My main problem is they rely on mystery box storytelling technique for the same reason as hack TV writers. On a show like LOST you can somewhat get away with this. But here the mysteries within mysteries are to such a degree that it actually distracts from emotional impact rather than compliments it.

The scene with aeris as a child at the train station was handled like children scribbling with crayons on the wall. You have Aeris crying and in a great amount of confused anxiety because of her mom dying. And as Aeris tries to get help, every single adult makes fun of her, laughs in her face, and tells her to get lost? That's not how humans act. Nobody would see a crying child who is asking for help and point and laugh at them while walking away. Nobody acts like that. But they do it because they need to show that no one can help her. The reason why the original worked is because Aeris and her mom were alone at the train station save for one shinra soldier who stayed at his post because doing his job was more important than helping someone. But that makes sense because that's how Shinra is always portrayed in that game. However the regular people, especially in Remake and Rebirth are always happy helpers willing to come together to solve problems. This was just such a poorly handled scene that cheaply tried to make it extra sad by wild and completely ridiculous means.

Wonderful video! I think the hardest part of this ending was that I felt *nothing*. I played this game when I was in 9th grade. At that time, I'd lost no close family members, save for grandparents who died before I was old enough to really understand what death WAS. I'd seen death in games before (I was old hat as far as Final Fantasy went in 1997), so I'd been through Tellah, and Leo, and Rachel. But Aeris just hit different. She was on my main party, and I depended on her. Cloud and Aeris's last interaction before her death is him *beating* her in an insane rage. I wanted to see her again, and was excited when I got to the Forgotten Capital. Then, she died. There was no chance to save her, no chance to say goodbye. I hated it back then. I wanted to save her, and I went as far to use a game shark to hack her into my party (Sephiroth too, but who didn't do that back in the day? Dude's fabulous.) I'm 40 years old this year, and I have lost over half my family, including a brother and father, which has recontexualized the scene for me. I have lost people to illnesses, and to tragic, bolt-from-the-blue tragedies. There are people I didn't get to talk to again. There were things left unsaid. Many, many things. That's death. Kitase's original comment is absolutely correct. Death may be horrifically sad at the start, but the true tragedy of death is in the emptiness that follows. This is personal... but when my dad died, I was at the grocery store two days later, trying to go about my day. My phone rang and went to voicemail before I could pick it up. I opened my voice mails to listen to them and the first one was... from my dad. I had been talking to him two days before he entered hospice, and my phone had dropped. He tried to call me back, and left a message. While leaving it, I called him on the line. The last thing I ever heard my dad say was: "Oh. That's you. OK, I'll talk to you on the other line, then." But of course, in the present there was no call on the other line. That was when it finally hit me that I'd *never* call him again. He was just... gone. I can't describe that feeling of emptiness and pain. But of course, I had to keep functioning. I had to finish buying food for my family, had to go back to work, and had to deal with the fact that the *world* was unchanged, but I was. It's silly to evoke a video game when it comes to real tragedy, but you can tell it was written by someone who'd just experienced loss. In most games, a death happens in a vacuum. Characters get to say goodbye, and the person peacefully passes away. There might be RAGE afterward, maybe the hero goes into a frenzy, but it's... entertaining? The Jenova Life boss fight is the mundane nightmare that occurs after someone dies. You don't want to deal with it because you're in pain. There's no bombast, it's just a fight that you have to get through. The music mirrors your feelings of loss, but you have to push through, even though all you want to do is cry. The original game captured all of this *SO WELL*. The one thing I knew going into Rebirth was that the ending was going to be devastating, because I understood death on a more visceral level. I knew it was coming, but that didn't lessen the impact. In a way, knowing makes it sadder. The expansions to Aeris's character made it sadder! Watching baby Aeris cry and try to find help for her mom felt like watching MYSELF at age 14 scouring websites in a fruitless search for a way to save her. Baby Aeris was US, all of us, wanting to keep going on adventures with Aeris. Baby Aeris doesn't understand the reality that there's no saving her mom, but she's still fruitlessly going to try. That's what I was expecting. I expected that much like the end of Crisis Core, there'd be no way to prevent what was coming, no matter how high a level I was or how good I was at the game. I expected it to be memorable--maybe the most memorable thing in the game. So imagine my shock when I hit the end of the game and felt NOTHING. Honestly... I know they're doing this to tease the next chapter, but I think it's trashy, and was massively disappointing. ...anyway, sorry for the rant. XD Wonderful video, subscribing now!

The Cosmo Canyon/Red XIII points you made I totally agree with, the sudden "young anime protag" voice shift gave me whiplash and CC went from an esoteric elders study in an isolated village of indigenous people to a dude who has sold out to sell crystals and teach reiki to hipsters...

I gotta say.. the thing about Berrett not wanting to make a deal with Rufus entirely makes sense. You have to remember that he himself made a deal with Shinra that resulted in him losing his best friend, his wife, his reputation, and his arm. I think you make some valid points in this video though, certainly agree about the nanaki tone shift being an over-correction. I just wanted to point out that I don't see Barrett actin any other way regarding Shinra. He flat out will never trust Shinra. I don't expect that to ever change given his past.

