SPOILERS INTERmission Chapter 2 Spoiler Discussion

[looneymoon]

Zack is in this? Lmfao oh boy.

 

[Maidenofwar]

Thanks for the video link Theozilla!

Something I saw on Twitter is how Tifa's goodbye city of Mako line is similar to the line in OG where she is saying guess this is goodbye Midgar and also the Cloud and Aerith exchange where he asks her if she is going to be alright is similar to the one in the OG when the party is outside beside the gates before leaving for the field outside Midgar where there is a choice to ask if Aerith's worried or tell her it's dangerous

 

[Sephiroth Crescent]

So how about Zack and the people inside the church are not as alive as they all look?

 

[Tetsujin]

Nero's fight was intense, whew. He whooped my ass once.
Wonder what he's doing with Sonon's body. Something kinky, most like.

Loved the ending scenes. Yuffie riding the Chocobo and humming the theme lol
The rest of the team walking to Kalm and everything was really nice. I just love all the character interactions in Remake so much. <3
CHOCO BILL. Aww, all the cute chocobirbs in the truck
We see Kalm! From a distance! Woooo!

Of course it's not complete with at least an ounce of wtf-ery. Fucking Zack. Soooo. Is this the present? Is he here? In "our" timeline? The presence of all those people suggest it would be after the platefall. How does that work? What's going on?!? Where's the other Cloud?

Now the long wait for more Remake stuff begins again...again.

 

[Lestat]

I love how Zack hasn't even bothered to sort out a disguise for himself....

 

[Tetsujin]

But seriously though, that hitchhiking scene is so good. It's pretty much how I headcanon'd what things would be like in the OG when the team travels across the world map. More of this, please.
I got weirdly emotional seeing this even though the scene itself isn't emotional whatsoever. I just love seeing these characters and their chemistry is on point imo. BONDS. T__T
It's the type of jolly stuff I had hoped to see in the ending of the main game.

 

[Odysseus]

I'M BACK!

 

[Chocobo Eater]

Just finished watching INTERmission. Glad to see that three predictions I made from the day of the reveal trailer were correct:

Sonon dies
Scarlet major antagonist
More convoluted shit that makes my head hurt

I'm also glad that the party doesn't travel to Kalm by foot. It will be interesting to see how they'll get to the other locations, assuming Part 2 follows the same path as the OG.

 

[waw]

I figured this thread would largely be about Zack. I want to drop some things here as I understand it:

Zack Stuff:
-I don't believe the Party walks past Zack and Cloud in the same world at the same time in FFVII-R ending. Meaning, if Barret looked over, I don't think he'd see them. The Stamp mascot makes believe that this is some form of parallel universe or timeline thing.
-A lot of folks seem to take it that these two events happen at the same time, just in different universes. They should be set months part, however. (Unless, post CC Zack and Cloud go to like, Kalm, and rest up before continuing their journey? But we have no evidence of this).
-I take that scene to imply that Aerith understands things changed, even if she doesn't fully understand what changed.

Zack arrives at the church and prepares to go in.
-Inside are people in intense despair. The flowers are in rough shape. (I'm not joining the argument about them being wilted or stomped on - the developers are incredibly skilled here but I worry we are mistaking what we see with their intentions one way or the other, so for me, this is an unknown).
-People would be in despair like that after the plate fell. This implies to me Zack arrived at the Church after the Plate Fell.
-If so, what did he do for the last few months? Either he healed up in Kalm, or healed up and waiting in the Slums before coming to the Church. Neither fully make sense to me.
-People might be in despair like that after the Zirconiade situation. I'm not sure how much that'll be canon and/or included in Remake stuff.
-Zack doesn't find Aerith at the church. That's pretty significant. Where is she? Selling flowers? Walking off with the party?

What I'm sort speculating at this point is that Zack and Cloud were in an alternate universe and the moment the Whisper Boom happens, they start to cross. By the time they reach Midgar, I suspect they'll be in the main Remake timeline/universe/thing and Zack is finding the Church months after his last CC battle. I suspect we'll actually get a Zack DLC with someone like Cissnei and Alt-Cloud with Party 2. This is all just pure speculation.

Now all of that said...

The Yuffie stuff. Wow. What a great chapter, great gameplay and a solid story. I hope to see a lot more.

