This is probably one of the best FF7/FF7 remake trilogy videos I’ve seen so far. While so many different vocal toxic online factions in the fandom are busy arguing and attacking each over Remake trilogy’s meta story changes and what exactly they mean, this is one of the only videos I’ve seen that highlight why these games work so well- regardless of how you feel about those other story changes. The new format of the trilogy allows a higher and more immersive, emotional, and well written characterization of basically every minor and major character in FF7 that was never able to be portrayed before- and I would argue eclipses not only the rest of FF7 and other FF games, but most video games and media in general. Excellent video. Was happy to find a video of such quality in my algorithm.
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts! These games mean a lot to me, so I try my best to highlight the aspects that have been changed, since I believe that the attention and care to detail that the devs put into them, deserve to be talked about more. I agree with you about the characterization of minor and major characters. They did a fantastic job making every character feel fully fleshed out and believable. Definitely one of my favorite aspects about the Re-Trilogy.
No. Just no. The format as it is, creates the time gap and creates the cursed fillers ruining the game. I'm not against changed if it's stated the og game is abc and a remake is a fantasy upon it. But the way they did it just sucks. Shure they really tried. But if they want to remake the whole game don't split it. Or if you want to split it, lean into it. Why add content that wasn't in og but is dated in 2024? I get it all games need filler content but what ff7 fans wanted is cutscenes and character interactions. What I learned from remake is that a walking simulator in ff7 is the best way to do it. It would work great episodicaly. And most heretical for me is ruining the summons.
@@wmen48I don't really mind splitting the game into three parts, since that's how it was back in the OG with the three disks, but what bums me out is that they're sticking too close to the original storyline while changing very few things. If they're really this afraid of going all out on the storyline's divergences, then why not just make a 1:1 faithful remake? I think Squeenix had much bigger plans for the Remake trilogy at first, but due to the polarizing reception of th storyline in Part 1 (ghost shenanigans), they chickened out and instead decided that Rebirth would stick as close to the OG as possible. Bummer...
This is such an amazing and well composed essay from someone with less than 40 subscribers. Surely you've been wanting to do content like this for a while yeah?
@@Chricetra I am too. The script was solid. This is one of those once in a console generation games that can have a 200+ hour platinum trophy that is very much entertaining regardless of it's length. Hopefully your next vid is as good as this one.
Great video, I think this is the best lens to approach Rebirth with, looking at how the game handles grief. I like the idea of all of Rebirth's changes, I think the characters being denied the ability to grieve works on multiple levels. But I feel that these complete shifts in emotional tone undermine that effort. Your treatment of Aerith's death scene in Rebirth really elevates and that's because you omitted all of the Zack and multiple worlds stuff. When that scene is focused on denying Cloud his grief, it works really well, but when it has to juggle all the mystery elements of the seemingly "true" plotline of the re trilogy, its focus is interrupted. With regards to Dyne and Barret, I think it captures a general issue of the game that it can't seem to present a narrative climax without an action spectacle boss fight. The escape from Corel prison ending with a Chocobo race would have been fine, but it wouldn't have been an action spectacle. So they shifted the order around and moved the action spectacle plotline of Rocket Town in the original game to this section instead. They made similarly questionable decisions with the end of the Costa Del Sol and Cosmo Canyon chapters. I think if they kept the order of events of Corel the same as the original, it would have worked better and still played into the theme of denying grief. Corel prison being seen as a dystopian desolate place leading up to the confrontation with Dyne and then transforming into this humor-coping playground as the player tries to escape would have worked just fine. My hope for part 3 is that it remembers the strongest part of the handling of Aerith's death in the original. In my opinion, her death scene is elevated from everything that follows, which is a complete commitment to her loss. Other Final Fantasies would kill off characters and then fully replace them with equally capable new characters. FFVII never lets you forget her absence, her unique role in combat as a free healer is never replaced and is instead emphasized in the Great Glacier where her healing would have been very useful. Every shop continues to sell her weapon and her icon's space in that shop screen is just absent. At any point you expect that the game might step back or move forward, but instead her death is held in this infinite suspension of consideration. All of Aerith's backstory is delivered after she died and you really only get to know her plan and motivation well after her death. The game does not let you forget what she was trying to do. That commitment to her loss is what elevated FFVII, and I hope part 3 is able to muster that commitment once again.