Maybe I’m off base here, but FF7 always has this weird identity issue(har) for me; there’s FF7 as it released for the PlayStation video game machine, and then there’s the super popular, mass marketable, advent children ass FF7 square wants everyone to remember and that gets represented in all the other media. Not to say this version of FF7 doesn’t have merit or anything, it just always seemed a tad generic. cool vibeo btw

You're one of the first people I've seen engage with the remake trilogy having the thematic significance of the original in mind and it's cathartic to finally hear somebody say that the thematic core of the original is either not present or, at best, very unclear in the remakes. I think my main issue with Rebirth is it never lets you sit with an emotion, or give you the proper context for feeling it. You're ferried from one spectacle to the next and they seem to believe that presentation and substance alone will make each scene emotional, when in reality there's no tether to any underlying understanding of what is even happening to give you space to feel that emotion. Everybody is fixated on the ending, but this is endemic throughout the whole game, as you point out. Sure, having Palmer attack the party conserves that part of the Rocket Town plotline that is otherwise absent, but it completely disrupts the emotional payoff with Barret and Dyne. Same with the Gi with Red XIII, Roche with Cloud (his turn to a Sephiroth clone was the funniest scene in the game), and Don Corneo with Aerith/Cait Sith (which conserves the Wutai plotline which is otherwise absent). I can't say I agree with you on the characterization. I think the original does not do the majority of its cast much justice. There's just so much space for projection that we can fill in those blanks, but what's presented is not very convincing or fleshed out. Barret and Tifa in particular are really nonsensical in the original and I find their characterizations vastly improved here. Tifa actually has agency and Barret's vendetta against Shinra is in conflict with his feelings as a father and his general sense of community, the same traits that led him to fall into Shinra's clutches in the first place. His inconsistencies in this game make him feel much more real than anything in the original. And even though I think Cosmo Canyon is weird, I really like the reframing of planetology as this reactionary rediscovery of an ancient indigenous belief system wielded mainly as a weapon against Shinra rather than a faith unto itself. Jessie and Barret turning to this religion to give them the ideological justification for terrorism is much more compelling than its portrayal as an absolute authority on all matters of the planet as in the original. The contrast of the party, who has actual direct experience with the planet and even has a member who is the inheritor of that ancient belief system, meeting these planetologists who don't fully understand or appreciate what they believe is great. It does a lot for Barret's character (and Aerith's for that matter), showing that he himself doesn't care as much for the planet as he thinks and sets him on the path actually fight for the planet and not just against Shinra. If the rest of the story was as focused on Shinra and the planet instead of a multiverse and a very boring portrayal of Sephiroth, I think it would all work really well. In my mind, the problem with this characterization is not that these characters aren't who they were in the original, it's that they no longer fit into the story they're apart of. Yes, the devs have bent over backwards to correct the logic of the original plot, but they have paid no mind to the consistency of all the new elements with each other. I experienced this game as indulging the development of the characters and their emotional experiences at the expense of making a coherent and emotional story for the player. The original was kind of the opposite, the characters don't have much emotional range, don't really react in situations in ways that feel real, but the player is given all of the space to feel their own emotions. I think there was a way to do both, but as you said, it would have required committing to actually making things different.

10 minutes in. Finally a person that actually understood the thesis of the original game and its ending. Holy hell, that was cathartic. I'll keep listening, but man did make me happy.

“Ready to call you a slur energy” >>>>>

There was a constant thought in my head when you mentioned several times how Square is obsessed with generating "intrigue" in the Remake and Rebirth. Jordan Peele's Nope was a critique on the need for spectacle and the need to be the first to record said spectacle. That this obsession can lead to something grotesque or to the end of oneself. Square and their Remakes feels like an extension of this. In a lighter note, your bit of finding as many ridiculous titles that start with R for the 3rd game was fucking gold.

As someone who genuinely loved the game with a few “huh that’s odd” moments until chapter 14 this video is by FAR the best explanation of my feelings. Thank you, seriously.

37:42 - 39:33 When Barret yelled at Yuffie to stop her assassination attempt on Rufus, me and my brother were baffled. We get the idea is trying to take a less violent path to stopping Shinra, but talking things out when out the window when the Sector 7 Plate was dropped Let alone all the other things Shinra has done. The idea of the party making a deal with Shinra was ridiculous, let alone Barret being the one to try and stop Yuffie. Or the idea of the party being OK with taking orders from Shinra for this deal after all they've been through so far.

I just finished watching the whole video and I have…complicated feelings, I suppose. I’m the kind of person who will experience a shiny new thing, love it to bits, then go down a rabbit hole of provocative think pieces and video essays deconstructing every reason why the shiny new thing is awful, shallow, superficial, insulting, sometimes even “problematic,” etc. And as someone who doesn’t like to consume art passively, it always does give me pause and make me wonder if maybe I experience things too generously. Like, regarding a lot of your points about characterization and lore fumbles, I usually have SOME interpretation that either justifies it to me or softens the issue. With Dyne, for instance, I thought that shifting the focus to forcing Barret to carry the weight of his guilt and responsibility had merit. And regarding Shinra being “not all bad,” I always interpreted that less as whitewashing Shinra’s reputation or corporate apologia than the game drawing the line between bad SYSTEMS and bad PEOPLE. That’s part of why I never really could agree with your take on Zack in Crisis Core. What felt meaningful to me about his death is that even after being victimized by the corruption behind the veil, he still held onto what being a SOLDIER meant to HIM, even if it meant going out fighting against the system that made him a SOLDIER. That’s to say nothing of how Rebirth emphasizes Shinra’s harmful impact regardless of the actual people inside being Not All Bad(tm), such as the Gold Saucer’s energy consumption causing Corel’s desertification, deposing the Republic of Junon and letting the world’s infrastructure go to shit while imposing their classist caste system, the environmental disaster in Gongaga, etc. To me, stuff like that gets the point across in a more mature and nuanced way than having literally everyone in Shinra besides Reeve act like a heartless bastard. The gripes with Cid and Nanaki, I can understand. The difference between “kid Nanaki” and “serious Nanaki” in voice direction struck me as a bit sharp, too, but I do think it fits into VII’s broader themes of real versus constructed identity. My inner furry still found the character precious lol (which, come to think of it, might also be one reason why I enjoyed Cait Sith so much) That aside, though, a lot of my readings and interpretations are predicated on my viewing of the project in good faith rather than cynical/corporate. Like, to me, the ending made a sort of emotional sense based on Aerith’s arc in the game. I felt like a lot of her internal struggles had to do with her sense of loneliness and isolation (she really hammers that home in Nibelheim on the tower), and that scene she gets in Cosmo Canyon shows how she’s come to view the party as a found family, one she fears having to separate from due to death or otherwise. What was heartbreaking about the ending to me is that whether she’s alive in one timeline or dead in another doesn’t matter; either way, she still ends the game isolated and alone. That final “goodbye” as the Tiny Bronco takes off and No Promises to Keep starts playing is really important in my eyes. Either way, she’s left behind, which alongside the stuff with Zack shows (to me) that a character “surviving” doesn’t guarantee a happy ending. In all the discourse, I don’t really see anyone talking about that: how Aerith’s original death focuses on Cloud’s loss (with no words from Aerith, like you pointed out), but Rebirth places more focus on what AERITH loses. Instead, the discussion just goes in circles with theory-crafting and deconstructing how the plot makes no sense, how it misses the point of the original death, etc. A lot of that is rooted, I think, in the game’s critics viewing Rebirth as a cynical (or “sinister,” like you said) product. I suppose that’s the disconnect for me. I can’t look at the game’s unabashedly maximalist approach and see it as anything other than a work of earnest passion, but maybe I’m just a sucker for maximalism lol Anyway, sorry if this got rambly lol. I personally loved the game and I’m kind of reckoning with the fact that most people I respect have critiqued it as a slap in the face. At the very least, I guess the criticism does make me think deeper about my relationship with the game and what I got out of it.