Sonon really reminds me of Loz visually. I wonder if a Sephiroth Remnant took his form and if that'll be a plot point later on in Remake. After all, there is a similar plot for Kadaj...

I'm so jazzed to see Nero and really excited where this goes. I have to say, his powers seem utterly broken and I would think even Sephiroth would struggle a bit.

EDIT: Chocobo Bill? Loved it. I was so excited to see him in there and really glad they confirmed that was him. Makes going to the farm a bit more sensible, and even could tie in with Sam and getting the birds into the city. Things like this are why I love Remake the most. They've made the world more vibrant. I can't get enough of that stuff, seriously.

EDIT 2:
Did I miss it anywhere? Was Yuffie and/or Sonon confirmed as Engetsu/Crescent Unit? I feel that's what the "ninja" stuff was all about.

 

[Odysseus]

@Obsidian Fire Sonnon getting retconned into being the protagonist of the Dirge online mode is an idea I like a lot. Like, a lot a lot. His back story is even similar enought to Shelkes to go along with that whole "they implanted the MC with Shelke's memories to brain wash him into helping them" thing it does.

 

[Odysseus]

I should give some actual thoughts, huh?

Gameplay was solid, as always. Yuffie and Sonnon's combo attacks were especially satisfying to pull off, I hope that system returns in part 2. As expected, the new Avalanche guys were all kind of forgettable, but I feel like we'll see more of them yet. Fort Condor game was pretty fun, definitely better than the original minigame, though I feel like there could have been more opponents (maybe this feature will return?.)

The integration of Deepground was shallow, definitely just there for the fans, but part of me hopes we see them again. It's definitely a bit eyebrow raising that Yuffie is not all that concerned about seeing the guy who killed her friend in Dirge, though obviously that's just because Sonnon wasn't a thing in Dirge. I wonder if his death is what makes her more shrewd and untrusting of others? It'd be hard to get close with people after something like that.

The epilogue scene was really nice, and I hope it points to how things will be going forward. Notice how Barret still calls himself the leader, I guess they didn't vote this time lol. Zack is back. Back is Zack. What. I dunno. Sure. No Genesis at least. We live another day.

They more I see this, the more I come to understand that this is not the same FF7 that captured my imagination back in 2012, it's something new, and I'm tentatively okay with that.

 

[KindOfBlue]

A singularity point is a location in space-time that connects to all points in time, meaning that while Cloud and the others were fighting Sephiroth, Zack's last stand occured. They are temporally connected. No, it doesn't change the months each event occurred, but it allows simultaneous events like the Whispers exploding to occur in the past and present. That's literally the point of a singularity.

We’re on the same page there, where we disagree is on the conclusion drawn from that idea

They leave and find themselves at the exact same spot Zack and Cloud in Crisis Core are in, 3 months in the past. That's why they pass by each other because they are in the exact same spot, just at different times. The singularity point allowed us to see how these two events unfolded concurrently.

But this is shown after Cloud and co. leave the Singularity, so I don’t see how that precludes both events from occurring at different points of the same timeline

But it's not just symbolism because the Ultimania itself addressed it from a completely diegetic perspective. They didn't just dismiss it as symbolism. In fact, they specifically treated it as something more than symbolism and brought attention to it as a key narrative point of mystery.

Just Symbolism runs into the same issue with the Ultimania segment as the Just Flashback suggestion. It would be a really senselessly unnecessary bit of supplemental writing that created an understanding many players wouldn't have even had reason to think of in the first place ... just for the sake of later saying "Hey, that notion we gave you in the back of a strategy guide? Faaaake! Damn, did you just get punk'd! You must be so embarrassed!"

Like, on his worst day, I give Nomura more credit than that.

Just because I regard something as symbolism doesn’t mean there still couldn’t be some greater significance to it. Obviously there’s a reason they showed us what they did, all I’m saying is that I don’t think the two Clouds literally passed each other at the same time, but rather maybe we’re watching something that already happened months ago in the altered past of this new “unknown” future presented in a symbolic way.

The Ultimania itself even presents this in a way for us to speculate what this means by raising these same kinds of questions, so to take a suggestion from an interview and run with it as a literal fact before the story even explains itself just seems weird to me.

