#ffviirb spoilers

[rottenpumpkin13]

Biggs: Everyone knows Cloud is a bona fide badass!

Zack:

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[badassbarmaid]

Words aren't the only way to say how you feel.

GIF Source Credit: Wrghtandco

[terraxcloud]

That 4Chan leak~

This post could have spoilers.

This leak specified that the next title of FF7R is “Rebirth”, which ended up being true.

Game starts at Kalm and ends at the Forgotten Capitol

Red XIII, Yuffie, Vincent, and Shelke are playable

Cid is sadly not but appears in cutscenes and can sell upgrades for weapons and vehicles (this was also from a very early leak)

There are parts of the game where you play as Zack and Cloud from the other timeline and they occasionally crossover with main cast

Boss fight against Zack as well

Palmer boss fight starts out like the original but then Sephiroth intervenes and mutates him into a giant heartless Jenova monster thing

Deepground are also a big player and have turned Wedge into one of them

Boss fight with Tifa solo fighting "Rosso"

Triceratops tank is a optional boss fight

Midgardsormr is a cinematic boss fight you fight early on

Jessie is alive and is part of some Gold Saucer play/tv show where she's part of some kind of Super Sentai team

End of game has Zack saving Aerith from getting stabbed but it turns out Aerith is being used by Minerva as a vessel and transforms into her. Genesis also appears and has planned this entire alter(n)ate timeline ******** to happen. He merges with her becoming The Warrior of Light. Cloud tries to intervene but gets mortally wounded by him.

Game ends with Cloud dying in Tifa's arms with Zack taking the mantle as the leader of the party.

The Cloud that was with Zack from the alternate timeline is kidnapped by Sephiroth for some reason.

The general consensus is that Part 3 is titled “Reunion” (although the Crisis Core Remake is already called “Reunion”), and since Cloud dies, well, you can just imagine. From the trailer to Rebirth, Tifa asks if Cloud thinks she’s an imposter and there’s a disembodied conversation between someone (sounds like Zack, but some people say Cloud, to Aerith) (Edit: In Japanese by Audrey:  "Where are you, Zack? We came here together 5 years ago." between Cloud & Zack...I don’t get it, I kind of hear Zack & Aerith)

Assuming the leak were true, the Terra stuff would go over the leaker’s head, but if it was true then Terra doesn’t appear in Part 2, but it feels very likely to be Part 3. One thing I would have been right on is that Zack is symbolically the original main character of FF7, and it gives the leak credibility that he would end up replacing Cloud (that’s not an idea people just randomly throw around).

Another is that Zack would do something to stop Aerith from dying, although I didn’t mention it as that, but it’s been in my head for a long time now...it’s just that we don’t know how he’s able to do this as of now.

It could be that the storyline of FF7 is becoming that of “if Zack was the main character”, which is why Genesis appears at the end of it as if he were the final boss. This leak leaves the future of Cloud uncertain, but we at least know that Terra is heavily implied all over Part 1, because Cloud’s the original main character of FF6. Whatever Zack/Aerith do and say is a mirror to Cloud/Terra.

Honestly, it didn’t seem right that Terra would just casually appear in Part 2 as it’s supposed to be a big reveal. It could be that Zack’s appearance in WoFF was a hint about Terra rather than him actually meeting Terra. SE may want to make the love-triangle stuff die first before showing Cloud’s actual love interest.

People would play Rebirth with the assumption that only Tifa could be Cloud’s love interest at this point since Zack is alive and clearly looking for Aerith. The ending will leave people duped.

So...what, does this mean that neither Tifa nor Aerith die and that Zack is now the main character FF7R in Part 3? Yeah, but “Hollow” still sounds similar to Terra’s theme, and removing Cloud definitely doesn’t make this into a “remake”...more like a “remaking”. There was a moment in the Ever Crisis trailer where Sephiroth was shown with short hair and some people assumed it was Genesis or younger Sephiroth.

After these reveals, and since Terra may not appear in Part 2, there may be other games with Clerra scenes and hints once again just like the last two times. We still don’t know anything about Kingdom Hearts 4. If Cloud dies, will they put him in Quadratum? DFFOO Act 4 is most certainly going to do something, since Act 3 ended with that cliff-hanger about Cloud’s memory (even Tifa mentioned it).

This leak doesn’t mention Cait Sith. This leak doesn’t mention anything related to Junon, Fort Condor, Costa Del Sol, Gongaga, Corel Mountains, Cosmo Canyon, Nibelheim, Rocket Town, Wutai, or the Temple of the Ancients. This leak is very shallow and is heavy on showing that Crisis Core & Dirge of Cerberus are now in the main story, as well as talking about only those things that are “popular”.

[pen-and-umbra]

FFVII Rebirth introduces something never extensively explored in the original game or in the compilation of Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth's anger towards Professor Gast’s experiment and the contempt he came to harbor towards ShinRA as an organization.

(Herein lurk spoilers.)