I loved everything about the game, and can’t wait for part 3.

You know, I always figured the fun of art critique was that you get to find all sorts of different perspectives, which give you a more complete understanding of what a work means universally. Instead, it so often feels like there is a "correct" opinion; a seat on the hype ride or you're just kicked to the curb instead. Sure, you can have small complaints, but start implying that something might not have worked for you on the whole, regarding the FF game which is currently the one which fills this arbitrary checklist fans have about what makes FF good... yeah, this comments section doesn't surprise me. It does, however, disappoint me. Every year it feels like we lose more and more viewpoints to the corporate hype cycle. As someone who enjoyed Rebirth decidedly more than you did, I also think it's difficult for me to deny that there is a cynicism present throughout the remake project that was always going to be there, and started seeping in even more during Rebirth. A project I originally thought would end up being nothing like FF7, because we defied fate and wouldn't follow the events of the og story, ended up not being FF7 because it TRIED to follow the og. I enjoyed my time with it in the same way one might enjoy a popcorn flick. Combat was fun, there were some cute moments peppered throughout. All I'm really left thinking about is how beautifully directed the final chapter was, and how I wish the whole game was that insane. I loved this video, and I hope it finds its audience, if that audience is out there. You don't deserve the vitriol.

Just to make sure we're on the same page: the point of this video is that the FFVIIR trilogy is trying to tell both a new story and an old story simultaneously, and it is failing to achieve either, right? That's my impression with the series. It's trying to faithfully recreate the original FFVII, but its efforts to do so are undermined by 1) the new story elements/changes which break viewers' immersion by conflicting with established lore and characters, and 2) it spoils/rushes to so many scenes from the OG in the belief that subtlety/narrative buildup doesn't matter anymore (because the OG's twists are now known). Meanwhile, the new story it wants to tell can't reach its full potential because 1) its new ideas are held back by its obligations to the original game's story and 2) the developers are so terrified of the internet figuring out where the story is going that they aren't telling us how anything works. E.g., We don't know how the Lifestream, Black Materia and White Materia work anymore - the writers keep making up new rules or changing the existing ones so that it's impossible for us to tell what matters from what doesn't. It's as if the developers said: "We can't give the audience an inch (as to what is going on with Sephiroth or the Lifestream) because if we do, the internet will take a mile (the theory-crafters will figure out the entire story before Part 3 releases if we clarify what matters in the story and what the rules for the Lifestream/materia are)."

Let’s face reality. The new ff7 is not what we wanted really. Graphics are cool. We wanted the REAL story laid out in beautiful graphics. How hard is it to do to make that possible. Another fail by square Enix.

So I found u on boppers video on his retrospective series on FF and to my surprise I've watched some of ur essays b4. Here's my subscription I agree with you on everything youve said, I don't have much to add other than keep doing what youre doing, i cant wait to binge your videos

FF left with Sakaguchi.

The whole game world was just to wacky and upbeat for me. The original had such a desperate and gritty feeling to it. Why is cosmo canyon a tourist destination now with dozens and dozens of procedural generated NPC’s on vacation! Seems like every town you go to everybody’s just enjoying life. The tone is just way off in this game.

It's a very petty rant of a video.

44:40 - Comic book fans actually have a term for the problem which you're describing here. It's called "Continuity Porn" - a story overly focused on continuity, to the detriment of the story. Also, 1:10:49 and onward is one of the most epic "reason [X] sucks" speeches I've heard in a while. "Every decision they want to make is met with equal opposing force and the result starts to decompose it from the inside out."

Thank you for this video. I’ve never felt so disconnected from the general consensus on a piece of art before. I felt weird through the whole game (the constant exposition, “intel” and lore that made the world make LESS sense being a prime example) and told a few people I felt like it was a piece of art with an identity crisis because of its refusal to commit to anything. Often introducing and then removing stakes within the same scene. But by the time I was done, I felt like I understood. The individual scenes, moments, animations - it doesn’t matter what I think of them. This is a piece of Product that’s rotten at its very core. I was using the same word you’ve used, for most of the same reasons.

10:17 That was an interesting idea I don't think I ever picked up on about Holy; it being a judgement of whether or not humanity deserved to survive based on their stewardship of the planet. I would have to disagree about the ambiguousness of whether humanity survived after the time skip, though. When the FF7 logo appears after Red roars and the seagulls fly off into the distance, you can distinctly hear children laughing and playing, signaling to me that humanity does indeed survive into the future.

This is not a story about any particular theme. It is a story about the story of Final Fantasy VII. They did this new universe to pick and choose when they want to actually write a story and when they want to rely on just moving the plot forward with the original plot points

I hate how much Sephiroth is overused. You can't turn a corner or walk into a new room without seeing Sephiroth going "boo!" everytime. In fact, by the end of part 3 you would have fought sephiroth at least 5 times in various forms and VR versions. Like, how many times can you beat a guy before you stop feeling threatened by him? I swear by the end of Rebirth Sephiroth felt more like Seymour from FFX than Sephiroth from FFVII original.