Their transcendence of time is not a dismissive hand-wave for phenomenon. We see what they do, and what they did. Their destruction was witnessed and felt by Zack in Crisis Core, and Cloud's group in FFVII. This is not a mystery. Their blow up happened before our eyes and we see the same golden light and sparkles fall on Zack in Crisis Core while it also falls on the present Midgar in FVII. This is a simultaneous occurrence. You saying, "but what if it isn't?" isn't a point or theory. That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. And you're not providing any evidence to support this not being a simultaneous occurrence as the game/text presents it to us.

You’re conflating the parts in which we agree with what I’m actually suggesting…we agree that the fight with Sephiroth itself transcended time and affected the outcome of the past, what we disagree on is what that might mean for where the party is versus where Zack is

That literally doesn't matter. Cloud could turn into a brain eating zombie in Part 2, and no one would see it coming. Because it's pretty obvious nothing in the setting or narrative alludes to such a freak occurrence happening. We as the audience can follow the evidence, and what is clearly being alluded to through the narrative and setting, especially thanks to the commentary/clues provided by the book materials themselves. Just because the story isn't over doesn't mean we have to abandon critical thinking or stating what's obvious to our eyes. And certainly still have to support what we're gonna claim is going on.

Everybody who has ever had a theory about FF7 has argued this, somebody has to be wrong lol

I never accepted the Whispers somehow eating time like Langoliers or something. I believe the same laws of time currently exist, even with time travel shenanigans. And the temporal plot holes that exist need filling if you're going to posit a single timeline as the explanation for the time travel scenario.

The plot hole you keep bringing up though is based on a misunderstanding of my suggestion. There doesn’t need to be an explanation as to why Zack is three months behind everybody else because what we know of Zack’s last stand already took place three months before the beginning of FF7.

What we see at the end of Intermission is another story. If what you say is true, now you’d have to explain why there’s a group of crying people inside Aerith’s church immediately after Cloud and Zack reach Midgar rather than months later, after the platefall. And also why we’re being shown this after witnessing the platefall from Yuffie’s perspective.

So how did Zack jump from bringing Cloud to Midgar in September right to reaching Aerith’s church in December? He didn’t, and I don’t think anybody ever suggested that lol what I’ve been saying the whole time is that something might have happened to prevent Zack from reaching Aerith’s church right away. Time just…went on for him. Maybe.

We don't see the Terrier Stamp mascot representing the world after the battle with Sephiroth in the singularity. We only see it representing Zack's world during the Crisis Core time period, 3 months in the past. We have no evidence at all that the Terrier Stamp exists in FFVII-R's current reality inhabited by Cloud and the others. But we do still see Beagle Stamp in Intergrade. And let's not forget, we have commentary from Nomura himself stating that Yuffie is going to meet up with Cloud and the others in Part 2, picking up from Intergrade's ending. So why would Cloud and the others be in the Terrier Stamp universe?

Like I said, Intergrade takes place during the world before the Singularity event so of course we’re still going to see the Beagle Stamp. No, we don’t see the Terrier in Cloud’s time after the Singularity but we don’t see the Beagle either, do we?

You’re right that we only see the Terrier in Zack’s past, but it’s in his new past. We agree there. That doesn’t answer my question as to whether we’ve created a new branching parallel timeline or we’ve moved to an altered reality.

Why would Cloud and gang be in the Terrier universe? Maybe because we just changed the past through a singularity and created a world where Zack survived? Otherwise, the burden is on you to explain how the two timelines are going to intersect after the Whispers are defeated.

I'm familiar but we don't see that currently at work at all. Going by what we do see after the final battle with Sephiroth in the singularity, we see that both parties continuing on from the events shown in FFVII-R's ending. Cloud and the others are heading to Kalm, and Zack is going through Midgar to visit Aerith at Church. No evidence is provided during these events that show Zack's timeframe suddenly changing from Crisis Core's, to FFVII's. We simply see these events continuing on from their previous introduction from the ending.

Unless something's shown or explained that says otherwise, it is a massive leap based on no evidence other than the desire to make the two characters be in the same timeline writ large. It's working backwards from a conclusion, and trying to make the evidence align with it.

