SPOILERS LTD Remake — It's like New Coke except ... no, it's exactly like New Coke

[Xombii]

If you think about it, maybe rebirth IS genius, because everyone seems so gaslit and insecure and are fighting each other. Just like Jenovaroth wants. I suspect everyone is going to feel pretty uncomfortable for a while in P3. Imagine if this is all a massive psyche out...

I'm still pretty upset with all the 'Just Aerith.' nonsense though

 

[Skilganon]

What's the 'Just Aerith' nonsense?

 

[Empyrea]

What's the 'Just Aerith' nonsense?

Probably a reference to "Just Monika" from DDLC. Maybe they mean the ending where we don't know if she's alive or dead or whatnot

 

[Hellenic]

People can keep coping all they want but she's very much dead. All this nonsense ship war crap just ain't worth thinking about at this point. The sooner people stop fighting over stupid stuff at Twitter the better, but ofc it's never gonna stop is it.

 

[Xombii]

Probably a reference to "Just Monika" from DDLC. Maybe they mean the ending where we don't know if she's alive or dead or whatnot

Yea, sorry, I guess I was being a little facetious. I basically mean the theory people seem to have that Aerith is somehow playing 5d chess with Sephiroth, playing with reality or the lifestream or whatever, and is therefore the actual main character and way more important than anyone else ever. I love Aer but some people really seem to want her to be a shiny goddess of some kind. I personally don't think that's what they game is getting at and I sort of agree that there's a lot of Jenova going on there. Jenova pretends to be your loved ones to manipulate after all.

I also think Cloud shoulda been Celes.

 

[Maidenofwar]

I mean she is more or less a goddess in AC, I still remember the materia jesus meme. Consequently my least favourite version of Aerith, at least CC Aerith started to grow on me over the years. FFVII vanilla, and the remake series (at least Remake/Rebirth) will
always be my favourite Aeriths. She's not perfect, with some very human flaws, and that's what I love. She wanted so much to just be a normal girl after all.

People can keep coping all they want but she's very much dead. All this nonsense ship war crap just ain't worth thinking about at this point. The sooner people stop fighting over stupid stuff at Twitter the better, but ofc it's never gonna stop is it.

No she's not how dare

I kid but speed runners just recently discovered a new map manip that lets you skip all the way to City of the Ancients after getting out of Midgar, that lets you "keep" Aerith. She's Scroedngers Aerith.

At this point though it's Zack, Aerith, and Sephiroth are "dead" but it doesn't seem to stop them any. They still are very much present. Zack might only be in lifestream worlds or memories or whatever but people still care about him and don't want anything to happen to him. So many streams I watch streamers react with sheer joy or love when Zack shows up. They don't care that he's "dead" especially while on their first play of Rebirth, playing through the story and trying to work out what's going on, sometimes it doesn't even cross their minds he may not be actually alive until theory time.

The devs are partially responsible, they are the ones that said Aerith was of the utmost importance, and Zack is the planet or something, whatever that means.

What if they pull out a surprise banner and Zack is Celes

 

[Ryushikaze]

I mean she is more or less a goddess in AC, I still remember the materia jesus meme. Consequently my least favourite version of Aerith, at least CC Aerith started to grow on me over the years. FFVII vanilla, and the remake series (at least Remake/Rebirth) will
always be my favourite Aeriths. She's not perfect, with some very human flaws, and that's what I love. She wanted so much to just be a normal girl after all.


No she's not how dare

I kid but speed runners just recently discovered a new map manip that lets you skip all the way to City of the Ancients after getting out of Midgar, that lets you "keep" Aerith. She's Scroedngers Aerith.

Yep. You still watch her die, but since the event flag that removes her from the party isn't tripped, you can bring Aerith to watch herself die.
Honestly it would make for a pretty surreal fanfic. "FF7 but it's being speedrun but the characters are aware it's being speedrun."

I'm curious how the game handles the events where you lose party members after that point in that run. Like, will Schroedinger Aerith be stuck in the gas chamber with Tifa and spectating the slap fight, or is she properly removed.
Also when do Cait Sith and Cid get properly inserted into this party since you skipped their recruitment?