Sorry for the horrendous comments you're gonna get when the video blows up, but this is really special, great job. The bottom line about striving for sincerity and meaning through the medium really resonates with me.

I think one of the biggest mistakes was making it into 3 parts. I mean, this isn't Star Wars. You shouldn't have to wait 9 years to watch the entire trilogy. Only now its even longer than that. and now no one is looking forward to FF7 Remake 3 - the quest for more money. And second- the multiverse has become a cheap and lazy way lately to write yourself out of a corner. The multiverse might have worked with a game like FF8 because that game was overly ambitious and tried to do too much. What the developers seem to have done, was take some of that plot like the time travel in FF8, and say why don't we make it about traveling to different worlds? Its really stupid.

Thank you for this. I know there are others of the same mindset, after all they sought out this video for validation just as I did. It's.. such a disjointed feeling to see how much praise and love this game is getting. I adore FFVII, I got myself in deep with the community for a good chunk of my life. I adore the character moments of rebirth when they land, I enjoy the pretty visuals, but it lost the heart of the story, miring a simple yet deep plot with so much convoluted branches that go no where. They seek to modernize FFVII by appealing to spectacle, to multiverses, to theory crafting that it lost what made the game feel special in the first place. Even the world itself has sanitized the grim and grimy settlements with resorts. I couldn't even enjoy Golden Saucer because when everything feels like a resort, none of of the places feel like a resort. There aren't many new games where you can safely explore the death of a loved one. FFVII Remake series takes so many risks by removing the risks they took back in the 90's to deliver a game that lacks nuance and depth. I feel like the worst part about this is that it was advertised as a Remake. For many new players, this is FFVII. A lot of them won't want to play the original and now being involved with the community, I have to accept this weird canon even when I write about it. I.. don't have much of a spot among the community anymore. I have to move on and that makes me feel a bit sad.

I'm very glad to be seeing some well written critiques on the game, because for awhile I was feeling so disconnected from the general fanbase. Rebirth is probably the biggest instance in my life of a game that I was so supremely excited for that ended up so utterly disappointing me. So many critics and reviewers I followed treat and talk about Rebirth like it is the magnum opus for FF titles and the true future for all games in this series and I just don't get it. It's not even the best FF7 game, let alone the best FF game! The most shocking thing of all is that I didn't really feel anything at the end of the game except confusion. All the feelings of loss, depression, anger, etc from the same moments in og FF7 were just not present for me. The confusing route they've chosen to take with the narrative of these games, in an attempt to "Will they/Won't they?" the audience about key moments from the original, only serve to dampen the original story's emotional impact. But anytime you try to bring this up to others they tell you "It's all setting up for Part 3", "You gotta wait for Part 3 for the payoff!". But I likely won't even play Part 3 at this point because I feel nothing for where these games are going anymore.

I disagree with a lot of the specifics but the general critique is spot on. Adding a bunch of random factoids and redcons doesn’t add anything to the plot. Like Cid knowing Ifalna.

47:07 I'm unsure if I can articulate why this moment in the video stood out to me, but yeah, that's really messed up. Like, I hear a lot from people who grew up with FF7 about the uncomfortable disconnect between why they liked Tifa as a character and why, presumably, someone else likes Tifa, or I guess the way the legacy of the character gets interpreted in merchandise and other properties, I think. I remember talking to a friend about final fantasy characters and they had to go way out of their way to make sure I believed them when they told me why she was a favorite of theirs. There was a real urgency to the conversation. I think I've understood for awhile that that disconnect exists, but seeing it pointed out in this way, seeing the camera cut away so the player doesn't have to see something, taking the wind out of what the character is trying to communicate in the scene.. Treating Tifa like an action figure in her own story like that is just really viscerally upsetting. I get at least a little of where the urgency was coming from even though I didn't grow up dealing with this kind of thing, and I should thank my friend and this Vivian Aladren person for giving me that.

I really wanted to like Rebirth I thought Remake was good and I liked it to certain points,but in Rebirth they really went all in with the multiple timelines and changes that don't make any sense. Also the Combat is faster, but they still let you only have 2 ATB bars as default why not 3-4

FF7 was Hironobu Sakaguchi's exploration of the intertwining of love and loss after the death of his mother. Each character of the OG had lost something dear to them, their lover, their homes, their friends, their families, their dreams but death as a finality isn't the finality of love---like what's said in WandaVision, what if grief if not love everlasting? That is why FF7 had a dark, poignant theme, but it was also hopeful. The surrounding area around Midgar with green and teeming of life, so Avalanche's cause to save the planet is pretty moot. The most glaring divergence I felt in Rebirth is Barret and Dyne. I bawled at them during the OG, I was screaming for Dyne to just let go of his anger and at least see Marlene--both Barret and Dyne lost their wives and homes, but dealt with their grief differently. Barret chose to move on, but Dyne killed himself where he (metaphorically) died a long time ago. But now.... I dunno, felt like a Spiderman 1 Green Goblin. The current writers are great at bombastic concepts, but it was Sakaguchi's careful tempering that let the characters become believable despite our already suspended beliefs. Sakaguchi's last game was X-2 and it says a lot about the subsequent FF games. Now it just feels like RE and RB is the current writers "everybody lives" fanfic. I wouldn't be surprised if Angeal pops up somewhere.

13:44 Me and my brother had a laugh about his voice change! Saying he sounded like a 2000s kids movie protag XD

Hey, gotta say you nailed it for me. Though I think the game is great, I agree they cleared out the weight. I mentioned in a different video how the weight of a dead overpowered snake made Sephiroth feel like an omnipresent God in the og. You never saw it happen. It gave him presence without being on the screen and I believe there's a word for that in acting, you might know it. While cool in this game, so far Sephiroth isn't coming off as terrifying as he once did in the original. They need to dial him down a bit. I'm impressed they've had us fighting him at every ending so far. Will take away from the weight if we only fought him once, in the end, the actual end. Now I beat him twice so far. He isn't omnipresent anymore, just some guy on the level of Cloud. Even at his Rebirth form (whatever its called), I now know he does bleed. I feel bad for people that never played the og or felt the weight of each scene. Anyways, the game's still pretty fun, but they should have remade the game in it's own image. From the way Dine dies to the number of universes there are. I give the game a masamune health bar out of 10

Perfect summary of everything I was feeling

I feel like most reboots and rehashes nowadays do this... milking every single last drop out of previously weighty, emotional moments until it becomes, frankly, self-masturbatory. It is sad that something as straightforward and emotionally defining as a characters death becomes so... confusing. It's almost like the devs themselves don't want to deal with emotions like grief, and don't want the audience to either.