Why is Aerith not in her church when Zack arrives, and why are there several people there crying instead? The same way you want evidence, you also have to explain why we see the platefall from Yuffie’s perspective and then we see Zack reaching the church at the same time that Cloud and the gang are outside Midgar. Like yeah, we agree on a lot more than you realize but is “Cloud and Zack are on two separate timelines that are temporally displaced from one another” really that much less convoluted than “Cloud changed the current timeline and now Zack is alive”?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Ignoring the Great Timeline Debate for the moment because it really deserves it's own thread. Onto more interesting Integrade Specific Stuff...

Yuffie and Sonon talk about a time AVALANCHE fought against Wutai. Pretty sure this is a reference to BC's AVALANCHE... Godo is locked up somewhere in jail. So that's different this time around in general. Wonder who decided to do that to him given his OG personality and reasons he spearheaded stopping fighting against Shinra. Not that a lot of other Wutains in CC decided to go along with that idea...

We also now have at least four different groups of AVALANCHE in the Compilation. Barret's, the one Yuffie works with, Elfe's and the one at Cosmo Canyon. Kinda wonder if we'll meet any more...

Sonon's "death" is... really suspicious. And by suspicious I mean... Nero kinda just flat-out kills everyone else ASAP. And then he drags Sonon's death out and lets Yuffie get away. And Sonon gets the mother of all death flashbacks. And Nero is *very* insistent on bringing Sonon's body into his darkness with him and he doesn't bother doing that for anyone else...

This has me side-eyeing the DoC Multiplayer story and thinking Sonon would make a *really* good candidate for taking the Restrictors out from the Tsivet's point of view. They know he's good enough to at least make problems for Nero. And they know he already hates Shinra enough to get into a fight with Scarlet. And actually win for the most part. And then you have him fighting against Shinra before they even *get* there. So they know they don't need to motivate him a ton to want to take the Restrictors out. Although I do think that part of why Sonon has such a long death flashback is because Shelke is rooting around in his head and seeing what's there (and making him see one "vision" that doesn't look like the others).

And... that last bit's important. It's too much SND that makes the Tsivets use a different person to take each Restrictor down in DoC Multiplayer. And I don't think Shelke would need to use *much* SND on Sonon to get him to want to kill off the Restrictors. If the Tsivets didn't have to keep starting from scratch... that could move up their timeline to kill off all the Restrictors by quite a bit. Enough that DG might break out much earlier than last time around.

Half of me likes this idea because it opens the door for Sonon and Yuffie to get into a situation where they fight each other. The other part of me likes this because this doesn't exactly make Sonon living instantly *fix* anything given how bad DG is. I could totally see Sonon not being alive at all. The other part of me thinks this would be a *really* good way to bring in DoC Multiplayer's story with a character everyone actually cares about and is not a random nobody.

Some potentially great insights here. Sonon even comes pre-loaded with the "Shinra took away my little sister" grievance that Shelke had to force into the mind of the player's character in Dirge's multiplayer mode.

Pretty much up for debate at this point.
I've read conflicting reports from folk who completed it that it is in the same timeline as cloud and others saying it's seperate and exists in an alternate Zack alive timeline.

Thanks to the whispers of fuckery nothing is certain.

Stamp is the beagle version and the Whispers are still active during INTERmission, so that clarifies when it's happening.

 

[Eerie]

OK I finally watched Intergrade in French. My comments, not really about Deepground etc. because I haven't seen it:

- Yuffie sounds very adorable. Very cute and young. She looks hella fun to play!

- Deepground (Weiss?) taking Sonon's body somewhere? He not dead and they're going to do him dirty.

- The new ending cutscenes are CUTE AS HELL. The characterisation, everything is awesome. Loved them all! From Yuffie to Zack.

​

Did anyone notice this? It's a phoenix in the scene with Cloud and the gang (the first one). Alluding to Zack.

​

"I'm back!" with that background? The metaphor is full on guys. Parallel with AC/C where he walks out with Aerith into the Lifestream, but here seems to come from the Lifestream for the rebirth (the phoenix), alone.

