SPOILERS Predictions for Part 2? (*Open Spoilers for Part 1*)

[Odysseus]

I want to see a final showdown between Roche and Shinra Middle Manager. Maybe with Johnny in the mix there too.

Replaying the game recently, it seemed to me that SMM was in the lighthouse at Costa del Sol when Rufus arrived. Now that might just be me hoping for more appearances from my 2nd favourite NPC, but the grunt you speak to does call him "Shinra Manager".

Don't worry, its definitely him. He was one of Toriyama's pet characters along with Johnny, that's why they both appear in the same areas.

 

[Sasseli]

Kunsel.

I don't see that. At all.

I hope the middle manager will have continued appearances, as well. These are the little things I hope they'll keep.

 

[looneymoon]

pt 2 is going to have a boss battle with palmer and its going to be fucking mind blowing.

I really hope he splashes boiling butter at you from his tea cup.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I must say I'm looking forward to it.

Probably the thing I'm looking forward to most, though, is the cut scene of Sapphire Weapon's attack on Junon. That was one of the best cut scenes from the OG.

 

[oty]

I hope the Weapons waking up are some Godzilla kind of s*it. Just some completely massive creatures

 

[Shademp]

I'm wondering if they are going to turn the awakening of Weapon into an extended action piece, where the ground is crumbling around the party and you'll battle tiny parts of Weapon that are in your way on your retreat to the Highwind. The developers aren't afraid to extend action set pieces so we may very well see something like this: A taste of how even just the hand, eye, tail, wings etc of Weapon are devastatingly powerful.

EDIT: The visuals are going to be just amazing in the Northern Crater. I imagine that we'll see how the flow of corrupt spirit energy from the dead black cloaks coalesce to give Sephiroth a new physical form. Seeing a silhouette of Jenova∙SYNTHESIS appear behind Sephiroth would be awesome and a perfect transition to Weapon awakening, as they detect that the Reunion has happened and that the planet is in serious danger. They'll pretty definitely leave less to the imagination this time around.

 

[Tetsujin]

I'm wondering if they are going to turn the awakening of Weapon into an extended action piece, where the ground is crumbling around the party and you'll battle tiny parts of Weapon that are in your way on your retreat to the Highwind. The developers aren't afraid to extend action set pieces so we may very well see something like this: A taste of how even just the hand, eye, tail, wings etc of Weapon are devastatingly powerful.

In a four-part structure, the awakening of the Weapons would probably be the final boss setpiece for the third part so I absolutely see that happening. I could see a Weapon partially breaking out and you try to kill it before it fully escapes. Shinra is there too so it might be kinda like the Titan battle from FFXV where the enemy army comes in and tries to kill the shit out of it too.
It could even be a completely original Weapon. And once you finally kill it, everyone's like "fuck yeah we did it" and then the ground starts shaking again and everyone's like "wtf" and then they realize - there's five more. The five OG Weapons wake up one by one and shit gets real, leading into a dramatic escape and the ending.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I hope Rufus lives.

 

[Odysseus]

^With how much Nojima seems to like his best boy, I don't think you have much to worry about.

Adding to that though, I hope Biggs makes it through okay.

 

[Shademp]

I hope Rufus lives.

I used to have no strong opinion about this. That promptly changed with all the shit Rufus pulled in that Ch17 battle.

TELL ME RUFUS

DO YOU BLEED

 

[Odysseus]

I used to have no strong opinion about this. That promptly changed with all the shit Rufus pulled in that Ch17 battle.

TELL ME RUFUS

DO YOU BLEED

Spoiler

 

[Rydeen]

I heard he eats nails for breakfast.






Without any milk.

Spoiler

Anyone else notice that in spite of being kicked around like a rag doll for the entirety of CoS, no blood was involved?

 

[Odysseus]

Rufus has no blood, only determination.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Rufus has no blood, only determination.

That's fair. Tseng has no blood either, only ichor.

 

[Pizzachu]

Spoiler

Anyone else notice that in spite of being kicked around like a rag doll for the entirety of CoS, no blood was involved?

Spoiler

He broke his ribs and was still laughing. Rufus is oddly durable for someone of his status.

 

[Rydeen]

Spoiler

He broke his ribs and was still laughing. Rufus is oddly durable for someone of his status.

He laughs in lieu of crying.

Probably learned that one from dear 'ol dad.

Durable rich people are way less common in western media than Japanese, I've noticed.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Rufus has as a shitty as life as anyone in this game, it's just that he has all the money in the world, so people imagine he's cushioned from the shittiness. We don't know the details of his relationship with his father, it was bad enough to make him want to kill the old man. Even if his father loved him, he didn't know how to show that love. Rufus inherits the company in a time of crisis, tries his best, is ruthless but not cruel, leads from the front, fails (L for Loser), literally slides from the top to the bottom, is injured, imprisoned, tortured, constantly in pain, keeps his cool, always assumes command, tries to support others, nearly drowns, contracts geostigma, sets up a clinic for geostigma patients and tries to find a treatment, which he distributes free of charge; decides it's his duty to put an end to the toxic legacy of Jenova; underwrites the WRO. He's often sardonic and sometimes angry, but never bitter. If President Shinra set out to toughen his son up and make him resilient, he certainly succeeded.