This video is BRILLIANT. It absolutely highlights everything I’m touching on (and will touch on) in my streams of Remake and potentially Rebirth. There are a lot of good, fun moments in these games but the story at large just feels so… toothless.

Good video. You have an eye for some of the more meaningful things in video games. Also the Tifa scar thing is a bad concept to begin with, so it breeds all kinds of problems.

This is so exciting!! I really loved your last video about the ff7r series and I really enjoyed watching you pick apart the weirder more discordant aspects of the game, so I'm very excited to see this video too once i get the chance :]

Nah this is easily game of the year. Shit was sick

I agree with a lot of this actually. Forget the haters, you did well expressing yourself man. They did Cid dirty and the ending being my two biggest gripes as well, personally.

You seem like you would be a lot of fun to sit down and chat about FF7 over a cup of tea with. I love your dry humor when you criticize this game and the obvious affection you have for the original. Great video! :)

I've put off playing Rebirth since something really felt odd to me about it. And I don't mean the feeling of "Remake had Whispers and all the Fate stuff which sucks." Aside from that, there was some stuff in Remake which I could get behind enough to enjoy it for what it is. There still was some semblance left of the atmosphere of the original game which, while still being fun and quirky, had a looming and oppressive feeling of dread, always there in the back of my head. This delicate balance, which the original FF7 struck, is probably why it left such a huge impact. To me the track "Anxiety" really defines the atmosphere of the OG for me and what the journey of all these characters is about. It is somewhat of an undercover main theme imho. Also, I'm not a prude, and if people want to enjoy their fanservice, then go ahead. But it always comes at a price. And the Costa del Sol stuff really put me off. The way they handled Tifa just makes me scratch my head, and after your video it's obvious that the vibe which put me off about Rebirth goes only deeper and was not just a hunch. Some of the stuff they did is excellent, some of it is good or at least passable. But the driving point of FF7 always were the characters for me, and that's where Rebirth really took a nosedive.

That video was straight up art

WHAT have I been saying ever since they started tinkering with the original's story way back in Remake???

Rarely do I come across a video where I fundamenty disagree on ALL the points presented, but here we are

You held my attention the whole video. I quit the game after the final phase of the sephiroth fight and looked up the ending because of how frustrated I got when the game, then was severely disappointed by what I saw. Zack was just fan service and had no purpose in the game, and the story ended up being a Rian Johnson Last Jedi / Nomura convoluted mess.

That was a great ending, damn!

The Doctor might have been talking about Reeves, whoever it was, he has a point. Not everyone working at Shinra is wicked.

Cid was definitely just here to endear himself to Aerith before she dies. I’m pretty sure they just wanted everyone to meet her before she’s gone so they have a believable connection to her, but cid is in no way a major part of the story yet. Not sure why you would think rocket town and his dreams are cut, he’s just not supposed to be a focus yet. Though i do agree that he hasn’t yet showed any of his OG personality yet

IS THIS HOW I FIND OUT THE THIRD GAME'S TITLE

Something rotten? FFS they cut off the scene where Cloud is leaving Aeris in the water. And there is like hundreds ghosts flying around ruining the scene just before her death, but the best part is they don't even do anything to justify their presence. This remake is shit packed in a pretty audiovisuals.

I admire and salute ambition in every bug filled-janky controlled-poorly optimised game that has ever existed if it's meant to go stray from the mundane and mediocre but you have chosen the right word for it: cowardice. Cowardice to push it to PG rating for the sake of sales , Cowardice to show Cid smoking. cowardice to show a character committing suicide. All in all thank you for finally expressing something bothering me ever since I finished the game and had no one to address it to.

Great video!!

Thank you for pointing some things out. I liked Rebirth a lot and like some changes but I never could tell what felt weird about it. After seeing your video some things make sense… especially the Aerith part and the ending with her. The whole death scene butchered with cuts and confusion without any impact. That was one thing I disliked since the first second haha.

Loved the video, it really helped me put into context some of the my gripes with both Remake and Rebirth. I'll admit, it took everything I had not to cry seeing Aeris death scene again. Over 20 years later and still can provoke that feeling of loss and dispair of watching someone you care just be taken away. Remake and Rebirth have taken that and made it into something meaningless, no emotion, no connection, just empty of anything to make you care. To me that is the worst part and one of its core issues especially to those who loved the original when it came out in 97' and just wanted a faithful retelling of the story an the characters. Doesn't matter what they do at this point because there is no scenario that can undo this, no way to write it in way that matters even if it makes sense, and no way you can get back those people who have no desire to see how it ends other then through someone else playing it. I said it before I'll say it here; FF7 Rebirth will be what The Last Jedi was to star wars fans.

Remake is not "unhelpfully titled". It's UNTENTIONALLY misleading. It's the biggest, most prolific instance of false marketing.

Man, the music from the original scene with the outloud reading of every single Kitase's word got me real good. The boomer i am today experienced so many things and lost a few relatives since i played the game back in 98. I remember how devastated i was from the end of Disc 1 to all the part going further through the gorgeous but inhospitable ancient territory. They really knew how to tell stories and create rich universes back then. I hate that most younger players don't know how grandiose that *myth* and its lore were. I never gave a single s about infinite random spinoffs, fancy goodies and cringe, superfluous extra characters from the unbearable Nomura/SE dominion era that has been going on for over two decades now and almost succeeded at making me want to reject anything about this universe for good (yeah, that's how bad i think it is). Thank you for this wholesome video.

they way they ruin Dyne's dramatic death make me wonder if they did it on purposely, like as if the developers are forced to make something they dont want? and just screw up evrything so 3rd part gets canselled xD or option b.. they simply dont undertand how the old ff7 work..