Wow thanks for sharing your thoughts! I feel like if they aimed at "denying grief" as a general goal for the emotional scenes, then they accomplished their mission, since the game introduces a lot of new elements in such a short time span. I too would have much preferred if the Dyne section ended with the fight against him and had you dwell in the sorrow for a little bit. I also agree that they could have just added a funny Palmer spectacle where the chocobo section originally would have been (so a little later after Dynes death). Or they could have moved the boss fight against Palmer before Dynes scene. Both would have worked just fine imo. I think so too. Aeriths absence in the original is really felt. I'm pretty confident the 3rd part will in many ways remind you of her missing from the group - at least for the main group that is. Maybe they decide to make her playable otherwise but that depends on the narrative they want to go with. I'm sure they will deliver and commit to her loss and the feelings it elicited in the original, in a new and different way we havent felt yet.
Just throwing this fact out, Cody (Cloud's English voice actor) said in an interview that he did record the dialogue that Cloud said after Sephiroth took his plunge to Aerith. So it's very likely they'll replay that moment in part 3. My guess is that moment will pan out when the party returns to the Ancient area waterfall and sees the television projector or whatever it was. Superb video.
Great timing, since I finally (finally!) finished the game a few days ago. You liked the changes better than I did. I respect that. Especially since I think Rebirth is otherwise pretty amazing. I never played the 1997 original, but even as a newbie, I don't appreciate changing one of the most iconic scenes in gaming, in an attempt to play "gotcha!" with the audience. I understand Rebirth has been building towards this theme since 2020's Remake, but I finally understand why old school fans were having a problem with it. (It may also explain why the sequel is underperforming.) It's alienating. And even if I don't hold FF7 as sacred, just from a writing standpoint, there is such a thing as trying too hard, and your video expertly lays out the beauty of simplicity that the original had, and the reason why it was effective. Turning Aerith's death from a powerful moment into an unclear one undermines the emotion imo, and on top of that, I was just... lost. Nobody ever goes into a story, let alone a remake, going "You know what would be better? If it was *more* confusing"
Her death ain't powerful anymore. If it was so called FF7 fans cared about her death, they wouldn't have been memeing and laughing at her death for well over a decade before the Remake trilogy was announced.
Thank you so much for your praise! It's always interesting to read the perspective of new fans of the franchise, especially regarding such iconic moments in gaming. I'm holding out hope that there is a bigger emotional payoff that has been planned to be revealed in the third game and that we just don't see at this moment. As it stands I prefer the old one in many ways, but it all depends on whether or not Aerith actually survived this time. But I totally get where you're coming from!
The title doesn't make sense. If we remove the "(doesn’t)" then we get "final fantasy 7 want you to suffer", which is not grammatically correct. See me after class.
Here is something that throws a wrench into the water burial flashback theory. If Cloud has really deluded himself into thinking Aerith survived like many theorists claim, then why would he perform a water burial in the first place?
We don’t know- the water burial may have happened, but cloud would have mentally blocked it out. Like he mentally blocked out the real events of Nibelheim, and the death of Zack. Or, an alternative take could be in those moments Cloud’s mind has transcended between worlds in real time during Aerith’s death (traveling between a world where Aerith died, and another where he blocked Sephiroth’s sword and she lived at the same time), hence why he wouldn’t remember the events of her burial. I’m not going to claim we really know one way or the other because it’s purposely vague for us to theorize until part 3- but there are several possibilities to consider as to what was happening in those moments.
Cloud's memory rewrite simply could have occured after the burial. Cloud's emotions could have reached a breaking point afterward, causing his mind to begin repressing the memory shortly after it happened, in an attempt to shield him from the pain. We see in the ending that Cloud suffers from memory/Jenova headaches when he gets flashes of Aerith's death, so it's clear that something is up. The stark contrast between Cloud's emotional state, and the emotional state of the rest of party, as well as the way Cloud talks to Aerith during the final scene, heavily suggests that he does not conciously recall Aerith's death.