 

[Master Bates]

I always liked Rufus way back the OG for some reason. I thought he was someone I'd totally be gay for. Was it because his helicopter escape has left me with such profound impression or was it because he fired a hole at Sephiroth's force field? I don't know. But he always was someone who seemed simultaneously too cool and smarmy to me.

 

[Rydeen]

One important angle I like is that he’s not invulnerable either. He’s badass but it’s not like he doesn’t experience anxiety/dread or pain. He does with a high frequency in CoS, just refuses to let it get in the way of what needs to be done.

The reason why I dislike his overpoweredness in the boss battle is because it pushes him a little closer to possibly becoming an Anti-Hero Edition Gary-Stu, which I don't like. I don't think they'll go too far, though. He has been written far too well thus far.

literally slides from the top to the bottom,

Nice symbolism catch there.

He's often sardonic and sometimes angry, but never bitter.

Therein lies the major difference between him and Tseng, I think. I assume Tseng has had to make harder decisions in life, and with greater frequency than Rufus.

I always liked Rufus way back the OG for some reason. I thought he was someone I'd totally be gay for. Was it because his helicopter escape has left me with such profound impression or was it because he fired a hole at Sephiroth's force field? I don't know. But he always was someone who seemed simultaneously too cool and smarmy to me.

We should have a thread "characters that make you gay (or straight)." I think I may be slightly gay for Tifa.

 

[crazyrabbits23]

Rufus has as a shitty as life as anyone in this game, it's just that he has all the money in the world, so people imagine he's cushioned from the shittiness. We don't know the details of his relationship with his father, it was bad enough to make him want to kill the old man. Even if his father loved him, he didn't know how to show that love. Rufus inherits the company in a time of crisis, tries his best, is ruthless but not cruel, leads from the front, fails (L for Loser), literally slides from the top to the bottom, is injured, imprisoned, tortured, constantly in pain, keeps his cool, always assumes command, tries to support others, nearly drowns, contracts geostigma, sets up a clinic for geostigma patients and tries to find a treatment, which he distributes free of charge; decides it's his duty to put an end to the toxic legacy of Jenova; underwrites the WRO. He's often sardonic and sometimes angry, but never bitter. If President Shinra set out to toughen his son up and make him resilient, he certainly succeeded.

I hope he has more to do in the remake. Seems like he just kind of gets forgotten about midway through, and I barely remembered him until he suddenly showed up in the Diamond Weapon cutscene getting blown backwards. If they give him a longer/more pronounced rivalry with Cloud, I'd be perfectly happy with that, even if it's something as simple as a second boss encounter.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I think we're going to see more of why he's following Sephiroth. He could see the Whispers - the game went out of its way to emphasise that fact - and I don't think it's a thread they will abandon. The thing about Rufus and the Turks is, they're antagonists, but they're also protagonists in their own secondary story, and ultimately they're allies with Avalanche against the bigger threat, even if they don't realise it. I'm betting that they do realise it this time around.

 

[Rydeen]

I think we're going to see more of why he's following Sephiroth. He could see the Whispers - the game went out of its way to emphasise that fact - and I don't think it's a thread they will abandon. The thing about Rufus and the Turks is, they're antagonists, but they're also protagonists in their own secondary story, and ultimately they're allies with Avalanche against the bigger threat, even if they don't realise it. I'm betting that they do realise it this time around.

Avalanche interfering with the huge materia plan has always been a bit of a head scratcher for me. I wonder how they'll fix that.

Right now I'm thinking about how Rufus continued the search for the Promised Land just like his father (but never discussed Neo Midgar, probably because putting the buggy before the.. chocobo is not his style), until the very end, and I wonder if this time he will consider pursuing alternative energies. I find it hard to believe that he'd think the energy were limitless or sustainable, given the state of Midgar's landscape. I am really curious if they will go this route and find some other way to maintain them as secondary antagonists... Or perhaps write the endgame antagonism out altogether.

 

[Shademp]

I think we're going to see more of why [Rufus is] following Sephiroth.

Crack idea: While on board the cargo ship to Costa del Sol, Sephiroth kills Darkstar.

Rufus Shinra goes full John Wick for Sephiroth killing his dog.

It feels though like Darkstar will die at some point, fulfilling the fate of Dark Nation, but that this time we will see Rufus Shinra display some hint of emotion at this event (even if it is only annoyance).

 

[RhinoKart]

My prediction about Rufus is that his "rule by fear" speech (or an equivalent) will be delivered in Junon, which our party will of course be present for. We'll probably need to infiltrate some Shinra thing in Junon for some reason which will bring us into close contact with Rufus again.

But Rufus will let us go (after making our lives difficult for a while). Could be a few reasons for this, maybe he is aware Sephiroth is a problem by this point and Hojo has revealed that Cloud can lead them to Sephiroth, or maybe this is the new ancient plan, to follow her and see if she leads them to anything good. Either way, the Turks will be tailing us from here on out but not outright attacking.

To me this solves the problem of our team wandering around a Shinra controlled world and only even casually running into the Turks with no real consequences. It keeps Rufus and the Turks in the peripheral of the story without suspending too much disbelief about why they aren't just attacking our group 24/7.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I think they might drop the rule by fear speech, since he never actually does do that.