Thank you being so kind all mighty loving God help me and these people to become more like you

Rather nice take. Just finished and the whole thing felt hollow tbh. I think you are spot on with most of this. I agree that about the games biggest problem is that it took the impact of Aerith's death from us without replacing it with the elation of her being saved. Either would have been better. As for sacrificing emotional clarity for intrigue... this is Nomura, and you've obviously played Kingdom Hearts based on the Dream Drop comment. I kind of dreaded it going this way since a few hours in.

I was really looking forward to playing rebirth but tbh Vincent not being playable kinda sucked all the hype out of me because it made me realize how little i like that they split the remake up 56:37 edit: i love jojo being canon to real life

I think the focus for Shinra has shifted away from it being a Font of Evil. and more on it being a Font of Power. i think the overall message thats going to be sent is that were only as good as the worst of us and that for humanity to survive judgement its probably going to require humanity to accept all life and still manage to retain its will to live. We'll need to convince Shinra, Wutai, Everyone to work together to stop the disaster on the horizon. A Marriage of Hypocrasy, a Reunion of Opposites. Maybe well get an ending where Holy doesnt get Cast and Instead well see the Meteor get dealt with via the sheer force of will of all humanity working together. Maybe thats what will prove to the planet that people are worth saving.

Maria Aladren? Are you two related or is it a coincidence?

Why is his voice trembling so much?

Shinra was somewhat redeemed in the original game too

I believe the mood and voice change is more highlighted here to reflect and parallel similar narrative arc character traits that he shares with both Yuffie & Cloud. Yes you heard me. Yuffie and Red XIII connection is a bit more obvious what with them being both younger than they initially try to project thenselves as. While maintaining their innocence despite past trauma and harsh events they experience. With Cloud its not immediately obvious unless you already know the twist with him. He is, (through a PTSD & mako genetic tampering induced trauma), a guy who forms edgy serious loner front persona of what he THINKS is a SOLIDER First Class turned merc is like, but in actuality he never was and is more accurately a damaged insecure socially awkward kid that desperately wants to be a hero like his former idol to impress a neighboorhood crush. We see without his "front" how emotionally and mentally fragile Cloud really is. In essence he tries to ignore both his childhood ties and flaws to appear as more something larger than life to be more impressive to others. Just like how Red XIII maintains his wise adult self in order to be taken seriously from others and ignore the muslabled failures from his father and his flawed perception of the truth. All three change from becoming more self aware of their place in the world, and learn to adapt to it to move forward. At least thats I feel they were going for. Its not something you have to accept, but an idea for the reason for the adaptational change in Rebirth to be a bit more obvious than voiceless text in the OG unless you were REALLY paying attention to his dialogue, (and whether or not you choose to do Cosmo Canyon before or after certain OG game sections).

Watched the whole video. A lot of powerful statements, and I really really liked your segment on aerith. I was in the honeymoon phase with this game throughout the entire journey, accepting and even agreeing with a lot of the small character tweaks and moments. Cid being nice? Thats fine, maybe he’ll twist a bit once we actually get to rocket town and he sees his past again. Red 13s voice, eh not a fan, but it actually mirrors the original character quite well. Etc etc etc But the ending straight up reminded me of the Last Jedi. And its meta decisions or lack of decisions really made me dissapointed when I went to bed after beating it that night. The only redeeming arc of that version of aeriths death I see is that every time we see Aerith post-death, its clouds f’d up brain coping with her loss (which is why we dont see him drop the body in the water) and just kind of living in a delusional state. Evidence being jenova and sephiroth manipulation before they go to the crater. A plotline may have tifa awaken cloud and accept the truth that aerith died.

while i agree with most of your points, especially the weird forcing of fakery / artificiality of new agers at cosmo canyon and some aura of an ideology that really permiates and subtly changes a perfume and aura of how some weird religious aspects are interwoven in this new interpretation of the esoterism and religious aspect lore of some elements, i do believe that Barret got a very very nice treatment of his past character arc. I liked the beginning of what they were doing with Zack but mid way i think they didn't really know what to do with him in this game... Like forced fan service. They completely destroyed the impact of Aerith's scene with the ideology permiating throughout the game, the multiverse and parrallel shenanigans where every universe end up dying to finally join one and one unique dimension... And it's not just limited to that... It was important to relegate her to silence, to the impact of her being gone, and not delve into psychosis and constant god like omnipresence that doesn't even let you mourn her, it's ill, it's malintended, it's uncomfortable, it's almost sick and destructive to the original idea at every level.

You know i have a question. So I keep seeing that the FF7 Trilogy project is a way to canonize all the ff7 games and media. Were the media and released games really in need of being canonized tho? FF7 Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, FF7 Advent Children, the games and media that released before Remake dropped, it all made sense to me and fit together regardless of the trilogy. Am I missing something? What loose strings needed to be tied together with this project? I ask this having finished rebirth 2 weeks ago and tbh its starting to feel like the trilogy is a money grab fueled by nostalgia ☹️

This is a really interesting video with some hilarious moments! There are definitely things I agree with; it's a decision I don't understand to write Cid completely differently to the original. All I can guess is that he has a greater ark in FF7 P3? I thought that his affinity towards Aerith may turn him into the bitter bastard that we love in the original but it didn't seem that way from the final cutscene. Also, if Vincent is to be a prominent figure then, I agree, they should have written his character in a little better, give him more of a reason to join the gang or create more of a sense that he is present. That being said, perhaps the developers felt it would be too strange to draw too much attention to him considering he is not a playable character yet. That being said, there are things I have to disagree with. I found Cosmo Canyon to be spectacular, the scenes were beautiful, not only in their artistry but in their storytelling. It was interesting to have a Bugenhagen that has flaws and a more rounded character. I didn't mind the voice change of Red XIII, I thought it was a sweet twist. I did miss the badass wiseman voice but hey, that's the character ark - I'm surprised to see this as such a big issue but I hear you! It's not a perfect game, for sure. There are things that they could've done better; IMO the open world could have been closer somewhat to Elden Ring, how you explore and discover, rather than handhold and tell us where to go. I would have loved to have seen a few more optional dungeons that you could stumble upon, this is more development time, but they could've removed some side content and unnecessary cutscenes and focused more on an explorative open world. Also, the extra story developments aren't working for me at the moment. It's all convoluted, and I accept that they want to develop mystery, but I feel it would be fair to answer/allude to SOME answers just to get us on board more. I loved the combat, the visuals, the music is absolutely incredible, and overall I thought it was great fun and I'm looking forward to it wrapping up.