It's so strange to me to see how many people believe that Aerith is truly dead and that SE just butchered her death scene or that they hope that Aerith is truly dead in part 3. Her being dead in part 3 to me would be one of the worst storytelling. If you accept that Re-trilogy is not the OG and doesn't intend to be the OG, then the whole game becomes so much better. Early on in Remake, it was already foreshadowed that Aerith knew the future, that somehow, her and Cloud had already met, and her death was foreshadowed as well. Again and again Aerith herself told you that the future wasn't set in stone and that we got to decide our fate. And then at the end of Remake, you literally fight Destiny. Imo, this was brillaint. Because what did so many players wish for after playing FF7? To save Aerith or bring her back to life. And what does Cloud want in Remake and Rebirth? To save Aerith. Remake managed what no other game has ever managed to do to me: to truly make me feel like I am that main character who lost an important person so long ago and who now wants the future change. In Rebirth, they introduced a whole new worldbuilding concept of "altenate worlds" that are somehow born whenever a decision is made and fate is breached. The whole Zack subplot shows this to us with the rainbow light. Sepiroth himself spells out his plan to the player right before the ending: "to merge worlds." And then you have Aerith's death. Is it supposed to evoke the same emotions as the OG death? No. Instead, you know it's going to happen, likely Cloud knows too somewhere. And all you want to know is: Can I save her? And the game hits the whole: "BUT CAN I SAVE HER THIS TIME?!??!" feeling really well. You want Aerith to be alive, just like Cloud. You don't want to see the same water burial that you saw in OG just for the sake of seeing her die for good again (at least I don't). What's the point in that? If you think Aerith is truly dead, then what was the point in fighting Destiny at the end of Remake? What was the point of Cloud blocking Seph's sword? Of her waking up? Of not having a water burial? The best reason I can come up with is: To give the player a false hope. And to create this much additional worldbuilding that wasn't in the OG over a span of two whole game for FALSE hope would just be such a bullshit move. Seriously. Biggest dick move ever. Even after Aerith's death, Zack tells Cloud to "save her." Seph clearly merged two different worlds, one that was like OG where she died and then the Rebirth one where she lived. The slogan of Rebirth's trailer was: "Will you be a part of this world I am trying to save?" Everything to me just points to how she's alive, just in another world. One that the main party isn't part of. But then we still have Zack at the end saying: "Just like words unite, so too do they part. But who's to say... they can't unite again?" Even in this last sentence, he's giving us hope that a reunion is possible. How can people see all this (and so much more that points to this) and go: Oh yeah, I hope we get the water burial finally because that was so sad in OG and then she'll be gone for good.
i fully disagree with you and was very much disappointed by this game, even sold it right after finishing. That said, you show an amazing ability of portraying your arguments and ideas with sound acumen. You have a very great talent when it comes to content creation and i hope you keep at it, because if you do: you will definitely reach S-Rank. Liked and subscribed
I very much appreciate how you gave the video a chance, despite your opposing opinion on the game. Thank you for your very generous comment! I'll definitely try my best.
That's a valid interpretation, but I think they designed the whole scene to be as ambiguous as possible, and there are good arguments for and against her being definitively dead or alive.
![The Downfall of Adel [The Complete Unabridged Timeline of FF8]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8au15HNfKIE/mqdefault.jpg)
![[FULL] RETROSPECTIVE : Final Fantasy Tactics](/img/1.gif)
This is probably one of the best FF7/FF7 remake trilogy videos I’ve seen so far. While so many different vocal toxic online factions in the fandom are busy arguing and attacking each over Remake trilogy’s meta story changes and what exactly they mean, this is one of the only videos I’ve seen that highlight why these games work so well- regardless of how you feel about those other story changes.
The new format of the trilogy allows a higher and more immersive, emotional, and well written characterization of basically every minor and major character in FF7 that was never able to be portrayed before- and I would argue eclipses not only the rest of FF7 and other FF games, but most video games and media in general. Excellent video. Was happy to find a video of such quality in my algorithm.
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts! These games mean a lot to me, so I try my best to highlight the aspects that have been changed, since I believe that the attention and care to detail that the devs put into them, deserve to be talked about more.
