'll show up and do something useful later. The first place that comes to mind for me is Junon when the Turks are seen drinking while off duty. Seems like a good place for Bob to reappear.
- I really liked Sonon and his death was heartbreaking... and unusual. I hope they dont torture him more but with Nero taking him, I'm sure there's nothing good in store for him if we do get to see him again. Ugh more heartbreak!
- Roche. I dont know what to say about his cameo other than I hated it. I didnt like him at first in the main game either but he grew on me and I really did end up liking him. But he was way too theatrical in the DLC. I know it's a fantasy game but I still like for the characters to be believable. And Roche was not this time. I did like the premise that he was looking for Cloud. I thought that was a nice touch, but they made him too goofy for my tastes.
- Nero is a very cruel man. He was scary and sadistic and I liked it. I'm curious to see what more they do with deepground moving forward.
- Chadley was improved this time around. Ive seen theories floating around that Hojo made him as a Sephiroth copy/clone and I kinda like the idea. I always thought the choice to make his hair gray/silver was an odd one and could have a deeper implication.
- Zack. I'm not going to get into the timeline-is-he-dead-or-alive debate. I will say I'm not a fan of time travel shenanigans but theres no denying he is back in some capacity here. I love Zack but I want him to stay dead. I invested too many tears in watching him die for it to have been for nothing! But getting back to the INTERmission scene - I thought it was really well done. Zack was adorable rehearsing how he wanted to greet Aerith again after so long (and very in character with how I imagine him to be) and the disappointment on his face afterward was so sad. I'm very curious now to see where this is going but I'm not going to waste any energy in trying to guess. I'll just be patient and wait for it to all come out in due time.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

One of the things I find really frustrating about Remake and Integrade's cutscenes (especially the ending montages) is that it's all but impossible to figure out *when* they are happening relative to each other. It's... almost impossible to know what *order* they are happening in, let alone if they're happening congruently.

They emotionally tend to flow one into the other (Marlene looking out the window at Barret who is calling for her; Aerith says something feels odd to her and then seeing Zack at the church, etc.) but it's also obvious that they're all happening at various times of day. And it's imposible to know if those times of day are "after" or "before" the previous cutscene's "time of day". What matters isn't the factual timeline, what matters is the emotional arcs.

In general, trouble I have with any theorizing about Remake is that *everything* has the potential to be a red herring. And NKN are massive trolls. They want us to not know what they're doing/planning and give evidence for just about every theory people can come up with. All people have to do is tilt their head and squint right and cherry-pick the right details. I really can't trust NKN about anything when it comes to "enviornmental" story-telling because they don't exactly do it. They instead have characters talk about what is important to pay attention to (and sometimes sneak things into the game descriptions).

It just gets... exhausting when everything and nothing has "evidence" for and against in a game. So I kinda feel like most "implied" world-building details can't really be trusted... while at least narrative themes and character arcs don't depend on that. And we have... a lot of interviews with NKN to know what directions they think various narrative themes and character arcs will go in. And most of those don't actually *need* the OG to happen the way it did...

It doesn't help either that a significant portion of the fan-base has a vested interest in not wanting the OG story to be deviated from more than it already is. So that... really colors the direction of most people's theorizing. It's... really hard to trust just about anyone's theories because most of them *start* from the idea that the OG story isn't changing and then look for ways to keep that story going.

If you're in the opposite camp of "the OG story is changing" there's a lot less things to prove. Because all the proof will come later anyway. Or rather, any deviation from the OG story is proof that the OG story is changing. And there's more than enough unexplained world-building that any "discrepancies" can be explained away later down the line.

At this point... trying to say we "know" what is happening with Zack and the Whispers is like trying to say we've figured out the how island in Lost "works" when we're at the end of Season 1.

 

[KindOfBlue]

If the FF7R series ends with the old status quo, with the old post-OG continuity still happening, then ALL THE SHENANIGANS with Whispers, changing fate etc will feel LEAGUES more pointless than it already does.

That’s pretty much why I don’t think AC is gonna happen in Remake’s continuity, at least not entirely. I’m sure elements of that and DoC can be worked into the ending or an epilogue of sorts but the actual conflicts themselves will always be the canon follow-up to the OG. Remake on the other hand…we’ll see. Either way, I really believe Remake’s gotta end with a permanent defeat to Sephiroth and all the other plot points resolved to close out the Compilation for good.

This, like so many other things *Cough*Zack*Cough* is something we're just gonna have to wait and see about.

On the one hand, having things like Genesis, the larger Avalanche, and Deepground in the remake goes a long way towards making the FF7 compilation feel more like a cohesive whole than it did before. With that in mind, I'd like the old continuity to stay the same. On the other hand, I also get the feeling the remake is meant to be the very literal conclusion to the FF7 saga, and as such will deviate from prior continuity.

You have the devs saying it will "still be recognizable as FF7" and "It will follow the events of the original." but all these other things seem to indicate otherwise. I'm not sure what to make of it. Part 2 will probably go a ways towards making things clearer.