Thank you for putting words to the feelings I have about this game. At least the original is easy to come by. I will forever recommend it to people and beg them to play it before they play the Remake trilogy.

I talked to my Amicus plush about it…..great line.

They have announced rocket Town will be in part 3.

I agree the most with your points on Cid. However ill await part 3 to see if they save it

@23:29, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that "it's an older code, but it still checks out". I was like 'worst thing that happens is I'm wrong' lol

Part 3 better cold open with Cid slapping Shera in the face

Thank you.

I can understand why Rufus would offer a pardon to the party, but I have no idea why the offer of a pardon would even be attractive to the party. Ignoring the fact that Elmyra and Marlene live in Midgar, the party intentionally chose to beef with Shinra for personal reasons. More than anything else, the party is united by the common thread of "We fundamentally have a problem with Shinra". A pardon should mean less than a squirrel fart to them after all of the personal harm they've suffered at the hands of this organization. Also, Barret being okay with you fixing a Mako pipeline and liking you more after you complete the quest is consistent with him deciding "Hey, you know what would be a good alternative to sucking life and natural resources out of the Planet? Mining for oil." in the Compilation. So, uh, accidental Kudos to the writers for consistently missing the point of his character, I guess.

Lmao was that the SMT Vs FE theme?

What I don't understand is if the whispers are supposed to force fate to follow the "correct" path, then why are they blocking the team and cloud in particular from getting to Aeris at the alter in the city of the ancients? It seems pretty apparent that the whispers are trying to keep the events of the original game in line while sephiroth and the party keep breaking those events. But here is an event that cloud and the party are in the process of following just like in the original, but the whispers are trying to stop them. They are trying to force a change in fate which goes counter to their entire development up to this point. Am I reading this wrong? Or has anyone else been confused by this as well?

I will continue to stress that this game does not want to fully commit to this being a remake or a reimagining. They want to change things but they are also following the same story beats from OG FF 7 up to and including Aerith's death. People were expecting to see the Gold Saucer, Nibelheim, and especially Aerith's death and so they included those things. After Remake I believed that they needed to go all in on this being a reimagining otherwise I don't understand the point of the Whispers. I have already accepted that this is not going to end in a satisfying way. I am no longer invested in this as a remake of OG FF 7 because that is not what they are doing. I don't even expect part 3 to be good. This game was padded with mini games and sections extended past their welcome that by the end I was exhausted by it all. I just know that part 3 is going to be more of the same.

Much like the many repeated themes of rich over poor, most of the characters are shown through the original to be faking being the person they think they want to be. Red's shift in personality has always been there, it's essentially foreshadowing for cloud. Anyways, haven't finished watching your video or playing Rebirth (cause I don't Really like it either) but figured I'd thrown in my "I'll probably delete this when I get to the part where you bring this up" comment. Good stuff so far though

I've yet to watch but somehow it was brought my attention that my writing is referenced here. I mostly like Rebirth but think it very much missed opportunities with the ending. I think there's the kernel of a beautiful thing there that gets really lost in all the mechanics of reaching that moment. Could probably have ended with only the Jenova fight and been better. At least cutting Sephiroth Reborn would have been smart. It's weird looking at these comments. I again stress that I've not yet watched this but seeing some folks' response mostly amount to "they made it confusing because Cloud is confused/crazy" feel weird since that seems a bit of a cop-out justification for the raw spectacle. A story should say something and the thing it says should be knowable. I think Rebirth wants to probably say something about the value of choice but there's a lot of noise blocking out the signal. I don't think that's intentional even. I think Nojima at least respects the audience enough that his goal is not to simply confuse and mess with them and it's kinda crappy some folks walk away from Rebirth thinking that's the goal. It also is a shame to see folks be like "Hey, don't think about it. I feel sad that you're ANALYZING this thing!" (How did they find this piece anyway? No offense meant but this is a very small channel..) Maybe when I watch I'll perhaps disagree with some of this although I bet we've some agreements) and even then... like... you're doing the work at least? That's a good in and of itself. We *should* think about this stuff!

For Red XIII's voice/dialogue in cosmo canyon revealing he is technically quite young for his species, they could have easily done the same thing they did in Japanese in English. What the Japanese text does is called code-switching. Japanese has it in spades, but that is universal. In this case, Red XIII talks posh/extremely formally and in a serious adult manner with everyone else outside of Cosmo Canyon. When they get there, he code switch to talking like the younger characters, using far more contractions and slang language, and so on. Doesn't even need to be real present day young people's language, as long as the other young people use it, such as Marlene, Yuffie, childhood flashbcack Cloud and Tifa, and any other children that are possible to be interacted with; as long as the two patterns exist in-game and can be noticed prior to Cosmo Canyon, this is sufficient. Anxd why wouldnt very young people speak differently from twice as old or older than themselves?

great vid, thoughtful analysis. these remakes have me so torn cuz there's so much i do really like about them, but overall i think they're very bad. the cute little fanservice character moments and interactions don't make up for the complete misunderstanding of what the original game is all about. all of the compilation of final fantasy vii works (and most of square enix's output for the past 25 years, frankly) have absolutely prepared me for these remakes not to sting so much. it's all curbed my expectations. i'm glad someone has a reasonable analysis, though, as i kinda can't bring myself to engage with these games beyond seeing cute clips on social media (i only made it about 3 hours into the first game lol).