I agree with you about the characterization of minor and major characters. They did a fantastic job making every character feel fully fleshed out and believable. Definitely one of my favorite aspects about the Re-Trilogy.
No. Just no. The format as it is, creates the time gap and creates the cursed fillers ruining the game.
I'm not against changed if it's stated the og game is abc and a remake is a fantasy upon it.
But the way they did it just sucks. Shure they really tried. But if they want to remake the whole game don't split it. Or if you want to split it, lean into it. Why add content that wasn't in og but is dated in 2024? I get it all games need filler content but what ff7 fans wanted is cutscenes and character interactions. What I learned from remake is that a walking simulator in ff7 is the best way to do it. It would work great episodicaly.
And most heretical for me is ruining the summons.
@@wmen48I don't really mind splitting the game into three parts, since that's how it was back in the OG with the three disks, but what bums me out is that they're sticking too close to the original storyline while changing very few things. If they're really this afraid of going all out on the storyline's divergences, then why not just make a 1:1 faithful remake?
I think Squeenix had much bigger plans for the Remake trilogy at first, but due to the polarizing reception of th storyline in Part 1 (ghost shenanigans), they chickened out and instead decided that Rebirth would stick as close to the OG as possible. Bummer...
This is such an amazing and well composed essay from someone with less than 40 subscribers. Surely you've been wanting to do content like this for a while yeah?
Thank you for the kind words! I've been meaning to talk about this since I finished Rebirth and I'm quite happy with how it turned out!
@@Chricetra I am too. The script was solid. This is one of those once in a console generation games that can have a 200+ hour platinum trophy that is very much entertaining regardless of it's length. Hopefully your next vid is as good as this one.
Hands down the single best video I've ever seen on here on FF7 OG or FF7 Re-trilogy. Superb
That's really high praise.. It means a lot to me! I'm happy you enjoyed it!
This is an amazing video essay! You deserve many more views (and if you keep up this level of content, I am sure you will get them).
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it!!
Great synopsis. Thank you for making!
Hope the algorithm keeps promoting you!
Thank you very much! I hope so too. Your comment definitely helps with that as well!
Fantastic vid. Loved every second. Nice work 👍🏻
Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed making it :)
S tier video, keep it up👌
Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time and to see so much thought put in an video essay is really good
I love it.
Thats very kind of you to say! Final Fantasy 7 is also my all-time favorite game!
I have more FF7 videos planned for the near future :)
Great video, I think this is the best lens to approach Rebirth with, looking at how the game handles grief. I like the idea of all of Rebirth's changes, I think the characters being denied the ability to grieve works on multiple levels. But I feel that these complete shifts in emotional tone undermine that effort. Your treatment of Aerith's death scene in Rebirth really elevates and that's because you omitted all of the Zack and multiple worlds stuff. When that scene is focused on denying Cloud his grief, it works really well, but when it has to juggle all the mystery elements of the seemingly "true" plotline of the re trilogy, its focus is interrupted.
With regards to Dyne and Barret, I think it captures a general issue of the game that it can't seem to present a narrative climax without an action spectacle boss fight. The escape from Corel prison ending with a Chocobo race would have been fine, but it wouldn't have been an action spectacle. So they shifted the order around and moved the action spectacle plotline of Rocket Town in the original game to this section instead. They made similarly questionable decisions with the end of the Costa Del Sol and Cosmo Canyon chapters. I think if they kept the order of events of Corel the same as the original, it would have worked better and still played into the theme of denying grief. Corel prison being seen as a dystopian desolate place leading up to the confrontation with Dyne and then transforming into this humor-coping playground as the player tries to escape would have worked just fine.
My hope for part 3 is that it remembers the strongest part of the handling of Aerith's death in the original. In my opinion, her death scene is elevated from everything that follows, which is a complete commitment to her loss. Other Final Fantasies would kill off characters and then fully replace them with equally capable new characters. FFVII never lets you forget her absence, her unique role in combat as a free healer is never replaced and is instead emphasized in the Great Glacier where her healing would have been very useful. Every shop continues to sell her weapon and her icon's space in that shop screen is just absent. At any point you expect that the game might step back or move forward, but instead her death is held in this infinite suspension of consideration. All of Aerith's backstory is delivered after she died and you really only get to know her plan and motivation well after her death. The game does not let you forget what she was trying to do. That commitment to her loss is what elevated FFVII, and I hope part 3 is able to muster that commitment once again.
