I wanted to highlight this excerpt from the Rebirth Ultimania translated by HayashiNagisa on X/Twitter. Echoing what HayashiNagisa wrote about the devs and their hesitations around “player’s choice,” it reminds me of a post someone made a while back about Cloud and Aerith’s final church date and a possible metaphor that the devs/writing team were trying to make about player choice.
Regardless of what the player choose as Cloud (which gift to give Aerith, what candy to eat, or what pose to make), ultimately Cloud and the story dictate how he acts in certain situations or how events are going to play out.
https://x.com/hayashinagisa/status/1778641892881932556?s=61