Yeah everything we know from before (BC, CC, OG FF7, AC, DoC) that’s all still intact in my opinion, while everything we’re seeing here with the Whispers is specific to the remake’s version of those events

One of the things I find really frustrating about Remake and Integrade's cutscenes (especially the ending montages) is that it's all but impossible to figure out *when* they are happening relative to each other. It's... almost impossible to know what *order* they are happening in, let alone if they're happening congruently.

They emotionally tend to flow one into the other (Marlene looking out the window at Barret who is calling for her; Aerith says something feels odd to her and then seeing Zack at the church, etc.) but it's also obvious that they're all happening at various times of day. And it's imposible to know if those times of day are "after" or "before" the previous cutscene's "time of day". What matters isn't the factual timeline, what matters is the emotional arcs.

In general, trouble I have with any theorizing about Remake is that *everything* has the potential to be a red herring. And NKN are massive trolls. They want us to not know what they're doing/planning and give evidence for just about every theory people can come up with. All people have to do is tilt their head and squint right and cherry-pick the right details. I really can't trust NKN about anything when it comes to "enviornmental" story-telling because they don't exactly do it. They instead have characters talk about what is important to pay attention to (and sometimes sneak things into the game descriptions).

It just gets... exhausting when everything and nothing has "evidence" for and against in a game. So I kinda feel like most "implied" world-building details can't really be trusted... while at least narrative themes and character arcs don't depend on that. And we have... a lot of interviews with NKN to know what directions they think various narrative themes and character arcs will go in. And most of those don't actually *need* the OG to happen the way it did...

It doesn't help either that a significant portion of the fan-base has a vested interest in not wanting the OG story to be deviated from more than it already is. So that... really colors the direction of most people's theorizing. It's... really hard to trust just about anyone's theories because most of them *start* from the idea that the OG story isn't changing and then look for ways to keep that story going.

If you're in the opposite camp of "the OG story is changing" there's a lot less things to prove. Because all the proof will come later anyway. Or rather, any deviation from the OG story is proof that the OG story is changing. And there's more than enough unexplained world-building that any "discrepancies" can be explained away later down the line.

At this point... trying to say we "know" what is happening with Zack and the Whispers is like trying to say we've figured out the how island in Lost "works" when we're at the end of Season 1.

That’s pretty much why I’m not totally all in on any particular theories just yet. I do think people read too much into whether or not certain scenes are taking place at the same time or not because I think the emotional impact is what’s prioritized here. No matter when exactly Zack arrived at the church, there’s no way that wouldn’t be the thing to end the DLC with, same as Zack carrying Cloud and seemingly passing Aerith in the main game.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Why do people think Aerith is dead in Zack's timeline? Because NPCs are crying in the church?

 

[KindOfBlue]

Why do people think Aerith is dead in Zack's timeline? Because NPCs are crying in the church?

That and the flowers appearing to be wilted, I think the people crying is still because of the plate but the flowers is something to consider

 

[LNK]

No matter when exactly Zack arrived at the church, there’s no way that wouldn’t be the thing to end the DLC with, same as Zack carrying Cloud and seemingly passing Aerith in the main game.

I think it was cool to have Zack in the ending to DLC, but I don't think it was a forgone conclusion that he would be there

 

[KindOfBlue]

I think it was cool to have Zack in the ending to DLC, but I don't think it was a forgone conclusion that he would be there

No I agree, I definitely wasn’t expecting to see him but anything involving Zack would be the most WTF part of the story so if you’re going to put him in, might as well drop that bomb at the very end for maximum impact

 

[LNK]

No I agree, I definitely wasn’t expecting to see him but anything involving Zack would be the most WTF part of the story so if you’re going to put him in, might as well drop that bomb at the very end for maximum impact

Oh ok, yeah, I agree with that. I'm definitely looking forward to what's gonna happen with him! Hopefully it won't be more than 2 years of wait though

 

[Obsidian Fire]

That and the flowers appearing to be wilted, I think the people crying is still because of the plate but the flowers is something to consider

I swear. It's like people have never seen what happens to flowers in a garden when you *walk* all over them. They get bent and broken and get bruises that make it look like they're wilting. And Aerith not being there means she's not there to tell people not to walk on her flowers. Which people are doing.

Hence Zack being shocked when he sees them like that because it means Aerith hasn't yelled at these people to get off her flowers yet...

 

[KindOfBlue]

Oh ok, yeah, I agree with that. I'm definitely looking forward to what's gonna happen with him! Hopefully it won't be more than 2 years of wait though

I will say that it’s probably gonna be depressing as hell so I’m preparing myself mentally lol

I swear. It's like people have never seen what happens to flowers in a garden when you *walk* all over them. They get bent and broken and get bruises that make it look like they're wilting. And Aerith not being there means she's not there to tell people not to walk on her flowers. Which people are doing.

Hence Zack being shocked when he sees them like that because it means Aerith hasn't yelled at these people to get off her flowers yet...

I think the shock is less to do with the flowers specifically and more about “wtf is going on and why are all these people here” but I am inclined to agree with you about the flowers, I’m not sold on them having some meaning in that scene unless the ultimania points them out or something

 

[LNK]

I will say that it’s probably gonna be depressing as hell so I’m preparing myself mentally lol

I hear ya haha. Final Fantasy games are the main reason why I play video games. If I don't have one to play, I get bored of games pretty quick. Might have to do another playthrough of ff6 or something