So I have seen 3 main theories and already rejected one:

- The "Zack is dead and he's in the Lifestream, seeing other souls who are dead": obviously wrong, the Lifestream is just a white stream, Aerith is not here to make souls pass on, etc. Rejected

- The Alternate Universe theory: one of my favourite, I think @Makoeyes987 have explained well enough why this might be the case

- The Merging storylines theory: I'm going to explain this, because there is a lot to explain. But keep on mind that I'm pretty much undecided between this and the AU theory.

If we consider the merging storylines, how did that happen? Well, we consider here that Aerith has indeed saved Zack, creating a singularity that allowed them to defy destiny. What we see afterwards is a living Zack crossing path with Cloud on his shoulder, going full on to Midgar. The devs have rightly noticed that they cannot coexist in the same time and space since it would mean 2 Zack's sword and 2 Cloud. They also do not see each other, except for Aerith.

We see direct consequences of the team's action there: Biggs is alive, so is Zack. But there is a 3 months gap between that scene with Zack and him entering the church; so we have to guess that the singularity enabled some time shenanigans - it's the most probable thing. Zack took some time to drop Cloud somewhere safe, and healed before going to the church. He's arriving after the plate fall; there's no doubt about that because if it was any other event, Aerith would be here to help people in her church. I do not believe one second that she'd do otherwise. Her church after the plate fall was empty (see in chapter 14 the scene with Kyrie). Here it is not. It is probably because a bit of time have passed, and people homeless and who've lost family etc. have assembled there - it IS a church after all. So not only Zack arrives after the plate fall, but also after the gang have left Midgar.

Let's go back to Zack and the party crossing paths; it is probably the moment where the two worlds started to merge. So while they were on a separate time and space at that moment, after this the merge started and their time and space became one, meaning Zack literally skipped 3 months of his life. This is why I was interested to see if there was some new Stamp in the Yuffie DLC, but apparently not, we do see the old one. So she is from the "original". But once the worlds merge, we will start seeing oddities, like... Two Cloud, two Buster swords... This will need resolving, and I think IF they are doing the merging story, this is what they will do. Two Cloud can be resolved in the Lifestream scene, as I noted, two Buster swords now... it's an interesting path.

However, as I have always said, Zack being alive threatens the FFVII plot. And they're redoing the FFVII plot. So, he arrives in Midgar after the gang leaves. He's late, and he doesn't know where Aerith is. This avoids him joining with the team "too early". However, another thing I have always said is that only Zack can save Aerith. But! It can't happen or he will meet up with the other Cloud. So, to me, this is the true problem of the merging theory, unless the devs move the Lifestream scene by a lot, which for now seems unlikely.

 

[Torrie]

I'm gonna step in and say I'm still unhappy with the way Aerith and Cloud look in CGI. Even if I have a feeling Aerith has been improved a bit, she still looks plastic and lifeless (oh, irony), and so does Cloud, his hair making him more ridiculous than he already is. Tifa and Yuffie are... okay, I guess? Barret and Red probably look best among all of the models. Oh, and Bill !!! Bill is absolutely adorable

Zack is a bit of a different story. I'm just so happy to see him move and do something in a superb quality looking much, MUCH better than he did in ACC. To see Zack turning around and asking you "How you been?" and to die. It's just that poor boy hasn't had a proper skin care for four years, but that's forgivable.

"I'm back!" with that background? The metaphor is full on guys. Parallel with AC/C where he walks out with Aerith into the Lifestream, but here seems to come from the Lifestream for the rebirth (the phoenix), alone.

Yes, I noticed that too!

 

[Makoeyes987]

We’re on the same page there, where we disagree is on the conclusion drawn from that idea

Yeah, that's what it looks like

But this is shown after Cloud and co. leave the Singularity, so I don’t see how that precludes both events from occurring at different points of the same timeline

Because it's a paradox and the Ultimania says outright that if Zack is alive, Cloud shouldn't have the Buster Sword. Then it specifies that these two parties in fact do cross paths; Zack holding an unconscious Cloud as they pass Cloud and Aerith. Yet they do not cross paths within the same time and space. That's a detail not being raised idily. It's a Doylist analysis of how the scene plays out and its contextual meaning. It's not an ambiguous concept. Unfolding these concepts are the entire point of these book series, after all.

Just because I regard something as symbolism doesn’t mean there still couldn’t be some greater significance to it. Obviously there’s a reason they showed us what they did, all I’m saying is that I don’t think the two Clouds literally passed each other at the same time, but rather maybe we’re watching something that already happened months ago in the altered past of this new “unknown” future presented in a symbolic way.

