Can you clarify if you mean OG or Rebirth dates?
Because for OG I don't believe this to be true at all. Both girls dates in OG give information to the player that is definitely in line with the plot? Aerith's talk of how she sees Zack in Cloud and her "I want to meet you" is a huge hint of what is happening with him. You don't get that information literally anywhere else until that point and it's a huge part of her own story arc too.
And Tifa's is about how she notices something is wrong with Cloud another hint at why we see her taking a step back and him not being himself? We see her trying to speak up about it but get interrupted, (something she is blamed for not doing ironically being not telling Cloud the truth and here we see her try). Once again it's part of her story arc too.
Both of these are 100% in line with the plot. They're hints to the internal plot. And without them it feels like there's a huge hole in the story honestly.
I can say maybe the Barrett and Yuffie dates in OG not so much? But for OG Aerith and Tifa both I say they both are definitely plot related.
The way Nomura describes it too is you're supposed to eventually see all the dates through replaying. So I think that's the answer. They're all intended to be viewed, in order of your preference but still. I would never call them just fanservice myself for this alone.
Note: I don't believe this for Rebirth either as both Tifa's and Aerith's continue plot points for stuff literally brought up in the main story Gongaga and Nibelhiem and again are the only place you'd get information that they did speak about Zack after Cloud remembered him...but apparently the devs do. So if they say so.
So when I said "step away from the plot" I mean the big overarcing plot, and by character interaction I mean "give us information about Cloud and his companion" which is absolutely plot related but is not yet "the plot" as it were. And this is true for both OG and Rebirth, I think. The GS dates are deliberately there so the characters and the player can relax before shit gets serious and we can get character interactions that we can cogitate over until they become plot relevant.
I'd say that the Rebirth dates are overall more plot relevant than the OG ones, as each one of them contains a hidden seed in the character moments.
Perhaps it might help to think of the dates as little bonus slices of lore outside of strict continuity? All of them MATTER, but none of them definitively happened. All of them are little potential worlds in slices of the lifestream like the EC special episodes.
From my (admittedly limited) testing so far it does indeed seem to be the case, my old chapter 13 file where I had Tifa c8, and Cait Sith and guys, I mean, why not c14, redo c8 with Aerith at 38% affinity, get her as c8 date, c14, yeah why not. So DA (dated Aerith) and DDA (didn't date Aerith) is maybe another way of putting it.
And that got you Mochiron or Nakama, to be clear? I'm guessing mochiron, which would give us a mochiron result for having a single date. I'm guessing you don't have the affinity to get the other ch12 dates even on a clear file, but it would be interesting to test some other variations at low affection as well as high. Possible variations of Aerith date include YN, YY, NY, NN, and I'm curious if it's matter of "If date >=1" or a more complex and/or situation.
I don't think Tifa wondering if Cloud is himself is the same as what I'm saying. Yes it shows something's wrong with Cloud, he isn't himself.
But this part I'm referring to is about why Aerith is acting the way she is because she's linking him to Zack. It gives information about the connection between Cloud and Zack specifically. In the beginning Aerith says stuff like oh he reminds her of him but this is basically I saw you as him. Which begs the question why would there be any similarities between these two. It's definitely plot aligned and if you don't see it the Zack reveal is a bit more out of left field. Especially since Gongaga and the scene in the basement was also optional/or missing back then.
Tifa bringing up about Cloud not being himself is one part of this puzzle. Aerith talking about Zack reminding her of him, of similarities being the other part. Just as crucial.
OG has a lot of conversations we can skip and optional content but a lot of it are important pieces of information regardless.
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I think Tifa's date is about both. Like in Rebirth the topics brought up are again the mystery of Zack and then she confesses in the end of it. I don't think her Rebirth date is a coincidence and it seems like it shows what would have happened had she finished her sentences instead of being a full on deviation. Here she definitely gets to talk more about her feelings and gets a kiss. In OG she barely got a word out. But in both cases she basically needed to have a conversation with Cloud a plot aligned one that we just never see her have if we don't see her date. With it also establishes Tifa feels the same about Cloud which matches with the LS scene too.
And even if it's only about confessing that's still plot relevant. It ties to the later parts of the game.
My point being both these dates are definitely plot relevant. I just don't agree with the notion anything here is fanservice even if the devs imply it.
None of it is fanservice, and I apologize if I gave the idea that it was. I don't think the devs see it as pure fanservice either. They clearly want all of them to be seen and understood, they just don't want you worrying about which one actually happened because that's not relevant to the narrative. What Cloud and his companions do on the dates is important, not which of them he definitely spent the night with.
No shit sherlock