Just wanted to say that before Rebirth came out, Zack was one of my two favourite FF characters. They absolutely ruined him for me with the love triangle and multiverse stuff they shoehorned in.

There's a lot I agree with in this, the things I have contention with: -Red XIII issue, I found fine, but I've always articulated in my head and understood it, the way he talked changed upon reaching Cosmo Canyon. So that was on point for me. -Tifa and Aerith... you felt the game communicated more interest into Aerith, but how it was written, it felt to me they didn't give Aerith as much as Tifa because like you said they were compensating for what Tifa didn't have story involvement wise. (I do agree the game is Clephiroth)

Also the ending rant was cathartic.

Thanks for the video. I think, you nail the issues with rebirth or this trilogy in general. Story, characters and atmosphere of the game is really diferrent from og. As a result experience from this game is a diferrent for me. I will add, that i feel also that rating system is also to blame. A lot of scenes are naive and childish. Rating system, fanservice, bad story pacing with bad character development. It is strange feeling, they look like characters from my favorite game, but they are completely diferrent. Also this game reminds me of ff13 trilogy and kh3 in a lot of ways

I understand your frustration in rebirth and how it played out and agree with many points you made. They did do characters dirty as you said. But let me now play devils advocate on rebirths ending. The original was a masterpiece and to copy and paste Aerith’s death scene and show it us again would not have hit as hard this time round. Part of the reason the original death hit so hard is that it was unexpected. If it happened the same way we would have seen it coming so we would have cried, but for the Aerith of old, not of the now. Now let us remember that the people who made the masterpiece original are also making this trilogy. I trust in them still. Maybe the fact of not seeing Aerith actually die, not seeing Aerith being given to the life stream and having cloud see Aerith when others can’t means that we are seeing the world through clouds eyes. Remember how much mental trauma cloud has been put through already. In the original cloud was remembering things that happened to Zack and believed them to be his own memories. Maybe cloud believes he saved Aerith and in the next game he will be hit with the realisation that he could not control himself and in this game he actually did kill Aerith….Not Sephiroth. And to add: Aerith knew that cloud was going to kill her, which would also mean she knew how things are to play out. She’s like Dr Strange in Avengers: Infinity war. Which is why she told cloud it’s ok and why she gave him the black materia. Now that would be unexpected and would hit us hard as we found that out too. So don’t count the makers of FF7 out just yet. It maybe all part of a bigger plan. I for one am giving them a chance to deliver the goods. They deserve it. Still, this was a great watch. Keep up the good work.👍

The problem a lot of people have with the game is that they did commit to something. They committed to confusing the player the same way Cloud is confused. They set the game up in a way that you are just as delusional as Cloud is by the end. You will not see the truth through Clouded eyes. You will not see the truth through Clouds eyes.

I do agree with some points, but not all. I'm generally a bit torn on the game. I was very annoyed at how they made Cid essentially a completely different character to erase his problematic side. However, with Caith Sith I did not feel the same. I was actually wondering if he kidnapped Marlene and Elmyra in the time leading up to the betrayal. Not because I was thinking they want to portray him as more positive but due to story reasons. One idea on the plot I had while playing was multiple timelines converging, i.e. the Zack storyline potentially happening in the same universe as the main story due to this. So there would be 2 Clouds and 2 Aeriths in the same world. And I was thinking there might only be 1 conscience per person which would explain why they are comatose in Midgar. So if the kidnapping would have happened those additional versions would have been found. Of course now I know that even though my thoughts were generally going in the right direction the details are different. (Also I have to admit I did not pay attention to the breed of Stamp changing, that kinda went over my head and looking at the footage of the scenes I feel a bit stupid for not having noticed as it was quite obvious). Overall I did enjoy the game even though it was quite tedious at times. But with how they left the story the final game can still make or break it. Like there really needs to be a good reason in context of the OG to justify these changes to the story. Like it being a sequel, which would mean the OG story would be canon in this continuity. That Aerith being shown at the end of the OG ending,. mirroring the start of the game would be her actually using the livestream to change the outcome and through this creating the timelines.

My issue with Red XIII isn’t that his voice changed to sound younger, it’s the voice actor who sounds weird and bad.

I will watch the video when I beat the game, but I will leave it running in the background for supreme watch time metrics

I think SquareEnix can’t really decide who are they making thid remake for. Remake felt like they wanted to take a different direction with new story and plots…including spoiling a lot of the story in the memory flashes the party had at the end of remake. Heck with even faced the big bad guy Sephiroth. Personally I just wanted the old game with a new coat of paint and probably a few side story elements. But I was okay because I knew this was probably FF7 V2.0 For Rebirth I was hoping for something wild and totally unexpected. I was hoping for Cloud and Tifa to be killed or taken out of the story one way or another…you know something crazy. When I started the game and saw most of the party death and Zack saving Aerith I was excited to see what crazy stuff was going to happen. But then they went to follow the original game plot/story and for a moment I was okay about it because it was what I wanted. But than they even ruined that when they added things that instead of improving from the original story it made it worsts. For example the Gi, the snake in the marsh, Barrett back story, Aerith death and a lot of other things. I’m glad some people like the game but me as a gamer that preordered the original and was waiting in line when it released. I feel so conflicted some parts of Rebirth feel awesome, specially when it tries to follow the original and some just make me hate what they did with this game. Is so frustrating, some family members that have played the original have asked me how would I rate the game and I can’t really give it a score. Part of me really like most of the game and want to give it a high score and part of me really hates it and want to give it a low rating. And I feel it would be dishonest to rate the game high or low. So damn weird. I hope they do a great or terrible job on the last part to hopefully decide if this was worth the wait. One thing I do say is that for the most part Rebirth is superior to Remake. Rebirth is a lot more fun

45:29 this was one of my biggest points with Crisis Core, it felt like just a cool catchphrase that Zack had but made exactly no sense in context

excellent video queen, you nailed it. masterful gambit