The Ultimania itself even presents this in a way for us to speculate what this means by raising these same kinds of questions, so to take a suggestion from an interview and run with it as a literal fact before the story even explains itself just seems weird to me.

It's not an "interview," it's a defining of the scene. The explanations from the "FF7R Ultimania Secrets Revealed" are not just interview commentary randomly spitballing. And you're taking the sensationalized, questioning writing style of the text too literally. They're not raising questions meaningless questions that go nowhere, they're pointing out important concepts. This is how S-E Ultimania texts discuss their subjects for continuing series; it's been that way since Kingdom Hearts and it's that way now. Those points aren't simply for pondering, they're relevant.

The plot hole you keep bringing up though is based on a misunderstanding of my suggestion. There doesn’t need to be an explanation as to why Zack is three months behind everybody else because what we know of Zack’s last stand already took place three months before the beginning of FF7.

What we see at the end of Intermission is another story. If what you say is true, now you’d have to explain why there’s a group of crying people inside Aerith’s church immediately after Cloud and Zack reach Midgar rather than months later, after the platefall. And also why we’re being shown this after witnessing the platefall from Yuffie’s perspective.

There does need to be an explanation because the Intermission ending that shows Cloud, Zack and the others are a continuation of the ending from the FFVII-R. So why would Zack, who was shown carrying Cloud to Midgar during September, suddenly be in December when his previous corresponding point in time was September after the destruction of the Singularity? How did the time jump?

To answer your question about children crying in Aerith's church, it's simple. There's clearly something wrong. And people associating those children with the plate fall are missing the point of that scene entirely. Look at the scenery and design of the Church in Zack's ending; it doesn't match what that church looks like in FFVII-R. The details are wildly different.

There are only 6 broken down pews, nestled near the front of the church, during FFVII-R.

Pay attention to the ending. There are several pews when Zack enters, with people sitting on them, all the way near the entrance door of said church.

The entry archway and walls of said entrance to the church are a clean, polished white in Zack's ending.

The entry archway is a dull, dirty brownish color during FFVII-R. Just look at yourself if you think it's not true.

The brick walls of the church are clean and white in the ending with Zack.

The brick walls of the church in FFVII-R are dirty brown.

I don't understand how no one's noticing this.

They're not the same. church That's not what the church looked like in FFVII-R.

But you wanna know when the Church looked like that?

The church in Zack's ending is during Crisis Core. The details placed in the Church's setting that are clearly different from how it appeared in the Remake are 100% intentional. That's not the church during the present of FFVII-R. Which again, corresponds with Zack being in his timeline, and his time frame, after the ending of the Remake.

So how did Zack jump from bringing Cloud to Midgar in September right to reaching Aerith’s church in December? He didn’t, and I don’t think anybody ever suggested that lol what I’ve been saying the whole time is that something might have happened to prevent Zack from reaching Aerith’s church right away. Time just…went on for him. Maybe.

If time just "went on for him" why would Aerith be in sync with Zack's entrance into the church and realizing that something wrong? The entire point is to show that Aerith is somehow able to sense and feel that something's off while Zack encounters these anomalies within his existence. They can't be experiencing that if they aren't in corresponding points in progression as shown from when they existed the Singularity.

Like I said, Intergrade takes place during the world before the Singularity event so of course we’re still going to see the Beagle Stamp. No, we don’t see the Terrier in Cloud’s time after the Singularity but we don’t see the Beagle either, do we?

This only requires common sense. The writers have said explicitly that Yuffie will run into Cloud and the others in Part 2. If Yuffie exists in the universe where Stamp is still a Beagle dog, then it stands to reason Cloud and the others are too. Because they have to meet. Unless you think Yuffie or Cloud and the others are going to have to punch a hole into space-time and then cross over accordingly.

You’re right that we only see the Terrier in Zack’s past, but it’s in his new past. We agree there. That doesn’t answer my question as to whether we’ve created a new branching parallel timeline or we’ve moved to an altered reality.

Why would Cloud and gang be in the Terrier universe? Maybe because we just changed the past through a singularity and created a world where Zack survived? Otherwise, the burden is on you to explain how the two timelines are going to intersect after the Whispers are defeated.

