There's a big explosion on twitter now because Kitase basically confirmed the story would follow the original and Aerith would still die... certain people aren't too happy about this.
Where does this "Defy fate" being the theme of the game come from? I didn't pay attention to the marketing for this game so I never heard that until after the game came out and when I heard someone say it in regards to rebirth, I thought it was about Sephiroth trying to defy fate. I Just feel like they repeatedly set themselves up to fall and then blame the devs and Clotis when it doesn't go their way. It's just insane how they've been doing this for 27 years and keep doing it over and over.
Also
Doesn't Aerith say "Don't fall in love with me." to Cloud in Remake? Kind of an odd thing to say if she's going to live lol
It’s in the marketing but it’s often verbalized by Sephiroth. It’s in the trailers and on the back cover but… I still don’t think it’s necessarily bad that fate wasn’t actually “defied” as it could be a red herring to catch us off guard. And tbh if you aren’t following marketing then only Sephiroth talks about defying fate constantly.
And Remake ends with “unknown journey will continue” so they probably assumed that specifically referred to Aerith’s fate.
Now personally I believe there’s been enough changes in these two games that “unknown journey” is still more or less accurate. So ultimately, my conspiracy theory is that people don’t actually want changes, they only championed the idea of changes because they wanted Aerith’s death to be changed.
Also, when a villain is the one constantly going “let’s defy fate”, I always get the feeling that it would be a bad thing.
Not to mention, even before Rebirth came out the devs constantly said it would be more or less the same story. So if people are truly following the marketing (and I get that not everyone is) they must have seen that.