Wow thanks for sharing your thoughts! I feel like if they aimed at "denying grief" as a general goal for the emotional scenes, then they accomplished their mission, since the game introduces a lot of new elements in such a short time span.
I too would have much preferred if the Dyne section ended with the fight against him and had you dwell in the sorrow for a little bit. I also agree that they could have just added a funny Palmer spectacle where the chocobo section originally would have been (so a little later after Dynes death). Or they could have moved the boss fight against Palmer before Dynes scene. Both would have worked just fine imo.
I think so too. Aeriths absence in the original is really felt. I'm pretty confident the 3rd part will in many ways remind you of her missing from the group - at least for the main group that is. Maybe they decide to make her playable otherwise but that depends on the narrative they want to go with. I'm sure they will deliver and commit to her loss and the feelings it elicited in the original, in a new and different way we havent felt yet.
This deserves so many more views! I love your choice of music!
Just throwing this fact out, Cody (Cloud's English voice actor) said in an interview that he did record the dialogue that Cloud said after Sephiroth took his plunge to Aerith. So it's very likely they'll replay that moment in part 3. My guess is that moment will pan out when the party returns to the Ancient area waterfall and sees the television projector or whatever it was. Superb video.
Thats a very good point and I can totally see that happening. I can't wait! Thank you for your praise!
For once, the algorithm did not fail to bring me to new FF7 content 🎉 Will check in after finishing the video!
That's awesome to hear! Let me know your thoughts once you finished it!
havent watched the video yet but the thumbnail is so good just wanted to mention it !!
Great timing, since I finally (finally!) finished the game a few days ago. You liked the changes better than I did. I respect that. Especially since I think Rebirth is otherwise pretty amazing. I never played the 1997 original, but even as a newbie, I don't appreciate changing one of the most iconic scenes in gaming, in an attempt to play "gotcha!" with the audience. I understand Rebirth has been building towards this theme since 2020's Remake, but I finally understand why old school fans were having a problem with it. (It may also explain why the sequel is underperforming.) It's alienating. And even if I don't hold FF7 as sacred, just from a writing standpoint, there is such a thing as trying too hard, and your video expertly lays out the beauty of simplicity that the original had, and the reason why it was effective. Turning Aerith's death from a powerful moment into an unclear one undermines the emotion imo, and on top of that, I was just... lost. Nobody ever goes into a story, let alone a remake, going "You know what would be better? If it was *more* confusing"
Her death ain't powerful anymore. If it was so called FF7 fans cared about her death, they wouldn't have been memeing and laughing at her death for well over a decade before the Remake trilogy was announced.
Thank you so much for your praise! It's always interesting to read the perspective of new fans of the franchise, especially regarding such iconic moments in gaming. I'm holding out hope that there is a bigger emotional payoff that has been planned to be revealed in the third game and that we just don't see at this moment. As it stands I prefer the old one in many ways, but it all depends on whether or not Aerith actually survived this time. But I totally get where you're coming from!
Lets just wait for part 3 ❤ @@Chricetra
What did we do to deserve Palmer?
Dude, this is mint. 🤩
Thanks for the high praise!
Well explain bro👏
Thanks a lot!
The title doesn't make sense. If we remove the "(doesn’t)" then we get "final fantasy 7 want you to suffer", which is not grammatically correct.
See me after class.
Here is something that throws a wrench into the water burial flashback theory. If Cloud has really deluded himself into thinking Aerith survived like many theorists claim, then why would he perform a water burial in the first place?
We don’t know- the water burial may have happened, but cloud would have mentally blocked it out. Like he mentally blocked out the real events of Nibelheim, and the death of Zack. Or, an alternative take could be in those moments Cloud’s mind has transcended between worlds in real time during Aerith’s death (traveling between a world where Aerith died, and another where he blocked Sephiroth’s sword and she lived at the same time), hence why he wouldn’t remember the events of her burial. I’m not going to claim we really know one way or the other because it’s purposely vague for us to theorize until part 3- but there are several possibilities to consider as to what was happening in those moments.