At this point though it's Zack, Aerith, and Sephiroth are "dead" but it doesn't seem to stop them any. They still are very much present. Zack might only be in lifestream worlds or memories or whatever but people still care about him and don't want anything to happen to him. So many streams I watch streamers react with sheer joy or love when Zack shows up. They don't care that he's "dead" especially while on their first play of Rebirth, playing through the story and trying to work out what's going on, sometimes it doesn't even cross their minds he may not be actually alive until theory time.

The devs are partially responsible, they are the ones that said Aerith was of the utmost importance, and Zack is the planet or something, whatever that means.

I think Zack's apparent vitality is why so many people are hung up on the idea of distinct timeline branches rather than the potentialities existing inside the lifestream.
Granted, the fact that everyone in those potentialities is apparently just as real as their original counterparts but inherently ephemeral in nature leads to some interesting metaphysical quandries.

What if they pull out a surprise banner and Zack is Celes

I think people would still be mad because it doesn't fit very well with either character personality or lore wise. I think fans of both characters would feel insulted.
Maybe General leo if you didn't make him into the FFVI young pup Gau?

 

[Eerie]

The devs are partially responsible, they are the ones that said Aerith was of the utmost importance, and Zack is the planet or something, whatever that means.

IIRC they said that Aerith was of utmost importance for FFVII themes, which are life and death - embodied perfectly by the lively Aerith, who dies when she doesn't want to and leaves a mark on the group and players.

But you're right, I think REMAKE/REBIRTH Aerith is the best Aerith we ever had. And to be very honest, it is also true for all the main characters minus Cid for now. The characterisation of the main gang is top notch.

 

[Skilganon]

The ending of Rebirth did have a lot of unnecessary bombast. The cynical part of me thinks this was all to create discussion around the ending even though Aerith is going to stay dead in part 3. Hence making all theory-crafting pointless.

It's like with the end of Remake. Destroying the embodiment of Fate just ensures the old story will continue. The theory-crafting was all baited.

Rebirth's ending will most likely be revealed as an illusion in Cloud's mind. We already know Cloud is seeing things at the end, due to the differing POV's in that ending scene.

And we already know Zack is for sure dead because Cloud has the Buster Sword. Aerith's death was determined the moment she was able to communicate with her future self. She's communicating with the self who is fated to die and become a spirit in the Lifestream. To prevent this would create a time paradox.

The multiple universes are hierarchical. The Beagle-verse is the main/physical world. All other worlds are in the Lifestream or at least less than physical. We know this because Cloud has to astral project into Aerith's dream world while unconscious in the Beagle-verse. Zack, meanwhile, can just hope from world to world because he is pure spirit and doesn't know his physical body is dead.

If it turned out Zack is alive or that he could be revived, I feel like that would be a bigger issue than Aerith surviving. The reason why Cloud is so f*cked up mentally is because he witnessed Zack die. It would make Cloud's self-deception look pointless and take away all consequences. The Price of Freedom is actually pretty cheap in the end.

 

[Eerie]

Zack, meanwhile, can just hope from world to world because he is pure spirit and doesn't know his physical body is dead.

I was chatting about this yesterday or the day before, and I think that while at the beginning he wasn't aware that he was dead, by the end he knew it.

Zack's scenes, while few and in-between, really do hold a lot of importance and I believe they serve both as the Lifestream exploration and understanding of the Lifestream (coupled with Aerith's dream world and Sephiroth explaining it all right after to Cloud) and as character development. It also serves, in the grand scheme of things, to explain that one line "Her first love is at all times by her side" (about Aerith), which does clashes with CoLW!Aerith who is very Cloud-centric still.