While the latter is something the fans have glimpsed on and off throughout previous installments, the second part of the Remake amplifies it ever so more. What began as admitting that the company had fabricated his legend and expressing a desire to live a normal life in Ever Crisis gradually transforms into a lack of clarity regarding his reasons for fighting in Before Crisis (as prompted by Elfe), followed by an open disgust towards Hojo's and Hollander's experiments when confronted with Mako pod entities during the hunt for Genesis. Sephiroth and Zack's ordeal during Crisis Core events appears to undercut his willingness to stay, as he famously considers leaving the corporation right before embarking on the ill-fated Nibelheim expedition.

FFVIIRb picks off where we left off, painting a more complete picture of Sephiroth's dissatisfaction with ShinRA overall. Interestingly, one of the discarded sequences from the original game featured Sephiroth hinting at his lack of affection for his employer as early as the truck ride.

Narratively, the sequence spans the gap between OG and Crisis Core's departure cutscene, implying that Sephiroth used the time on the road to reflect on his current and future connection with ShinRA. His companion, however, does not appear to understand why he is bringing the topic up. What distinguishes Rebirth is the suggestion that Sephiroth came to view the entire ShinRA system as a problem, rather than just a few rotten apples. He no longer singles out Hojo, but rather the entire ShinRA branch, indicating that something's wrong with the system. When "Cloud" casually inquires about the problem with the Nibelheim reactor, Sephiroth responds that it is "people who run it," adding that this particular site is controlled by the Research and Development department. In addition, in response to "Cloud's" fair comment regrading the lack of transparency in company's operation, he rather sarcastically suggests to bring the issue with the President, thus implicitly conveying the futility of the endeavor.

When the party encounters Mako pod residents, one can detect genuine rage in his voice. While Sephiroth had previously shown bitterness for the test subjects during CC, it was tinged with disgust/pity rather than wrath. And once again, I’m grateful to Tyler Hoechlin for broadening his range in this particular segment.

"Cloud's" reaction to the contents of the pods, however, came off a little weird. The confusion appears out of place, because Zack had seen it all before — he had been there to watch the aftermath of Hollander's work; is it really odd that ShinRA's chief R&D scientist spearheaded the entire thing? Perhaps, unlike Sephiroth, Zack treated it as a rotten-apple issue, rather than a systemic issue. Or maybe this is an example of Cloud being an unreliable narrator, having conflated his own experience with that of Zack, which also explains Zack being sort of too green for the First Class throughout the Nibelheim portion of the game.

The shift in Sephiroth's perspective, from singling out Hojo's misdeeds to viewing ShinRA's itself as a systemic problem, is further highlighted during the mansion segment. This is no longer a strictly Hollander or Hojo issue. Human experimentation formed the fundamental core of what ShinRA is now, and those were approved from the very top. As Sephiroth puts it with barely concealed disgust, as soon as the company realized what had fallen into their hands, they became ambitious.

The wording also strikes a contrast to how he used to refer to the company in the past; as such, when Angeal deserts, Sephiroth states that Angeal has betrayed “US”, which points at both his personal connection to the person and the fact that Sephiroth likely saw himself as part of ShinRA circle. In the library, however, he distances himself by referring to the company as THEM, thus no longer perceiving himself as a part of it.

More important still is the rage he expresses when quoting excerpts from Gast's notes. The anger is new, never before seen touch. Sephiroth has been portrayed in the moment differently throughout earlier installments — dejected, perhaps overwhelmed, but never angry enough to snarl and nearly flip the table.

And it's wonderful. It's authentic, and it makes sense. It makes you question how much of that rage has been bottled up, compartmentalized, and never fully processed throughout the years. That rage should have existed, but was suppressed by ShinRA, before becoming internalized and sealed.

The scene is extremely on point on another level as well. As the flash of rage passes, and Sephiroth looks away, hiding eyes behind bangs — a gesture previously briefly appearing in Crisis Core.

One could interpret the body language as being ashamed and unwilling to show his composure cracking. Even in this state he KNOWS he wasn't supposed to let anyone see hurt or anger, wasn't supposed to lose cool. The "wonder child" and the "poster boy" is not to be seen as something other than “efficacious” and “collected”. The habit of suppressing displays of emotion or physical/psychological ailment had apparently become a part of himself. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to deduce why the habit persists. The internalized compulsion to live up to the expectations placed on him by ShinRA and the myth it imposed on his character, as well as the internalized imperative not to reveal to someone like Hojo — anyone— the extent to which their acts or words affect him. There's also another layer to this shame — one of being an artificial creation, but that's for another write up.

The anger towards Gast differs greatly from the way Sephiroth went “Why didn't you tell me?” in previous iterations of the Nibelheim incident. In retrospect, Gast's supervision of the project, involvement in Sephiroth's life, and unexpected departure seem like a betrayal. Gast had not only abandoned Sephiroth, who had likely come to see him as a salient figure in his youth, but had also been lying to him all along, until finally discarding him, as Sephiroth might believe. Gast therefore falls from grace, becoming yet another person who misled, attempted to exploit, and eventually abandoned him to deal with the consequences on his own.

[turklights]

[turklights]

Reno. See you keep your priorities straight. ⸻ Copy that, Boss.

[turklights]

Reno, Rude, & Tseng in FFVII REBIRTH

[turklights]

[turklights]

Don't have too much fun.

[turklights]

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