Cloud's memory rewrite simply could have occured after the burial. Cloud's emotions could have reached a breaking point afterward, causing his mind to begin repressing the memory shortly after it happened, in an attempt to shield him from the pain. We see in the ending that Cloud suffers from memory/Jenova headaches when he gets flashes of Aerith's death, so it's clear that something is up. The stark contrast between Cloud's emotional state, and the emotional state of the rest of party, as well as the way Cloud talks to Aerith during the final scene, heavily suggests that he does not conciously recall Aerith's death.
It's so strange to me to see how many people believe that Aerith is truly dead and that SE just butchered her death scene or that they hope that Aerith is truly dead in part 3. Her being dead in part 3 to me would be one of the worst storytelling. If you accept that Re-trilogy is not the OG and doesn't intend to be the OG, then the whole game becomes so much better.
Early on in Remake, it was already foreshadowed that Aerith knew the future, that somehow, her and Cloud had already met, and her death was foreshadowed as well. Again and again Aerith herself told you that the future wasn't set in stone and that we got to decide our fate. And then at the end of Remake, you literally fight Destiny. Imo, this was brillaint. Because what did so many players wish for after playing FF7? To save Aerith or bring her back to life. And what does Cloud want in Remake and Rebirth? To save Aerith. Remake managed what no other game has ever managed to do to me: to truly make me feel like I am that main character who lost an important person so long ago and who now wants the future change.
In Rebirth, they introduced a whole new worldbuilding concept of "altenate worlds" that are somehow born whenever a decision is made and fate is breached. The whole Zack subplot shows this to us with the rainbow light. Sepiroth himself spells out his plan to the player right before the ending: "to merge worlds."
And then you have Aerith's death. Is it supposed to evoke the same emotions as the OG death? No. Instead, you know it's going to happen, likely Cloud knows too somewhere. And all you want to know is: Can I save her? And the game hits the whole: "BUT CAN I SAVE HER THIS TIME?!??!" feeling really well. You want Aerith to be alive, just like Cloud. You don't want to see the same water burial that you saw in OG just for the sake of seeing her die for good again (at least I don't). What's the point in that?
If you think Aerith is truly dead, then what was the point in fighting Destiny at the end of Remake? What was the point of Cloud blocking Seph's sword? Of her waking up? Of not having a water burial? The best reason I can come up with is: To give the player a false hope. And to create this much additional worldbuilding that wasn't in the OG over a span of two whole game for FALSE hope would just be such a bullshit move. Seriously. Biggest dick move ever.
Even after Aerith's death, Zack tells Cloud to "save her." Seph clearly merged two different worlds, one that was like OG where she died and then the Rebirth one where she lived. The slogan of Rebirth's trailer was: "Will you be a part of this world I am trying to save?" Everything to me just points to how she's alive, just in another world. One that the main party isn't part of. But then we still have Zack at the end saying: "Just like words unite, so too do they part. But who's to say... they can't unite again?" Even in this last sentence, he's giving us hope that a reunion is possible.
How can people see all this (and so much more that points to this) and go: Oh yeah, I hope we get the water burial finally because that was so sad in OG and then she'll be gone for good.
i like to think shes alive but i kno how important her death is
i fully disagree with you and was very much disappointed by this game, even sold it right after finishing. That said, you show an amazing ability of portraying your arguments and ideas with sound acumen. You have a very great talent when it comes to content creation and i hope you keep at it, because if you do: you will definitely reach S-Rank. Liked and subscribed
I very much appreciate how you gave the video a chance, despite your opposing opinion on the game. Thank you for your very generous comment! I'll definitely try my best.
highkey very pissed from the spoilers you have on your thumbnail
Plus think arieth beeing death is very clear and its a good dvene dhowing how broken clloud still is
That's a valid interpretation, but I think they designed the whole scene to be as ambiguous as possible, and there are good arguments for and against her being definitively dead or alive.
@@Chricetra In my opinion, Aerith is both alive and dead at the same time. Schrodinger's Aerith, if you will.