I don't have to explain how they will intersect; that's not my premise or desire to explain. I'm explaining how these are two different timelines at two different points in time. How they'll cross is unknown, I'm just going to wait for it to happen, because clearly, there is connection. Aerith is sensing the anomalies. These characters are shown to cross paths in the ending. It's being foreshadowed.

Why is Aerith not in her church when Zack arrives, and why are there several people there crying instead? The same way you want evidence, you also have to explain why we see the platefall from Yuffie’s perspective and then we see Zack reaching the church at the same time that Cloud and the gang are outside Midgar. Like yeah, we agree on a lot more than you realize but is “Cloud and Zack are on two separate timelines that are temporally displaced from one another” really that much less convoluted than “Cloud changed the current timeline and now Zack is alive”?

Again, look at the church. Look at the details of the church, and then go back to chapter 8 and compare how they look.

Then look at the church in Crisis Core.

I'd do comparison images but I'm still playing and I cba to do that for you

I'll probably make a post about it later. Suffice to say, these churches are not in the same time period. And there's no Sector 7 plate fall during Crisis Core.

 

[Odysseus]

My head hurts

 

[Makoeyes987]

It's not really that complicated.

Look at that ending with Zack and pay close attention to the church layout and environment.

Then go back to FFVII-R, use chapter select to go to Chapter 8.

Then look at the church in Chapter 8, and compare how it looks to the church Zack steps into during the ending.

Your answer should be clear now.

BONUS POINTS: Boot up your limited edition FFVII 10th Anniversary PSP, insert the UMD for Crisis Core, and load a save file that starts from chapter 5.

Compare the church's appearance in Crisis Core with how it looks in the ending with Zack.

 

[waw]

Those are good catches, Mako, and thanks for sharing. I look forward the comparison images. I am really scratching my head why the developers went through so much to develop, code, design, etc a second church set for such a brief cutscene. That's a huge amount of work.

In the other vein of this thread with Sonon and DoC....

Does Sonon mean green or any other color in any language? I'm not finding anything, but I think that could be the biggest hint and/or confirmation for a character design to make him the Player Tsviet.

 

[Torrie]

Look at that ending with Zack and pay close attention to the church layout and environment.

Then go back to FFVII-R, use chapter select to go to Chapter 8.

Then look at the church in Chapter 8, and compare how it looks to the church Zack steps into during the ending.

I have just done that (well, Planet bless let's players) and HOLY SHHHHHHENANIGANS!
Great. Just great. We had two Midgars in FFVIIR, now we've got two churches specifically.

My head hurts as much as Ody's, and it makes me want to climb up the walls

 

[Maidenofwar]

I also saw it pointed out on twitter that there is wood on the cross thingy in the church in Zack's ending but not in the church in FFVIIR, that detail along with others of church differences I can buy a two churches/two timelines scenario

 

[Tetsujin]

There's also a sector 6 plate above sector 7 in the ending, so

 

[Makoeyes987]

That's entirely different since that's an error in setting continuity and adjusting for the physics of where a specific ceiling render should be.

This is a brand new intentional design and detailed recreation of a location's appearance in the past.

You think they accidentally made a new version of the church never seen anywhere else in the game and it coincidentally matches how it looks in Crisis Core...?

 

[Odysseus]

I'm tired and lazy, can we get some comparison images?

 

[Dark and Divine]

Sonon's death was quite brutal, even without that much blood. The sound of Nero piercing his body, first with the blades and then with the Stagnant Lifestream's tendrils, was quite visceral. Very well done, in my opinion. In fact, the whole ending of Intermission was very atmospheric and I loved it, specially the imagery of Yuffie on her knees watching the plate fall in flames.

As for the new Intergrade prologue, loved the chemistry between all of them, specially Tifa and Aerith. They're just so cute together. And Barret is hot! Oh yes! I know it, you know it and even the Chocobo knows it.

As for Mr. Puppy Eyes, his expression and that "...Aerith?" in the final scene was was brutal, heartbreaking and fantastic, all at the same time.

The plot thickens. And got me even more stoked for Part II, whenever it's released. I hope it doesn't take too long, but long enough for me getting a PS5 in the meantime.