First, for the question in itself, Zack is for the first time confronted to a situation where just being his usual cheerful self isn't enough: he has to think and we do see him perplexed by a few things:

• why is Bigg's description of Cloud so different from the Cloud he knows?
• how could Aerith meet and fall in love with Cloud when he was with him this whole time?
• why can't he save Aerith but Cloud can?
• why is everyone OK with the idea of the world ending and dying? (I think it will be a stark contrast with when Meteor will be summoned by Sephiroth)

All these have answers tied to him being dead and being in a place that knows past-present-future as one thing.
Biggs, who is a thinker, doesn't serve only as foil to him, but is there to stop him and make him think. They try to elaborate hypothesis, why them, etc. To us, the players, it becomes clear that Biggs accepted his death as we don't see him come back once he attacks the Shinra troops - Zack is not there yet, and furthermore, even if he accepted his death, the Planet has more in store for him.
But to be back to Zack's POV, he also has a moment in the Lifestream where he follows the yellow flowers (just like Aerith does), and when he meets Cloud, they clearly aren't in the same plan because he has to touch him to break the veil, so to speak. Afterwards, he spends his time crashing from church to church (IIRC they are more and more derelicted aren't they?), as CoLW!Aerith dies with all her worlds. And, a last one is built, as "our" Aerith dies in the real world: this is the one where Zack arrives.

It's pretty clear that with him trying to understand, at the end when he finally gets into Aerith's new dream world (her promised land, once again I am 100% sure about that), he understands that he is powerless, that he's not "alive" anymore, and all he can do is wait (yes, I believe Aerith will come back to this place and they will meet again, because while CoLW!Aerith's promised land was about meeting Cloud, "our" Aerith's promised land will be about being with Zack in their cherished place).

 

[Hellenic]

I kid but speed runners just recently discovered a new map manip that lets you skip all the way to City of the Ancients after getting out of Midgar, that lets you "keep" Aerith. She's Scroedngers Aerith.

Yeah i saw that skip very recently too. It's neat how people still keep finding new skips in that game this many years later.

But you're right, I think REMAKE/REBIRTH Aerith is the best Aerith we ever had. And to be very honest, it is also true for all the main characters minus Cid for now. The characterisation of the main gang is top notch.

I do still believe Cid will show some of his uglier personality traits when we do actually get to his arc in the third game. I wouldn't be worried at all considering how they handled literally every other character in the main party in these games.

The ending of Rebirth did have a lot of unnecessary bombast. The cynical part of me thinks this was all to create discussion around the ending even though Aerith is going to stay dead in part 3. Hence making all theory-crafting pointless.

Yes the whole point of the ending being like it was for people to keep talking and theorizing till the third game is out, even though i personally don't like how they handled it for the most part. I do like the delusional Cloud showcase they are doing with it at the very least even if they sacrificed Aeriths last moment there for that.

 

[Eerie]

I do still believe Cid will show some of his uglier personality traits when we do actually get to his arc in the third game. I wouldn't be worried at all considering how they handled literally every other character in the main party in these games.

It's my belief too, hence the "for now" part. I think it's quite evident he doesn't really want to go home and all of this gives him a good excuse to avoid Rocket Town.

 

[Shadowstorm]

I just wish they'd stop giving Cloud thieves outfits just because he's the main guy. Yuffie deserves to rock that shit

 

[Skilganon]

Imagine if EC does an FFVIII crossover. Cloud is Squall, Tifa is Rinoa, and Aerith is.... Quistis? Edea? Selphie?

Knowing SE, they'll make Tifa a Zell outfit because that's like an established pattern. It's like SE has no idea how to manage the expectations of fans. Who would have thought?

 

[Hellenic]

I just wish they'd stop giving Cloud thieves outfits just because he's the main guy. Yuffie deserves to rock that shit

Well Squall won't be a thief so that got you covered when it comes around at least. In fact i think he can just be a sword wielder in all the rest of the games now except Cecil i guess? Still probably will get Cecils stuff anyway.

Imagine if EC does an FFVIII crossover. Cloud is Squall, Tifa is Rinoa, and Aerith is.... Quistis? Edea? Selphie?

Knowing SE, they'll make Tifa a Zell outfit because that's like an established pattern. It's like SE has no idea how to manage the expectations of fans. Who would have thought?

Yeah i sadly doubt they would leave Rinoa out entirely of that collab so either Tifa or Aerith has to get her probably, even though both have other fit options there already.

Tifa would basically be either Rinoa or Zell and Zell is to be the more expected one with the current trend of their choices while i do hope Aerith would get Quistis, Edea or Ultimecia instead of Rinoa, but they don't wanna be creative so likely not.